Strengths And Weaknesses Of Organizational Culture

“Culture encompasses the behavior patterns, beliefs, and all other products of a particular group of people that are passed on from generation to generation” (Santrock).

A culture is an idealized pattern of meanings, values, and norms differentially shared by the members of a society, which can be inferred from the non-instinctive behavior of the group and from the symbolic products of their actions, including material a artifacts, language, and social institutions.

“Culture comprises traditional ideas and related values, and it is the product of actions” (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952); “it is learned, shared, and transmitted from one generation to the next (Linton, 1945); and it organizes life and helps interpret existence” (Gordon, 1964).

Organizational culture is the summation of the underlying organizational values manifesting as collective assumptions, attitudes, beliefs, expectations and norms.  Grounded in the customs and

“Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.” ~ Walt Disney. Culture is the collective experiences, conflicts, and meetings you have throughout your life. Everyone experiences the world differently, causing that person to be his or her own unique individual. You can explore the contemplation of culture through the literary works “Ethnic Hash”, “Two Kinds”, and “By Any Other Name”. These works show that you should always be yourself, because if anyone tries to change you it will cause conflict.

Wendell Pierce said,”Culture is the interception of people and life itself.” Everyone has different views on the world. Culture consistently informs the way one views the world and others around them because tradition, family, and beliefs.

Bevan & Sole (2014) proposes that culture is the cumulative knowledge deposits, opinions, morals, occurrences, outlooks, positions, consequences, orders, moments, spatial relations, the views of the world and the significant things that a collection of people has developed over generations throughout groups and personal endeavors. Culture is not stationary; it is lively and is continuously changing through human conduct, viewpoints, occurrences, concepts and manners including other things said.

Change has become necessary for every organisation there is. World is moving rapidly towards better technologies, efficient systems, new techniques, compact profits, different friendlier environments and organisations are always in the race to reach new heights by thriving effectively in this competitive environment (Kotter, 1996).

Culture is the second social construction that emerged while writing section one. Culture is “a complex collection of values, beliefs, behaviours, and material objects shared by a group and passed on from one generation to the next” (Ravelli and Webber, 2013, p.119). Culture is not negative or positive views of people it is a neutral reflection of humans. No one is born with a culture because culture is learned and shaped, as people grow older. Culture develops between people by interacting and sharing ideas and experiencing situations throughout life. Culture is passed on through generations because parents share their culture with their child, which then gets passed onto their children. It is clarified and altered through generations keeping it modern to continue the transmission through generations. Lastly, culture is human because we are the only species that has cultures; we explain life through asking questions and relying on culture to help us communicate. There are two types of culture material and non-material culture. Material is the “tangible artifacts and physical objects” and non-material is “intangible and abstract components such as values and norms” (Ravelli and Webber, 2013, p.122). Material culture helps people to adapt to environments and non-material culture is what is passed on through generations. Most cultures view their culture as superior over others. When a person enjoys their culture more it is called ethnocentrism. (Ravelli and Webber, 2013, p.

Culture can be defined as “the sum total of the beliefs, rules, techniques, institutions, and artifacts that characterize human populations” or “the collective programming of the mind.

Culture has many definitions. Culture is a wholly system of a living direction, including language, communication, beliefs, religion, values, expected behaviours, and living patterns and practices relayed by societal members (). Similarly, Ghauri and Cateora, (2010) believed that culture is entire part of life patterned to a members of society. Technically, societal groups of people acquire their own surroundings and circumstances as an adaption to physical environment, and they contemporarily pass up and cultivate their practices, customs, traditions and values from generation to generation (Harris and Moran, 1979). According to Ayoko and Hartel, (2006) mentioned that all group of individuals has culture and culture generally

The definition of culture offered in one textbook is “That complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man person as a member of society.”

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, or CORPORATE CULTURE, comprises the attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an organization. It has been defined as "the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization.

Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1962) identify over 150 scientific definitions of the concept of culture. Indeed, many authors have tried to define culture and this is why there are so many definitions and that a unique one is hard to find. First of all, Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) assume that culture is a suite of patterns, implicit and explicit, “of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiments in artefacts” (p.47). Later, Hofstede adds that culture is “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another” (Hofstede, 1991, p.51). This definition is the most widely accepted one amongst practitioners. For Winthrop (1991), culture is the distinctive models of thoughts, actions and values that composed members of a society or a social group. In other words,

'Culture is the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one category of people from another.' (Hofstede, 1991)