Organizational Culture

Organizational culture influences many aspects of workplace life. A workplace with strong beliefs, values, behaviors, ideas and expectations define an organization. Well-communicated beliefs, values, ideas and expectations influence employee’s behavior and determine how employees communicate with others throughout the organization, thus defining the organization’s culture. Over the years, the topic of organizational culture has been studied in many disciplines from anthropology to sociology. A prominent theorist of organizational culture, Edgar Schein (2004), provided the following general definition of organizational culture:

A pattern of shared basic assumptions that was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems. (p. 17)

Understanding an organization’s culture can help understand why change does not take place or why a project is not successful. Understanding the culture can also help determine where to make changes (Schachter, 2005). Making changes to an organization’s culture can determine the survival of the organization; therefore, modifying a culture can be sensitive and should be approached with caution.

Typically organizations approach a cultural change through a planned method of intentional, goal-orientated changes. The deliberate attempt by employees or managers to improve the function of teams, departments or the entire organization is known as planned organizational change. Economic and organizational development is two approaches an organization can take to make modification to their culture (Hellriegel, 2004). The economical approach focuses the change on structure and strategy within the organization with the attempt to increase profits. Last year, our Board of Directors made a significant change to our organizational chart and management structure. Since we are a not-for-profit organization that relies on federal funds, the implementation eliminated a department and reserved the overhead to serve more families and children. Opposite of economical approach is the organizational development approach. This approach focuses on the culture of the organization while developing the employee’s competencies. Organizational development approach is intended to development the employee’s commitment to the organization (Hellriegel, 2004). In our efforts to find more effective ways to reward employees, we developed a committee to review our performance evaluation and merit increase procedures. The purpose of this committee was to evaluate the procedures and make recommendations for improvement. By taking this approach, the employees have developed a sense of commitment to the organization and a sense of value as an employee.

Once an approach has been identified, there are several elements that can be modified or changed that will impact the organization’s culture. These elements include changing 1) what managers and teams pay attention to, 2) how crisis are handled, 3) criteria for recruiting new members, 4) criteria for promotion, 5) criteria for allocating awards, and 6) organizational rites and ceremonies (Hellriegel, 2004). To implement a change to culture, organizations can change the criteria for recruiting new employees. For instance, typically our recruitment procedures included advertising externally and internally for a period of two weeks for open positions. We have been unsuccessful at recruiting for vital open positions within the organization. To modify the procedures, we obtained the services of a temporary agency to facilitate the hiring process and fill open positions. This modification of our recruiting procedures has proved to be successful in filling open positions with a qualified, reliable candidate for the organization.

Implementing a change to an organization’s culture does not have to be a negative experience. Modifying the criteria for allocating rewards can be a negative or a positive change to an organization’s culture. Recently, our benefits committee made a substantial change to the eligibility criteria for receiving employer match and discretionary contribution to our retirement plan. Previously, our seasonal employees were entitled to employer match and discretionary contribution after the completion of two consecutive complete seasons which for some employees this meant the completion of their third season, second