ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

INTRODUCTION:Culture is consistent, observable patterns of behavior in organizations.Aristotle said, We are what we repeatedly do. This view elevates repeated behavior or habits as the core of culture and deemphasizes what people feel, think or believe. It also focuses our attention on the forces that shape behavior in organizations, and so highlights an important question: are all those forces (including structure, processes, and incentives) culture or is culture simply the behavioral outputs?Culture is powerfully shaped by incentives. The best predictor of what people will do is what they are incentivized to do. By incentives, we mean here the full set of incentives monetary rewards, non-monetary rewards such as status, recognition and advancement, and sanctions to which members of the organization are subject. But where do incentives come from? As with the previous definition, there are potential chicken-and-egg issues. Are patterns of behavior the product of incentives, or have incentives been shaped in fundamental ways by beliefs and values that underpin the culture?Culture is a process of sense-making in organizations.sense- making has been defined as a collaborative process of creating shared awareness and understanding out of different individuals perspectives and varied interests. Note that this moves the definition of culture beyond patterns of behavior into the realm of jointly-held beliefs and interpretations about what is. It says that a crucial purpose of culture is to help orient its members to reality in ways that provide a basis for alignment of purpose and shared action.Organizational culture is the sum of values and rituals which serve as glue to integrate the members of the organization. Richard PerrinCulture is a carrier of meaning. Cultures provide not only a shared view of what is but also of why is. In this view, culture is about the story in which people in the organization are embedded, and the values and rituals that reinforce that narrative. It also focuses attention on the importance of symbols and the need to understand them including the idiosyncratic languages used in organizations in order to understand culture.Organizational culture is civilization in the workplace. Alan AdlerCulture is a social control system. Here the focus is the role of culture in promoting and reinforcing right thinking and behaving, and sanctioning wrong thinking and behaving. Key in this definition of culture is the idea of behavioral norms that must be upheld, and associated social sanctions that are imposed on those who dont stay within the lines. This view also focuses attention on how the evolution of the organization shaped the culture. That is, how have the existing norms promoted the survival of the organization in the past? Note: implicit in this evolutionary view is the idea that established cultures can become impediments to survival when there are substantial environmental changes.Culture is the organizations immune system. Michael WatkinsCulture is a form of protection that has evolved from situational pressures. It prevents wrong thinking and wrong people from entering the organization in the first place. It says that organizational culture functions much like the human immune system in preventing viruses and bacteria from taking hold and damaging the body. The problem, of course, is that organizational immune systems also can attack agents ofneededchange, and this has important implications for on-boarding and integrating people into organizations.In the discussion, there were also some important observations pushing against the view of culture as something that it is unitary and static, and toward a view that cultures are multiple, overlapping, and dynamic.Organizational culture [is shaped by] the main culture of the society we live in, albeit with greater emphasis on particular parts of it. Elizabeth SkringarOrganizational culture is shaped by and overlaps with other cultures especially the broader culture of the societies in which it operates. This observation highlights the challenges that global organizations face in establishing and maintaining a unified culture when operating in the context of multiple national, regional and local cultures. How should leaders strike the right balance between promoting one culture in the organization, while still allowing for influences of local cultures?It over simplifies the situation in large organizations to assume there is only one culture and its risky for new leaders to ignore the sub-cultures. Rolf WinklerThe cultures of organizations are never monolithic. There are many factors that drive internal variations in the culture of business functions (e.g. finance vs. marketing) and units (e.g. a fast-moving consumer products division vs. a pharmaceuticals division of a diversified firm). A companys history of acquisition also figures importantly in defining its culture and sub-cultures. Depending on how acquisition and integration are managed, the legacy cultures of acquired units can persist for surprisingly long periods of time.An organization [is] a living culture that can adapt to the reality as fast as possible. Abdi Osman JamaFinally, cultures are dynamic. They shift, incrementally and constantly, in response to external and internal changes. So, trying to assess organizational culture is complicated by the reality that you are trying to hit a moving target. But it also opens the possibility that culture change can be managed as a continuous process rather than through big shifts (often in response to crises). Likewise, it highlights the idea that a stable destination may never indeed should never be reached. The culture of the organization should always be learning and developing.These perspectives provide the kind of holistic, nuanced view of organizational culture that is needed by leaders in order to truly understand their organizations and to have any hope of changing them for the better.DEFENATION : Organizational culture refers to the philosophies, attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and practices that define an organization. The organizational culture may reflect characteristics that differentiate one company from another, ranging from internal policies and procedures to public relations and customer interactions. Organizational culture influences the day-to-day experience of employees as well as the public perception of a company. A companys culture is often closely related to its brand image, with each reinforcing and informing the other.

Before we get into the specific details of the different types of cultures, there are two overarching models that companies will fall into, strong culture and weak culture. In a strong culture, employees have a sense of empowerment and understanding of the company goals, regulations and philosophy. This kind of culture allows employees to be driven and feel respected which benefits the overall health of a company. In a weak organizational culture, employees are lost, unmotivated and operate under a regime of fear. Fear may motivate individuals but not for long and for all of the wrong reasons. Employees should never feel like they will be wrongly reprimanded for making mistakes or needing a little extra guidance. Having trouble disciplining your employees? Dont get crazy on them for minor oversights, in Employe disciplinyou can learn all the right tricks for dealing with confrontation. Alright, now lets explore some organizational culture archetypes.

TYPES OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE Academy CultureThe name says it all. Academy culture depends on employees who are highly skilled, studious and welcome further training and advancement. This type of work place environment thrives off of intense training for employees being brought on board and ongoing training for the employees already there. Organizations that choose to follow this culture are very particular about who they hire, their existing skill sets and their willingness to learn and grow. This format of management keeps turn-over rates low and the employees eager to do their job to the best of their ability. Many hospitals, universities and other educational institutions rely on academy culture to stay up to date on the newest information and technology. Normative CultureThis is your everyday corporate workplace. Normative culture is very cut and dry, following strict regulations and guidelines that uphold the policies of the organization. Employees rarely deviate from their specific job role, break rules or do anything other than what is asked of them. These type of organizations run a tight ship and are not suited for every type of employee. Know anything about The Carrot, The Whip or The Plant? These are object-oriented approaches to motivating your employees. Learn more about these techniques and others in motivating employee Pragmatic CultureYou know that sayingthe customer is always right? Well, that is the first and only rule of a pragmatic culture workplace. The customer or client comes before anything or anyone else. Because every customer is different, these type of work places are very opposite of the normative culture environment as employees dont adhere to strict rules. Whatever the customer wants, the customer gets (within reason, of course).

