ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

1
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

• the ways of thinking, behaving and believing
  that members of a social unit have in common
  (Cooke and Rosseau, 1988)
• Goldstein (1983) argues that
• organisations, like persons, have values, and
  that these values are integrated into some
  coherent value systemIn any organisation, the
  members generally have a set of beliefs about
  what is appropriate and inappropriate
  organisational behaviour

2

• Amsa (1986) described culture as
• the shared beliefs, values, norms and traditions
  within the organisation
• Hofstede (1991) sees it as
• the collective programming of the mind which
  distinguishes the members of one organisation
  from another
• Gordon (1991) describes it as
• an organisation specific system of widely shared
  assumptions and values that give rise to typical
  behaviour patterns

3

• Schein (1986)
• Culture controls the manager ..through the
  automatic filters that bias the managers
  thoughts and feelings. As culture arises and
  gains strength, it becomes pervasive and
  influences everything the manager does, even his
  own thinking and feeling. (sic)most of the
  elements that the manager views as aspects of
  effective management - setting objectives,
  measuring, following up, controlling, giving
  performance feedback and so on - are themselves
  culturally biased to an unknown degree in any
  organisation. There is no such thing as a
  culture-free concept of management

4
SOURCES OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

• the national culture (Hofstede, 1991)
• the vision, management style and personality of
  the founder or other significant dominant
  managers (see, for example, Schein, 1985)
• the nature of the business, the type of products
  and the environment within which the organisation
  operates (see, for example, Gordon, 1991)

5
Some cultural typologies

• Reynolds (1986)
• internal / external focus
• task / social focus
• safety / risk
• conformity / individuality
• individual / group rewards
• centralised / decentralised decision making
• ad hocery / planning
• stability / innovation
• co-operation / competition
• simple / complex organisation
• informal / formalised procedures
• high / low loyalty
• ignorance / knowledge of organisational
  expectations

6

• Hofstedes dimensions
• process / results oriented
• employee / job oriented
• parochial / professional
• open / closed system
• loose / tight control
• normative / pragmatic
• Handy
• role culture
• power culture
• task culture
• existential culture