Managing Organizational Culture

Introduction In managing an entity, the organisational culture plays a vital role to its success. In reality, the organisation is an amalgamation of different people with varied cultures, which interact to produce a particular and distinct culture(s) that the company has to uphold. Organisations could have one or more cultures as long as those practices could lead to its success.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Managing Organizational Culture specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Essentially, the management has the mandate to make sure that the culture(s) that the entity adopts, are non-controversial or do not impede the articulation of the organisational goals. In this paper, the focus is on two important aspects of organisational management. First, it discusses the degree to which the organisational culture could be managed. Secondly, it seeks to establish whether the organisational culture is critical to its succes s. Meaning of Organisational Culture According to E. Ogbonna and L. Harris, organisational culture is a set of behavior and practices that the company adopt in the productions system in order to achieve success while accomplishing the objectives of the organisation (Ogbonna Harris, 1998). Effectiveness of Organisational Culture In companies, the organisational culture only becomes effective if its leads to profit maximisation in the entity. A sustainable organisation would have effective policies to ensure that the organisational culture(s) are not used in the interest of the individuals, but would be used wisely for the benefit of all. In addition, authentic sustainability could be attained if the company management is willing to explore the emerging new cultural practices, which offer more positive impacts to the organisation (Ogbonna Harris, 1998). Adherence to such cultural practices would be the best mechanism to evaluate the effectiveness of the organisation culture. For the organisation to achieve the desired state of the art cultural environment, it would have to ensure that it minimizes the manner in which the entity segregates its employees. Notably, this management practice would result in unity of the organisation where all stakeholders accept and abide by the cultural practice in the company. Many administrators in the organizations have resorted to using certain cultural connotations that can be eliminated in order to realize the dream of sustainability, a situation showing the effectiveness of the organisational culture (Ogbonna Harris, 1998). Environmental friendly cultures would also lead to interaction of the diversities to develop a way of practice that might lead the organisation to prosperity.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More An entity should therefore ensure that the cultural attributes, which are likely to ground the company op erations are not allowed. In this case, the organization would also advocate for cultures that are less harmful to the company operations (Werbach, 2009). Organizations that accept and embrace particular culture(s) are easily manageable and could lead it to triumph. For instance, the practices that could create conflict among the employees must be discouraged in totality (Werbach, 2009). Ethical Culture The ethical behavior that that organization applies in order to make sure that it maintains proper relations with its clients, among the employees and with the organization at large would be referred to as organization ethical culture. Thus, the organization employees and other stakeholders ought to behave in a way that is in line with both the law of the country and the business ethical codes. In every business, ethics policy touching on culture should be implemented to guarantee the presence of togetherness between consumers and other workers in the organizations. For sustainabilit y reasons, the organization must ensure that it builds and maintains its cultural status and trust for the company. Therefore, even though the culture of the organization would have an impact on noteworthy, it should ensure sustainability is tied to organisation strategy. Some of the ethical cultures in the organisation include honesty, communication, commitment, discipline, and non-discrimination among others. Managing Organisational Culture The greatest concern of any organisation manager would be to address effectively the cultural issues that could make the organisation unsustainable. Managers and leaders in the organisation would only be confident when there are prospects indicating that the organisation would be sustainable (Ackroyd Crowdy, 1990). However, the cultural environment in which the organisation operates would be very dynamic. Organisation environment has numerous forces, institutions and factors that for instance would be beyond the organisation control and would affect the functioning of the entire organisation. Before the 21st century, organisation managers would only consider profit motive as the greatest function of sustainability, than addressing the cultural issues, which also have adverse effects in its management (Ackroyd Crowdy, 1990. In managing the cultural problems, the leadership in organisation should work very hard to ensure that the cultural diversity is adequately addressed.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Managing Organizational Culture specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This approach would make sure that the problems related to cultural confrontations are minimised and subsequently eliminated in the entity. The leaders also believe that if an entity fail to resolve cultural conflict over years, it would be unsustainable due to anticipated wrangles over ethnic affiliations. In this regard, for the organisation to sustain itself the management would ensur e there are strategies to regulate organisation behaviour and subsequent culture (Ackroyd Crowdy, 1990). Sustainability would be equated to profitability, meaning that the culture of the organisation must be inclined to this trend. The ideology has since changed due to the complexities in the organisation culture and environment. Current managers deal with a myriad of cultural issues in order to ensure sustainability and human relationship to the natural world would overtake profit motive in priority. In today’s organisational environment, managers are much more concerned with the cultural problems and influence on the company, thereby contribute on ways of minimising them. Therefore, the managers had realized that the underlying reason for sustainability would be drawn from the analysis of organization’s effect on, and reaction to culture. In the company, there are cultures associated with the relationship among the different stakeholders so that the organisation cou ld sustain the production with minimal conflicts (Ogbonna Harris, 1998). Previously, the managers would externalize the cultural interplay in the organisation, and failed to note that the employees in the company are the major agents of cultural dynamics. This means it is the managers should adopt policies, which can bring together and harmonise the cultural differences among the players in the organisation without prejudice. Research shows that externalization of these cultural contributions to the organisation, without solving the internal problems related to the employee’s cultural practices would only increase the negative effects of organisational culture on the workers’ performance (Ogbonna Harris, 1998).Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Externalization of the organisational cultural influences would also threaten the manner in which the entity would operate as well as weakening the social support systems. Notably, the current cultural amalgamation in the organisation is responsible for harmonising the ethnic orientations, thus creating a cultural friendly environment that would expose certain workplace cultures. The managers should evaluate the impacts of cultures on the workers performance and adopt ways, which are not detrimental to the entity. In this case, the cultural factors that threaten the production process could be dealt with without externalising them. In an organisation setup, the concept of externalizing the cultural problems shows the inefficiency and limit entail the achievement of growth and success. The organisation would be sustainable only if it would ensure that the systems, and policies employed, would not be controversial to the articulation of company policies. A sustainable organisation is the one that accepts and harmonizes the cultural diversities, which are found in the company in line with the organisational dominant culture (Ogbonna Harris, 1998). This means the management should be in a position of add value to the employees other than segregating them on cultures. There are organisation cultures, which would be encouraged if they help in educating workers, to achieve prosperity and give yield, and for road maintenance. All these would result from positive cultural attributes for within the environment. In addition, these cultures that the company embraces must be documented in the company journals and scholarly article to aid studies about the company (Ogbonna Harris, 1998). The entity would not pay anything towards the correction of cultural factors that emanates from its operations and employee interaction. The cultures that would be evidenced in the organisation could eliminate the impacts of negative practices in firms, and such should be documented and p resented in the financial accounts of the entity (Meek, 1988). For example, when inter-ethnic cultures clash in the company, then the people ways of life might be prioritized than the company goals, thus reducing productivity in the organisation. Here, the management should take this cultural conflict as an organisation failure and this would gauge an entity’s level of sustainability (Ogbonna Harris, 1998). The consequences of these actions would negatively affect the organisation and general public. The persons outside the entity would not be affected by the organisational culture since he/she does not interact with the management and other workers in the company (Willmott, 1993). The cultural conflict in the organisation would make the innocent persons pay the price of such problems that they did not incur, and referred to as externalization of cultures. The condition would arise when the unrestrained company operations yield undesirable social results (Ogbonna, 1992). Mor eover, consequences like other problems brought about by cultural differences in the work environment, the dangerous practices, for instance, incurs externalization of cultures (Ackroyd Crowdy, 1990) Essence of organisational culture The organisational culture is essential because it helps the company become more sustainable. Progressive organisational culture encourages investors and promotes its development (Werbach, 2009). According to Smircich, the society and organisational cultural environments have become too oriented to making of profits than the environmental safety (Smircich, 1983). In this regard, it is necessary to adhere to organisational practices that would make the company produce items, which are less hazardous to the environment. Since the steady application of the company culture might increase its production qualitatively and quantitatively, the management should resist and eliminate any cropping bad culture in the company (Meek, 1988). Ogbonna suggested that th e organisational culture either makes it productive or less productive depending on its management (Ogbonna, 1992). In this case, positive cultures improves the organisation’s credentials and popularity. This is essential because increasing cultural management practices would help the organisation reduce tension, making it viable and successful (Ogbonna, 1992). Basically, ensuring that the employees embrace organisational culture is vital in ensuring that it progresses and becomes sustainable. The employees are the links between the company and its clients, meaning that the culture that they practice would affect the organisation (Willmott, 1993). The organisation culture is vital as it helps in providing positive feedback and might enable the workers advise the company’s management about the likelihood of a given culture, either being suitable or unsuitable for the organisation (Meek, 1988). Through appropriate organisational culture, the employees would always seek w ays in which they can use to improve their efforts towards ensuring a balance between the individual and the company culture (Barney, 1986. In that aspect, they would achieve significant improvement by ensuring the resources at their disposal are used prudently (Meek, 1988). Therefore, the organisation should only adopt cultures and production practices, which are appropriate and sustainable. Finally, organizational culture is also essential because it makes the employees use the resources of the company for its benefits and not that of the person (Barney, 1986). Conclusion In summary, cultural values, activities, and conduct of people are based on the moral principles of the organisation and ensures that it achieves the objectives. The organisation’s main concern is the cultural behavior of humans in determining the aspect that is right and wrong bearing in mind the accepted conduct and behavior of societies. Lastly, for the organisation to maintain profit advances, producti vity, progress to expansion, and thus sustainability of the organization, it should ensure it reduces its cultural interferences, as much as it maintains profits and productivity. In the end, they must produce quality products and build a reputable organization that people would want to work with and work for. The ethical culture of an organisation should be spelt in the company policy and all the workers should adhere to such guidelines while performing their duties. References Ackroyd, S. Crowdy, P. (1990). â€Å"Can culture be managed? Working with â€Å"raw† material: The case of the English slaughtermen.† Personnel Review, 19(5), 3- 13. Barney, J. (1986). â€Å"Organizational Culture: Can it be a source of sustained competitive advantage?† Academy of Management Review, 11(3), 656-665. Meek, V. (1988). â€Å"Organizational Culture: Origins and Weaknesses.† Organization Studies 9(4), 453-473. Ogbonna, E. (1992). â€Å"Managing Organizational Culture: Fantasy or Reality?† Human Resource Management Journal 3(2), 42-54. Ogbonna, E. Harris, L. (1998). â€Å"Managing Organizational Culture: Compliance or Genuine Change?’† British Journal of Management 9(4), 273-288. Smircich, L. (1983). â€Å"Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis.† Administrative Science Quarterly, 28(3), 339-358. Werbach, A. (2009). Strategy for Sustainability: An Organisation Manifesto. Harvard: Harvard Organisation Press. Willmott, H. (1993). â€Å"Strength is ignorance; Slavery is freedom: Managing culture in modern organizations.† Journal of Management Studies, 30(4), 515-552. This essay on Managing Organizational Culture was written and submitted by user Lorelai A. to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.