Free Essays on Organizational Culture

Organizational culture can be defined as a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members. It includes routine behaviors, norms, dominant values, and a feeling or climate conveyed. The purpose and function of this culture is to help foster internal integration, bring staff members from all levels of the organization much closer together, and enhance their performance. However, there seems to be a widely held misconception that throughout an organization or within a specific division there is only one uniform culture that exists. This definition does not seem adequate because it fails to recognize that in many organizations there are quite often groups that are unique of the dominant culture. They may have values that are not consistent, or outwardly reject the culture as a whole, yet at the same time they are still able to maintain their position within the firm. In addition, it has been a personal experience that in many organizations strong organizational culture can in fact be negative, and in fact actually damage the performance of their employees. The perception is due to the fact that in many organizations the culture can act as a barrier to the employee to gain status within the organization. This perception may have also had a lot to due with the nature of the position that was held at the company. This company seemed to fit the criteria and meet the description of a â€Å"Fortress Culture†. This may have been the result of the fact that it business was in the highly competitive field of financial services. The management was very preoccupied with figures such as sales, growth and earnings, and they treated the staff as a commodity that could easily be replaced. As a contract employee there was little in the way of job security and essential no possibility to be rewarded for good performance. The theory is inadequate because it does not recognize the fact th... Free Essays on Organizational Culture Free Essays on Organizational Culture Organizational Culture Julie Chase John P. Kotter & James L. Heskett, May 13,2004 Corporate Culture and Performance In their book, Corporate Culture and Performance, John Kotter and James Heskett attempt to put quantitative measures and analysis around the subject of corporate culture and its affect on corporate performance. As this book is quoted in several of the other readings for this study it would seem that it is considered to be an important book on the subject. It is a very interesting book but a reading of the appendix shows that the initial questionnaire used as the basis for the authors’ analysis consisted of a single question sent to the top six officers in 207 companies. The questionnaire reads: â€Å"Would you please rate firms competing in the _________ industry on the degree to which you feel their managers have been influenced in their decision making by a strong corporate culture? For purposes of this exercise, please associate a strong culture with affirmative responses to questions such as: 1. To what extent have managers in competing firms commonly spoken of a (company name) â€Å"style† or way of doing things? 2. To what extent has the firm both made its values known through a creed or credo and made a serious attempt to encourage managers to follow them? And 3. To what extent has the firm been managed according to longstanding policies and practices other than those of just the incumbent CEO? Please rate the firms listed on the accompanying sheet on a scale of one to five†¦.† In The Corporate Culture Survival Guide by Edgar H. Schein, the author discusses the difficulties involved in discerning corporate culture and devotes much of his book to the process of understanding what a given corporate culture is. Given Schein analysis it seems that Kotter and Heskett’s approach was a little light. Be that as it may, Corporate Culture and Performance does provide a very interesting analysis... Free Essays on Organizational Culture Organizational culture can be defined as a system of shared beliefs and values that develops within an organization and guides the behavior of its members. It includes routine behaviors, norms, dominant values, and a feeling or climate conveyed. The purpose and function of this culture is to help foster internal integration, bring staff members from all levels of the organization much closer together, and enhance their performance. However, there seems to be a widely held misconception that throughout an organization or within a specific division there is only one uniform culture that exists. This definition does not seem adequate because it fails to recognize that in many organizations there are quite often groups that are unique of the dominant culture. They may have values that are not consistent, or outwardly reject the culture as a whole, yet at the same time they are still able to maintain their position within the firm. In addition, it has been a personal experience that in many organizations strong organizational culture can in fact be negative, and in fact actually damage the performance of their employees. The perception is due to the fact that in many organizations the culture can act as a barrier to the employee to gain status within the organization. This perception may have also had a lot to due with the nature of the position that was held at the company. This company seemed to fit the criteria and meet the description of a â€Å"Fortress Culture†. This may have been the result of the fact that it business was in the highly competitive field of financial services. The management was very preoccupied with figures such as sales, growth and earnings, and they treated the staff as a commodity that could easily be replaced. As a contract employee there was little in the way of job security and essential no possibility to be rewarded for good performance. The theory is inadequate because it does not recognize the fact th...