Club CultureNothing but the best. This type of culture requires employees to be very skilled and competent in their niche of work. Educational qualifications, prior work experience and even personal interests are taken into consideration before an employee is hired. (Learneffective hiring method if your organization follows club culture.) Club culture can be seen in organizations like the FBI, commercial pilots and specialty branches of the military. The hiring process can be pretty intense for these work environments, requiring multiple interviews, a stellar resume (and references to back it up), background checks and so on. The upside of being a part of a club culture is your hard work will pay off. These types of employers often reward hard work with promotions but with that are frequent appraisals of your work and role within the company. Baseball Team CultureThis could be the best type of organizational culture from an employees stand point. Remember how pragmatic culture focuses on the customers? Well, baseball team environments say its all about the employees. As long as the workers are happy, comfortable and feel respected, the work will get done and the employees will want to stick with the company for the long haul. Google is a good example of a baseball team culture, the employees get to pretty much do what they want, soup up their offices with whatever makes them feel creative and its on the company dime. Company outings are a regular thing, social events within the office and incentives are a big component of this type of culture. Sounds good, right? Fortress CultureContrary to baseball culture, fortress culture could be the worst (or the best if youre really good at what you do) for employees. This type environment is all about the numbers. If the organization is doing well as a result of the employees productivity then the employees continue to have a job. If the organization begins to see a downfall in success then the individuals that arent pulling their weight are terminated. An example of a company that follows this structure is WorldStrides and more specifically their sales department. Salespeople have a very important job to do, they seek out business, secure business and retain business. If a salesperson is not fulfilling their quota or cannot meet the demands of the department then the company will replace them in hopes of a better outcome with someone else. Another downside to this type of work culture is the time and money invested in training these employees. With such a high termination rate these companies will hire a new set of people and be forced to train them only to find out they cannot stay up to speed. However, if you are good at what you do you will often be praised and will not have to worry about job security. Tough Guy CultureTough guy culture is basically another way of saying micro-management. Employees are monitored every step of the way and when something does not meet the standards or expectations of the company the employee is given guidance and monitored further. It can be a tough (hence the name) environment for some to work in especially if you are independent and have a creative mind. An example of this would be in a customer service role. Most companies have scripts that customer service representatives must follow when answering calls in a call center. If you stray from the script at all, even just a word, it can mean the difference between being in good standing with management or bad. Calls are often recorded for quality assurance and the employees will be reviewed consistently to ensure that they are following the protocol. Sometimes these cultures follow the three-strikes-youre-out practice in which you can be terminated if you do not act on any corrections provided to you during your review. Its hard to be watched all the time but these type of companies just want to ensure consistency and commitment to their customers and they need employees that can be shaped to do just that. Performance reviews can be tricky, try not to intimidate your employees, instead find tactful ways to say what you need to say inperformance evaluvation Process CultureThis type of office culture provides a set of regulations and procedures that the employees follow. Its different than the normative culture as the regulations are not a bullet-pointed list of dos and donts so much as it is an ideology that the employees adhere to. Employees know what they are getting into when they sign-up and are often self-starters. Unlike tough guy culture, these employees are not micro-managed and they rarely are given performance reviews. If they are given reviews its annually and its to assess their work on a large scale, their aspirations within the company and potentially a discussion about salary. More often than not, government agencies run operate under the process culture.

CHARACTERSTICS OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTUREDimensions of CultureWhich values characterize an organizations culture? Even though culture may not be immediately observable, identifying a set of values that might be used to describe an organizations culture helps us identify, measure, and manage culture more effectively. For this purpose, several researchers have proposed various culture typologies. One typology that has received a lot of research attention is theorganizational culture profile(OCP), in which culture is represented by seven distinct values.We will describe the OCP as well as two additional dimensions of organizational culture that are not represented in that framework but are important dimensions to consider: service culture and safety culture.

Source: Adapted from information in OReilly, C. A., III, Chatman, J. A., & Caldwell, D. F. (1991). People and organizational culture: A profile comparison approach to assessing person-organization fit.Academy of Management Journal,34, 487516.Innovative CulturesAccording to the OCP framework, companies that haveinnovative culturesare flexible and adaptable, and experiment with new ideas. These companies are characterized by a flat hierarchy in which titles and other status distinctions tend to be downplayed. For example, W. L. Gore & Associates Inc. is a company with innovative products such as GORE-TEX (the breathable fabric that is windproof and waterproof), Glide dental floss, and Elixir guitar strings, earning the company the distinction of being elected as the most innovative company in the United States byFast Companymagazine in 2004. W. L. Gore consistently manages to innovate and capture the majority of market share in a wide variety of industries, in large part due to its unique culture. In this company, employees do not have bosses in the traditional sense, and risk taking is encouraged by celebrating failures as well as successes. Companies such as W. L. Gore, Genentech Inc., and Google also encourage their employees to take risks by allowing engineers to devote 20% of their time to projects of their own choosing. Aggressive Cultures

