Corporate Culture

L 2.

Ing. Jiří Šnajdar 2015

L 2. Corporate Culture

An organization´s climate and its culture affect quality of communication in an organization. At the same time, routine daily communication behavior affects the nature of the evolving organizational climate and culture.

Employee reading, writing, and listening skills are imperatives for effective communication in organizations. However, will employees exercise the skills they have if they are led by condescending supervisors.

Horizontal networks are essential for interdepartmental interaction, but will employees use this networks if an organization´s rituals and reward system encourage fierce interdepartmental rivalry.

Ethical discussions are crucial for effective organizational communication.

“Taken together climate and culture have everything to do with what it is like within an organization“ Julie Hay.

The climate of the organization is more crucial than are communication skills or techniques in creating an effective organization.

More important than individual employees´communication skills is the environment within which individual employees interact.

If an organization and all of these employees have excellent communication skills, they can speak, write and listen well, it will matter little if the workplace has an unpleasent atmosphere that discourages interaction.

As significantly, no workshops devoted to improving the communication climate will be meaningful unless the organization´s actual routine communication behavior serves to foster a supportive climate.

What is organizational climate?

Kreps writes that the climate is the internal emotional tone of the organization based on how comfortable organizational members feel with one other and with the organization.

Taguiri defines climate as the relatively enduring quality of the internal enviroment of the organization that is experienced by its members, influences their behaviour, and can be described in terms of the values of a particular set of characteristics of the environment.

The ideal Supportive Climate. ( SCOPE)

Supportiveness – Credibility – Openness – Participatory Decision Making – Emphasis on High Perfomance Goles

Supportiveness. The ideal supportive climate is characterized by respect and constructive evaluation. It means that managers must acknowledge the human needs of employees and, without artifice, communicate messages that reflect this awereness.

Credibility, Confidence, and Trust. Employees need to have cofidence and trust in their superiors so that they may approach these managers in order to explain problems, concernes, or make suggestions. Credibility is a significant feature of the supportive climate.

Openness.

Openness in this context means both relaying information openly and being open to approach from emplyees.

Participatory Decision Making. Employees are able meaningfully to contribute to the decision-making proces, the climate tends to be more supportive.This does not mean that management must relinquish decision-making powers. The idea is to, legitimately, include employees and, genuinely, consider their contributions.

Emphasis on High Performance Goals. Therefore, an attitude of we will accept nothing but excellence will resonate with workers assuming all other factors for a supportive climate are in place.

Relaxed environments may work, but an organization must emphasize that the company exists in order to achieve and excel.

A genuinely supportive climate can facilitate effective communication in organization.

Organizational Culture

We can say that organizational culture is concerned with the belief and value system of that organization. This value system is passed along to the employees when they begin work and continue to be socialized at work. Employees learn the culture by becoming aquainted with organizational heroes, rites, rituals, and slogans, as they meet with company storytellers who spread the mythology of the organization.

The mythology of the organization describes the attitudes, manners, goals, and credos that serve as foundational points supporting how and why a company operates as it does.

Distinction Between Climate and Culture. The organizational contains the roote value system that create the organizational climate.

Culture relates to underlying values and assumptions, where as climate reflects manifestation of those undrelying values and assumptions.

Therefore the culture affects the climate. Since participatory decision making is a criterion for ideal supportive climates, the cultural credo that „the boss is always right“ is likely to negatively affect climate conditions.

Assimilation, Socialization, and Identification.

Jablin describes organizational assimilation as the processes by which individuals join, become integrated into, and exit the organization.

The terms of assimilation, socialization, and identification all relate to organizational culture and communication. Organizational assimilation requires socialization and will affect levels of organizational identification.

Organizational socialization is a very similar concept.

It has been defined as the processes by which people learn values, norms, and required behaviors which permit to participate as members of the organization.

If an organization can be viewed as a mini society then organizational socialization refers to the proceses by which members of that organization learn about culture of that society.

Organizational Identification refers to the extent to which individuals identify with the organization in terms of its values and goels.

It is perhaps to note that persons who have low levels of organizational identification would seek to work in another organization or at least work less passionately than who respond positively to the organization´s culture and identify with it.

Embeding and Transmitting Culture.

Edgar Schein has written books about communicative mechanisms that serve to embed cultural values and assumtions.

Organizational Culture and Leadership,

Organizational Dynamics. Schein specify several of these mechanisms.

• Formal statements of organizational philosophy. This includes mission statements, codes of ethics, position papers, advertising policy, hiring policy, and reports are generated by the organization.

• Deliberate coaching and modeling by leaders.

• Promotion and salary inkrement criteria. Communications that explain the rules that govern advancement in the organization.

• Responses to crises.

• Organizational structure.

• Design of physical spaces. This referes to the look of work place, how it is furneshed, where is located…etc.

• Focus of attention.

• Storytelling and legends.

Manufacturing Culture.

Any attempt to cultivate supportive climates must be funded on the implicit recognition that the elements needed for supportive climates are mulifaceted, variable and even capricious.

Constitutive Communication and Emergent Culture.

„Communication and Organizational Cultures“ , culture is the residual of communication proceses within the company. Communication behavior by all members of the organization, on formal and informal networks, ralated to task-specific activities or social activities, by executives and relative peons - actually constitutes what becomes the culture.

These constituting communicative behaviors are affected by the culture, but the evolution of what becomes the culture is not independent of communication behavior, it is the residual amalgam of routine daily communication.

Foundamental points: Credibility, Leadership, and Perspective.

Organizational credibility is essential. The absence of credibility has a corrosive effect on the evolving organization culture.

In essence, the best and only advice to those who wish to earn a reputation for credibility is simple. Be credible.

As Mark Twain rmarked: „When in doubt, tell the truth. You all amaze some and astonish the rest.“

The Importance of Leadership.

In every unit in every organization, the leaders are in a position to support or retard the flow of information.

The individual departmental climates that effect communication within each unit will also influence interaction between departments, and consequently will affect the overal quality of communication in the organization.