Organizational Culture and Its Themes

International Journal of Business and Management

December, 2008

Organizational Culture and Its Themes
Shili Sun School of Foreign Languages, Ludong University No.186 Hongqi Middle Road, Zhifu District, Yantai 264025, Shandong Province, China Tel: [phone]
Abstract

E-mail: [e-mail]

As one of the key ‘stable factors’, culture within an organization is playing a critical role in the organization’s everyday operations. Although the culture literature has at times focused on the culture of an organization as shared basic assumptions (Schein, 1985), or as metaphors within organizations (Morgan, 1986, 1997), it is not sufficient to attempt to understand and measure them. This paper explores organizational culture in general, some definitions and implications of organizational culture are reviewed from different perspectives, and Cliffe’s cultural themes are addressed with the use of Scholes’ cultural web and Hofstede’s onion diagram model of organizational culture.
Keywords: Culture, Organizational culture, Cultural themes 1. Organizational culture

Historically, there are numberless definitions about organizational culture, which is defined in many different ways in the literature. Perhaps the most commonly known definition is “the way we do things around here” (Lundy & Cowling, 1996). Organizational culture is manifested in the typical characteristics of the organization, in other words, organizational culture should be regarded as the right way in which things are done or problems should be understood in the organization. It is widely accepted that organizational culture is defined as the deeply rooted values and beliefs that are shared by personnel in an organization. Ogbonna (1992) declaring that organizational cultures are the outcomes of ‘… the interweaving of an individual into a community and the collective programming of the mind that distinguishes members … it is the values, norms, beliefs and customs that an individual holds

References: Andrew Brown. (1995, 1998). Organisational Culture. (2nd ed). Pitman Publishing. pp. 9, 33, 176. Bate, P. (1995). Strategies for Cultural Change. Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. Buchanan, D. & Huczynski, A. (1997). Organisational Behaviour: An Introductory Text. (3rd ed). Prentice Hall. David Campbell, George Stonehouse & Bill Houston. (1999). Business Strategy. Butterworth Heinemann. pp. 47-48. Davis, S.M. (1984). Managing Corporate Culture. Ballinger, Cambridge, MA. Deal, T.E. & Kennedy, A.A. (1982). Corporate Cultures. The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA. Martins, E.C. & Terblanche, F. (2003). Building organizational culture that stimulates creativity and innovation. European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 64-74. Furnham, A. & Gunter, B. (1993). Corporate Assessment: Auditing a Company’s Personality. Routledge, London. Hellriegel, Slocum & Woodman. (2001). Organisational Behavior. (9th ed). South-Western. pp. 523. Hofstede, G. (1984). Cultural Consequences: International Differences in Work Values. Sage, Beverly Hills. Hofstede, G. (1992). Culture and Organisations: Software of the Mind. McGraw Hill, Maidenhead. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s Consequences. Sage, Beverly Hills, CA. Hofstede, G. (1997). Culture and Organisations: Software of the Mind: Intercultural Cooperation and its importance for Survival. McGraw-Hill. Jim Grieves. (2000). Introduction: the origins of organizational development. The Journal of Management Development, Volume 19, Number 5, pp. 345-447. Johnson, G & Scholes, K. (1999). Exploring Corporate Strategy. (5th ed). Prentice Hall. Martins, E.C. (2000). The influence of organizational culture on creativity and innovation in a university library. MLnf dissertation, University of South Africa, Pretoria. Morgan, G. (1986). Images of Organisation. Beverly Hills, Cali.: Sage. Morgan, G. (1997). Images of Organisation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Ogbonna, E. (1992). Managing Organisational Culture: Fantasy or Reality?. Journal of Human Resource Management. Volume 3, Number 2, pp. 42-54. Maull, R., Brown, P. & Cliffe, R. (2001). Organisational culture and quality improvement. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 302-326. Rollinson, Edwards & Broadfield. (1998). Organisational behaviour and analysis. Addison Wesley. pp. 535. Schein, E.H. (1985). Organisational Culture and Leadership. Jossey Bass, San Francisco. Schein, E.H. (1985a). How Culture Forms, Develops and Changes. San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey Bass. pp. 17-43. Schneider, S. C. & Barsoux, J. L. (1997). Managing Across Cultures. Prentice Hall. Williams, A., Dobson, P. & Walters, M. (1994). Changing Culture: New Organisational Approaches. (2nd ed). Cromwell Press, Wiltshire. 141