Organizational Culture

I have been working on this topic for couple of weeks.  It’s about time that I should post it!

The Organizational Culture and Higher Education reading is like a dry steak.  It is very dry and hard to digest it all.  I have been trying to cut it into pieces and see if I can get it down.  There were many schools of thought on organizational culture.

Max Weber studied the bureaucracies, and Heri Fayol expanded upon Weber’s study.  Bureaucracy is a very hierarchical and top to down kind of organization.  It runs inefficiently when it grew too large.

Frederick Taylor then came up with the scientific management.  It requires the mangers and workers to work together to ensure productivities.  Everyone then shares the surplus of profits as a result of working together.  I think Taylor forgot about personal hidden agendas and politics that exist within an organization.  I can see that there will be a lot of singing of kumbaya among the workers and managers at work.  I will work if there is a tremendous leader at the top who can bring everyone together. 

Bureaucracy theory then evolved into structure theory.  Structure theory breaks down the bureaucracy and does not assume that one method fits all organizations.

There is the system approach or thought of Norbert Wiener and Ludwig von Bertalanffy.  It focuses on the interconnections, both within the organization and between the organization and the environment.  Daniel Katz and Robert Kahn suggest that organization needs to constantly evolve and adapt to its environment.   

Organizational culture is made out of its members.  Schein described that there are 3 levels that the organization culture manifests itself.  They are deep tacit, espoused values, and day-to-day behaviors.  William Sannwald stated that organizational culture gives its members identities. 

The organizational leader can change and evolve an organization with new visions through communication to its members.  I totally agree.  On the other hand, a leader who cannot communicate his or her vision will bring down an organization.  Chaos, confusions, and mistrust occur when the message of a leader was not properly communicated to the body of the organization.  This could lead to higher number of overturn rate in the organization. 

Organizational culture is a complex topic.  It involves with people and people are complex.  However, I think that any type of culture can work no mater what type of cultures an organization adopts as long as the body of the organization can work together to achieve its overall goals.