Week 4 - Organisation Culture

Organisational Culture

Organisational culture describes the attitudes, values, and assumptions of how the organisation conducts itself. A culture is created when a group of employees interact and become one in terms of their beliefs and attitudes in the workplace.

The visible aspects of a culture are ones you can see straight away, for example: office layout, uniforms, status symbols, rites & rituals, stories, and taboos. My example of visible culture is in Waitrose; employees working on the shop floor all wear the same uniform showing equality in their culture, and the managers wear suits showing their status symbol.

Handy (1993) suggests that we can put organisations into four different groups. The forming of a culture in a work environment will depend on structure, technology, employees, etc. The four different culture groups are: power, role, task, and people.

The power culture:

Handy describes the power culture as a web; this reflects the power of a family owned business. Power is concentrated in the middle of the wheel and is then passed down through important members of the family to other members of the work team. One disadvantage of this type of culture is that family members are often prioritised and non-family members may feel undervalued and may not have very much influence towards the business. An example of a family owned business from my personal experience is my dad’s business; Handy’s model relates to this business because I, as a family member, was able to work when I wanted to (for example: in the summer holidays).

The role culture:

Handy refers this culture as a Greek temple; he suggests that the strength of this culture lies in the specialisation of the employees in the ‘pillars’, but the roof of the temple is where all the decision-making takes place. The authority is dependent on job title and how high up in the business an employee is. This culture is seen in a lot of public sector businesses and most often in businesses which go through little change.

The task culture:

In this culture all departments are closely linked, and decision making is done by individuals who have the knowledge, not just the ones with the highest job title. This is quite the opposite of the role culture, and is seen mostly in organisations which go through constant change and are involved in research and development.

The person culture:

This culture rejects the need for hierarchy and structure, and instead all decision-making is done by the individuals who work for the company. The culture focuses on the needs of the employees and less on the task which needs to be done. A disadvantage of this is that progress could be very slow. Therefore, this culture seems less appropriate for a business organisation.

In conclusion, Handy’s four different types are a good representation of organisational culture; however it can be hard to classify culture into just four types. Every organisation will have a different culture depending on what they do and who their employees are.

References:

Lewis, D. 2003. Practice, power and meaning: frameworks for studying organizational culture in multi-agency rural development projects. London: Open University.

Open University. [online] Available from: http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/ view.php?id=403948&section=3.5.2 [Accessed on: 23.02.12]

Sherwn, L. [online] Available from: http://www.lindsay-sherwin.co.uk/guide_managing_ change/html_overview/05_culture_handy.htm  [Accessed on: 23.02.12].