Introduction
“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” (Baack, 2012). These shared values have a strong influence on the people in the organization and dictate how they dress, act, and perform their jobs. Culture plays a huge role in the guiding of the behaviors of employees of an organization. There are three stages of culture that interact with one another to influence the behaviors in the organization. These stages are: observable artifacts, espoused values, and enacted values.
Observable Artifacts
I work for a private, non-profit community based organization that is funded by the government. Our organization is located in seven surrounding counties in South Carolina. GLEAMNS HRC’s role in the community is to provide and make our community self-sufficient. Some of our success or recognition comes from our published newsletters or our Annual Family Fun Day (observable artifacts). “Artifacts include the physical signs of an organization's dominant culture” (Baack, 2012). Our organization provides its employees with company cars
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GLEAMNS HRC espoused values are through our mission statement. Our mission statement reads, “The mission of GLEAMNS Human Resources Commission Incorporated, a community-based organization, is to deliver quality services, assistance and opportunity to eligible customers with emphasis placed on dedication, employment and developing self-sufficiency” (GLEAMNS HRC, 2016). Espoused values are essential to an organization because it provides the employees a blueprint on what the organization considers to be important for their success. “Because espoused values constitute aspirations that are explicitly communicated to employees, managers hope that espoused values will directly influence employee behavior”
Organizational culture is the “values and beliefs that people have about an organization and provides expectations to people about the appropriate way to behave” (Kinicki, 2013, slide 3). Corporates can change Changing organizational culture can be a process using one or more of the eleven strategies, (1) formal statements, (2) slogans & sayings, (3) stories, legend, & myths, (4) leader reactions crises, (5) role modeling, training, & coaching, (6) physical design, (7) rewards, titles, promotions, & bonuses, (8) organizational goals & performance criteria, (9) measurable & controllable activities, (10) organizational structure, and (11) organizational systems & procedures (Kinicki & Williams, 2013, p. 236-137). Like stated before organizations
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.).
Organizational Culture is an anthropological term that refers to the values, belief, norms and ways of doing things that are shared by the organizational members (Knights and Willmott, 2012). While Schein (1992) stated that there are three levels of culture. The first level is Surface manifestations, refers to cultural artefacts or observable culture which are the tangible phenomena such as traditions, ritual, technology, architecture, logos, heroes, myths, stories, and types of person employed represent the organizational culture. The other two less visible levels are Organizational Values refer to the belief about how things are done; and Basic assumptions are invisible, unconscious and taken for granted understanding held by individuals such as behaviour of human and the nature of reality (Schein, 1922).
“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
The organization culture as a leadership concept has been identified as one of the many components that leaders can use to grow a dynamic organization. Leadership in organizations starts the culture formation process by imposing their assumptions and expectations on their followers. Once culture is established and accepted, they become a strong leadership tool to communicate the leader 's beliefs and values to organizational members, and especially new comers. When leaders promote ethical culture, they become successful in maintaining organizational growth, the good services demanded by the society, the ability to address problems before they become disasters and consequently are competitive against rivals. The leader 's success will depend to a large extent, on his knowledge and understanding of the organizational culture. The leader who understands his organizational culture and takes it seriously is capable of predicting the outcome of his decisions in preventing any anticipated consequences. What then is organizational culture? The concept of organizational culture has been defined from many perspectives in the literature. There is no one single definition for organizational culture. The topic of organizational culture has been studied from many perspectives and disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, organizational behavior, and organizational leadership to name a few. Deal defines organizational culture as values,
Culture within an organisation is a system of shared values, beliefs and norms of individuals in the organisation and how the value consensus creates a way in which people behave. The shared values have a strong influence on the individuals in the organisation and dictates how a person acts, dresses and performs in their job. A unique culture is developed and maintained by an organisation which provides guidelines and boundaries, through informal means, for the behaviour of the people within the organisation.
The Hofstede Centre (n.d.) defines culture as the “collective mental programming of the human mind which distinguishes one group of people from another.” Chipulu, Ojiako, Gardiner, Williams, Mota, Maguire, Shou, Stamai, and Marshall (2014), note that “culture can be at once tangible and observable; latent and unobservable; or even an abstraction altogether” (p. 367). Culture therefore has many dimensions. Some aspects of culture can be observed by analyzing symbols, ceremonies, dress, and other aspects. On the other hand, some aspects are not observable from the outside, but have to be experienced. Looking only from the outside gives us only a glimpse into the culture values. A large part of culture is the unwritten rules of how things are done. This part of culture is not necessarily observable to an outsider. To fully understand the cultural values of an organization, you need to be inside the organization with access to those with years of work experiences.
“Espoused values represent the explicitly state values and norms that are preferred by an organization” (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2013, p.84). According to Chrysler’s job website, their espoused values are Innovation, Leadership, Passion, Cooperation and Responsibility (Our Culture, 2017). Sergio Marchionne, CEO of Chrysler Corporation, delivered a speech to the Automotive News World Conference in 2010. In this speech, he stressed the need for a flattening of the organizational structure at Chrysler so that innovative ideas could reach the appropriate levels to be acted upon instead of dying on the desks of mid-level executives who are change-averse (Marchionne, 2010). Marchionne said that being a meritocracy founded the revival at Fiat (Marchionne, 2010). Another of his key points was that change must be accepted and embraced in order for the organization to thrive (Marchionne, 2010). A key value illustrated in his speech was that the industry must be accountable (Marchionne,
Espoused Values are values and norms that are represented by an organization on which they conduct business on a regular
Corporate values and culture is the guide for employees to advance in pro of the organization common mission. Even though that values and culture are interlinked they are not the same. However, they work jointly to pursue the similar outcome. The culture of the organization should be the representation of the main values. Usually values are created from the upper management and culture will grow with the actions of the people in the organization (Kotter, 1992). In order to control these actions the organization must control the process of communicating and fortifying the values. If this
Due to the intangible aspect of organizational culture, clearly defining and identifying an organization’s culture is difficult, especially for outsiders. Since culture influences many important aspects of operations, organizations use observable symbols and other observable aspects to display their culture to their employees and the external environment. Therefore, culture consists of
An organization’s culture governs day to day behavior. This type of power may be seen as a control mechanism, which businesses use to manipulate internal and external perception. Every organization has a set of assumed understandings that must be adopted and implemented by new employees in order for them to be accepted. Conformity to the culture becomes the primary basis for reward by the organization. “The role of culture in influencing employee behavior appears to be increasingly important in today’s workplace, as organizations have widened spans of control, flattened structures, introduced teams, reduced
When going into or beginning an organization, one must learn about the culture. Organization culture “is the set of shared values, beliefs, and norms that influences the way employees think, feel, and behave toward each other, and toward people outside the organization” (George, & Jones, 2005, p.33). One can observe organizational culture when they enter into a boutique to buy clothing. Usually immediately people are greeted by the customer service employees, and asked if they can be helped.
Observable artifacts, espoused values, and enacted values of organizations are put in place to establish trends. Those trends will be different for every organization and region of people being that establishing culture is determined from a collaboration of leadership team and employees experiences. It is important for organizations to strategically plan for cultural advancement. According to Strategic Management Group,
Drawing on e several decades of research, Kuh and Whitt (1988) highlight themes that help us better understand culture and define it as “mutually shaping patterns of norms, values, practices, beliefs, and assumptions that guide the behavior of individuals and groups …” (162). In order to understand the culture of an institution we should find out what the organization and the employees value and believe and seek to understand the norms and assumptions that direct behavior.