Introduction
The success of a story of a company depends on certain conditions. These conditions can be thought of as mandatory when starting a business. The conditions being referred to are:
- Tapping the market of products and services that has little or no competition.
- Offer services or products that cannot be provided by anyone else.
- If a product owns a large share of the market, then the organization has no worries regarding its competition.
- Getting rid of the competition by letting them compete against each other.
- If the company is the sole buyer of a product, then it is easy to negotiate a price with the supplier.
These factors seem like the ideal situation to start a business and would most probably generate high revenue. But, in reality the top leading companies of the United States never even applied one of these rules, and yet their stocks rocketed in the capital markets from 1972 to 2002.
So the question arises: What was their secret of success? What was the factor that made these companies one of the best companies of all time? The answer is quite simple organizational culture.
Discussion
It is understood that there is no universally accepted definition of organizational culture; however, we can say that organizational culture is the factors and the points that contribute the surroundings of an organization in multiple ways.
These factors can range from the belief of an individual to the acts of an entire group the organization culture of any institution plays a huge role in its productivity. But, applying changes to the organizational culture is not easy it takes a lot of hard work, effort, and can be a time consuming process.
A culture that develops within an organization is quite difficult to change and if someone joins the organization they have to adapt to the new culture, and eventually he or she becomes a part of that culture. These employees eventually try to preserve that environment to which they have gotten used to.
Those who do not fit the culture usually tend to leave the place. Some institutions tend to penalize the person whose behavior is not in accordance to the culture that prevail wit in that organization. Learning within an organization is a difficult phase, but it is an important one if the person is to maintain his job (Todd, 1999).
Research on the management of organizational culture and organizational control is very limited. Moreover, through studies it has been established that there is a relation between the two it is still not clear to what extent is the effect of organizational culture and how to control or manage it.
Little has been known on the phenomenon of organizational culture, and there has still been no proper way known to measure it.
While some believe that there is no method to measure organizational culture, others believe that some factors can be taken into account to measure organizational culture (Lawson & Ventriss, 1992).
A majority of researchers believe that organizational culture can increase the productivity of the company. These researches suggest that changes focused on the organizational culture and the implementation of a proper plan in the right sectors could move the company in the desired direction towards progress (Lawson & Ventriss, 1992).
The collective efficiencies are one of those facts that can have a huge impact on the financial and productive output of a company, with each individual performing to the best of his or her abilities can improve the culture of an organization and can bring about a positive change in the companies’ atmosphere.
However, some scholars believe that attitude of employees towards their job is not the deciding factor towards the change in the organizational culture, but it is in fact the attitude of the CEO that makes the true difference.
The CEO is responsible for setting the goal for the organization and making sure that everyone including himself work towards achieving that goal. He should inspire and motivate his employees by bringing out the best out of each of them.
His attitude towards employees, the company and his own work is of real impact to bringing change in an organization. Also, the success of a CEO lies with his ability to decide when change in an organization is required and how to bring about that change.
In short, the dynamic leadership of a CEO is the true essence of an organizational culture (Tsuia & Zhang, 2006).
Another author suggests that certain individual figures within an organization play a vital role in the organization culture and through those individuals a change can be brought about within an organization (Curado, 2006).
Defining organizational learning is a topic of great controversy. There is no single acceptable definition, and definitions vary with each author. Organizational learning has been defined by different authors through different means with little or no common grounds between them.
But, it is the author’s personal view that organizational learning is a mutual sharing of ideas and resources. Since, organizational learning is relatively a new branch of studies; therefore, there is still time in a standard definition to emerge.
It is not only the definition of organization learning that has raised confusion, but also different terms relating to organizational learning are in need of standardization, and just like the definition all these terms are defined by different authors in different ways.
Unlike individual learning organizational learning depends upon information possessed by each member of the organization and his ability to interact and share this knowledge with his peers and his colleagues.
Organization learning is lot simpler and less time consuming than individual learning because in organizational learning, one has to observe the culture he is surrounded by and simply pick up information from there on.
