Organizational culture

Corse: Organizational Culture Culture describes a cohesive system of symbols and meanings in the perspective of which social interactions occur. Consequently, organizational culture refers to the various attributes which express an organization, differentiating it from other organizations (Shahzad, Luqman, Khan & Shabbir, 2012). It includes the set of behaviors and values that guide the success of an organization. Woodside defines it as “ a set of values, beliefs, and behavior shaping and driving employees’ performance” (2010, p. 13). It would broadly be viewed as shared and learned values, experiences, understandings and meanings aimed at informing people.
Closely related to organizational culture in meaning is organizational values. Values refer to acceptable standards that govern individual employees’ behavior in an organization. Without these values, each employee would adopt behaviors that they deem fit in their own analysis which could conflict with the behaviors that an organization seeks to promote. The organizational values have to be in line with the mission and the vision. Woodside (2010) gives examples of the distinctive values in blue chip companies like Ford Motors and Marks & Spencers which were established by their founders and further sedimentation accomplished by their inheritors. Values would be chosen through the process of measuring, diagnosis, deciding and finally embedding.
It has been noted that organizational culture guides the success of an organization, hence an important aspect to both the profit making and the non-profit making organizations. But success or performance remains a relative concept among business research scholars. Woodside (2010) gathers definitions of performance from various scholars ranging from an organization’s ability to achieve its goals to an organizational measure of efficiency, effectiveness and economy. In the same way, there exist various variables in measuring organization performance. This complexity has been cited by Shahzad, Luqman, Khan & Shabbir (2012) as the reason for minimal research on the impact of organizational culture on performance. In this paper, performance would be considered as the attainability of an organization’s goals.
A positive correlation has been established between organizational culture and organizational performance with well performing firms possessing certain strong cultural traits. Shahzad, Luqman, Khan and Shabbir (2012) noted that superior and perfectly imitable organizational culture ensures attainment of sustainable competitive advantage. The degree in which values in the culture would be shared in the organization affects performance. Organizational culture shapes the processes in the organization and greatly influences employee behavior and decision-making which directly affect performance. It makes employees understand objectives and events of the organization which enhances effectiveness and efficiency among employees. The aspect of shared values further unites employees hence attracting not only new staff but also best performers in the industry. Therefore, organizations have been working towards reducing the gap between the employees’ desired culture and the organizational culture so as to post better and competitive performance.
Organizational culture would be an important aspect in understanding the performance of an organization. Describing the values and beliefs that an organization prescribes, it should seek to adopt strong imitable cultures that promote the achievement of the vision. Performance would be improved if organizations seek to incorporate every employee in its culture.
References
Shahzad, F., Luqman, R. A., Khan, A. R., & Shabbir, L. (2012). Impact of organizational cultureand organizational performance: an overview. Interdisciplinary Journal of ContemporaryResearch Business, 3 (9): 975 – 985.
Woodside, A. G. (Ed.). (2010). Organizational culture, business-to-business relationships, andinterfirm networks. Bingley, BD: Emerald Group Publishing