Key Success Factors - Organizational Culture

Essay by chneohUniversity, Master'sA, August 2009

download word file, 13 pages 0.0

In this assignment we introduce the idea that the organizational culture is the personality of an organization which can be defined, measured, sustained and changed and have an important impact on an organization's effectiveness.

We want to define organizational culture as it is presented by two theorists, indicate levels of expressions of culture in an organization, and provide specific strategies or tools to modify organizational culture.

We know that every individual has something that psychologists have termed "personality". An individual's personality is made up of a set of relatively permanent and stable traits. When we describe someone as innovative, relaxed, warm or conservative, we are describing personality traits. An organization, too, has a personality, which we call the organization's culture.

Organizational culture is an important situational variable that influence all members of an organization to various degrees, so it is important to have a sound understanding of this construct to manage and work effectively in an organization.

In this paper project we want to define organizational culture as it is presented by two theorists, indicate levels of expressions of culture in an organization, and provide specific strategies or tools to modify organizational culture.

Chapter IDefinitions of Organizational CultureWe will present how Schein defines organizational culture in "Organizational culture and leadership"(1992) as it is presented by Yukl in "Leadership in Organizations"(1998) and Ott's definition of the organizational culture in "The Organizational Culture Perspective"(1989) as it is presented by Lawson and Shen in "Organizational Psychology"(1998).

Schein's definition of organizational cultureSchein (1992) defines culture of a group or organization as shared assumptions and beliefs about the word and their place in it, the nature of time and space, human nature, and human relationships. Schein distinguishes between underlying beliefs (which may be unconscious) and espoused values, which may or not be...