Culture

Culture’s concept is related to the disposition of an individual. Organisational culture is the assortment of societies, morals, strategies, principles, and outlooks that establish a persistent framework aimed at the entirety that we perform and contemplate in an establishment. There are visible factors that helps define the culture of a business. Examples include: mottoes, role models and rituals.

 Few months back, I used to work in an organisation called MD Homes, where it consists of five nursing homes. It has numerous visible factors that I believe gives an idea of why it can be linked as a power culture. Its visible factors would include the atmosphere as it is kept live in order to give hope and happiness for the elderly residents. Another one would be the uniform that they wear different job has different colour of uniform but same style. Uniform also pictures that they are in personal care working sector. The personality of each team member would be another main visible factor as carers need to have full of empathy and patience.

There are four different types of organisational culture that Handy came up with, extending the views of Harrison. These are: power culture, role culture, task culture and person culture.

 Power culture is power centralised based which are the individuals to follow with business decisions and further changes in the business they are in. Most small organisations utilize power culture counting on communication skills, trust and empathy to make it more operative. Control is at extent and there are a small number of rules regulations to follow.  MD Homes can be easily linked to this culture as the company is structured as if the people in charge do not have much domination but have influences. Instead, the individuals make their actions through agreements for instance, the employees who will be doing different jobs will be allocated but can be done independently not having to gain consent from the supervisor but just making sure that the aim and objectives of the organisation has been met.

Role culture functions by lucidity and consistency .It gains strength from the resilient organisational ‘pillars’ which are the specialist’s functions an example of this would be finance and production. These pillars are regulated by rules and processes which then are synchronised by a small cluster of senior managers. Position of each individual is more important than the central source of power in role culture. Large supermarkets such as Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s are examples of role culture as they aim to make profit and they stick to what has been given to them in their job description.

Task culture is focused on the job and the scheme itself. Its structure can be likened as a net which contains strands that can be stronger compared to others with contemplating power. Matrix organisation is an example of task culture. Its main purpose is to pursue to combine the accurate resources and people to merge the power of the group and for it to be employed to the organisation. The power is more founded from on a professional power rather than a personal power. Matrix organisation can be an example of a task culture as their approach is team based in order to complete a task.

With Personal culture, the individual is the focal point which has a structure that assists the individuals within the organisation. When the group of individuals agree with one action such as approving to share office space and equipment for their own use, this organisation has a person culture. Power hierarchies and domination are viable with shared consensus. Individuals have mostly their own fully independency and influences possibly coming from the centre of personal power. Universities and charities are examples of personal culture as they focus on their aims and the individual itself.

There are other influences that can be a problem on identifying the culture of a business based on Handy’s ideas such as history, primary function and technology, size, location, management and leadership and the environment. History is the motive wherein the establishment was initially started, its phases and the viewpoint and morals of its proprietors and managers will distress culture of an organisation. In addition to this, size likewise has an effect on the organisational culture as generally grander establishments have further solemn arrangements and cultures. Enlarged size is to be expected to be an outcome in detached divisions and perhaps split -site actions. The environment can have significant effect on the character of company’s culture .For instance if the organisation functions in the interior of a self-motivated setting it entails an organisation and culture that are subtle and freely compliant to variation.

In conclusion, each organisation ought to possess distinctive culture and utmost businesses are expected to have assorted cultures from Handy’s ideas in varying types of organisation. Various people have their own needs and are happy in different cultures therefore they will be more enthusiastic with work if their traits and behaviours are reliable with the culture of that portion of the organisation in which they are employed. Also, to define the exact culture of a business, further investigation to the organisation needs to be made.

References :

Mullins, L.(2010) Management & organisational Behaviour : ninth edition. Harlow : Pearson Education Limited.

Becker,K.(1999)Culture and International Business.USA:International Business Press.

Singh,S.(2004)Market orientation,Corporate Culture and Business Performance.England: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

E-Coach. (2011)Corporate Culture: Achieving Higher Results Through Sustaining Employees' Focus on What to do and How to do it [online]. Available from: http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/culture_corporate.html [Accessed on 14 December 2010]

Learn Management 2.Organisational Culture [online].http://www.learnmanagement2.com/culture.htm[ Accessed on 14 December 2010]