Research Paper Doctorate 1,453 words

Organizational Culture in an Organization,

Last reviewed: June 2, 2005 ~8 min read

Organizational Culture

In an organization, its social setting is at times attributed to as its organizational or corporate culture. In the opinion of Cummings and Huse, corporate culture, is "the model of essential notions, principles, ideas and artifacts shared by the members of the organization." (Glor, 2001) in the same way, Schein described organizational culture as a model of elementary notions - newly found, discovered, or made by a certain group as it comes to terms to combat with its dilemma of external adjustment and internal unification which has come off in an excellent manner to be regarded as compelling, and thus, to be educated to new participants as the right manner to recognize, believe, and experience in respect to those dilemmas. Whereas the writings on management have conduced to deal with organizational culture as a compliant mechanism for enhancing achievement, organizational development studies normally regard culture a system of collective connotations or an arrangement of symbols which is fairly stable. (Glor, 2001)

Info: 1.Describe how an organization's informal culture can influence the effectiveness of the formal structure.

Organizational structure is the intensity of: centralization of decision-making, formalization of codes, power, communication, and reward, consistency of work processes and competences and/or control of production by the acceptance of only sufficient results. Extensive application of the above devices symbolizes a formalized and prominent type of control and has been depicted as an automated process. Information organizational cultures build and, to certain measure implement their own rules for behavior. Smircich maintains that informal culture communicates to employees a feeling of recognition, enables the creation of assurance to something bigger than the individual, and improves social system stability, and even leading and shaping behavior. Informal culture surfaces at various stages to find an answer raised by circumstances of life and produces educated means of combating with experiences. (O'Neill; Beauvais; Scholl, 2001)

Through the provision of structures for providing answers to solutions and construing events in daily existence, culture lowers the number of variables with which people should address to stages more dependable with human information-processing potential. Informal organizational culture is even a combating technique which employees apply to assist addressing the difficulties of external adjustment and internal unification. Informal culture might serve as a technique to curtail ambiguity by giving shared meaning which will direct employee behavior in organizations. In exchange for giving workforce with lower concern, pressure, and doubt as regards their responsibilities and the manner in which to construe episodes within and outside the organization, the formal structure of organization attains enhanced reliability in behavior towards strategic targets. To conclude, powerful cultural systems can lessen the requirement for an increasingly structured setting to encourage preferred attitudes and practices. (O'Neill; Beauvais; Scholl, 2001)

2. Describe the role of power and politics within an organization's culture

Organizational culture is the value and attitude systems prevalent in an organization. Power is an intricate notion which is considered by psychologists as an inspiring factor or expectancy belief condition private to the individual. It satisfies the requirement for self-determination and a feeling of personal efficiency. In the psychological conceptualization, authority has its foundation within motivational character, is intimately linked to the idea of personal empowerment, and might be regarded a component of intrinsic motivation. Whereas psychologists concentrate on individual empowerment, sociologists and political scientists perceive authority as authority and power over sanctions. (Glor, 2001)

Politics is transforming power into activity in an organizational culture. A crucial part of organizational culture is its comprehension of power within the organization. Filby and Wilmott professed work culture as a means and a result of the reproduction of system of power relations. With a vital, delivery motive, Burrell and Morgan witnessed cultural allegory as an instrument applied to reveal and imitate, in encrypted forms, relations of authority. Several advanced research has stressed the function of structure and process as manifestation of influence and control in organizational cultures. Rogers and Evelend advocated that the elements of structure were control or authority structure, centralization or decentralization, intricacy that were symbolized by codification of responsibilities, communication integration which were found out by the extent to which the members of a system are linked with one another by process of international communication patterns, organizational laxity, and organizational efficiency. (Glor, 2001)

3. Explain how power and politics are demonstrated within an organizations structure

Several individuals view structure as a quite impartial matter, something which they take for granted. However, this does not happen always. An organization's structure is in reality an extremely powerful control technique, as the alternative to structure will automatically favor some groups and put others in trouble. In case managers are employing structure to extend power to some groups or individuals they are not just wielding power rather are getting involved in political movement. Therefore, strategic choices relating to structure might not be coherent in the conventional strategic meaning, but on the contrary might emanate from a power struggle among special-interest groups or associations, with everyone disagreeing for an understanding which matches them in the optimal manner. (Lewis, 2002)

Whereas matters like extent, technology and the setting will frame the elementary strictures of preference of strategy, the final choice may well be taken on the basis of convenient benefits. Political strategies might be suitable to a greater degree at the time when important organizational transformation is necessary and properly formed power bases are existent which are needed to be shaken up from their apathy. Political strategies might be employed to streamline personal contacts while the present structure does not permit managers to have reach to people they wish to sway; and politics might be employed to resolve differences which cannot be solved in obvious manner. (Lewis, 2002)

4. Recommend a leadership style will be most effective within an organizations structure and culture and include an analysis of how leadership styles impact performance

Since the dawn of the management growing as a realm of knowledge, leadership has been on the agenda of the companies. Regardless of this, scanty consensus has been arrived on what are the ingredients of efficient leadership. Apart from that, the transformations unleashed by the information era and the influence of technology on society broadly, and specifically in management, makes it compulsory that leadership methodologies be reviewed. Traditional leadership methods and management methods based on authority and control ideals which once were believed to enhance the competitiveness of an organization have turned to be a liability, for these techniques have not been proved to present competitive edge. (Niekerk; Waghid, 2004)

You’re 80% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.

Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log in
130,000+ paper examples AI writing assistant Citation generator Cancel anytime
Cite This Paper
PaperDue. (2005). Organizational Culture in an Organization,. PaperDue. https://www.paperdue.com/essay/organizational-culture-in-an-organization-64569

Always verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.