Corporate culture is the focal point that affects employee
commitment and engagement in an organization. It is considered
easy to understand but most difficult to practice. This
is the result of various assumptions, beliefs and values,
which formulate the organizational culture. Organizational
culture typically speaks about how an organization sees
itself and how the people feel about the organization. Although
culture practices are considered to be common and similar
in organizations, still many organizations possess a strong
and deep-rooted organizational culture. A well-defined culture
is critical to business success. A very closely related
aspect of organizational culture is organizational climate,
which describes the atmosphere within the organization and
the extent to which teamwork is extended.
Earlier thinkers have defined organizational culture with
a focus on distinguishing the levels into strong and weak
cultures. The culture also differs between the hierarchical
levels within an organization. Although there are many definitions
for organizational culture, this paper focuses on the definition
given by McShane and Mary (2001) that emphasizes on the
basic pattern of shared assumptions, values and beliefs.
These elements are seen only as the tip of an iceberg and
there are more such invisible elements that lie hidden in
the organization. The book, Organizational Development for
Excellence defines culture as encompassing the whole gamut
of the existing ways of interaction, activities, values,
attitudes, norms, beliefs, sentiments, feelings and other
factors. Hence, organizational culture and organizational
climate have been presumed as reflections of organizational
ethics, human values and beliefs that result in ethical
responsibility.
Peters and Waterman (1982) state that organizational culture
is gaining importance in organizational science and can
be managed, controlled and intentionally changed. In short,
organizational culture is used as a management tool. Bottorff
(2006) identified quality of ethics as a part of organizational
culture. Some issues are part of organizational culture
such as `not breaking the rules' and regulations of the
organization or crossing the line of moral conduct. But
if culture does not stress on its implications, then it
might affect the overall organizational policies. Sathe
(1983) views organizational culture as phenomenal or ideational
levels. Phenomenal levels give importance to ethics while
ideational level gives importance to moral values. Organizational
culture is seen as traditional thoughts associated with
feelings and actions of a particular group of people, as
a result of experience in their work environment (Deal and
Kennedy, 1982).
|
