Chapter 3:Organisational Culture

Defining organisational culture
Definition
The way we do things around here (by Handy)
elaboration: Sum total of belief,knowledge,attitudes,norms and customs in an organisation.
-different organisations adopt different culture
-culture develop and change with relevance to time

Components of culture
-A SET OF NORMS OF BEHAVIOUR
Norms guide people's behaviour to behave appropriately
-SYMBOLS AND SYMBOLIC ACTIONS
regarding rituals
-A SET SHARED VALUES AND BELIEFS
portraying the importance of beliefs

The factors that shape the culture of the organisation
There are 6 major influences:
1)Size(of the organisation-turnover, physical size and employee numbers)
2)Technology(depending on how technologically advanced)
3)Diversity (in terms of product range, geographical spread or cultural make-up of its stakeholders)
4)age(depending on how old is the business or the managers)
5)history(related to mistakes commited)
6)Ownership(depending on how many stakeholders are there)

Writers on Culture
Schein
-1st leader create the culture of an organisation and the culture will be followed by the other leaders.
-if leaders are to lead, they have to understand the culture of the organisation.
-3 levels to describe an organisation:
a)artefacts(eg:how people dress)
b)espoused values(strategies and goals of an organisations that were chosen to be followed)
c)basic assumptions and values(difficult to identify as it van hardly be seen, normally exist at the unconscious level). New employee find it difficult to understand and causes the failure to implement change.

Handy
There are 4 cultural types:
1)the power culture
-The owner(s) of the organisation have absolute control over the subordinates.
-major source of power and influence
-require few procedures and formal rules
2)the role culture
-job is described by duties not by its purpose
-bureaucratic organisation(structure determines the authority and responsblity of individuals)
-strong emphasis on hierarchy and status
3)the task culture
-teams established to achieve specific tasks
-results driven
-nothing is allowed to failed the accomplishment of goals
-individuals who failed to perform are replaced
4)the person culture
-exists to satisfy the requirements of particular individual(s) in the organisation
-found in small organisation
-individuals undertake all the duties themselves

Hofstede
Looked for national diferrences between over 100,000 of IBM's employees in different part of the world to find the 5 different traits that might influence business behaviour.
1)Individualism vs collectivism
-some cultures are more cohesive than others
-Anglo Saxon cultures are more individualistic than the collectivist cultures of South America
2)Uncertainty
-countries like Japan and France use bureaucracy to reduce uncertainty because they dislike it
3)Power Distance
-the degrees to which cultures are willing to accept an inferior position
-eg. South American societies tolerate the differences of power more than North Europe cultures.
4)Masculinity vs feminity
-the distinction between the roles of genders are great
-in Japan, the role of males are greater, males focus on work,power and success
-in Finland, there is no vast difference between both genders.
5)Confucianiam vs dynamiam
-related to the change in attitude over a long term