Every organization has a unique combination of values, expectations, and practices, which are commonly referred to as “organization culture.” Working with culture implies designing changes sensitive to the organization’s culture (Dong et al., 2011). In order to work with culture, practitioners need to assess the current culture, make a list of alternatives to change, select the most appropriate alternative according to culture, implement the change and then assess the outcomes to draw insights (Dong et al., 2011). Thus, working with culture is a structured process that needs to be conducted with care.
Organizational culture should be promoted through internal communications and daily activities. Instead of formally stating the values of an organization, it is best to create traditions, share successes, and lead by example (Forbes, 2021). In other words, the best way to communicate culture is through the alignment of stated values and actions, which is crucial, according to the social norm theory (Blay, 2018). Thus, non-profit leaders should be very careful when working with organizational culture. They should assess culture not through formal papers but through observation of internal communications. Additionally, leaders need to implement changes through the creation of new traditions instead of just including a new set of values in the documents.
References
Blay, A. D., Gooden, E. S., Mellon, M. J., & Stevens, D. E. (2018). The usefulness of social norm theory in empirical business ethics research: A review and suggestions for future research. Journal of Business Ethics, 152(1), 191-206.
Dong, X., Chang, E. S., Wong, E., & Simon, M. (2011). Working with culture: lessons learned from a community-engaged project in a Chinese aging population. Aging health, 7(4), 529-537.
Kramer, S. (2021). How to promote company culture through your internal communications. Forbes. Web.