Companies withaggressive culturesvalue competitiveness and outperforming competitors: By emphasizing this, they may fall short in the area of corporate social responsibility. For example, Microsoft Corporation is often identified as a company with an aggressive culture. The company has faced a number of antitrust lawsuits and disputes with competitors over the years. In aggressive companies, people may use language such as We will kill our competition. In the past, Microsoft executives often made statements such as We are going to cut off Netscapes air supply.Everything they are selling, we are going to give away. Its aggressive culture is cited as a reason for getting into new legal troubles before old ones are resolved.Recently, Microsoft founder Bill Gates established the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation and is planning to devote his time to reducing poverty around the world. It will be interesting to see whether he will bring the same competitive approach to the world of philanthropy.Outcome-Oriented CulturesThe OCP framework describesoutcome-oriented culturesas those that emphasize achievement, results, and action as important values. A good example of an outcome-oriented culture may be Best Buy Co. Inc. Having a culture emphasizing sales performance, Best Buy tallies revenues and other relevant figures daily by department. Employees are trained and mentored to sell company products effectively, and they learn how much money their department made every day. In 2005, the company implemented a results oriented work environment (ROWE) program that allows employees to work anywhere and anytime; they are evaluated based on results and fulfillment of clearly outlined objectives. Outcome-oriented cultures hold employees as well as managers accountable for success and utilize systems that reward employee and group output. In these companies, it is more common to see rewards tied to performance indicators as opposed to seniority or loyalty. Research indicates that organizations that have a performance-oriented culture tend to outperform companies that are lacking such a culture. At the same time, some outcome-oriented companies may have such a high drive for outcomes and measurable performance objectives that they may suffer negative consequences. Companies overrewarding employee performance such as Enron Corporation and WorldCom experienced well-publicized business and ethical failures. When performance pressures lead to a culture where unethical behaviors become the norm, individuals see their peers as rivals and short-term results are rewarded; the resulting unhealthy work environment serves as a liability. Stable CulturesStable culturesare predictable, rule-oriented, and bureaucratic. These organizations aim to coordinate and align individual effort for greatest levels of efficiency. When the environment is stable and certain, these cultures may help the organization be effective by providing stable and constant levels of output.]These cultures prevent quick action, and as a result may be a misfit to a changing and dynamic environment. Public sector institutions may be viewed as stable cultures. In the private sector, Kraft Foods Inc. is an example of a company with centralized decision making and rule orientation that suffered as a result of the culture-environment mismatch.Its bureaucratic culture is blamed for killing good ideas in early stages and preventing the company from innovating. When the company started a change program to increase the agility of its culture, one of their first actions was to fight bureaucracy with more bureaucracy: They created the new position of VP of business process simplification, which was later eliminated. People-Oriented CulturesPeople-oriented culturesvalue fairness, supportiveness, and respect for individual rights. These organizations truly live the mantra that people are their greatest asset. In addition to having fair procedures and management styles, these companies create an atmosphere where work is fun and employees do not feel required to choose between work and other aspects of their lives. In these organizations, there is a greater emphasis on and expectation of treating people with respect and dignity. One study of new employees in accounting companies found that employees, on average, stayed 14 months longer in companies with people-oriented cultures.Starbucks Corporation is an example of a people-oriented culture. The company pays employees above minimum wage, offers health care and tuition reimbursement benefits to its part-time as well as full-time employees, and has creative perks such as weekly free coffee for all associates. As a result of these policies, the company benefits from a turnover rate lower than the industry average. The company is routinely ranked as one of the best places to work byFortunemagazine.Team-Oriented CulturesCompanies withteam-oriented culturesare collaborative and emphasize cooperation among employees. For example, Southwest Airlines Company facilitates a team-oriented culture by cross-training its employees so that they are capable of helping each other when needed. The company also places emphasis on training intact work teams.Employees participate in twice daily meetings named morning overview meetings (MOM) and daily afternoon discussions (DAD) where they collaborate to understand sources of problems and determine future courses of action. In Southwests selection system, applicants who are not viewed as team players are not hired as employees.In team-oriented organizations, members tend to have more positive relationships with their coworkers and particularly with their managers. Detail-Oriented CulturesOrganizations withdetail-oriented culturesare characterized in the OCP framework as emphasizing precision and paying attention to details. Such a culture gives a competitive advantage to companies in the hospitality industry by helping them differentiate themselves from others. For example, Four Seasons Hotels Ltd. and the Ritz-Carlton Company LLC are among hotels who keep records of all customer requests, such as which newspaper the guest prefers or what type of pillow the customer uses. This information is put into a computer system and used to provide better service to returning customers. Any requests hotel employees receive, as well as overhear, might be entered into the database to serve customers better. Recent guests to Four Seasons Paris who were celebrating their 21st anniversary were greeted with a bouquet of 21 roses on their bed. Such clear attention to detail is an effective way of impressing customers and ensuring repeat visits. McDonalds Corporation is another company that specifies in detail how employees should perform their jobs by including photos of exactly how French fries and hamburgers should look when prepared properly. Service CultureService cultureis not one of the dimensions of OCP, but given the importance of the retail industry in the overall economy, having a service culture can make or break an organization. Some of the organizations we have illustrated in this section, such as Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, Ritz-Carlton, and Four Seasons are also famous for their service culture. In these organizations, employees are trained to serve the customer well, and cross-training is the norm. Employees are empowered to resolve customer problems in ways they see fit. Because employees with direct customer contact are in the best position to resolve any issues, employee empowerment is truly valued in these companies. For example, Umpqua Bank, operating in the northwestern United States, is known for its service culture. All employees are trained in all tasks to enable any employee to help customers when needed. Branch employees may come up with unique ways in which they serve customers better, such as opening their lobby for community events or keeping bowls full of water for customers pets. The branches feature coffee for customers, Internet kiosks, and withdrawn funds are given on a tray along with a piece of chocolate. They also reward employee service performance through bonuses and incentives. What differentiates companies with service culture from those without such a culture may be the desire to solve customer-related problems proactively. In other words, in these cultures employees are engaged in their jobs and personally invested in improving customer experience such that they identify issues and come up with solutions without necessarily being told what to do. For example, a British Airways baggage handler noticed that first-class passengers were waiting a long time for their baggage, whereas stand-by passengers often received their luggage first. Noticing this tendency, a baggage handler notified his superiors about this problem, along with the suggestion to load first-class passenger luggage last.This solution was successful in cutting down the wait time by half. Such proactive behavior on the part of employees who share company values is likely to emerge frequently in companies with a service culture.

