Culture is defined as the characteristics of a specific category of people. It is defined by every single aspect of the people from language, arts, religion, music, social habits and cuisine. It is the shared and interactive patterns of behavior of the human societies. It differentiates members of a particular group from another. Studying organization’s culture is way much different from studying French or British culture in that it is so diversified. In an organization, there are so many people from different cultures yet they all have to learn and integrate the organization’s culture to act as one group of people. Organization culture includes organization’s expectations, values, norms, philosophy and systems. It dictates on how people in the Organizations interact amongst themselves and with the outside world.
Symbolic action and metaphor are key to the study of organization culture in that they help provide a richer understanding of the cultures under study. They also help in communication and socializing which help scholars to learn more about the culture. The historical trends that contributed to the development of cultural studies of organization was the competitive pressure from Japanese companies. They were thought to have known how to create strong and responsive organization through strong and unified culture. The social trend, on the other hand was that social atmosphere was starting to value participation and diversity and recasting the work as an important experience. Culture was viewed as a vehicle to the desired change. Contrariwise, political trend was that there was more use and acceptance of ethnographic and interpretive means among scholars.
Questions posed by viewing organizations as cultures include; what are the politics that underlie the organization’s culture? How should managers uphold the organization culture?
How do new employees become integrated into the organization culture? What should be the bases of organization culture? This is some of the major questions that generate from viewing organizations as cultures.
Practical, interpretive, critical and postmodern approaches to organization’s cultures share one trait in common. This is that they all appreciate the fact that strong organization’s culture is essential for the success of the company. Also, this approaches help to enrich our understanding on the organization’s culture. Practical approach on the organization’s culture is used as a tool by managers’ leverage to create an effective organization. Interpretive approach focuses on how culture emerges from daily interactions among organizational members. Critical and postmodern approaches unpack what underlies the organization culture and recognize that culture is differentiated and fragmented.
New employees can use face to face and computer mediated means of socializing to learn about the organization’s culture. Advanced communication and internet play a major role in socializing process as they make communication and interaction with many people easy. Advantages of studying organization culture are that it helps to learn about dynamic organization.
Results from the study can be used by the managers to facilitate changes. The limitation of this is its generalizability. The characteristics of the communication perspective on organization’s culture is that communication among members of the organization is different with that of the outsiders. Effective communication is also viewed as an important avenue for reliability in an organization. Also, effective socializing and communication provides a deep understanding of an organization’s culture. It also enables participation and transforming of and organization’s culture.
