DYNAMICS OF ORGANISATIONAL

CULTURE, ATTITUDES AND MANAGEMENT

STYLE

Organisational culture has assumed considerable

importance nowadays because of its impact on
employee performance and satisfaction.

Meaning and Definition:

By culture we mean that complex whole which

includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
custom, and other capabilities and habits acquired
by man in a society.
Organisational culture (or its sister term
corporate culture) has been defined as the
philosophies, ideologies, values, assumptions,
beliefs, expectations, attitudes and norms that knit
an orgnaisation together and are shared by its
employees.

The following ten characteristics help us to

understand culture.
1. Individual Initiative: The degrees of
responsibility, freedom, and independence
that individuals have.

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2. Risk Tolerance: The degree to which
employees are encouraged to be aggressive
innovative, and risk seeking.
3. Direction: The degree to which the
organization creates clear objectives and
performance expectations.
4. Integration: The degree to which units
within the organization are encouraged to
operate in a coordinated manner.
5. Management Support: The degree to which
managers provide clear communication,
assistance and support to their
subordinates.
6. Control: The number of rules and
regulations, and the amount of direct
supervision that is used to oversee and
control employee behaviour.
7. Identity: The degree to which members’
identity with the organization as a ‘hole
rather than with their particular work
group or field of professional expertise.
8. Reward System: The degree to which
reward allocations are based on employee.
Performance criteria in contrast to
seniority, favoritism, and so on.
9. Conflict Tolerance: The degree to which
employees are encouraged to air conflicts
and criticisms openly.

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 10. Communication Patterns: The degree to
which organizational communications are
restricted to the formal hierarchy of
authority.
Organizational members tend to internalize cultural
practices and like to indoctrinate newcomers into
such mores. Some of these practices are so
thoroughly internalized that no one questions them –
they are taken for granted, that is, they get
institutionalized.

CULTURAL DIMENSIONS

Over the years a number of organizational

cultures have been identified. The more
interesting of these are as follows:

a) Mechanistic and Organic Cultures: The

mechanistic organizational culture exhibits
the values of bureaucracy and feudalism.
Organizational work is conceived as a
system of narrow specialism and people
think of their careers mainly within these
specialism. Authority is thought of as
flowing down from the top of the
organization down to the lower levels and
communication flows through prescribed

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 channels. There is a great deal of
departmental loyalty and inter-
departmental’ animosity, a strong “We”
versus “they” perception. This sort of
culture resists change and innovation.
Contrast is the organic culture. Formal
hierarchies of authority, departmental
boundaries, formal rules and regulations, and
prescribed channels of communications are
frowned upon. There is great deal of emphasis
on task accomplishment, teamwork, and free
flow of communication- formal and informal. In
problem situations, the persons with expertise
within the staff, of the problems, threats, and
opportunities the organization is facing and
there is willingness and preparedness to take
appropriate roles to solve the problems. The
culture stresses flexibility, consultation, change
and innovation. CMC, A Central Government
organization, comes to one’s memory when one
describes organic culture.

B) Authoritarian and Participative Cultures: In

the authoritarian culture, power is concentrated
on the leader and obedience to orders and
discipline are stressed. Any disobedience is
punished severely to set an example to others.
The basic assumption is that the leader knows

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what is good for the organization and he or she
always acts in its interests.
The participative culture is premised on the
notion that people are more committed to the
decisions that are participatively made than to
those which are imposed on them. Further,
group problem solving leads to better decisions
because several new points and information are
shared during discussions. Participative cultures
tend to emerge where most organizational
members are professionals or see themselves as
equals.

C) Subculture and Dominant Culture: Each

department of an organization may have its own
culture. In which case there is subculture. A
dominant culture emerges when there is an
integration of all the departments into an
unified whole. Within any given unit, the
tendency for integration and consistency will be
assumed to be present, but it is perfectly
possible for coexisting units of a larger system to
jiave cultures that are independent and even in
conflict with each other.

