People and Organizations: Principles and Practice in Global Context, Lecture 9


How it affects Norms to the organizational culture


Employees behavior is highly affected the organizational culture. Organizational or corporate culture is a set of values, norms, beliefs, attitude, and assumptions which are not articulated but shape the way to the people in the organization, which uses to get things done and behave in the organization (Armstrong, 2009)

According to Furnham and Gunter, (1993)  had defined four culture characteristics. Culture is
  • Difficult to define
  • Multi-Dimensional
  • Not dynamic and ever-changing
  • Takes time to established, that is the reason to change a culture it takes time


Organization culture represents a “social glue” and it generates “we-feeling” among the employees. And it offers a shared system of meanings, which is the basis for communication and helps to improve mutual understanding.
If these communications and mutual understanding not filled for a satisfactory level, the culture will hit on a reduction in an organization’s efficiency (Furnham and Gunter,  1993).

Organizational culture can be categorized by,
  • Values – what is best for the organization which recognized at the top level and it goes throughout the organization (value-set)
  • Norms – unwritten rules or behavior
  • Artifacts – working environment, how it uses tone and language on emails and letters, how people address each other
  • Management style – Charismatic / non-charismatic, autocratic/democratic, enabler/ controller, Transactional/ Transformational

As highlighted, norms are the unwritten rules or behavior and it tells people how to be doing, saying, believing and wearing anything in the organization. These things will never expressed in writing but by the word of mouth or by the behavior.

There are typical norms in the organization and those are affected in many ways. Let's discuss some of norms being used in organizations.

  • How managers treat the members – some organizations try to have an edge by managers over the employees, but it is not healthy for the organization, some have open-door concepts but they are really difficult to meet the top managers to employees.
  • Work ethics – some organizations expect people to “come early, stay late” and “work hard, pay hard” concepts, which will deteriorate the work-life balance of the people and decrease the engagement of the people towards organization.
  • Politics – this is existing in most the organizations which most of the time, it treated as normal behaviour, which will demoralize most of the employees.
  • Anger – some organizations its openly expressed and some do it hidden and some are expressed through others and political way.
  • Formality – formal approach is the norm, but some organizations use one dress code to every member from top management to bottom. MAS Holdings is using this concept and even the chairmen wear the same Tshirt as all other employees.

We can see that norms are being used in the organizations, Here is a video about corporate culture and how its impact on the organization and customers.



References

Armstrong, M., 2009. Armstrong's handbook of human resource Practice. 11th ed. London: Kogan Page.

Furnham, A. a. G., 1993. Corporate Assement. auditing a company's personality. London: Routledge Revivals.

Comments

  1. JinendranSeptember 24, 2019 at 8:28 PM

    As per Furnham and Gunter it is difficult to define culture and agree that culture creates mutual understanding. Also there are many unwritten rules in each and every organization and by their culture we can identify the organization. You have mentioned about politic affects and we have experienced it in our organizations, what about politic effect in MAS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AchalaSeptember 24, 2019 at 9:57 PM

      Thanks Jinendran for valuable comments, yes politics is a norm for every organization. If it helps to grow people or organization i think politics is good. But this is works on other way. I think if the leader not bother about bad politics, people in the organization benifits in a big way. This is what happens in MAS, we have mostly good politics. Thanks

      Delete
  2. Malitha Eranga FernandoSeptember 30, 2019 at 6:47 AM

    Nice flow. Agreed with you. Evey organization has their own culture & it's offer unmatched support for take competitive advantage in the dynamic business environment.
    Thanks for sharing

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AchalaOctober 5, 2019 at 9:15 PM

      Thanks Malitha for your valuable comments .

      Delete
  3. Malitha Eranga FernandoSeptember 30, 2019 at 6:58 AM

    Nice arrangement. I agreed with you.
    Organizations culture is very important factor for take competitive advantage by
    differentiate the business in dynamics business environment.
    Thanks for sharing

    ReplyDelete
  4. Malintha GannileSeptember 30, 2019 at 3:25 PM

    Interesting article , nicely explained , thanks for sharing this.

    ReplyDelete
  5. NamilaOctober 1, 2019 at 11:50 PM

    Interesting article , nicely explained about organizational culture. nice work

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wasantha ArunasiriOctober 5, 2019 at 8:14 AM

    Interesting article , nicely explained about organizational culture. thanks share your knowledge in this blog. good luck.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AchalaOctober 5, 2019 at 9:17 PM

      Thanks Wasantha for your valuable comments.

      Delete
  7. Jehan RahimanOctober 5, 2019 at 9:03 PM

    Organizational values plays a vital role when creating a strong healthy culture. Living with the values will create a culture where all employees will understand. Nice work Achala.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Upendra BatagallaOctober 12, 2019 at 9:41 AM

    Good blog Achala. Culture includes the system of attitudes about work, values, beliefs, underlying norms present in the organisation.Also an organisational culture which expresses the values of the organisation in practice is key to drive the organisation forward in support of its mission, vision and strategy.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anupama KankanamgeOctober 12, 2019 at 6:49 PM

    Agree with you that we have to follow norms specially to have smooth operations other than the written set of rule we need to follow. Good one. Improved my knowledge.

    ReplyDelete

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