Definition
Organisation Culture is the structure of understanding of behaviour of a large group with same values, beliefs, attitude and expectations. It also includes the behaviour of group of people about what they think, say, do, and also they believes such as religion, language, and attitudes that compose a persistent perspective for everything we carry out and believe in an organisation (Hofstede G. 1997).
Co-Operative
There are many Organisations that have visible aspects of culture in their organisation, but I have chosen Co-Operative, as I believe that they are also one of the largest mutual leading retailers in the United Kingdom. The Co-Operative has got many visible aspects of culture such as their uniform which represents their organisations and in addition to their logo, which shows out in the public and is being recognized. Being part of the Membership with the Co-Operative is also a visible factor as the customer are always being reminded about excellent customer servicers over and above the unique products and services they offer to them. They also produce their own products and services, which is a major visible factor as it makes the organisation stand out its uniqueness. These are the main visible aspects, which I was able to find out about the organisation.
Handy Theory
Handy came up with four different types of organisational culture which include:
§ Power Culture- This culture describes an individual being a central power, whereas the individual has to follow with business decisions. Usually power cultures exist in small firms, where they would have less rules and regulation to follow, because they rely on communication skills, trust and also empathy to make it effective. For the individual who will be responsible and who will be the central power, wouldn’t have any difficulties as there wouldn’t be anyone to have a disagreement with any decisions they make. Nevertheless it can de-motivate some staff as they wouldn’t want to work under their condition.
§ Role Culture- This is different to the culture above as it has many rules to be obeyed within the organisation. Organisation that work in a role culture feel truly and have the hope that their product or services is the most excellent. Each employee of an organisation would also have different roles, as a result each individual would be working and concentrating in their task, as time goes by they would be more experienced in a certain task. These sorts of Cultures would be used in larger firms.
§ Task Culture- in Task cultures the employees as individual or as a team would have a deadline to complete a given task in a certain area. This culture applies where some firms work or have to complete a project on a given date. This could apply in organisation such as Accountancy firm, for which they would have to finish the Taxation in a year within a date.
§ Peron Culture- This type of Culture mostly in firms or organisation where they are self employed, whereas they can make their own decision such as when they would like to work and how many hours they wish to work. This could be business such as charity where they wouldn’t make any sort of profit, but are the centre of the business.
Problems of trying to classify Culture
Nevertheless organisations and business have their own unique way of representing cultures and don’t have to follow Handy’s term. There are many more cultures that organisations use such as environment, leadership, technology, etc. Therefore it is difficult to apply these cultures into an organisation and to differentiate. This depends on an individual regarding to their job role. If for example salesman or sales assistant working at Tesco’s would like to work as an individual being a central power, which wouldn’t work out as the Power Culture can’t be applied on his case. Whereas he likes working in groups or team in certain sections or shifts, the Task culture could be applied for him.
Therefore it is difficult to just distinguish between those four types of cultures mentioned above.
Conclusion
However, I believe Culture is very important within an organisation, but having only four types of culture is very difficult to choose or even apply them on certain organisation as they might not apply at all. If other cultures make any organisation successful, it is important they work towards it, because it has got a huge effect on the decision making, motivating, etc. From the culture Lecture and now the Report research I have made, it brought a wider idea of how culture is being applied in organisations, which will help me with my future plans and career.
Reference:
Co-operative Group Limited. (online). Our Business. Available: http://www.co-operative.coop/corporate/aboutus/ourbusinesses/. Lasy accessed 7th Jan 2011
Hofstede, G. (1997). Cultures and Organizations. Available: http://www.tamu.edu/classes/cosc/choudhury/culture.html. Last accessed 6th Jan 2011
Lindsay Sherwin. (2009). Culture - Handy. Available: http://www.lindsay-sherwin.co.uk/guide_managing_change/html_overview/05_culture_handy.htm. Last accessed 6th Jan 2011
Good blog
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