The environments affect the structures chosen by organizational decision-makers through their society’s cultural expectations. Organisational structures are designed to insure survival through social legitimacy by reflecting the surrounding culture’s values and beliefs (Birnbaum-More and Wong 1985). Different cultures give rise to different structures. Culture improves the way structure coordinates and motivates organisational resources to help an organisation achieve its goals, thus, culture affects organisation effectiveness because it improve the organisation work.
As globalisation quickening its pace, more and more organisations become increasingly interested in the markets outside their home countries’ boundaries. To the organisation executives, opportunities overseas indicate vast, almost infinite profit. The invisible culture barrier plays a crucial role in determine the organisation’s success in a foreign country. Therefore there are many variations in national social characteristics of organisation and management. Organization in different countries were often structured and behaved differently. These differences were most striking when they were detected in the subsidiary companies of the same multinational organisation, because they seemed to suggest that national cultural differences may help shape organisational design and behaviour at a local level.
National culture is based primarily on differences in values which are learned in early childhood from the family. These values are strong enduring beliefs which are unlikely to change throughout the person’s life. Factors that contribute to the national cultural environment are language, political context, values/attributes, religion, legal context, education and social organisation according to Hofstede(1980) and Tayeb(1989). National culture plays an important role in shaping an organisation’s culture. Management must recognise the national culture within which the organisation is embedded and evaluate its impact on the organisation. The impact of national culture can be reflected in a number of ways, ranging from the constraints imposed on organisations by the environment within which it must operate to the mentality and habits of organisational members. The organisational culture of a firm is likely to reflect the norms and values associated with the society of the ‘mother’ country. A home country’s culture has influences on the management practices and organisational culture of overseas subsidiaries. Thus, firms of different country origins operating in a given context will have organisational cultures reflecting the parent company’s home cultures. Distinct organisational cultures will be developed in these subsidiaries, with little influence from the host country’s culture. The national culture within an organisation is physically situated. People all across different nations behave differently, and for different reasons, due to their religion. From one religion to another beliefs and values differ greatly, and they have enough of an impact on people that religion contributes greatly to the make-up of culture.
Organisations are complexes of individuals and coalitions with different and often competing values, interests and preferences. The power perspective has a great deal in common with the culture perspective. The goals and objectives of organisation are emerging through a process of negotiation and influence, and that organisations are composed of groups of coalitions and subcultures.
Power is a relationship between social actors in which one social actor, A, can get another social actor, B, to do something that B would not otherwise have done.3 For instance, the more power a manager has, the greater number of influencing strategies that they can use and the greater success they can get. Organisational members both gain and lose power depending on what they do or fail to do, and on the actions of those around them.
Power is unequally shared in high power distance cultures and more equally shared in low power distance cultures. High power distances, exhibited in hierarchical cultures, result in less disclosure and openness and a tendency for the ‘rules’ to only apply to the ‘lower orders’. Low power distances, for example in project teams, invite openness and consensus as there is less respect for authority. Power Distance reflects the degree to which a culture believes how institutional and organizational power should be distributed and how the decisions of the power holders should be challenged or accepted. In other words, people in high power distance cultures are much more comfortable with a larger status differential than low power distance cultures.
A power culture has a single source of power from which rays of influence spread throughout the organisation. These rays are connected by functional and specialist strings which facilitate co-ordinate action. The structure of a power culture may thus be pictured as a web. The internal organisation of a power culture is highly dependent on trust, empathy and personal communication for its effectiveness. There are few rules and little need for bureaucratic procedures with control being exercised from the centre through the selection of key personnel and edict. Resource power and to a lesser extent charisma are the main bases for the exercise of authority here. For the most part individuals are encouraged to perform their tasks with few questions asked though important decisions are likely to be made as a result of political manoeuvring. The greatest strength of power cultures is their ability to react quickly but their success largely depends on the abilities of the person or people at the centre.
In conclusion, organisational culture exercises a potent form of control over the interaction of organisational members with each other and outsiders. By supplying people with a toolbox of values, norms, and rules that tell them how to behave, organisation culture is instrumental in determining how they interpret and react to a situation. Thus, an organisation’s culture can be a source of competitive advantage.
References
1. Andrew Brown.1995, ‘Organisational Culture’ Chap1, p13
2. David Buchanan & Andrzej Huczynski. 1997, ‘Organizational Behaviour’
Chap 18, p514
- David Buchanan & Andrzej Huczynski. 1997, ‘Organizational Behaviour’
Chap 22, p681
Additional References
- Gaeth Morgan. 1986 ‘Images of Organization’
- Laurie J Mullins. 2005 ‘Management and Organisational Behaviour’
