lunes, 15 de marzo de 2010

NATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

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National Culture


It is the combination of some aspects that identifies a group of people. Those aspects are passed on from generation to generation and include things such as values; goals; religion; body language; custom; social structure and attitudes toward time, work and cultural change, among others. These shared aspects result in common codes of conduct and behavior.

It could be said that culture has two main functions:
1. Help members identify themselves and,
2. Differentiate the group from others.

But when analyzing a national culture it is very important to keep in mind it is comprised by some subcultures, that even belonging to the same “big culture” they have differences among them; those differences are very important to analyze because can lead to great success or big failures.

A single person can be part of different subcultures at the same time; the combination is what shapes his behavior, which doesn’t crash with national culture, they go along.


Organizational Culture

Organizational culture certainly has to do with national culture; it is almost a rule that the second one will have great influence in the first one. It is so true that even Hofstede says that some managers confuse both cultures and try to change it; but then he states: “You cannot turn around a national culture”.

Organizational culture in simple words could be defined as “the way we do things around here”; it provides guidance to behaviors, influences, decision making and if it is carried in a proper way it can win the hearts and minds of the employees.

As for national culture, organizational culture has two main functions:
1. Internal Integration and,
2. External adaptation

But since organizational culture is the whole set of norms, assumptions and practices people inside an organization adopt over time, it means that an organizational cultures take time to develop. Culture becomes then a matter of deep believing.

If it is a matter of deep believing, then it is not completely correct talking about changing corporate culture; even though much people believe to have the correct recipe for doing so. Changing corporate culture is not necessarily the best option; sometimes it turns out better changing something else than culture itself. It means using your own culture to do the changes that need to be made; then you won’t go against company’s core believes.

Thanks to globalization and changing environments; organizations are facing major modifications which affect corporate culture.

First, culture matters a lot when crossing borders;
second globalization, says Hofstede, “you need people who make slow decisions, who think before they act, who don't immediately voice any opinions, who are prepared to go against established practice.";
third, trying to change corporate culture to make changes means going against nature; change needs to happen and if it works out then it can became culture; the process does not work backwards.
The fourth and last issue is that the challenge of contemporary managers may not be establishing a corporate culture, but to help each subculture inside the organization to maximize their own strengths in order to contribute to the whole company.


QUESTION

Do you think there is a corporate culture in every organization?

I believe there is a corporate culture in every organization; every company has its own way for doing things which characterizes it and differentiates it from other companies. But I also think that the corporate culture such as we knew it is changing and adapting itself to fit in a globalized world because now we can’t pretend to find a company with rigid values and an unbreakable way for doing things, as globalization reaches more countries and people and as behaviors change it is necessary that companies go in the same direction. With higher turnover rates and more national cultures interacting it becomes more difficult to establish values and norms, but it does not mean that an organization lacks those elements because I think that when a company is created it “born” with its own unique characteristics, it own and special culture, which can vary with time but remains the same in essence.
Assuming there is a corporate culture in every organization I think it can’t be modified because when it reaches the status of culture it means that every single person in the organization has interiorized the values and ways; trying to change those means switching things that are deep inside. If a company changes its corporate culture it is very possible to create a situation in which the employees get confused and go in different directions from the ones the company wanted. A strong organizational culture may lead to the failure of processes that require deep organizational change, if a company wants to merge with another and both of them have strong cultures there is a high chance of failure, but if a company has a stronger culture the most possible outcome is that it will eliminate the other’s company way of doing things.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Millman, Gregory J. . 2007. "Corporate Culture: more myth than reality? ." The Free Library 23:44-47. Millman, Gregory J. (2007, July 1)
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