Organizational Culture and the Role of the Manager - Term Paper Example

Organizational Culture and the Role of the Manager Order No.282658 No. of pages: 6 1st 6530 “Restructuring is rather like planting asparagus. You know you should have started three years ago.” Charles M Doszher, Einchem Int. Introduction Before attempting to relate the impact between an organization’s culture and the manager in shaping it, we must first understand what an organization is. There are many ways to describe it, but the simplest would be that it is a group of people who are allotted specific responsibilities and who work together to achieve a predetermined and specific purpose. These purposes may vary in character depending upon the people who run it, the structure of the organization, and its purpose. Organizational Culture What does Organizational Culture refer to? The Oxford Dictionary defines ‘Corporate Culture’ as ”The philosophy, values behavior, dress code etc that together constitute the unique style and policies of the Company..” In the words of Welford and Prescott, ‘Corporate Culture is “a set of shared values, beliefs and attitudes, held in common by the people of that Company.” So a reasonable dimension of Organizational Culture has emerged and we can understand that this merely refers to the mental makeup of persons governing the organization, those employed by the organization and those in business with the organization. Every organization is made up of both ‘formal’ as well as ‘informal’ dimensions. According to (Blau and Scott, 1962) it is simply not possible to know or understand the workings of an organisation without a sound understanding of its informal character.” According to a study made by Pettigrew “organizational cultures consist of cognitive systems explaining how people think, reason, and make decisions (Pettigrew, 1979) Some researchers argued that the concept of organizational culture emerged in part out of the dissatisfaction with the fundamental inadequacies in traditional methods of exploring the dynamics of organizations (Van Maanen, 1979; Evered and Louis, 1981). Influencing factors – Types of Organizational Cultures According to Welford & Prescott organization, Culture that is in existence stems form a variety of elements, like background of the organization, the social environment, the economy, educational levels of its employers and employees, language, ethnic practices, climatic conditions etc and these conditions govern the makeup of Culture that plays a role in how people in the organization are treated, what type of decisions are being taken, how the organization present itself and what message does it project to the outside world. Charles Handy has broadly classified four major roots in Organizational Culture. They being - A) Power Culture, B) Role Culture, C) Task or Achievement Culture & D) Person or Support Culture. Simply explained ‘Power Culture’ refers to those people who wield the highest power in the organization, in addition to how this power is used. This would provide the root for the culture that a particular organization is likely to follow. Similarly ‘Role Culture’ is where a clear defining of roles is made and people in the organization are to follow these set parameters and stay within these boundaries. We also come across ‘Task or Achievement Cultures’ wherein the onus lies on the execution of given tasks and need to complete the task “at all costs”. Completion of course will be rewarded but the focus and movement will be only on Completion. The fourth type of Culture is ‘People or Support Culture, dwells on People value. Here people become the most valuable resource and the organization tends to put people first in its endeavors Every organization has certain attributes, that are guided by set beliefs and works towards specific goals which form its basic culture. This culture is not easily definable and is an intangible asset, showing change as it grows. The role of a manager in shaping as well as maintaining this culture is indisputable, since their actions are always under scrutiny by their employees, and they have to show utmost caution and restraint in their decision-making, create a sense of fairness and make sure that ethical norms are strictly adhered to. All organizations stress upon the four cultural components of the manager which are “trust and trustworthiness, empowerment, consistency and mentorship.” ( retrieved on 24.03.09) Success of an Organization The success of an organization has been shown to be directly proportionate to the interpersonal relationships which managers and staff have and this was found to be three times more powerful in predicting profitability than the other variables like capital intensity, firm size, the rate of sales growth, and market share. (Hanson, G. (1986) A manager, especially at the senior level, is a role model for his employees and it has been observed that juniors tend to recognize, appreciate and emulate the hard work put in by the managers. This impacts the organizational culture positively, with all its employees wanting to share the workload. On the flip side, certain lower-level managers find that such high levels of commitment may be difficult to imitate and therefore shy away from developing their own potential on the managerial side. How does the Manager handle these various situations? Needless to add, the role of a Manager then becomes crucial only because it reflects his performance levels and he would need to be well versed in handling the above scenarios and prove himself to be a person possessing these skill sets which would then make him an excellent Manager, thereby proving that ‘Organization Culture’ does impact on the Managers performance. It would then entail that the officer in charge adapts and modulates or moulds his behavior taking into consideration the Culture of the organization. It is rightly said that the ‘Culture of an Organization is very resilient and can take the longest time to change’ – Charles Handy The role of a manager is enhanced by good communication skills, since it is this which ensures that the culture of an organization is disseminated to the junior as well as new staff. Studies have shown that good communication, between organizations, as well as inter - organization, bring about superior innovations. By using empirical data, it was concluded that ‘there is a wide gulf between information needed to do the job and the information supplied.’ (Kanter Tourish and Hargie (1988) Poor communication skills weaken the culture of the organization, since the manager is not able to transfer the core values which drive the organization forward. This sometimes happens due to poor evaluation by the person involved (Quirke, 1996) as well as the inherent belief that they have positive qualities like honesty, persistence, reliability, intelligence and a fair-mindedness (Myers, 1996). This gap was seen clearly in a survey where it was found that 60 per cent of managers responded in the affirmative when asked about the communication skills, while only 30 per cent of the non management respondents agreed with this. (Crampton et al, 1998). Employees in an organization are like children , who learn the organizational culture by observing those who exercise authority over them. (Chittenden, 1997). Managers and people in higher authoritative posts are the ones who have the longest association with the organization and the values, norms and culture of the outfit are most deeply entrenched in them. (Brown, A 1995) The management, or rather the managers who handle the running of the company are the ones who most significantly typify the culture that is dominant in the organization. (Callum Hey) Just as the managers embody the organizational culture, there will be a group which constitutes the "countercultures, which are pockets of resistance to the views of management" (Jones, 1997).The managers can bring about change or even maintain status quo of the ethos of the organization by using certain methods, identified as "rites of passage, degradation and renewal" (Trice & Beyer, 1990 cited in Brown, 1995, p.147) There are various ways by which change can be implemented in the organization, but it is important to identify the groups which are in need of transformation, since it is a fact that it is not individuals but groups which constitute the subcultures. (Goldberg (1992)) Managers often are found to have definite biases which may not be acceptable to the staff and it becomes the duty of the managers to understand the point of view of their subordinates and implement changes in culture attuned to their needs and ease resistance. (Lebo, 1997).Identification of problem areas leads to the next step, which is implementation, where managers face many hurdles, which according to Chittenden, can be classified as generic, emotional and linguistic. Stubbornness, or resistance to new methods of doing things are generic obstacles, while emotional obstacles are “arrogance or apathy” to new cultures.(Callum Hey) Linguistic obstacle is one wherein the employee refuses to learn new methods, since he considers himself proficient with it and considers time spent on this as a waste of resources. Managers, through their careful interpretation and effective communication alone can maintain the organizational culture as well as initiate change at appropriate times, since the efficacy of the inherent culture can be gauged only by the efficiency of the top level managers. Références Blau, P.M. and Scott, W.R. (1962), Formal Organizations: A Comparative Approach, Chandler, Toronto, Ontario, pp. 2-8. Brown, A. (1995) Organisational Culture, London : Pitman Publishing Chapter V - Organisational Culture 40 V. Organisational Culture http://www.worldanimal.net/onlinebook/Chapter%205%20Culture.pdf Chittenden, C. (1997) http://www.gaiaconsulting.com.zu/articles/AnObserverOfTheWorld.htm Crampton, S., Hodge, J. and Mishra, J. (1998), “The informal communication network: factors influencing grapevine activity”, Public Personnel Management, Vol. 27, pp. 569-84. Evered, R. and Louis, M.R. (1981), ``Alternative perspectives in the organizational sciences: inquiries from the inside and inquiries from the outside, Academy of Management Review, Vol. 6, pp. 385-9. Goldberg, B. (1992) Manage change - not the chaos caused by change. Management Review. 81(11). 39(6) Hanson, G. (1986), “Determinants of firm performance: an integration of economic and organizational factors”, unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan Business School, Dearborn, MI. Hargie, O. and Tourish, D. (Eds) (2000), Handbook of Communication Audits for Organizations, Routledge, London. Kanter, R. (1988), “Three tiers for innovation research”, Communication Research, Vol. 15, pp. 509-23. Lebo, F. (1997) Know the code. Security Management. 41(6). 25 - 27 Pettigrew, A.M. (1979), ``On studying organizational cultures, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 24, pp. 570-81. Van Maanen, J. (1979), ``Reclaiming qualitative methods for organizational research, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 24, pp. 52-6. What is an Organization? Managements role in shaping organizational culture http://classweb.gmu.edu/rfeeg/nurs436/organization2/tsld002.htm Read More