Organisational Culture: Interaction of Internal-External Factors

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Dr. H. Kwame Afaglo Editors: Richard A. Sarpong and Gifty F. Nyame ©2010 Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors Prevailing organisational culture does have a high correlation with the success level of the firm, employee attitude, staff retention, product features, product pricing, especially consumer perception of firm and its products. In other words, organisational culture is an internally driven component that has a high correspondence with the external perception of the firm and its product.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors It therefore pre-suppose that prevailing culture is an important component of achieving organisational goals, targets, and as a determinant of competitive advantage. Culture Organisational culture simply is ‘How we do things around here ’ or ‘a way of life around here’. The definition of culture implies, there are

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors various cultures and in the business circles, each organisation has its own culture. Also that, there could be departmental cultures along side the organisational culture, and the knowledge of both is relevant to those within and about joining. The former being the main organisational culture, when its unique and accommodates employees from diverse backgrounds (flexible working hours, gender, age, parenting and

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors maternity, disability among others) it enhances the organisation’s brand image. E.g. Google. A firm that operates flexible working hours and matches human hours with staff availability, benefits more from competent staff. Since, the working hours are suitable for employees, it tends to be motivating, that eventually leads to optimum production. Say, a twelve (12) hours day job could be shared by two or three individuals by their request, and whose

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors cumulative work hours does total the required hours for that day. This flexible working hours scheme encourages part-time jobs, an opportunity for creating jobs especially for parents, students and unemployed, and a source of extra income by way of double jobbing. Conversely, a non-accommodating organisational culture neither does attract top notch (experts) employees nor likely to be a market leader. Quite a significant number of organisations do not have

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors recreation areas, neither do they have gyms nor shower rooms for staff who need some exercise prior to continuing work. Hence, the structural arrangement does encourage staff unhealthy states and taking time off to treat themselves. Also, a good number of transnational corporations operating in foreign countries have unconsciously or deliberately instituted a systemic culture that does neither accommodate

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors family oriented staff nor any room for nursing mothers who are staff to attend to their babies, let alone mention children play place. Such systemic glitches are inhibitory for staff to offer their maximum potentials to the organisation. Current recessionary period and its attendant unavailability of jobs have permitted organisations with culturally systemic glitches to thrive. However, when the global economy

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors becomes healthy again with loads of employers seeking employees and governments strengthen their welfare obligations to its people, such organisations (culturally non-accommodating) will be forced to change. Departmental culture – Does also exist in large organisations, invariably breeding inter-departmental rivalry with progressive results as achieving an organisation’s wide production targets.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors The competitive culture emanating from the ‘we’ versus ‘them’ inter-departmental culture could also be unhealthy at a stage. The People and Culture or Human Resource Manager could; Adapt job rotation to re-dress the unhealthy inter-departmental cultural rivalry. Another approach could be setting subordinate

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors goals as projects, of which employees from various departments (including rivalry departmental staff) are tasked to complete the project. It does minimise the ‘we’ versus ‘them’ inter-departmental cultural unhealthy rivalry. Determinants of organisational culture Organisational culture originates and keeps

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors evolving from the dynamics of the interaction between internal and external factors. External influence of culture include; competition, cultural transfer from former employment, societal culture, technology, laws and policies.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors Competition – In the face of competition, organisations adapt competitive culture in their assigning of targets and bonus schemes for employees. Employees exhibit competitive behaviour and are mostly type A personalities, attributed to the level of competition by rivalry organisations position on the market. Unlike the competitive cultured private enterprises, state run organisations as civil services have a lacklustre attitude without targets. Thus, makes state

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors employees more relaxed and not challenge driven, whiles their counterparts in private organisations are more innovative and task oriented by virtue of competition. E.g. In the security industry, G4S is ranked the top and its a multinational corporation. In financial sector, the privately owned ones are highly ranked than the state owned ones as, HSBC, Morgan Stanley, Citi on one hand and Kiwibank, Natiponal Bank of New Zealand, Ghana Commercial Bank, on

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors the other hand. The aviation sector is another, where states have let off their ownership to private ownership as, British Caledonia to British Airways, Nigeria Airways to Virgin Nigeria among others. ‘Rolling back of the state’ approach was adapted by the United States of America (US) in the mid 1980’s under the administration of Ronald Reagan to ensure civil and public services in the US are target oriented and in some sectors self

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors sustaining. Civil and public services of developing economies could adapt the ‘rolling back of the state’ concept of the US in other to have a changed and dynamic culture. Of recent, the proposed change concept is worth implementing. This information could be sourced from http://www.wiziq.com/tutorial/48671-Managing-Change-In-Public-Services-of-Developing-Economies Non-competitive organisations where targets, salaries, wages, promotions are not tied with

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors performance, the change dynamics of New Public Management (NPM) as earlier mentioned (hyperlink) is a pre-requisite for effective delivery of services to stakeholders. The recommended change dynamics of NPM at workplaces will inevitably modify the civil and public service work cultures. Cultural transfer from former employment – This occurs when a group of colleagues from one particular firm join a new organisation, where

