Organizational Culture

the internal environment consists of the trends and events within an organization that affect the management, employees, and organizational culture. Organizational culture is about the values, beliefs, and attitudes shared by organizational members. Internal environments are important because they affect what people think, feel, and do at work. Creating, maintaining, and changing organizational culture matters because research shows that positive, consistent cultures improves company performance.

A primary source of organizational culture is the company founder. People tell organizational stories to make sense of organizational events and changes and to emphasize culturally consistent assumptions, decisions and actions.

A second way in which organizational culture is sustained is by recognizing and celebrating heroes. Finally, the last way of sustaining organizational ceremonies. Preliminary research shows that organizational culture is related to organizational success. Adaptability is the ability to notice and respond to changes in the organization’s environment. Company mission is the business’s purpose or reason for existing. In organizational cultures with a clear company mission, the organization’s strategic purpose and direction are apparent to everyone in the company.

In consistent organizational cultures, the company actively defines and teaches organizational values, beliefs, and attitudes. One way of changing a corporate culture is to use behavioral addition or behavioral substitution to establish new patterns of behavior among managers and employees.

Another way in which managers can begin to change corporate culture is to change the visible artifacts of their old culture, such as the office design and layout, company dress code, and recipients (or nonrecipients) of company benefits and perks such as stock options, personal parking spaces, or the private company dining room.

Cultures can also be changed by hiring and selecting people with values and beliefs consistent with the company’s desired culture. Corporate cultures are very difficult to change. Changing corporate culture can go a long way in boosting employee morale. Consequently, there is no guarantee that any one approach changing visible cultural artifacts, using behavioral substitution, or hiring people with values consistent with a company’s desired culture – will change a company’s organizational culture. The best results are obtained by combining these methods. Together, these are some of the best tools managers have for changing culture because they send the clear message to managers and employees that “the accepted way of doing things” has changed.