The growth in the number of passengers flying with Southwest Airlines from 1973 until 2007. In 2007, Southwest surpassed American Airlines as the most flown domestic airline. While price has played a role in this, their emphasis on service has been a key piece of their culture and competitive advantage.Safety CultureSome jobs are safety sensitive. For example, logger, aircraft pilot, fishing worker, steel worker, and roofer are among the top ten most dangerous jobs in the United States.In organizations where safety-sensitive jobs are performed, creating and maintaining asafety cultureprovides a competitive advantage, because the organization can reduce accidents, maintain high levels of morale and employee retention, and increase profitability by cutting workers compensation insurance costs. Some companies suffer severe consequences when they are unable to develop such a culture. For example, British Petroleum experienced an explosion in their Texas City, Texas, refinery in 2005, which led to the death of 15 workers while injuring 170. In December 2007, the company announced that it had already depleted the $1.6-billion fund to be used in claims for this explosion.A safety review panel concluded that the development of a safety culture was essential to avoid such occurrences in the future.In companies that have a safety culture, there is a strong commitment to safety starting at management level and trickling down to lower levels. M. B. Herzog Electric Inc. of California, selected as one of Americas safest companies byOccupational Hazardsmagazine in 2007, had a zero accident rate for the past 3 years. The company uses safety training programs tailored to specific jobs within the company, and all employees are encouraged to identify all safety hazards they come across when they are performing their jobs. They are also asked to play the role of an OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) inspector for a day to become more aware of the hidden dangers in the workplace. Managers play a key role in increasing the level of safe behaviors in the workplace, because they can motivate employees day-to-day to demonstrate safe behaviors and act as safety role models. A recent study has shown that in organizations with a safety culture, leaders encourage employees to demonstrate behaviors such as volunteering for safety committees, making recommendations to increase safety, protecting coworkers from hazards, whistleblowing, and in general trying to make their jobs safer. Strength of CultureAstrong cultureis one that is shared by organizational members.In other words, if most employees in the organization show consensus regarding the values of the company, it is possible to talk about the existence of a strong culture. A cultures content is more likely to affect the way employees think and behave when the culture in question is strong. For example, cultural values emphasizing customer service will lead to higher quality customer service if there is widespread agreement among employees on the importance of customer service-related values.

It is important to realize that a strong culture may act as an asset or liability for the organization, depending on the types of values that are shared. For example, imagine a company with a culture that is strongly outcome oriented. If this value system matches the organizational environment, the company outperforms its competitors. On the other hand, a strong outcome-oriented culture coupled with unethical behaviors and an obsession with quantitative performance indicators may be detrimental to an organizations effectiveness. An extreme example of this dysfunctional type of strong culture is Enron.A strong culture may sometimes outperform a weak culture because of the consistency of expectations. In a strong culture, members know what is expected of them, and the culture serves as an effective control mechanism on member behaviors. Research shows that strong cultures lead to more stable corporate performance in stable environments. However, in volatile environments, the advantages of culture strength disappear. One limitation of a strong culture is the difficulty of changing a strong culture. If an organization with widely shared beliefs decides to adopt a different set of values, unlearning the old values and learning the new ones will be a challenge, because employees will need to adopt new ways of thinking, behaving, and responding to critical events. For example, the Home Depot Inc. had a decentralized, autonomous culture where many business decisions were made using gut feeling while ignoring the available data. When Robert Nardelli became CEO of the company in 2000, he decided to change its culture, starting with centralizing many of the decisions that were previously left to individual stores. This initiative met with substantial resistance, and many high-level employees left during his first year. Despite getting financial results such as doubling the sales of the company, many of the changes he made were criticized. He left the company in January 2007. A strong culture may also be a liability during a merger. During mergers and acquisitions, companies inevitably experience a clash of cultures, as well as a clash of structures and operating systems. Culture clash becomes more problematic if both parties have unique and strong cultures. For example, during the merger of Daimler AG with Chrysler Motors LLC to create DaimlerChrysler AG, the differing strong cultures of each company acted as a barrier to effective integration. Daimler had a strong engineering culture that was more hierarchical and emphasized routinely working long hours. Daimler employees were used to being part of an elite organization, evidenced by flying first class on all business trips. On the other hand, Chrysler had a sales culture where employees and managers were used to autonomy, working shorter hours, and adhering to budget limits that meant only the elite flew first class. The different ways of thinking and behaving in these two companies introduced a number of unanticipated problems during the integration process.Differences in culture may be part of the reason that, in the end, the merger didnt work out.

Function of organisational cultureOrganizational cultureis a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs that governs how people behave in organizations. The culture of an organization is difficult to measure or observe, but it performs many important functions within an organization. Let's find out how culture can impact members of an organization.The Sense of IdentityThe first function that organizational culture performs is providing group members with asense of identity. The culture of an organization provides its members with a way to 'define who we are.' Because the culture of every organization is unique, being a part of an organization gives members a sense of identity that is shared only by the people who belong to that organization.Jane was told during her orientation that the number one goal of Carlson's is to delight customers by providing them with the best service possible at all times. When Jane puts on her Carlson's name tag, she feels like she is representing the high value that Carlson's places on customer service. When Jane goes the extra mile to assist a customer, she feels like her efforts match the goals of everyone who works at Carlson's.Definition of BoundariesThe next function that organizational culture performs is that itdefines the boundariesfor members of an organization. These invisible boundaries are the way members of an organization determine 'what makes us different' from other organizations. The culture of an organization gives members of that organization a sense of belonging to the group and a feeling that the organization they belong to is different than any other organization. This sense of belonging is strengthened when members of an organization observe contrary behaviors from members of an opposing organization.When Jane shops at stores other than Carlson's, she always notices the differences between the way things are done at Carlson's and the way they are done other stores. On her last visit to Fink's Department Store, for example, she saw a sales associate standing outside the front of the store talking on his cell phone. Although Carlson's has no written rules against it, Jane has never seen a Carlson's employee take their break anywhere but in the break room. It is understood by members of the Carlson's organization that the only time you should be in the presence of a customer is when you can provide them with assistance.Generation of CommitmentAnother function of organizational culture is that itgenerates commitmentfrom the members of an organization. This causes members of an organization to feel dedication to the group. The unique culture of an organization provides its members with a feeling that they share common goals. Achieving the goals of the organization often becomes a higher priority than the individual goals of group members. This shared feeling of commitment gives group members a reason to perform their tasks at their highest ability.The culture of Carlson's Department Store places a high priority on sales. Before every shift, managers announce the sales goal for the day and then reveal whether or not the previous shift met their sales goal. Jane is aware of the importance of meeting these daily sales goals and is always looking for ways to increase the store's sales for the day. If Jane is helping a customer select an outfit, for example, she will always try to find the customer a pair of shoes to go with it. Jane focuses her efforts on helping the people on her shift meet their sales goal for the day even if it means staying late or working on her day off to cover for a sick coworker.Rules and StandardsThe last function that organizational culture provides to members of an organization is a set of unwrittenrules and standardsthat define the rules of the game to its members. Culture acts as a social glue that helps to hold the organization together by providing appropriate rules and standards that guide group members while they complete tasks for the organization. These rules and standards also function as a control mechanism that rewards acceptable behavior and punishes unacceptable behavior by group members.