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors they unconsciously or knowingly continue with the cultural practices of the former firm in the new. Such external cultural influence becomes imminent when the hired team are in leadership roles. The conscious cultural transfer by the newly hired leadership team is effective in change management or succession planning, whiles more often than not the unconscious cultural transfer are associated with vices.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors In the case of the later, periodic orientation for team is necessary to serve as a reinforcement of the organisation’s culture and displacement of vices from previous workplace. The former situation of cultural influence from previous corporate culture by new managerial team was experienced in 1999 by ASDA in United Kingdom (UK) when Wal-Mart acquired the retain chain. Wal-Mart new management team

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors to ASDA did inculcate the daily target scheme for all staff of which changed the corporate culture into a one of competitiveness among staff, that eventually led to higher returns and improved brand image. The ASDA situation is a combination of both cultural transfer from previous firm and competition. Societal culture – This is a two fold concept that is the vibrant influence of societal culture on

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors work ethics and that of its perception of working with a particular organisation. The degree of importance that community places on work influences organisational culture. Specifically, societies that places emphasis on work thus equally places premium on workers, of which shows at workplace as a co-operative organisational culture. Employees of a co-operative organisational culture does;

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors attach passion, give off their optimal potential, creativity and initiative, commit their life to organisation. On the other hand, societies that undervalue work and interpret work as drudgery and slavery (popularly known as ‘heading for the mills’) is observed in an organisational culture with the

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors following characteristics; lateness, high levels of absenteeism, high staff loss, less passion, deliberately refusing to employ creative skills and initiative.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors A co-operative organisational culture that emanates from the society’s value of work is a conducive community for staffing. While the later, being ‘a job is not a life’ or ‘heading for the mills’ culture can only be redressed by recruiting staff from societies with a high work ethics. Society’s perception of a particular organisation does influence its culture. Specifically, if society

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors associates a particular organisation with less interest in staff and high rate of staff lay-offs (hired-and-fired) perception, staff attitude is no different from that of ‘a job is not a life’ culture. If the society’s perception of the organisation is progressive with employee interest, staff culture is the same as those of co-operative organisational culture.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors Technology – Technological advancement is led to changing organisational culture, especially with an increasing interaction between human and machine. Thus, making a good number of jobs that heretheto involved only humans, currently employ significant number of machines and computers. Resulting in a highly reduced number of human involvement. The mechanisation of work is led to measuring of output vis-a-vis wages or bonus schemes

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors institutionalisation. Further, computerisation is creating competitive organisational culture and less face-to-face contacts, but human-machine interface. Human-machine interface is enhanced supply chain, outsourcing roles, effectively employed in training and marketing. E.g. Live chats, contact us, webinar and Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) of most firm’s website. Social websites and computer games are increasingly used at workplaces during lunch time, of which has displaced face-to-face games and communal lunch for significant informal arrangements.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors Laws and Policies – Organisational regulations, policies and external work related acts significantly influences organisational culture. A rather visible situation is experienced in firms with strict ‘work to rules’ policy. Employees of such firm’s exhibit the following characteristics; do as you are told, do not carry out an activity without express instructions,

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors go strictly by the work periods, say 9:00 – 17:00hrs, purposely refuse to be creative, do not give-off maximum potentials, not passionate about the work or job, self interest is prominent, breeds inner groups and outer groups, and strengthen the ‘we versus them’ concept.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors Internal factors that influences organisational culture include; corporate values, leadership style and focus, change. Corporate values – Established organisational values does consciously dictates inner culture of employees. Just as employees are also customers

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors of their own firms, so do they buy their product(s) based on the integrity of the values of the organisation. A significant portion of consumers associate their buying behaviour with organisational value systems. E.g. Environmentalist opt for products from firms that have the concept of ‘green’ as an integral part of their value system. Again, consumers who are environmentally active will only buy products from firms that have recycling as part

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors of their values and operations. Hence, the growing number of firms have gone ‘green’ or environmentally friendly. Leadership style and focus – Some employees learn by imitation, hence managerial focus and leadership styles does contribute to shaping organisational culture. Dictatorial and intimidating leadership style and management

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors focus respectively, transcends from the top to the bottom. Such workplace environments evolves a culture of silence and work-to-rule. Transactional leadership style breeds a competitive culture in the organisation with rewards and promotion based on performance. Enabling leadership style does foster innovative and creative organisational culture of which welcomes mavericks and prepares the grounds for change.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors Change – Inception of change be it evolutionary or revolutionary at workplace initially is traumatic for some employees, and that change translates into the way things are done around there. When change is effected, it results in an obviously defined culture at workplace. Both internal and external determinants of organisational culture interact leading to a uniquely defined way of doing things at a particular workplace.

Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors : Organisational Culture - Interaction of Internal and External Factors It is imperative that management should help fashion out a progressive organisational culture, so as to cumulatively attain the organisational goals through optimisation of resources at least cost. Thank you