Define organizational culture in your own words.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Culture can be thought of as a set of shared meanings that people in organizations
have with respect to how to adapt to the environments and cope with change. Norms
emerge in the organization regarding what constitutes the culture (you learned about
the power of group norms in Chapter 10). Organizational culture norms have three
distinct dimensions: (1) the content or what is deemed important (e.g., teamwork,
accountability, innovation), (2) the consensus or how widely shared norms are held
across people in the organization, and (3) the intensity of feelings about the importance
of the norm (e.g., are people willing to sanction others for violating culture norms?). In
addition to these dimensions, culture operates at different levels:
Artifacts and creations--For example, the architecture of the buildings, the office decoration including artwork, and the way that people dress reflect the organization’s
culture. This can also include organization charts and new employee orientation
materials.
Values--The reasons people give for their behavior. These values can be stated (or
espoused), or they may be unconscious and people act them out (enacted). For
example, a person may state that they believe in treating customers with respect (an
espoused value). Treating customers with respect is an example of an enacted value.
Assumptions--Underlie values and are often unconscious to people in organizations
because they don’t question them. For example, an assumption might be the view of the
organization’s relationship to the environment. Some view the environment as
something to be exploited for financial gain, while others may view the environment as
something that must be protected. Another example is the nature of human nature.
Some may view employees as fundamentally lazy, and others may view employees as
hard working and well-intentioned (recall Theory X/Y assumptions from Chapter 1). To
really understand an organization’s culture, a person must go beyond what they can see
and hear (artifacts and creations) and gain a deeper awareness of values first and then
assumptions. What we can observe is an expression of values that are typically rooted
in fundamental assumptions.