Another advantage of organizational learning is that it helps to cultivate competent employees, which in return attract clients towards the organization.
It is believed that organizations with a better understanding of organizational learning can easily adapt to change providing the organization a competitive edge over other firms (Curado, 2006).
On the other hand, Mackenzie states that organization learning cannot be used in a rapid changing environment. Organizational learning is a slow process and needs time to be implemented into the system.
Even after the slow implementation of organizational learning there is no guarantee that the organization change would result in the financial benefit or would it result in the financial loss (Mackenzie, 2004).
Organizational change is again a topic of great confusion. The facts and reasons for a change in an organization are not clear. Although, most authors believe that the real reason for change is the ever growing influence of information technology on other fields.
IT has long been thought as the deciding factor in bringing change to an organization, and the organization culture has long been thought to be the opposing force. The world of business is changing every day, new competition, and changing monetary policies etc. are all things that organizations have to adapt to.
In order to increase the life span of an organization, they have to bring about changes to their systems. Burke & Litwin (1992) state that for a change to occur three factors must be present.
First the trigger that would cause the need for a change, the second fact that must be taken into account is that the miniscule activities within the organization must not be ignored.
Third and perhaps the most difficult principle to cope with is the sudden change when the organization least accepts it and is not ready or has not planned for it.
No one knows why the sudden change occurs or if there are more than one factor causing this change.
There are two ways of implementing change in an organization.
- Incremental change
- Radical change
Incremental method, to put in simple words, is a change that is brought on in an organization slowly and gradually with the passage of time. Incremental method ensures that change is brought about in an organization without drastically disturbing the existing culture of the organization.
Incremental method can be seen taking place in an organization though daily activities of the organization. For the incremental process to work properly, the organization has to define its goals and plan out the process keeping in view the competency and adaptability of the workforce of the organization.
To implement incremental change successfully the company has to implement some policies or have to follow some guidelines.
Firstly, the company before it starts out has to outline its objectives it intends to achieve from implementing the change and what steps will be undertaken to bring about that change.
Secondly, allowing employees to familiarize themselves with the new system.
Lastly, enabling a culture that allows growth and which can easily accept change (Myers & Hulks, 2012).
When it comes to the programs that can be implemented or used to bring change, managers have a range of choice. They could either have custom made programs specifically for their needs or they can buy general purpose programs. It all depends upon the needs of the organization.
However, there are certain issues that must be given consideration when choosing the right types of programs. For example, corporate wide programs may be great to help familiarize employees with the inevitable change utilize a lot of resources and can reduce the efficiency of the organization.
In the same way, general purpose programs can be bought right away without much planning, and they may not serve the purpose as these programs are not specific to the needs of the organization.
These decisions have to be made properly after an analysis of the situation or opinion of a consultant to make such decisions on behalf of the company. Incremental change enables an organization to break large problems into small ones.
Solving these small problems might not seem effective initially, but a collection of these small problems solved can make a huge difference to the organization (Orlikowski, 1993).
Radical change is the change that occurs when the surrounding of an organization changes which in turn has an effect on the culture of the organization, and to negate the effect of that change the organization has to make some drastic changes.
Usually, it is advised that radical change should not be managed by anyone within the company because a person needs to be able to set aside his own personal gains when planning the future change of the company.
In the same way as the individual planning, this change must be able to challenge the higher authority’s perspectives. Radical change is a very complex process, which requires high level of competency by the entire team, and not just the individual who is leading the charge.
Technology should be implemented only if it is needed, otherwise it should be avoided. The team must be properly briefed when it comes to the use of information regarding each member (Todd, 1999).
Organizational learning is viewed as one of the most important attributes that contributes towards organizational change. When employees within an organization go through learning phase then the company can expect some kind of change.
The management needs to closely monitor employees of their organization and try to plan the change accordingly. Organizational learning focuses on both the past and future that a company may face. Analyzing and preparing for the future is also part of organizational learning (Schein, 1990).
