The impact of organizational culture on approaches to organizational problem-solving

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The impact of organizational culture on approaches to organizational problem-solving

تأثير ثقافة المنظمة في حل المشاكل

by: Paul Bate

v Anthropologists would recognize that humans are social animals and form communities to achieve common aims, through cooperation and mutual obligations. Hence, scientist identify culture as "understandings about life experiences shared by members of a human social group"

v People in organization evolve in their daily interactions with one another a system of shared perspectives of 'collectively' held and sanctioned definitions of the situation' which make up the culture of those organizations.

v The culture, once establish, prescribes for its creators and inheritors certain way of believing, thinking and action which in some circumstances can prevent meaningful interaction and induce a condition of 'learning helplessness'- that is a psychological state in which people are unable to conceptualize their problems in such a way as to be able to resolve them. In short, attempt at problem-solving may become culture-bound.

v This chapter look at that 'something about organizational culture that has the power to lock people in with their own problem.

What is organizational culture?

v culture is predominantly implicit in people's minds; it is not something that is 'out there' with a separate existence of its own; neither is it directly observable.

v Culture forms the very foundation stone of our social existence; it gives meaning in a very literal sense to our social and organizational live by providing us with a relatively self-contained 'order', rational or design of living.

v Another key feature of culture is that is shared- it refers to the ideas, meaning and values people hold in common and to which they subscribe collectively.

v The culture concept tend to focus on the commonalities which give a work organization, for example, a recognizable personality and...