Culture and Values in Business Organizations

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Abstract

The existing concepts have proposed that organizational culture influences the capacity of a corporation to function in the global markets. In fact, most organizations have been unable to serve clients adequately based on the prevailing culture that inhibits the propensity of the workforce to generate and effectively use new ideas. This paper has highlighted organizational cultural aspects that tend to create and enhance the level of organizational values. The paper further reviewed how the adopted organizational culture affects the capacity of people in an organization and leadership style.

The influence, both positive and negative, of culture and values on business organizations

Business organizations have been influenced both negatively and positively by culture and values. Organizational culture and cultural diversity are contexts that dominate the area of leadership, employees development, and innovation in most organizations. In most organizational contexts, it is believed that culture affects innovation-related behaviors in many ways. The effect of organizational culture either may directly or indirectly affect organizational improvement about external rivalry, the dimension of the firm, technical variables, and managerial competencies. An organization with well-built cultural ethics such as the Toyota Company may not be stalled since other cultural aspects may help the production performance. For instance, employees could make morals and norms that emphasize openness to newly crafted ideas and innovation thus making the next activities and practices to augment the productive capacity of an individual innovativeness (Mohanty & Rath, 2012). In this company, the efficiency of modernization might be affected by optimistic group value plans that direct and inspire people towards innovation.

Organizational culture normally enables employees to assist and support one another in growing thoughts and accomplishing tasks. Other groups, however, tend to encourage seclusion through demoralizing teamwork and support hence reducing the capacity to innovate. In some groups, culture may stipulate individuals involvement in informal education or training programs that would enhance capacity expansion. There are other culturally formed groups in organizations that tend to discourage learning and the ability to generate new ideas. Thus, to increase the level of individuals dedication and involvement to innovate, act freely, and come up with fresh ideas, and organizational culture must compel its workforce to participate in the decision-making process.

Do you think multiple cultures working together result in greater cooperation or greater conflict? Why?

Multiple cultures working together might not result in greater cooperation. This is because cultural differences influence corporate culture in different countries. Management functions directed towards maintaining and improving corporate culture become more complex as the firms activities expand internationally (Liker & Hoseus, 2008). The coordination of organizational and decision-making issues also becomes much difficult. Managers fight in vain to create a corporate culture that balances the needs of the foreign markets and cultural disparities on important organization issues such as evaluation, innovation, compensation packages, and promotion policies.

Organizational corporate culture becomes especially complicated at the global level since the desires, attitudes, and values of employees differ across countries. Again, the issues of coordinating activities to match the organizational environment become more complicated as firms expand internationally and operate in multiple cultures (Scheffknecht, 2011). Workforce diversity is also a big challenge to managers wishing to change an existing organizational culture. While an organization is legally and socially committed, it must include employees from different environments. Some organizations are not sensitive to diversity issues while others have overemphasized on the issue. The demographic composition of workers has changed considerably meaning that managers must address this cause when fostering or changing organizational. While this is an important consideration to managers, some existing organizational cultures discourage such efforts to the extent of justifying that diversification lowers the quality of management (Bradley & Byrne, 2007). The belief makes it difficult for managers to change the culture, as it requires the commitment of both the manager and employees.

Why and under what conditions are people willing to violate their values at work?

People would be willing to violate their values at work when the organizational culture emphasizes norms and values that are hardly in line with their desires and expectations. In fact, changes in organizational culture that would drive employees out of their comfort zones would prompt them to violate their work values. For instance, if an employee is required to change his roles and designation accompanied by a deduction in salary, such a worker would violate the values at work to remain in the same comfort zone.

Conversely, organizations are increasingly operating in uncertain, decentralized, and networked environments, where the adoption of creative ideas has become essential to organizational change. Indeed, organizational cultures institutionally shape the way firms choose to use technology and add the innovatively new ideas. However, there are environmental factors that influence employees willingness to innovate and adopt new technology. When the organizational culture is supportive, the probability of innovating and having creatively new ideas is substantially higher. When firms work in an unorganized environment, the employees opinions are hardly considered valuable and they are not well informed on how relevant issues in the firm will be adopted to enhance the level of technology. Such a case would make an employee to violate values at work (Xenikou & Simosi, 2006). As a result, organizational managers have to work with employees whose confidence with the firm is fainted as a result of the cultural changes taking place within.

Can culture define leadership? If so, does this mean leadership is different from one culture to another? Why or why not?

Yes, culture can define leadership. For instance, organizational culture and the general social and cultural environments interlock in that people enter organizations from the surrounding societies and bring with them their culture and social life (Mohanty & Rath, 2012). Therefore, the changing social and cultural environment influences corporate culture and is a big challenge to managers endeavoring to change the corporate culture. Besides, managers have to study keenly different cultures of people working in their organizations, but come from varying cultural backgrounds. The assertion implies that leadership styles vary across cultures to ensure that every employee is incorporated in the corporation.

Leadership styles vary from one culture to another since new organizational leaders are tasked with the development of corporate ethics and well-being to initiate change that would accommodate all employees with different cultural backgrounds (Sims, 2009). Unethical organizational culture damages the firms reputation and costs the firm the goodwill of employees and customers (Moran, 2010). Managers who wish to change such a culture are required to set up an ethical code that defines acceptable behaviors and develop a framework of rewards and punishments to make ethical codes.

However, to some firms, social or ethical responsibility means doing any action if it is legal. In such a culture, developing a code of ethics that helps the firm to protect its reputation and make sure the goodwill of employees and customers is hard for new managers. When operating in different cultures, the managers must change their leadership styles in order to build an organizational culture where members oppose the temptation to act in ethical manners that promote interests at the cost of the firm or promote the interest of the firm at the cost of the society. Indeed, many executives have been unable to take effective measures when confronted by an ethical cultural scandal. For example, Citigroup suffered dearly from a cultural scandal and the executives could only choose corporate silence to support the reputation of the company (Liker & Hoseus, 2008).

References

Bradley, F., & Byrne, G. J. (2007). Cultures influence on leadership efficiency: How personal and national cultures affect leadership style. Journal of Business Research, 60, 168175.

Liker, J., & Hoseus, M. (2008). Toyota Culture: The heart and soul of the Toyota way. New York City, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional.

Mohanty, J., & Rath, B. (2012). Influence of organizational culture on organizational citizenship behavior. Global Journal of Business Research, 6(1), 65-76.

Moran, H. (2010). Managing cultural differences: Global leadership strategies for cross-cultural business success. New York, NY: Routledge.

Scheffknecht, S. (2011). Multinational enterprise-organizational culture vs. national culture. International Journal of Management Cases, 13(4), 73-78.

Sims, R. (2009). Toward a better understanding of organizational efforts to rebuild reputation following and ethical scandal. Journal of Business Ethics, 90(4), 453-472.

Xenikou, A., & Simosi, M. (2006). Organizational culture and transformational leadership as predictors of business unit performance. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(6), 566-579.

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Culture and Values in Business Organizations

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