Aaron Kaplan
There is a great deal of talk about organizational culture these days in both academic and popular literature. However, the concept of organizational culture is fairly recent. Culture became a significant concern in the U.S during the 1980s, due to an interest in learning why U.S. companies were not performing as well as Japanese companies. It was thought that organizational as well as national cultures could explain those differences.
Culture can be defined as the set of key values, assumptions, beliefs, understandings, and norms that are shared by members of an organization and taught to new members as correct. At its most basic, culture is a pattern of shared assumptions about how things are done in the organization. On the surface, an organization’s culture can be thought of in terms of manner of dress, patterns of behavior, physical symbols, organizational ceremonies, and office layout. These include all the things a person can see, hear, and observe by watching members of the organization. On a deeper level, culture is expressed values and beliefs, which are not observable, but can be discerned from how people explain and justify what they do. These are values that members of the organization hold at a conscious level. Some values become so deeply embedded in a culture that organizational members may no longer be consciously aware of them.
Cultures develop among any group of people who interact with one another over a long period of time. When people are successful at what they undertake, the ideas and values that led to success become institutionalized as part of the organization’s culture. Though ideas and values that become part of the culture can come from anywhere within the organization, a founder or early leader typically has a significant impact on the organization’s early culture. A founder may articulate and implement particular ideas and beliefs as a vision, philosophy, or business strategy. When these ideas and beliefs lead to success, an organizational culture begins to develop that reflects the vision of the founder or early leader. Culture gives employees a sense of organizational identity and generates a commitment to particular values and ways of doing things. Organizational cultures serve two important functions, which are integrating members so that they know how to relate to one another, and helping the organization adapt to the external environment.
Culture helps members develop a collective identity and know how to work together effectively. It is culture that guides day-to-day working relationships and determines how people communicate in the organization what behavior is acceptable or not acceptable, and how power and status are allocated. Culture can imprint a set of unwritten rules inside employees’ minds that can be very powerful in determining behavior, thus affecting organizational performance. Comparative studies of traditional American management practices and Japanese management methods suggest that relative success of Japanese firms in the 1980s can be partly explained by their strong corporate cultures that emphasize internal integration based on employee participation, open communication, security, and equity.
The other primary function of culture is that it determines how the organization meets goals and deals with outsiders. The right cultural values can help the organization respond rapidly to customer needs or the moves of the competitor. Culture can encourage employee commitment to the core purpose of the organization, its specific goals, and the basic means used to accomplish goals. The culture should embody the values and assumptions needed for the organization to succeed in its environment. If the external environment requires extraordinary customer service, for example, the culture should encourage good service.
Strong cultures are important because they bind employees together, making the organization a community rather than just a collection of individuals with no shared values and ways of thinking and acting. A positive organizational culture emphasizes building on employee strengths, rewards more than it punishes, and emphasizes vitality and growth. All employees, not just leaders and managers shape the culture of an organization, and create a positive work environment. You can do as much to shape your organizational culture, as the culture of the organization shapes you.
Aaron Kaplan, Founder/Director of The Kaplan Project, LLC (832) 831-9451; AKaplan@thekaplanproject.com; www.thekaplanproject.com
