Introduction
Organizational culture can be defined as tacit but understood regulations in a particular organization which determines what is regarded as right or wrong, necessary or unnecessary, and how an organization responds to any deviation from day to day activities. Every member of an organization must be familiar with this code in order to direct their behavior as expected by other members of an organization. All new members must internalize this code which enables them to behave accordingly.
Organizational culture significantly determines the performance of private, nonprofit, government, and public organizations. Organizational culture bonds employees together as one which promotes realization of the organizational goals.
Culture can influence the behavior of individuals in an organizational environment in a number of ways. However, culture is an outcome of continued interactions among the people and is shaped by the people’s behavior. In other words, culture reflects the behavior of a certain group of people.
Summary of the background of the topic
In every organization, culture plays a major role in directing the conduct of employees. The employees will always tend to behave according to the cultural specifications of an organization. One of the most surprising aspects of the organizational culture is that we can encounter similar organizations under the same environment and in some cases with similar technologies but with different organizational cultures.
As already noted, organizational culture assists new employees in an organization to know the correct way in which to conduct their behavior. This significantly reduces inefficiencies which are associated with absorption of new employees.
Therefore, creating and sustaining a culture in organizations is very important in promoting the success of various organizations. Organizations should pay a critical attention in creating as well as sustaining organizational culture.
Creating (organizational) culture
As already noted, (organizational) culture plays a very imperative role in determining the behavior of workforce. Organizational culture, therefore, significantly contributes to the success of an organization. Weak organizational cultures are associated with poor performance in the respective organizations. Since a culture is difficult to change once engraved in employees, it is important for the leaders to be careful while creating organizational cultures. Strong cultures are associated with innovation and growth.
There are three main sources of the organizational culture. According to Schein, organizational culture can result from the values, assumptions, and beliefs of the founders of a particular organization (219).
The founders of an organization plays a vital role in the establishment of the organizational culture since they determines the environment under which the first group of employees in an organization will work as well as the organization’s missions. Consequently, the first founders will determine the manner in which the first group will react in an effort to be fit in the organization’s environment.
The founders of an organization also have a major impact on the way an organizations handles the external problems and the manner in which problems are handled. Due to the fact that the founders of an organization holds the original idea, they, therefore, have their own way on how to fulfill their ideas which is based on the personalities and their cultural history.
In most cases, the founders an organisation usually have a lot of confidence about the organization and will always come up with high expectations about an organisation.
Organizational culture can also spring out from the learning experience of the members of a particular organisation in the process of development (Schein 219). As an organization continues to mature, the employees can develop a culture from the experiences they encounter in the process. For instance, employees may be faced by a certain problem over a certain period of time. With time, these employees may develop a culture of solving that particular problem based on the methods which has worked best over the past.
Finally, culture can also result from new values, assumptions and beliefs which are integrated in the organisation through the new members (Schein 219). When new employees get recruited into organizations, they come along with new ways of doing things. Although they are encouraged to adapt the culture of their new organisation, some aspects of their previous culture will always be reflected in their behavior.
Through their interaction with other employees, new employees may export some aspects of their former culture. With time, these aspects get engraved in the culture of an organisation. At this point, it is important for the leaders to ensure that only strong aspects of culture are imported from other organizations. Otherwise, this may lead to importation of failure related cultural aspects.
There are several main steps which are necessary in creating a strong organizational culture. To start with, an organisation must define its goals. This will enhance an organisation to identify the changes it needs to carry out on its culture. This is based on intensive research on each of these methods.
After defining its goals, an organisation should then identify the strongly performing aspects of culture. An organisation should make an effort of developing and retaining such aspects. Then, an organization should modify its daily working procedures in order to improve on its performance (Plante par 4).
After creating a strong organizational culture, it is also important to put efforts of sustaining the culture. According to Schein, a culture cannot survive if the main culture carriers depart or if there is conflict over the ideas by the leaders. Conflict leads to cultural instability hence poor performance by these organizations.
As an effort to sustain effective organizational culture, every organisation should make an effort of giving new employees the procedures which guides the behavior of every employee in an organisation (Frost 29). Employees should be informed about the most important rules in the organisation. For instance, the leaders should always remind employees about the rules which have a significant impact on the performance level of an organisation.
An organisation can also sustain its culture through formal statements of the philosophy (Anonymous par 50). This can be through mission statement, vision statement or statement of the values guiding an organisation.
Recommendations
From this discussion, there are several recommendations which can be proposed to promote the development of a strong culture:
- Modification of day to day working procedures.
- Facilitating effective communication in an organisation.
- Serious orientation process for new employees.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this discussion has clearly shown that leaders in every organisation have an important role to play in creating and sustaining the organizational culture. Leaders should ensure that strong cultural aspects are retained in the organisation. They should also encourage the development of their culture to improve the level of performance of these organizations.
Works Cited
Anonymous. “>Organizational Culture”. National Defense University, 2004. Web.
Frost, Peter. Reframing Organizational Culture. California: SAGE, 1991.
Plante. “How to Create Strong Organizational Culture.” Word Press. 2009. Web.
Schein, Edgar. Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: John Wiley and Sons, 2004.