Preparing for the future refers to change that would be applied to the company. To make sure that the right decisions are taken in this matter, a method called scenario planning is used. Scenario planning basically is a strategy that provides a possible solution for possible scenarios that may arise in the future.
Some organizations only allow the management staff to carry out such decisions. While in some companies, the management allows representation from all levels of the company including different departments and sectors.
These employees are then briefed and trained on what factors to consider that would affect the change of the company (Geldenhuys & Veldsman, 2011).
Culture within an organization is passed on to employees from the organizations founders through a set of practices and talks.
One way for an organization to determine its culture is by their treatment of employees. Explaining employees about the dos and don’ts enables the formation of a culture within the organization shared among employees.
Usually, introducing innovation disturbs the environment around an organization and that is the true nature of culture it resists change. Organization that is able to successfully apply change need to do so at a steady pace (Schein, 1990).
Change is a very complex process and in order to manage change successfully appropriate managerial skills are required, and when it comes to radical change there should be no doubt when enforcing it. Change is not always successful and once the process of change starts the management must see the whole process through.
Planning and attention to the details is very important, and employees must be ready to accept a change in the culture that might develop due to change that occurs within the organization. It is also important for the management to be ready for any reaction that might come from employees of the organization (Schein, 1996).
Organizations with powerful financial background are more likely to survive a change then that with a less powerful financial background. Changes made from mutual agreement of employees and the management staff is less likely to fail then the change taken based on the decision of just the managerial staff.
It is important that the political nature of the organizational culture must be understood before making any major decisions regarding change within an organization. Communication between the managerial staff and employees is of utmost importance (Mackenzie, 2004).
Paying attention to small details during the transition is of utmost importance, the neglect of even the smallest nature can cause great problems in the implementation of change in the organization.
Every employee must be given a considerable amount of time to work with the change and should be removed from the organization if they are unable to adapt to the change.
Bold and brave decisions could be very helpful in bringing about change within an organization. New leaders must act as pioneers of change and must remain firm in their decision of change (Myers & Hulks, 2012).
Conclusion
Although, there is vast information regarding organizational learning and knowledge, but the confusion regarding terminologies and definitions prove to be a huge barrier in understanding the subject clearly. Moreover, empirical data is limited on the subject.
To overcome these obstacles, there is a dire need for researchers to implement their research in the field and achieve some statistical data to support their theories. These researchers must compare notes and provide some proper terminologies regarding the subject.
List of References
Burke, W & Litwin, G 1992, A Causal Model of Organizational Performance and Change, Journal of Change Management, vol. 18 no. 3, pp. 523-45.
Geldenhuys, C A & Veldsman, T H 2011, A change navigation-based, scenario planning process within a developing world context from an Afro-centric leadership perspective, SA Journal of Human Resource Management, vol. 9 no. 1, pp. 1-17.
Lawson, B R & Ventriss, C L 1992, Organizational change: the role of organizational culture and organizational learning, Kenyon College, Vermont.
Mackenzie, K D 2004, The Practitioner’s Guide for Organizing an Organization, Mackenzie and Company, New York.
Myers, S P & Hulks, W L 2012, Organizational Change: Perspectives on Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Orlikowski, W J 1993, CASE Tools as Organizational Change: Investigating Incremental and Radical Changes in Systems Development. MIS Quarterly, vol. 17 no. 3, pp. 309-340.
Schein, E 1996, Three Cultures of Management: The Key to Organizational Learning, Sloan Management Review, vol. Fall, pp. 9-20.
Schein, E H 1990, Organizational Culture, American Psychologist, vol. 45 no. 2, pp. 109-119.
Todd, A 1999, Managing Radical Change, Long Range Planning, April, vol. 32 no. 2, pp. 237-244.
Tsuia, A S et al. 2006, Unpacking the relationship between CEO leadership behavior and organizational culture, The Leadership Quarterly, April, vol. 17 no. 2, pp. 113-137.