|  An
introduction to Corporate Culture during
the 1980´s a great deal of attention
began to be paid in the organisational
literature to the concept of company or
corporate culture. Many writers, such
as Edgar Schein, treat culture as a new
school of thought within organisation
theory. Since this subject is interesting
we decided to visit the library and borrow
a few books that have been important for
this evolvement.
We see every day in
the news that many international enterprises
merge, make acquisitions and joint ventures.
Managers risk failure if they ignore or
neglect the existence of corporate culture
and undervalue its enormous impact on
the day-to-day business. Corporate culture
is indeed an ambiguous matter and we believe
that managers should be more aware of
it and the cultural matters that became
so important in our days.What is Culture?
Many researchers and
scientists make their own definition of
what culture really is. Linda Smircich
says that "It‚s misleading
to talk about the concept of culture".
It‚s impossible since there are
numerous definitions of culture. During
the years more definitions has been born
but a modern definition of culture would
be the acquired knowledge that people
use to interpret experiences and generate
social behaviour. This latter view of
culture emphasises both content and meaning
and is most applicable to organisational
behaviour.
- Although there is
not complete agreement on the underlying
theories, most modern anthropologists
agree on certain characteristics of
culture. In brief, there is a general
agreement that culture is:
- Learned, which
means that it‚s not genetic or
biological.
- Shared, which means
that people as members of groups share
culture.
- Transgenerational,
which means that it‚s cumulative
in its development and is passed down
from one generation to the next.
- Symbolic, which
means that it‚s based on human
capacity to symbolise.
- Patterned, which
means that it‚s organised and
integrated; a change in one part will
bring changes in another part.
- Adaptive, which
means that it‚s based on the human
capacity to adapt.
In understanding the culture, we need
to not only examine its more obvious elements
like language, religion, values and attitudes
but also for example manners and customs,
material elements, and social institutions.
Visitors remark on differences; experts
write about them; and people managing
affairs across countries find that they
affect operating results. Culture cannot
easily be isolated from such factors as
economic and political conditions and
institutions. For example, an opinion
survey may reflect a short-term response
to temporary economic conditions rather
than basic values and beliefs that will
have longer-term effects on managing business.What
is Corporate Culture?
To receive a definition of corporate culture,
the term group should be nearer determined.
The term group refers to social units
of all sizes, including organisations.
This leads to the definition of organisational
culture as the collective programming
of the mind which distinguishes the members
of one organisation from another. Thus
corporate or organisational culture reflects
itself in the behaviour of a set of people
and seems to be something that penetrates
and shapes their manner of acting.
We could summarise that organisational
culture is holistic since it is referring
to a whole which is more than the sum
of its parts, historically determined,
since it is reflecting the history of
the organisation, related to the anthropology
studies meaning the rituals and symbols,
socially constructed since it is created
and preserved by the group of people who
together form the organisation. All of
these points show very briefly the instability
of cultures and "strong" organisational
cultures. So cultures are not "strong"
or fixed but they are changeable and soft.
After gaining a deeper insight in the
definition of culture, the central question
of the assignment should be discussed.
continue
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