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Cultural Change

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Cultural Change
Organization Culture And Change

Organizational culture – a popular but also a very complex concept – has been identified as an influential factor affecting the successes and failures of organizational change efforts. Organizational culture could be looked at as the pattern of shared valued, beliefs and assumptions considered being the appropriate way to think and act within an organization (Schneider, 1985). In other words, culture: the pattern of shared values, beliefs and assumptions considered to be the appropriate way to think and act within an organization. – Culture is shared – Culture helps members solve problems – Culture is taught to newcomers – Culture strongly influences behavior
Generally, this shared culture is invisible to the employees and their interpretations are viewed as something unique to the individual—their personal opinions. People tend to surround themselves with others of like opinions and values, thus reinforcing their common beliefs and expectations.

Where does organization culture come from? It comes from the Organization founder, vision and mission statement, past practices, Top management attitude and behavior and through socialization - the process that helps employees adapt to the organization’s culture more quickly and effectively.

People/ Employees of the organization learn culture through stories, narratives of significant events or actions of people that convey the spirit of the organization, rituals, repetitive sequences of activities that express and reinforce the values of the organization, material symbols, physical assets distinguishing the organization, language, acronyms and jargon of terms, phrases, and word meanings specific to an organization.

Keeling (1981, p.58), who offers that culture refers to an individual’s “theory of what his fellows know, believe and mean, his theory of the code being followed, the game being played, in the society into which he was born”. In a similar



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