Organizational culture is a term used to refer to the ideals, values and practices prevalent among members of company or an organization and the procedures and practices implemented by management to ensure that those norms unique to the organization are observed (Brown & Payne, 1990).
Organizational culture affects the management policy and performance of an organization. The success of new managers or directors depends on how well they are able to adapt to the organizational culture prevailing in the organization (Du Plessis, 2006, p.36).
Several scholars have formulated various theories on the aspect of cultural organization. There is universal consensus among them it is determined by a range of assumptions developed from the social practices of the organization and the realty on the ground (Mullins, 2008, p.104).
Researchers mostly use metaphors to explain the complex concept of cultural organization, the most common ones being machine to mean the organization. The word organism is also used as an alternative to machine. Use of the word organism originates from the systems theory where organizations are viewed to be in a constant struggle for survival in an ever-evolving environment (Smirchich, 1983).
There are various types of cultures. Constructive cultures involve a policy of encouraging members so that they approach their work positively and are thus able to improve their output. Major characteristics of a constructive culture include expectation and motivation for achievement, self-drive, self-actualization and other related goals (Ogbonna, 1992, p.275)
The other category of organizational culture is defensive colure further classified into aggressive defensive culture and passive defensive culture (Hersey& Blanchard 1993, p.64). The aggressive defensive culture grooms members to be protective of their status through all means possible, even if it involves the use of force. Members of such an organization ate expected to be competitive, power-driven and perfectionists (Willmott, 1993).
Passive/defensive organizational culture manifests in interaction with people in a manner that will not endanger their status or security (Ackroyd & Crowdy, 1990). Members of such an organization tend to exhibit conventional characteristics, are dependent, and portray evasive behaviour. The defensive cultures are not poplar and constructive cultures are said to be the best in both terms of effectiveness and improving the performance of members of an organization.
The other approach involves strategy in management. Strategy is employed in designing of policies and a firm’s objectives to achieve success through competition with other firms (Schein, 1985).
Everyone is responsible in contributing towards the success of the firm. Members must be monitored to ensure that they behave in strict compliance with the policy set by management in every aspect of their work-life (Du Plessis, 2006, p.37). Strategic management is only applicable in distinct markets or industries and it differs from corporate marketing strategies.
Poor management of organizational culture leads to failure in the general organizational structure. The staff may not be rewarded or recognized or they may have employment and management policies that do not meet the required level of competence; or the overall structure of the organization may be designed in a manner that inhibits achievement of the organization’s objectives.
For an organization to perform optimally, its culture must be integrated with the business strategy, which must be linked to its goals and objectives (Mullins, 2008, p.104).
The ability of a firm to compete by effective management of its organizational culture depends on its strengths and weaknesses in performance. An efficient organizational culture is a critical asset to an organization and can be deemed an integral resource. This must be aligned with the management of the human resource policies and practices of them.
For a culture to contribute in competitive success of a firm it must be not be imitable (Ogbonna and Harris, 1998). An organizational culture that can be imitated will be easily replicated by other companies, and thus the company will lose competitive advantage (Meek, 1998, p.454). It becomes a liability rather than be an asset to the firm.
Human resource is a key sector in management of organizational culture. The department must be able to develop a strategic vision that articulates the competencies required and expected of members of the organization; the capital and human resources of the company must be planned for and the input and output levels should be thoroughly analysed clear policy must be formulated on transformation of input into output (Barney, 1986).
The organization’s reputation, brand loyalty among consumers and high quality of the product must be key factors in implementation of a valuable organization culture policy (Barney, 1986).
Various comparative studies have indicated that organizational culture plays quite an essential role in an organization and therefore it matters. Constructive cultures are the most efficient in improving the output level of a firm through motivation among various individuals.
Employees are free to be creative and innovative and they have room to be daring and take bold risks that increase chances of success for the organization (Hersey & Blanchard, 1993, p. 64).The individual strength of each member and the degree of cooperation and collaboration fostered among members and leads to overwhelming success at the organizational level.
Though constructive cultures have proven to be the most successful in most organizations, they have not been adapted by many organizations.The leadership technique applied by directors and management is the determining factor on whether the organizational culture will influence the performance of an organization.
While it is true that organizational culture contributes to the growth of a firm, the question as to whether it influences financial success and profitability of a firm has always been controversial (Ackroyd & Crowdy, 1990). Researchers Calori and Sarnin studied organizational culture in terms of values rather than in terms of behaviour.
They then came up with a hypothesis that related the practices used by the management and those values, and the consequential economic performance. They concluded that organizational culture is significant to growth, development, and strength of a firm.
There is no direct link between an organizational culture and the profits or financial success of a firm. Webster who found a link between organizational culture and the marketing strategies used by the firm disputed their research (Du Plessis, 2006, p. 37).