D) Strong and Weak Cultures: In an

organization having strong culture, the core
values are both intensely held and widely shared

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by its members. Such employees develop strong
loyalty to the organization.
One benefit of a strong culture is reduced
turnover and positive employee attitude. A
strong culture demonstrates high agreement
among members about what the organization
stands for. Such unanimity of purpose builds
cohesiveness and organizational commitment.
The opposite will happen when culture is weak.
The danger with strong organizational culture is
that it leads to “group think”, collective blinds
pots, and resistance to change and innovation.

E) National Culture V/s. Organizational

Culture: Distinction is also made between
national culture and organizational culture.
Organizational culture is influenced by the culture
of the land, irrespective of the origin of the
company. Go to my company operating in India,
Indian or foreign, the local culture is visible. The
holidays declared, festivals celebrated, functions
organized and other cultural activities reflect Indian
ethos.

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 HOW IS CULTUTRE CREATED?

Culture is essentially learnt. What applies to the

learning process applies to culture also.

 Culture Formation around critical incidents:

Forms and beliefs arise around the way
members respond to critical incidents.
Something emotionally charged or anxiety
producing may happen, such as an attack by a
member on the leader, because everyone witness
it and because tension is high when the attack
occurs, the immediate next set-of-behaviors
tends to create a norm.

 IDENTIFICATION WITH LEADERS : A

second mechanism of culture creation is the
modeling by leader figures that permits group
members to identify with them and internalize
their values and assumptions. When groups or
organizations first form, there are usually
dominant figures or “founders” who help
establish the early culture. They have a vision
or mission of what the organization should be.
They are unconstrained by previous customs
or ideologies. The small size that typically
characterizes any new organization further
facilitates the founders imposing their vision

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 on all organizational members. Because the
founders have the original idea, they also
typically have biases on how to get the idea
fulfilled. The organisation’s culture results
from the interaction between (1) the
founder’s biases and assumptions, and 2)
what the original members who the founders
initially employ learn subsequently from their
own experiences.
The late J.R.D. Tata typifies this type of
culture creation. His supportive – consultive
role, his belief on professionalism, and
assumption that only honesty and fair dealing
will pay have made the vast Tata empire what
it is today.

HOW IS CULTURE SUSTAINED?

Once a culture is created, there are practices

within the organization that help keep it alive.
Three such practices are selection process,
actions of top management, and socialization
methods.

1. SELECTION: The main purpose of

selection process is to hire right people for
right jobs. When for a given job, two or
more candidates, with identical skills and

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 abilities, are available, final selection is
influenced by how well the candidate fits
into the organization. By identifying
candidates who can culturally match the
organizational culture, selection helps
sustain culture considerably.
2. TOP MANGEMENT: The actions of top
management also have a major impact on
the organization’s culture. Through what
they say and how they behave, senior
executives establish norms that filter down
through the organization as to whether risk
taking is desirable; how much freedom
managers should give their subordinates;
what is appropriate dress; what actions will
pay off in terms of pay raises – promotions,
and other rewards; and the like.
3. SOCIALISATION : No matter how good
job the organization does in hiring people,
new employees are not fully indoctrinated
in the organization’s culture. May be
because they are least familiar with the
organisation’s culture, new employees are
potentially most likely to disturb the beliefs
and customs that are in place. The
organization will, therefore, want to help
new employees adapt to its culture. This
adoption process is called socialization.

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 TOP MANAGEMENTS
CRITICAL INCIDENTS

ORGANISATION
SELECTION CRITERIA AL CULTURE

SOCIALISATION
ORGANISATIONS
FOUNDERS

CREATION AND SUITENANCE OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

HOW IS CULTURE LEARNT BY

EMPLOYEES ?

Culture is transmitted to employees through

number of means. The most effective means
are: Stories, rituals, material symbols,
language and principles.

Founding fathers of organizations emerge as

heroes. Their sacrifices, valorous deeds, and
ingenuity in the difficult initial years of the
organization and later during crises periods
are embellished into stories and sagas.

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