Culture, Power & Politics

Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).

“Culture consists of the symbols, rituals, language, and social dramas that highlight organizational life, including myths, stories, and jargon. It includes the shared meanings associated with the symbols, rituals, and language. Culture combines the philosophy of the firm with beliefs, expectations, and values shared by members. It contains the stories and myths about the company's founder and its current leading figures. Organizational culture consists of a set of shared meanings and values held by a set of members in an organization that distinguish the organization from other organizations. An organization's culture determines how it perceives and reacts to the larger environment (Becker, 1982; Schein, 1996). Culture determines the nature

Organizational culture shapes and reinforces certain employee attitudes and behaviors by creating a system of control over employees.

According to The Journal for Quality and Participation, "a company's culture is embedded in its DNA." With that being said, establishing a productive organizational culture is a crucial component to the success of the company, even before they are in business. In a nutshell, "organizational culture is a system of shared assumptions....which governs how people how people behave in a culture." When employees of a company are aware of what is expected and accepted, they are more likely to perform their jobs according to those set standards. Whether it be how they dress, speak, or respond to diversity, each area in an organization is highly affected by the culture. Due to the fact that organizational culture is what ultimately

Organizational culture is the personality of the organization. Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization members and their behaviors. Members of an organization soon come to sense the particular culture of an organization. Culture is one of those terms that are difficult to express distinctly, but everyone knows it when they sense it. For example, the culture of a large, for-profit corporation is quite different than that of a hospital which is quite different that that of a university. You can tell the culture of an organization by looking at the arrangement of furniture, what they brag about, what members wear.

*  People Shape the Culture. Personalities and experiences of employees create the culture of an organization. For example, if most of the people in an organization are very outgoing, the culture is likely to be open and sociable. If many artifacts depicting the company’s history and values are in evidence throughout the company, people value their history and culture. If doors are open, and few closed door meetings are held, the culture is unguarded. If negativity about supervision and the company is widespread and complained about by employees, a culture of negativity, that is difficult to overcome, will take hold.

What is organizational culture? By definition, organizational culture is a “set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a company holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about and reacts to its various environments” (Chapter 16 PowerPoint, slide 2,). Nowadays, most companies in any industry have a level of organizational culture for their company. Culture is very important in a company because it shows how employee engages and how they perform in their daily job. “Growing a culture requires a good storyteller.

Organizational culture are the belief and values that gives away a company’s identity, and it can be spread to its employees by communicating with each other. There are four components on how an organizations culture is shaped founder’s value, business environment, national culture, and the senior leader’s vision (Zimmerman, 2015, CH 6 PPT, Slide 4). It is important to remember that an organizational culture sets its structure and how everything is conducted. Understanding the concept of an organizational culture is important when job hunting and trying to find a career. It is important that you know the organization you want to work for and understand its values and how the organization functions. I believe that by knowing this you will have a very easy time fitting into the organization.

Organizational culture comprises the fundamental values, assumptions, and beliefs held in common by members of an organization (O’Hagan, & Persaud, 2009). What is known is that employees often impart the organizational culture to their colleagues whereupon the culture effects how employees relate to one another and their work environment. What can be said is that the development of an organization’s culture is dependent on elements such as structure, change and policies (Urrabazo, 2006). Furthermore, according to Griffin, Moorhead and Gregory (2009), it is recognized that employee’s behaviours and attitudes can be influenced in a

Corporate culture is not a static concept. Many different corporations have different types of cultures depending on different company needs. As detailed by the Glassdoor Team (2012), a large multi-national company may have a different corporate culture to a start-up business, as the culture is forged to respond to different needs within the organization. At Honeywell, we see a particular corporate culture form to cater to its needs and size. As a result, Honeywell conducts and enacts several policies to ensure the culture it wants to perpetuate is consistent and able to cater to the needs of all its employees; when a culture sticks to its employee’s needs and helps them thrive, it allows the company to thrive as well. This paper addresses the various ways in which Honeywell carves out a culture and set of norms for its employees to believe in and follow.

Organizational culture is probably difficult to define. Some of the definitions of general concepts and some specific meaning are defined. Organizational culture can be defined as the shared, basic assumptions that an organization learnt while coping with the environment and solving problems of external adaptation and internal integration that are taught to new members as the correct way to solve those problems (Park et al., 2004). Each organization has its unique culture, which develops overtime to reflect the organization’s identity in two dimensions: visible and invisible. The visible dimension of culture is reflected in the espoused values, philosophy and mission of the firm while the invisible dimension lies in the unspoken set of values that guide employees’ actions and perceptions in the organization (McDermott and O’Dell, 2001).

It goes without saying that, employee behavior and decisions are hugely guided by the cultures that prevail in the organization. Employees, by default, belong to the culture they were born in; however, when they enter the organization they have to set aside their beliefs and adopt the values of their workplace. Adapting to the culture of the workplace is not only important to sustain the job but also so that the company represents one common notion. (Stewart, 2007) suggests that profitability should by every company’s organisational goal- one of the best places to start improvements is with an examination of organisation’s work culture. He states that the strongest component of the work culture is the beliefs and attitudes of the employees. It is the people who make up the culture, he stated. An example of this is , if cultural norms contain beliefs such as , “Around here, nobody dares make waves” or, “ Do just enough to get by and people will leave you alone, “ the organisations performance will reflect those beliefs. Moreover, if the cultural belief system contains positive approaches, such as, “Winners are rewarded here” or, “People really care if you do a good job in this outfit, “that is also reflected in the orgaisation’s performance. (Stewart, 2007) also states that an organisation’s cultural norms strongly affect all who are involved in the organization.

Each company has beliefs and values defining it. A company culture determines how employees and customers perceive the company, client treatment and how the company should react to various changes in the environment. An organizational culture is a mirror of the company leadership. Different styles of leadership ensure maintenance of various corporation cultures. The climate within an organization determines a company’s financial performance. A quality company culture integrates each employee or customer ensuring that their propositions are deemed important. Job-related problems, either personal or work related, are listened to, and the bosses find the best means to solve them. Work is delegated to employees and managers’ work by the employees’ side to ensure perfection (Alvesson, 2002).

In detail, how organizational culture impacts people and organizational outcomes begins with developing a model of effectiveness. As we have discussed in earlier work, trait theory in leadership, the four traits of organizational cultures are adaptability, consistency, involvement and mission. “Two of the traits, involvement and adaptability, are indicators of flexibility, openness, and responsiveness, and were strong predictors of growth. The other two traits, consistency and mission, are indicators of integration, direction, and vision, and were better predictors of profitability. Each of the four traits were also significant predictors of other effectiveness criteria such as quality, employee satisfaction, and overall performance.” (Banto). These traits represent the culture that breed’s success for an organization; As stated above each trait plays a significant role in organizations; beginning with a mission- it informs a collective identity that influences the group to communicate and understand the goal for the organization. Next, adaptability, which prescribes behavior that is made cleared to each group member the “do’s and don’ts” by knowing the policies for the situation at hand. As we continue, consistency, which helps the group, work together to meet the vision of the direction of the organization. Lastly, involvement, being accountable for the role given, it provides structure with in-group that creates trust and develops motivation with each person to

Organizational culture has a significant effect on how employees view their organizational responsibilities and their job satisfaction. With increasing globalization, a greater knowledge of organizational culture and its effect in non-western cultures can be beneficial for practicing leaders and decision makers. This study