Aggressive/defensive organizational processes reduce the drive or motivation of workers while constructive cultures tend to motivate and inspire them making the workplace a fun place to be by changing the environment from a formal to a casual one has proven to be successful with firms such as Google and Southern Airlines (Meek, 1998). The concept of work place fun has been defines as taking one self-less seriously and treating the work itself seriously (Smirchich, 1983).
However, there are no statistics on when work place fun leads to positive implications and when it leads to negative outcomes for the firm. The impact of workplace fun as a form of cultural organization depends on various factors such as age, personality, education, gender, and the position of a person in an organization.
The concept of workplace fun originates from the generational theory, which takes the assumption that people from different generations cannot be expected to behave in a similar manner in an organization (Mullins, 2008, p.103).Individuals will tend to develop characteristics similar to those displayed by people in the same generation.
However, there will be a few individuals who will exception to this general rule and adapt behaviour of people from other age groups or generations. In a work place with people from different age groups, workplace fun will be treated differently by various employees and managers have to be cautious before entrenching work-place fun in an organization by reviewing the likely impact of the policy on the output and performance of every individual (Meek, 1998 ).
The generation born between 1940 and 1960 popularly known as baby boomers are the most competitive all time generation. This is because they were born after the world war when the economic space was limited and every opportunity had to be fought and scrambled for.
They learnt to be aggressive and a fighting spirit is ingrained in their systems. Their major focus in life is their career. Their aggressiveness and enterprising person attitude conflicts with the concept of work-place fun and therefore they would tend to be reluctant to embracing it (Meek, 1998).
This is in contrast to generation X (1961-1980) who faced neglect as children from their parents, the baby boomers. They grew up to be speculative and tend to take caution having observed first-hand the ruin commitment to careers brought their parents. They thus tend to diversify and value a casual environment that has room, for creativity.
Their goal is to balance pleasure and work (Mullins, 2008). Work-place fun suits this generation, which hates the formalities of the corporate world. The generation Y was born between 1981 and 2000 is a digital generation that was born into the internet era. Individuals born in this generation believe that they are destined for great things and the world is their oyster (Mullins, 2008, p.104).
They have been over-protected resulting in extreme confidence and ambition. Jobs are just a mean of building curriculum vitae hence they do not care about an organization or commit to an organization meaning that to retain them manager has to increase motivational measures. Work-place fun is thus ideal to them since they love fun and abhor cynicism or condescending remarks (Mullins, 2008).
It has been proved that organizational culture contributes to the success or fall of firms. One such corporation is Enron whose manager commented in an interview that their greatest success was developing a culture where everyone would feel motivated to achieve their potential. In spite of this, the company ended up collapsing.
Research into the major cause of the collapse indicated that, fear was ingrained in the company’s organizational strategy (Willmott, 1993). Presence of fear in an organizational culture inhibits the willingness of employees to express themselves.
For instance at Enron, the managers took a ‘highly ethical and moral approach’ instilling the fear of failing to succeed in both themselves and in the employees. Fear leads to evasive characteristics where members avid taking risks or doing something that they would end up being blamed or reprimanded for (Brown & Payne 1990, p.76).
The key success of a cultural organization policy depends on the orientation that is adopted. An organization that takes an internal approach emphasizes on interaction between the members, communication, and management of information.
Those that take an external approach tend to focus more on acquisition of resources, growth and expansion and success in competition with other firms. Those that take a flexible approach emphasize on creativity, adaptability and encourage employees to be daring and spontaneous. While those that take a control-oriented approach focus on stability and strict compliance with decisions.
The internal model often takes a control mode while the external model embraces a flexible mode of management of organizational culture. In the internal model, compliance and conformity is ensured through enforcement of stringent rules and regulations. Because the eternal model’s target is to have an influence on the external environment, flexibility is encouraged to allow employees to influence growth of the firm and acquisition of resources.
Employees’ attitudes are also an important factor in the role played by organizational culture towards s firm’s success. They can prove instrumental or detrimental (Smirchich, 1983).
Job satisfaction measures the effectiveness of a cultural organizational policy towards employees. If the individual’s needs are met, the pay is satisfactory, and there are good relationships between employees, then the organizational culture will influence positively. If there is no job satisfaction, no matter the method of organizational culture employed, the firm will perform poorly (Barney, 1986).
No standard organizational culture can be said to be appropriate for every organization (Hersey& Blanchard 1993, p.64). There are external factors surrounding the internal relationships and the external relationships between a firm and the external environment.
However, an organizational culture can be managed and structured through efficient strategies and mechanisms to lead to the success of a firm. The key factors to this are positive employee attitudes and job-satisfaction. Self-motivation and flexibility among individuals result in tremendous success for the entire organization.
Reference List
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