OTHER FUNCTIONCULTURE PROMOTES CODE OF CONDUCT:CULTURE PROMOTES CODE OF CONDUCT A strong culture in an organization explicitly communicates accepted modes of behaviour which make the people to be conscious. Promotion of the culture of quality can help to achieve good business results.CULTURE FACILITATES RECOGNITION:CULTURE FACILITATES RECOGNITION Every organization is recognised by its culture. It is a known fact when ever we name an organization we immediately remembers the culture attached to the organization. Organizational culture sets the boundary beyond which employees are not permitted to go. Employees of an organization automatically adopt the cultural limit of their organization. A number of organization are well recognized by the culture.

CULTURE PROVIDES SELF SATISFACTION:CULTURE PROVIDES SELF SATISFACTION Organizational culture enables employee to be satisfied internally. They get internal satisfaction with an esteemed culture..

CULTURE PROVIDES OPPORTUNITY TO SET THE STANDARDS OF PERFORMANCE:CULTURE PROVIDES OPPORTUNITY TO SET THE STANDARDS OF PERFORMANCE Organizational culture provides employees to get an opportunity to set the standards of performance. They try to achieve the standards. It becomes a self control mechanism which helps the organisation to grow and flourish..

CULTURE GUIDES AND CONTROLS THE EMPLOYEES:CULTURE GUIDES AND CONTROLS THE EMPLOYEES Organizational culture acts as a motivator that guides and controls the employees..

CULTURE DIRECTS EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS GOAL ACHIEVEMENT:CULTURE DIRECTS EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS GOAL ACHIEVEMENT A sound culture directs the attitude and behaviour of the employees towards the achievement of goals.

CULTURE MAKES PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT ORIENTED:CULTURE MAKES PEOPLE DEVELOPMENT ORIENTED Organizational culture develops implicit rules which make people oriented. These rules are more effective than explicit rules. Conformity of implicit rules makes the employees developed and self disciplined.

CULTURE DEVELOPS POSITIVE ATTITUDE:CULTURE DEVELOPS POSITIVE ATTITUDE Culture develops a positive attitude and behaviour of employees.. Culture leads to develop a good behaviour and good behaviour makes a good culture..

INFLUENCE OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND STRUCTURE ON PROJECT MANAGEMENTThe differences in project management success rates may be a result of the fact that some organizations do a better job of training their project managers. So they may be more skilled and knowledgeable in the project management discipline. But the way your organization deals with training is just one aspect of your overall organizational culture. A number of big-picture factors influence your ability to deliver projects successfully. Let's look at two of them: culture and structure.

Culture has a huge effect on your success rateYour organization's culture has a lot to do with the success rate of your projects. Keep in mind that I'm talking about projects all throughout your organization, not just about one particular project. The termculturegenerally means how we do things around here. Imagine that someone asks you how successfully your organization delivers projects. If you say, Were pretty poor at delivering projects, youre voicing a perception of one aspect of your culture. Culture comes into play on projects in a number of areas.

Process orientationMany organizations have good processes in place and people generally follow them. This is perhaps the biggest single factor in overall project success. If your organization follows a good, scalable project management process, youre more likely to be consistently successful on your projects. The entire project team generally knows how to create and follow a work plan, and can use standard processes to effectively handle risk, scope change, and issues.

GovernanceMany organizations have processes in place, but no one follows them. This highlights a problem with management governance. In simplistic terms, governance is the management function that has to do with making sure people do what theyre supposed to do. Typically, if your management structure is engaged and interested in projects, and if managers make sure that your project management process is followed, youll be more successful. If every project manager is on his or her own and management support is haphazard, however, youll tend to fail.

TrainingSome organizations do a poor job of training project managers. Typically, these organizations do a poor job of training in general. If project managers generally dont have the right skills (other than from the school of hard knocks), you wont be successful.

Roles and responsibilitiesIn successful organizations, people typically know the role they play on projects and what is expected of them. This includes active sponsors, interested clients, and engaged management stakeholders. The sponsor, for instance, needs to perform a quality assurance role and be the project champion in his or her organization. If your organization starts projects and leaves the project manager in a leadership vacuum, youre not going to be consistently successful.

Culture plays perhaps the biggest role in whether your organization is successful in executing projects. If your organization has difficulty completing projects successfully, you cant blame the project managers. Theyre only toiling within a culture thats not supportive of their efforts. Managers, including the head of the organization, need to step up and evaluate the project culture. Until the culture changes, project managers will consistently struggle to be successful.

Your organizational structure can help or hurt project successTo a lesser degree, your organizational structure can get in the way of, or help support, the overall success of your projects. I say that this is a lesser problem because, to a certain extent, you can change your organizational structure. In fact, you can change the organization chart frequently, and some companies do just that. Culture, on the other hand, is not easily changed. It can take years for a large organization to develop a culture of excellence (although it doesn't take nearly as long to fall back into mediocrity).

Some organizational structures can definitely impair your ability to deliver projects. First are those organizations whose project teams are doing support work. If your project organization does support as well, it usually means that support issues will pop up and take the focus away from the project. A lot of multitasking and thrashing takes place as you move from support work to project work to support work. Its usually very difficult to prepare good estimates and meet your scheduling commitments. You may be forced into this structure if your staff is small. In the last company I worked at, for instance, we had 15 people who worked on support, projects, and enhancements. However, we didnt have enough people to specialize in either support or project work. This made it difficult to meet all of our project commitments. Instead, we had to do a good job of managing expectations.

Your organizational structure may also impede the ability to share resources. For instance, if your project team needs a resource with a specific expertise, you may not be able to easily share that person with another functional area. Some of this is also related to your culture. Ask yourself whether a different organizational structure would help. If it would, you may have an organization problem. If it wouldn't help, your culture is probably not supportive of resource sharing. When I worked for a beverage company, for instance, we went through a period of two years when the management team developed a strong culture of resource sharing between projects. However, with the arrival of a new CIO and new director, resource sharing was discouraged (and punished). So, the culture quickly reverted to resource hoarding.

