Organisation Culture

3 Pages 823 Words

Organisational Culture

Organizational culture can be described in a few ways. Marvin Bower & McKinseys has defined culture as “the way we do things around here”. It is about how people behave and treat each other within the organization. Getting a right culture is important also creation and maintenance of a strong culture within the organization is a major concern of many HRM strategies. Moreover, wide ranges of social, competitive and economic pressures are driving the needs for change in the organization.

There are a few approaches to characterize an organizational culture and we will be taking Deal & Kennedy and Charles Handy as examples. They have described the types of culture for achieving organizational effectiveness.

Charles Handy characterized culture in terms of the relationship between the organization and individuals and also the importance of power and hierarchy. He has described four types of culture, which are power, role, task and person. One of these may dominate the entire organization or different cultures may exist in various parts of the firm.

Power culture

Power culture depends on a central power source. It is associated with the entrepreneurial form from a single central source, which can be called the web, as in a small business. There are few rules and procedures and few committees. Decisions are made by a selective of key individuals.

The principles factors determine power culture:
ü A rapidly changing environment that allow a quicker response time within which changes should take place.
ü Smallness-size is a problem for power culture
ü The need for adaptability
ü The need to encourage individual initiative
ü Dislike of committees and bureaucracy

Role culture

Role culture is often associated with organisaional bureaucracy structure. It operates through formal roles and procedures. The culture works on logic and rational and strengths in its functions and specialties. In...