The Organizational Culture: Positive and Negative things about it

In this post, I will talk about the organizational culture, some of its flaws and benefits. In order to do that, it is necessary to first define what organizational culture is: “The whole collection of assumptions, practices and norms that people in an organization adopt over time” (Millman 2007). Therefore organizational culture is formed by shared behaviors, values and beliefs and it is intended to provide employees the rules and guidelines for doing things within a specific organization.

Some positive aspects of having a solid corporate culture are that this increase the efficiency (when you know what to do and where are you going, you are efficient), gives sense of identity and unity, provides employees with guidelines of what is expected of them, it helps with the organization of the staff and more.

Employee Engagement
<http://www.pacificadventure.org/main/files/u1/employee_engagement.jpg>

But it is not completely perfect, among its negative characteristic are that it encourages groupthink (according to Janis (1972), it occurs when a group makes faulty decisions because group pressures lead to a deterioration of “mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment) and contributes to reluctance to change.

Changing Organizational Culture <http://victormconde.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/changing_organizational_culture_software-93589.jpg>

It is important to highlight that the corporate culture, and despite its faults, is what makes different an organization from another and it is an important component of it.

Sources:

• Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of Groupthink. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
• Khan, A. (2005). Matching People with Organizational Culture.
• Organizational Culture. (2000) <http://managementhelp.org/org_thry/culture/culture.htm>[01/03/2011]
• Organizational Culture. (2007) <http://www.organizationalculture101.com/> [01/03/2011]