Step back and see the big pictureA number of organizational factors support or inhibit the ability of your project managers to be successful. Granted,cultureis a broad term, but your organizational culture plays the biggest role in whether youre able to deliver projects successfully. You cant attack a culture of mediocrity (or a culture of failure) one project at a time. You need to address it in a broad and multifaceted way.

Your organizational structure can also help or hinder your success rate. The structure can determine how well you focus on projects and how easy it is to share resources between organizations. If you attack the broader cultural problems, you'll have a positive effect on many of the organizational barriers to success as well.

THE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND EMPLOYEES SATISFACTION

There is a direct link between the organizational culture, employee satisfaction and between customer satisfaction and improved financial performance. Organisation culture represents the internal work environment created for operating an organisation. It represents how employees are treated by their bosses, how peers treat one another (expected treatment),with which vision & motivation an organisation is working internally. Organisation can have democratic culture, bureaucratic culture, sythetical (holistic) culture, learning culture (learning organisations). A learning organisation always encourages new aproaches in operating organisation (with creative/ new ideas). Such organisation may call employess' inspired participation in using new ideas provided by employess as well as management.Organizational culture is a significant driver of employee engagement and includes management designing jobs well, providing support and setting goals for employees. Employee satisfaction is a key attribute of the engaged employee who embodies a high degree of motivation and sense of inspiration, personal involvement and supportiveness.Organizations bring people together. In order to work at their best, people need to be satisfied. The engaged employee is oriented to providing good service and answering customer questions, which gives the customer a voice inside the company. And a customer whose voice is heard inside the company drives profit by being a repeat customer and bringing in new customers by word-of-mouth, which has a high degree of credibility. The given in all this is that a company must start with a solid product.Organizations use incentives to attract and maintain employees. According to Rogers (1995) one of the most crucial factors in organization design is the type of incentives offered to induce contributions. It is imperative that an organization has the ability to inspire individuals to make significant contributions of time, effort and ressources. In addition, the organization must inspire an individuals loyalty to the organization rather in order not to loose the employee in the favour of a competitor.

MEASURING EMPLOYEE SATISFACTION IN AN ORGANIZATION

A working place: factory, company, office, etc., is the place where employee spends one third of his life. Except of delivering immediate means for life, it is the place where he finds friends, life partners, or even more generally, where he forms his life (behaviour) standards. Thus, the technological constraints as well as human relations at the working place strongly affect the private life of people. Therefore, it is essential for a general happiness of the employee that he is satisfied (whatever it means) with his work and his working place. Measuring satisfaction of people is not an easy problem. First, we must propose a measure to express quantitatively the satisfaction. Probably it is not possible to find an absolute measure of satisfaction (except of some very approximate and quantified measures, like: I am satisfied and I am not satisfied. More fruitful can be measuring relative satisfaction, especially in some context, e.g., changes of satisfaction after some action. Moreover, if we detect a state of mind that can be classified as dissatisfaction, we can have problems with identifying real reasons of it. Any chaotic direct studies can disturb situation and false the answer, especially if the reason is sensitive, connected with some political views, religious feelings or interpersonal relations.Satisfaction is fulfilment of a need or desire and the pleasure obtained by such a fulfilment. Satisfaction is a good measure to evaluate personal attitude to the professional activity of enterprises. It also expresses a level of happiness of a person in his professional environment connected with interpersonal relations with colleagues and superiors. Satisfaction is a feeling that is of continuous range. However, to quantify measuring satisfaction, authors of dedicated papers introduce three levels of satisfaction. They are:a. Dissatisfaction (expectations are higher than reality),b. Satisfaction (expectations are fulfilled),c. High satisfaction (reality exceeds expectations).Sometimes such expectations are not expressed explicitly, they are considered as obvious. They are threshold requirements. People realize these conditions only if they are not satisfied.Measuring satisfaction of customers is not an easy problem. There are not completely objective methods as satisfaction itself is not objective. Generally, the existing methods can be classified into two groups: the direct methods and the indirect methods. Each of the group has its own constraints and advantages/disadvantages.The direct methods are mainly based on public opinion poll. Any method of this group is based on conducting a pool among customers, with appropriately prepared questions. An advantage of such methods is that we can obtain exact answers to asked questions, as detailed as we need. Disadvantages are connected with reliability of such methods. Avoiding suggestions in answers needs some camouflage. Anonymity is a very sensitive condition of honest answers: if respondent suspects a possibility of unmasking following with some threat, he can answer according to predicted expectations of an organizer of the pool. Such a situation is in a working place where the employee can expect some restrictions from his employer in a case of undesirable answers. Moreover, the public opinion polls cannot be taken too often. In a case of repeating very similar questions, respondents (being bored) can start answering non-precisely. They can also suspect that the poll is repeated due to some expectations of the organizers (not satisfied in previous polls) and try to adjust answers to the imagined expectations. Costs (personal and material) of taking the polls cannot be neglected as well.Another direct method of apprising humans level of satisfaction is an interview. Such a method is not representative for all employees; however, it reflects individual opinions that can be a basis for wider studies (e.g., can suggest questions for an inquiry). Indirect methods are not classified in details. They are based on observation of humans (customers, employees, etc.) behaviour and, if it is possible, on studying changes of certain parameters obtained from economics registers, market data, insurance companies, banking sector, etc. In a case of factories we can take into account some parameters of production/productivity and absence/accidents of personnel. An obvious advantage of such methods is that measurements can be made permanently, without direct participation of the main objects of the research that is the employees. Disadvantages are connected with needs of specific interpretation of the measured data (detection, if something happens with the level of satisfaction). Some other disadvantage is the fact that such a method does not identify explicitly reasons of satisfaction/dissatisfaction. Here again we need interpretation or supplementary investigations. The examples given in the following sections can clarify this problem.A team from the Institute for Research on Learning (IRL) and Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC) carried out a holistic, system-wide study ("systemic assessment") of one of the business divisions of a Fortune 500 company. The survey form is modularized. An employee first answers a set of demographic questions and then performs a task of ranking 10 factors on their importance in contributing to his or her employee satisfaction. Then all employees receive a core module consisting of 49 questions and subquestions. Employees in each unit also receive a selection of special purpose modules chosen by the management of the unit.Each question can be answered on a 5-point scale. Most of the core and all of the supplementary questions use a scale that ranges across "agree", "tend to agree", "?", "tend to disagree", and "disagree". The instructions inform the respondent to use the "?" category if "you cannot decide about an answer or it doesn't apply to you." Ten questions on the core use a scale that ranges across "very good", "good", "average", "poor", and "very poor" with an explicit "don't know" alternative offered as response #6. Seven additional core questions, including a crucial 'overall satisfaction' question, use a scale that ranges across "very satisfied", "satisfied", "neither", "dissatisfied", and "very dissatisfied". Every one of the agree/disagree questions is stated such that agreement indicates satisfaction.Two indices are constructed: 1) the Immediate Manager's Index (IMI) that averages the percent favorable over 12 questions constructed to deal with work group dynamics and interactions with the manager; and 2) the Overall Satisfaction Index (OSI) that averages the percent satisfied for all the items in the IMI and 6 more questions that mostly apply to broader corporate policies and management.

ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE IN INDIAINTRODUCTION:Indias success in entering and building a strong presence in the information technology and business process outsourcing markets has often been attributed to the fact that a majority of Indias educated workers speak English. This has been characterized as a unique advantage of the Indian economy relative to other low cost areas in Asia, South America, and Eastern Europe. However, language is one of just many factors that shape the corporate culture within a country. Will Indias broader corporate culture become a source of competitive advantage in the way that the widespread ability of Indians to speak English has? This trip provided an ideal opportunity to formulate an opinion on this issue through meetings with leaders from a wide range of industries in both formal and informal settings. These visits and other research indicate that corporate culture does have the potential to become a source of competitive advantage for the Indian economy. There are robust signs of emerging entrepreneurialism, professionalism, and strong governance within Indias corporations. These traits are similar to those that the American economy has exhibited over the last fifty years through rapid company formation, the growth of professional managers, and good (though improving) governance through boards and public shareholders. This contrasts with slower growing European economies where entrepreneurialism has been dampened due to cultural and legal factors and some Asian companies where poor governance has resulted in some large companies with hidden and deep financial problems.

Assessing Corporate Culture and its Historical Context in India

I chose to assess the corporate culture in India from three perspectives: How entrepreneurial are the business leaders within their organizations and how likely are they to become entrepreneurs on their own? This characteristic of Indias business culture will likely determine the rate of innovation and new company information. Historically, while India has had a class of active entrepreneurs, government regulation and bureaucracy has impeded such efforts. In addition, a business that ends in failure and debts often leaves the founders of the business with a permanent stigma. How professional, ethical, and dedicated are employees within organizations? This characteristic will likely influence the ability for Indian companies to compete against multi-national corporations and to enter global markets. Historically, some business people have engaged in bribery and other corruption to advance their businesses due to the pervasive bureaucracy of the Indian government. In addition, many large family conglomerates have traditionally given preference to family members in promotion to key positions. What is the quality of the governance within the organizations? Good governance has been identified as a key driver of economic success by firms such as McKinsey and is likely to be crucial to many Indian firms that have traditionally been family owned and run. Historically, governance in Indian firms has been a mixed bag ranging from tightly controlled family conglomerates to state owned companies with bureaucratic oversight.

Entrepreneurialism in India:The visit to India surfaced many indicators that a strong culture of entrepreneurialism is emerging in India and has the potential to become a source of competitive advantage. First, it was clear that employee mobility is rapidly becoming accepted within India. Companies such as Wipro talked about maintaining employee turnover rates of 20-30% as positive which indicates a mobile workforce that leaves for appropriate opportunities. In addition, executives at companies such as Godrej were not just lifelong Godrej employees, but recent hires as well. Employee mobility is critical to entrepreneurship it means that employees are willing to leave to join new ventures and also that they have the ability to seek employment if the venture fails. The employee mobility is similar to that seen in America, but is different from countries such as Japan or Germany where employees tend to have a longer relationship with their employers. Second, Indian employees from overseas are starting to return to India. I met executives at companies such as GE and Intel who had returned to India after working for a number of years in the U.S. These workers bring capita but more importantly a familiarity with the process of company formation, raising venture capital, and acquiring early customers for new products. Finally, India is a diverse and fragmented market, which makes it challenging to do business in and also creates more opportunities for entrepreneurial activities particularly in areas such as consumer products and services. For example, executives at Godrej talked about the difficulties of distributing and developing products for the very diverse consumer needs across India. This is a challenge for Godrej, but also indicates that local entrepreneurs will have an edge in understanding local needs for certain kinds of products and may be able to compete in some segments against Indian conglomerates and multi-nationals. This is the opposite of markets such as the U.S. where consumer products are fairly standardized across the country and thus the barriers to entry for new consumer products are extremely high.

Professionalism in India:Meetings with a wide range of executives from mid-level managers at Wipro to editors at the Times of India revealed a strong professional class that speaks perfect English, communicates in the international language of Powerpoint, and that appear dedicated to advancing the interests of their organizations. These professionals are aware of global management frameworks and are conscious of the role that their organization can and must play in Indias economic development. My impression was that American executives would feel just as comfortable in an Indian boardroom as they might in a boardroom in the America. This comfort level may be one of the factors explaining the rapid development of research and other facilities by MNCs in India.However, is this apparent professionalism only skin deep? Are Indian corporations truly adopting best practices in managing and promoting employees and in encouraging appropriate employee behavior? There appear to be structural forces that are raising the level of professionalism in India. First, foreign multi-nationals have rapidly become the employer of choice for top graduates from business and engineering schools in India. These multi-nationals are bringing their global human resources practices to India in terms of selecting, developing and advancing employees as well as in their expectations of legal behavior by employees. Labor mobility means that these practices are spreading across Indian businesses. However, more than labor mobility, the market for talent is driving change throughout Indian companies. During out visit to Godrej, the Vice President of Human Resources discussed the value proposition of working for Godrej. He talked about how Godrej offers Indian employees a professional work environment with more latitude than a multi-national corporation may offer. My impression was that his presentation was tailored to answering the question a graduate of Indias top university may ask: Why should I work for a family run conglomerate when I can join GE (or Infosys)? Indias mobile labor markets are requiring all Indian companies to evaluate their management practices to ensure that they have access to the best talent.

