Organizational Cultural Inventory (OCI) Essays

Organizational culture could almost be considered the roots of a company. The way a company’s employees think, the way the customers feel, and the company’s decisions are made are all based around the culture that the company has laid for itself. An employee’s values, thoughts, and actions should reflect those stated in the company’s mission. Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, while both attempting to create a culture that is comfortable and pleasing to their

“Culture is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Culture is the behavior

“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.

Before this chapter I thought organization’s culture was only internal and outside factors only affect the brand and sales of the company. But I have now learned a lot more about the

The unit I selected to study is the Sales and Service department of the organization where I am employed, Verizon Telecommunications. It is the customer service department in which customers call in to order new service, add services or products to existing service, and report any questions, comments or complaints. In addition to placing orders for services, if a customer has a problem or a technical issue, my job is to analyze the problem or issue and recommend a solution. Notice however, the department title, Sales and Service. It is of no accident that the word Sales, is before Service. This is in fact a sales job. During every call, I must make sure I recommend a product or service to

Once completing the quiz “What’s the Right Organisational Culture for Me?”(Robbins, DeCenzo, Coulter & Woods, p. 46), I found that my personal score of 24 placed me in this more humanistic style of organisational culture. According to Robbins et al (2016, p. 46), scores more than 22 “indicate a preference for informal, humanistic, flexible and innovative cultures”. The quiz itself looked into the seven main pinpoint of organisational culture; “innovation and risk-taking, attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, aggressiveness and stability.” I think that organisational culture is integral to the businesses productivity because of its ability to reflect communal shared values, principles, traditions, and practices that influence the way an organisation’s employees and other members conduct themselves.

ABC Corporation has a culture that is based on providing award winning after-sales service to ensure it has repeat customers (WCM 620 Final Project Case Study, 2017). Thomas prides himself on creating a culture that produces high-performance numbers by encouraging his employees to handle a high volume of calls. Thomas believed that each employee should be clear on company protocol and performance expectations with a focus on high productivity (WCM 620 Final Project Case Study, 2017). During the conflict, Thomas believed that his front-line manager,

Edgar Schein is a respected expert on organizational culture and leadership. He has written numerous books including “Organizational Culture and Leadership” (Schein, 2010). This specific publication outlines a structure for rapidly assessing the culture of an organization. The second method is administering the “Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI), a statistically normed and validated survey used for organizational consulting and change purposes” (Balthazard, Cooke, & Potter, 2006, p. 712).

Within the business world there is a constant, unrelenting need to adapt to the ever changing environment, standards, and personalities. This continuous need to acclimate has been a key attribute that business professionals have been practicing throughout history; particularly in the last century due to the onset of the industrial age, and even more prevalent within the last two decades as a result of the development of the internet and the burgeoning global economy. During these last twenty years or so there has been a paradigm shift exemplified by how professionals from generation y interact with the previous generations.

If one looks at the organization as a human body with a respiratory system, a skeleton, and a brain, the culture of the organization is its face. The organizational culture determines how individuals, both in and outside of the organization, perceive the way business is conducted. The National Defense University Website, in a section called Organizational Culture, highlights several cultural forms including language, use of symbols, ceremonies, customs, methods of problem solving, use of tools or technology, and design of work settings that create the way the organization is perceived (NDU 2009). An example of this idea is a restaurant. Most restaurants divide the business in the “front of the house” and the “back of

Edgar Schein, a famous theorists dealing with organizational culture, provides the following definition for the term: "A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems that has worked well enough to be considered valid and is passed on to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems." (organizationalculture101) However, organizational culture is more than sharing assumptions used by a group to solve problems; it is the combination of the points of view, ineffectual processes, education, backgrounds of all the staff which are part of an organization way of doing things. Corporation culture should uncover from the board of the directors to the rest of

Organizational culture is a belief that employees share values, beliefs, or perceptions regarding an organization, or a hierarchical society (Tsai, 2011). This is depicted as the qualities, convictions, or observations held by workers inside an association or by an authoritative unit. Since organizations reflect the qualities, convictions and behavioral standards that are utilized by workers, the circumstances that they experience can impact the mentality and conduct of the staff. One perspective through Peasre and Kanyangale (2009) concentrates on consensus, common values, and standards that are seen by the organization as a whole, allowing employees to act in a compelling manner towards others and to translate the significance of the conduct of others in different settings. As an organizational counselor, one must be able to help clients define what the acceptable behaviors are. Furthermore, a counselor must also be able to provide methods of modification to behaviors that will be generalizable to various settings (Hackney and Cormier, 2013). Researchers subscribing to this point of view refer to culture as “collective programming” or group awareness, and “shared underlying beliefs” or group values. The consensus point of view focuses on examples, shared characteristics, or the inside of an organization as a dynamic unit. Points of view like this allow for the systematic recognition of coalitions. When coalitions are discovered, they can be reframed to understand the

Organizational culture describes how things get done in an organization – in terms of the values, behaviors and assumptions which dictate the way people approach their work. Organizational culture is deeply embedded and is distinct from climate. Culture affects performance, profit and even survival. We use the Human Synergistic Organizational Culture Inventory, which incorporates the Circumflex model, to measure organizational culture.

The shared characteristics and, in some cases, perception of employees create what is known as organizational culture. A strong culture constructs a unified employee atmosphere, whereas a weak culture lacks a shared sense of distinction between employees. An employee’s heritage or individual culture, although different than, affects the overall organizational culture of companies. Like society, sub-cultures exist within organizations. Formed by departmental function, geographical location, and/or the personalities of employees, sub-cultures include employees who continue to adhere to the organizations’ overall culture, but have additional independent characteristics. Employees’ individual heritage, along with the culture and

The study of Organizational Behavior has included an in-depth look at corporate culture to gain an understanding of the diverse variables, namely people. OB, as defined in the text, is the study of individuals and groups in organizations (Schermerhorn, Hunt & Osborn, 2005, p. 3). This field of study is considered "interdisciplinary" because its focus extends to several disciplines: sociology, psychology, anthropology, economics, and political science. Individual performance, organizational culture, motivation, hierarchy, change, and diversity are just a few elements that affect organizational success. Managing people within organizations is central to success. In examining corporate culture, many experts attribute its make-up to various factors.