University of Bradford, School of Management
FT MBA 2005/2006 Assignment in People in Organisations

Organisational culture as a management tool

by: Matthias Arnold

 

This assignment aims at discussing whether a strong organisational culture which can be used as a tool of management control helps to both motivate staff and improve company performance and should therefore be encouraged. Organisational culture can be defined as “the basic values, ideologies and assumptions which guide and fashion individual and business behaviour.” (Wilson and Rosenfeld 1990, p.229). Following Schein, organisational culture can be subdivided into three levels, representing the visibility to the observer. Most visible are the culture’s artefacts or surface manifestations, including organisational structure, processes, physical environment, technology and products, employees clothing, manners of address as well as language and company myths. These and other artefacts can be discovered while interacting with the organisation as an employee, customer or other stakeholder. The second level are espoused beliefs and values. The companies set of values normally establishes over a long period emerging from the founders and managements own mindset. These values are (or better should be) adopted by all employees as a part of their own values and beliefs and are also manifested as stated company values. The third and most in-depth level of organisational culture are the underlying basic assumptions. They evolve when beliefs and values become treated as reality, though they are never visible to an observer and can be described as the company’s own culture (Schein 2004).

An important factor, when looking at organisational culture is the similarity or differences of the management’s and the employee’s view of corporate culture. A high match of organizational culture levels results in a strong organisational culture whereas differences in both groups’ mindsets lead towards a weak culture. Important thereby is not only a match of the culture’s manifestations, which only leads to a superficial strong culture, much more significant is sharing of the same values and underlying assumptions (Hartog and Verburg 2004). In a strong organisational culture, common thinking and views between employers and employees may eventually result in a better working atmosphere, an alignment of the workforce and ultimately in better performance (Deal and Kennedy 2000). Weak corporate cultures on the other hand are marked by less shared values, beliefs and assumptions and are less stringent in its thinking but are therefore also more open to changes and fluctuations.

The question if organisational culture can and should be used as a tool of management is discussed with great controversy within organisational behaviour specialists. From a management perspective, followed by Schein, Harvey-Jones, Peters and Waterman amongst others, organisational culture can be influenced and used and is therefore applicable as a tool to control the workforce (Wilson and Rosenfeld 1990). The culture directly influences leader decisions and behaviour, resulting in changed work force, subordinate motivation and skills which in turn affect task and organisational performance. But also indirectly, a strong organisational culture causes subordinate motivation and in result performance trough socialisation and sense of togetherness (Lord and Maher 1993). Moreover the company’s management forms a strong, efficient culture and believes in cultural leadership. Leaders may therefore shape organisational culture to what they belief delivers the best outcome on performance (Buchanan and Huczynski 2004). On the other hand, social sciences suggest in a more analytical approach that organisational culture cannot be shaped and managed but grows over years in a company and reflects the organisation’s history. Furthermore, from a social science point of view, the workforce is regarded to have individual mindsets rather than share a common company value set. Having this in mind, this analytical school dissents the sense of active managing the organisational culture and also opposes a link between corporate culture and performance (Wilson and Rosenfeld 1990).

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