It comprises two main functions, which are: Internal integration, when members know how to relate to each other; and External adaptation, which brings in focus the external environment to the organization.
As main aspects of Organisational culture we can find rites and ceremonies, stories, symbols, and language. All of this is mutual and correlative to the members of an organisation.
One important thing to have in mind is that, Organizational culture is not the same as corporate culture. It is wider and deeper concepts, something that an organization “is” rather than what it “has”.
It also has four main categories: Entrepreneurial culture, which values innovation, creativity and risk taking; Mission culture, which has a clear vision of purposes and how to achieve them; Clan culture, which focuses on needs of employees as a route to performance; Bureaucratic culture, which supports a methodical approach to business and efficiency.
Talking about the main advantages of an Organisational culture, we have a strong link between Organisational culture and performance; real motivation and commitment; core values are intensely held and widely shared; easier to draw consensus; build a focus on goals; reduce potential conflicts; cultivate learning environment; lower employee turnover; and employees work hard willingly. Which all makes an organization works more smoothly.
And among the main disadvantages I think the most important one is to be inflexible to change and to external improvements mainly.
The main ethical and legal balance should be acquired to avoid liability within the organization. This finally brings the main and most important paradox for me: Consistency vs. Adaptability, which deals with the balance itself.
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1. Huczynski, A. and Buchanan, D.A. (2007). Organizational behaviour: an introductory text. Financial Times / Prentice Hall.
2. Organisational culture, Class presentation, http://interactiva.eafit.edu.co/ei/
http://www.nhorizons.ca/images/orgcult.jpg
As we can see in the picture, Organisational culture gathers together several ideas that help the organization take profit from the shared action.
CORPORATE CULTURE: MORE MYTH THAN REALITY ?. WHILE BUSINESS SUCCESS AND FAILURE ARE OFTEN LAID TO "CULTURE," THE TERM IS ELUSIVE AND FREQUENTLY MISUSED. EXPERTS IN ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOUR SAY IT’S DIFFICULT TO ALTER A COMPANY’S CULTURE, AND WHEN IT DOES SHIFT, IT’S OFTEN THE RESULT OF SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS PERFORMANCE CHANGES.
This article says it is impossible to ignore the massive weight of culture and how difficult or nearly impossible it is to change it. But the title says it all. The Organisational culture is slow to change. It has too much inertia and takes a lot of time to develop. And it takes a huge effort to adapt to other grindings.
John Kotter, Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School, also suggests that much talk of culture change is nonsense. "People talk about how 'we changed our culture last year' and, no, you didn't. Culture doesn't change that fast," he says. "What they've done is use some mechanism like a boss to change the way people sometimes act on some dimension, but if the boss disappeared, boom !. It would go, too." That kind of change is too shallow to be cultural.
Therefore from this statement, we can conclude that Culture is something much deeper than regular change can modify.
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Corporate Culture: more myth than reality ?. While business success and failure are often laid to "culture", the term is elusive and frequently misused. Experts in organization behaviour say it's difficult to alter a company’s culture, and when it does shift, it’s often the result of successful business performance changes, Millman, Gregory J., 2007.
ESSAY
I really think there is a corporate culture in every enterprise, and I think the bigger an organization becomes, the more need for one. Every enterprise is conformed by individuals that have to relate to one another for the company to work properly. And in a bigger company, the need is even more crucial to meet individual procedures to meet a common objective.
This is because culture is everywhere and is the base from which every person relates to another one. Culture is the set of values and beliefs that every person carries intrinsically within and in order to function in a society one ought to manage social skills good enough not to interfere with the next individual. And more so in the case of an enterprise, or a big factory, where every cultural aspect is important for the proper functioning of it.
Think of an ant colony, it is, perhaps, the only association in which a culture doesn´t matter, but nevertheless it must work together to achieve the goals. And in the case of people, culture is attached to each one irremediably; therefore the need to conform an organisational culture to make thinks work together.
I have to answer to the question of it being able of being modified. And therefore I shall say, after having read the last article, that yes, everything is suitable of a change, but in the case of an organisational culture or even just culture itself, it is very difficult or nearly impossible to change without applying major and crucially deep approaches from the managerial aspect to the least employee.
Mainly only big mergers, acquisitions, or joint ventures, where the whole organisation undergoes a severe shock in its functions or restructuring, should change the organisational culture. Just because the name, the owner and the way think are done, change, implies a massive turn around of the function and way their inner things and also their employees think, act and react.
USEFUL LINKS
http://www.tnellen.com/ted/tc/schein.html
Organizational Culture & Leadership by Edgar H Schein.
In this link, the author talks about Organizational culture as an academic approach.
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