Governance in IndiaThe issue of governance and its impact on Indias corporate culture is primarily relevant to Indian companies as multi-national companies have global governance structures. Within India, governance can be considered for three sets of companies: Indian public companies with foreign ADR listings such as Infosys or Wipro. These companies face the broadest and deepest set of legal requirements regarding governance since they must comply with SEC regulations. However, what is impressive is that companies such as Infosys have gone beyond typical requirements in promoting a higher level of transparence in their governance and reporting. Infosys has a board with a majority of outside directors, reports results in compliance with eight different accounting standards, and discloses its compliance with ten external governance codes[footnoteRef:1]. Infosys premium valuation is providing a clear signal to other India companies that good governance has tangible benefits. In fact, a McKinsey survey revealed that Indian investors are willing to pay a 23% premium for companies with good governance structures. [1: ]

Indian public companies. These companies need to comply with Indian regulations which were described by ICICI executives as being fairly robust. A McKinsey analysis also found that Indias regulations and enforcement of accounting standards for Indian companies are fairly strong as they were ranked fourth in Asia and ahead of countriesu such as China.[footnoteRef:2] In addition, the incentive of being able to list shares overseas acts as a motivator to ensure good governance. However, as state owned enterprises are partially privatized, it is possible that the role of the government in the governance structures of such companies could act as an impediment to executing certain business strategies. [2: ]

Indian family controlled conglomerates such as Godrej and Tata. These conglomerates are often a mix of private and public holding structures. Some of these conglomerates have been well managed, but the quality of governance may still be low due to tight control by family members. The need to raise public capital will clearly enhance the governance of some of these organizations. However, I think the competition for Indian management talent that will lead these companies to improve governance to be perceived as attractive places for long-term career relative to other opportunities in India. As an example, Godrej described a novel governance mechanism in which a shadow board of young managers is appointed at the company to advise the actual board on key issues.

DIMENTION OF ORGANISATIONAL CULTURESocial ResponsibilityIf you want social responsibility to be part of your company culture, make your charitable efforts visible to employees. Encourage them to participate voluntarily in community betterment activities, and tell them your door is open if they have a pet project they want the company to consider becoming involved with.Transparent GovernanceMaintaining accountability and openness in how you conduct your business can be a vital part of your company's culture. If you demonstrate that you are honest in your financial dealings, and that you attempt to be fair in managing employees, a culture of trust will develop.Team SpiritYour company is a collection of individuals who must work together toward common goals. This does not happen automatically. You must develop and encourage a sense of teamwork among your staff. You can do this by holding frequent company meetings, and rewarding teams (such as the production department, for example) instead of individuals.Customer ServiceYou know the customer pays your bills, but it easy for your staff to lose sight of that fact in their day-to-day dealings. You must consciously promote an awareness of customer service as your primary marketing tool. Hold meetings and seminars to discuss customer service issues, and accept suggestions from employees on ways to improve the customer's experience with your company. This will empower the people you employee to take responsibility for forming a culture that values the customer.Adaptive AbilityA growing company will encounter situations that are not in the business plan. You have to be able to change and adapt according to new information and unexpected events. If you have encouraged a culture of adaptability, your staff will be better prepared to adjust to new goals and objectives.Open CommunicationA company that openly communicates internally and externally has a culture of openness. You should fight any sense of secrecy and behind-closed-doors decisions. If your company culture values open communication, you will find that loyalty and productivity remain high, and that lenders, vendors and consultants trust you.Problem-SolvingIf you promote a culture that values problem-solving, you will avoid a lot of meetings where you have to find ways to undo mistakes. Employees and managers who feel empowered to solve problems will actively help you move the company past hurdles.Supportive EnvironmentA culture where every mistake is possible grounds for discipline can make employees stressful and mistake-prone. You can offer retraining instead of reprimands, and encouragement instead of disappointment. This will create a culture of support, where people feel like they have a chance to succeed.

CONCLUSION:The legacy of English that the British left in India was a dormant competitive advantage until a decade ago until technologies emerged to enable Indian employees to serve customers anywhere in the world. In addition to adopting English, Indias corporate culture also appears to adopting global corporate cultural practices in the areas of entrepreneurship, professionalism, and governance. This complements many of Indias existing strong cultural traditions such as a belief in education and will contribute to Indias long-term competitive advantage. India can take a few steps to further nurture the positive aspects of its emerging corporate culture. Entrepreneurship can be fostered by strengthening bankruptcy laws so that failed enterprises can be restructured, creditors can be assured of legal recourse to reclaim assets, and the participants in a failed enterprise can start again without a negative stigma. Professionalism can be bolstered by a continuing effort against corruption in government and business relations so that all Indian enterprises, instead of just a few, comply with globally accepted behaviors. In addition, Indian regulators should react cautiously to moves by some Indian companies to enforce strict non-compete and non-poaching clauses because such moves would limit the competition for talent between companies and thereby slow the spread of professionalism. Last, India should seek to surpass many of the governance and reporting requirements in the developed world for its publicly listed companies to further enhance the governance mechanisms and oversight within Indian corporations. India has already leveraged English to develop a leading position for its economy in exporting services. India now has the golden opportunity to take some of the steps described above as well as other to encourage a constructive corporate culture that provides a new source of long term competitive advantage.

BIBLOGRAPHY Chin-loy, C., Assessing the Influence of Organizational Culture on Knowledge Management Success. The Wayne Huizeng School of Business and Entrepreneurship, Nova Southeastern University, UMI Dissertation, 2003 Davenport, T.H and Prusak, L. , Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 1998 Green, J. , Cultural awareness in the human services: A multi-ethnic approach, (2 nd Ed). Toronto: Allyn and Bacon, 1995; Hodge, BJ, Anthony, WP & Gales, LM, Organization theory: a strategic approach, 5th ed. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 2002; Hrop, S.,, Personnel Psychology, Volume: 56. Issue: 3, 2003 Robbins, R.F, Harnessing Group Memory to Build a Knowledge-Sharing Culture, Of Counsel. Vol. 22, No. 6, pp. 7-11, 2003; Kotler, Ph., Kotler on Marketing, How to Create, Win and Dominate Markets, Simon & Schuster UK Ltd., pp. 3-5 , 2001; Rogers, E. M., Diffusion of innovations, 4th Edition, New York, NY: The Free Press, 1995; Tanur, J., Jordan B., Measuring Employee Satisfaction: Corporate surveys as practice, 1995,

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