Organisational Culture

Overview

You can think of organisational culture as a framework of the attitudes, values, beliefs, expectations, and behavioural standards that members of the organisation share. All of these factors (and therefore the culture, too) can be influenced by an organisation's environments. Once established, these factors tend to be quite stable. They strongly influence organisations and the people who work in them.

Central to any organisational culture is a set of core characteristics that members collectively value.

Subcultures

Many organisations, particularly large ones, have more than one culture. People in one work group may share attitudes, values, beliefs, expectations, and behavioural standards that are different from those in another group. They are said to have different subcultures. Subcultures are often associated with functions or geographic location. For example, people in the marketing department may feel the people in accounting are rather weird. Similarly, people in the Christchurch branch may feel head office people in Wellington are a bit of a pain.

Dominant culture

Most organisations have a dominant culture. This is a distinctive, overarching personality of the organisation. The dominant culture reflects core values that are shared throughout the organisation. Typically, members of subcultures who share additional sets of values also accept the core values of the organisation as a whole.

Cultural misfits

There can be cultural misfits working within an organisation. For example, a highly creative person with lots of ideas about new work methods may not enjoy working at McDonald's. Similarly, an entrepreneurial risk-taker may create havoc in a risk-averse government department.