Blog 3 - Organisation and Culture

Organisation and Culture blog 3

Provide some examples of the ‘visible’ aspects of culture in an organisation of your choice? To gain this information use your own work experience or base it on a company from The Eden Centre.

Two definitions of organisation culture are, “a body of learned behavior’s, a collection of beliefs, habits and traditions, shared by a group of people and learned by people.” (Hofstede, 1984)

Or.....

The unwritten beliefs, attitudes, values and expectations about how people work within the organisation. (Mullins, 2005)

Both definitions relate to how a collection of beliefs and attitudes are agreed on and taught within an organisation. The ‘eden-center’ has a wide variety of shop’s and public facilities. The entertainment complex was built in High Wycombe and opened its doors on the 13^th of March 2008. The complex is owned by Multiplex and Alders gate investments. Defining individual business cultures to others is a difficult task as they can be so varied from place to place and organisation to organisation. Shops such as Nando’s have a very distinct organisational culture. Management-staff in the chain of restaurants believe that if you look after your own staff, the customers that they are serving will be happier and spend more money in your restaurants as they feel more relaxed to have a good time. This means that Nando’s must have a keen eye on their staff as their culture is to look after everyone in all manner of ways. As well as looking after their employees Nando’s also has other more quirky aspects to its culture, instead of giving normal job titles employees are aptly named ‘Nandocas’.

The Nando’s website states, (“A Nandoca is what we call a member of our family and has strong roots in our heritage. Nandocas are people who bring the Nando’s restaurants to life with their unique personality and passion. They may do different jobs, but they’re all working towards the same goal – to serve the best chicken in the world to delighted customers, while having fun together. And we can promise you this - a hard-working Nandoca will have always have a great time at Nando’s.”) (Nando's, 2012)

 

(PrettyGreenIdears, 2012) (The photograph above shows singer Ollie Murs enjoying working as a Nandoca.)

A stronger sense of culture within Nando’s is created with their ‘book of stories’. This is the guide given to all restaurant managers on how to manage the Nando’s way. Within the book there are so called tales from Nando’s history as a means to illustrate management skills and idea’s from previous mistakes and misjudgements that lessons were learnt from. Tales are still being added to the book of stories as Nandacos and management are always learning in the positive environment the companies organisation culture creates.

C.A.O’Reilly, J.Chatman & D.F.Caldwell (1991) developed a seven stage strategy to assess organisational culture.

          1. Innovation and risk taking

          2. Attention to detail

          3. Outcome orientation

          4. People orientation

          5. Team orientation

          6. Aggressiveness

          7. Stability

(C.A.O’Reilly, 1991)

Statistics show that Nando’s excels on all of these counts, as in 2011 they were voted the best company to be employed by in the Sunday Times news papers survey. The Sunday Times news paper found that the Nando’s chain scored so highly as team spirit was above average for staff, and there was a clear use of open communication between employees and the management structure.

Explain what Handy meant by the following in your own words:

1.    A power culture

2.    A role culture

3.    A task culture

4.    A person culture

with an organisational example of each culture.

“Charles Handy popularized the work of Roger Harrison of looking at culture and linking it with organisational structure and culture, Handy named four classifications and described Harrisons four types as Power culture, Role culture, Task culture and Person culture.” (Dirk Hollank, 2008)

A Power Culture:

A Power Culture is like a spiders web, shown in the diagram above. Handy thought that this applies to both large and small businesses. The main source of power is the small area located at the centre of the web. This power is then distributed to from the centre outwards to the fringes of the web. An example would in a small family run business, The figure head of the family will pass down instructions and commands to lower ranking members, who in turn either carry out the instruction or again pass on the command to and even lower ranked family member in the business. Power cultures generally have more faith in individuals rather than group consensus as idea’s and leaders within a group can change rapidly and in some cases be hindered by a lack of direction. (Sherwin, n.d.)

Role Culture:

Role Cultures are great examples of any bureaucratic organisation. Within Role Cultures work loads are decided and allocated via preordained rules and regulations, that are clear for all member to see and understand. Another key element to a Role Culture is that it is based upon a hierarchical structure. This means that the base and main majority of its members prop up a gradually decreasing number of people who hold most of to all of the power. The final distinct thing that sets apart Role Cultures for Handy is the fact that the people within them all work to a job description laid out to them, this makes their task clear before they start. Lindsay Sherwin compares it to a Greek Temple. The top of the temple is where all the decisions are made and the pillars that support it represent the mules of the organisation who carry out all the instructions given to them by the top of the temple (the roof in the diagram). This culture is dependent on the pillars to uphold the people in control who make all the decisions.

The Task Culture:

Task Cultures are closely related to many project based companies such as architect firms who work on a project by project basis. As Task Cultures work to their own and other people’s briefs it is imperative that the people within the company work well as a team. This teamwork shapes the way that work is done, the team believes that each project must be completed by any means. Rules can be broken to ensure the task remains key and is not sidetracked by individual’s ideas. The diagram above show the lattice structure to Task Cultures. The lattice explains how people within the team have the flexibility and freedom to work in different ways as long as there efforts are aimed in the same direction and the rest of the team. Task Cultures can seas to exist when, “there is a restriction in resources causing the culture to change into a power or role cantered culture. (Sherwin, n.d.)

Person Culture:

Person Cultures are seen to reject any form of structured hierarchy. Person Cultures are individual centred, and exist on the premise to serve the interests of the people within the Culture. A free lance architect would be considered a Person Culture as they are not generally a business organisation. Architects do not conform to a formal hierarchy as they are their own boss in a matter of words and there only limits are those that they bestow upon themselves.

What do you think are the problems of trying to classify culture into one of the four types described above?

There are many problems when trying to classify a business into one of Handy’s four Cultures. Businesses are always mutating as they grow and are subjected to external and internal pressures. For any business to survive, especially in the current economic climate it must be adaptable. This adaptability means that business can change from classification to classification. Not because they mean to but because they have to adopt the culture that will serve them best in the differing situations presented to them wither it be a Power Culture turning into a Task Culture or a Task Culture changing into a Role culture, survival is the aim of any business.

Conclusion/Summary

This Blog has show how cultures in the workplace affect productivity and staff morale. It also explains how Handy (1992) and Sherwin explain the four cultures that all organisation fit into and why each classification differs from the next. Finally the blog has shown that it is important to recognise what culture your business is in as it will affect how power is shared and how your work force is represented.

Bibliography

C.A.O’Reilly, J.C.&.D.F.C. (1991). 1 (1). [Accessed: 2012].

Dirk Hollank, S.W. (2008) Cultural Clash and Cultural Due Diligence at DaimlerChrysler. Cultural Clash and Cultural Due Diligence at DaimlerChrysler [Document ]. 1 (1), p.13. Available from: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=i0llxMAjM94C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false [Accessed: 12 January 2012].

Hofstede (1984).

Mullins, L. (2005) Management and organisational behaviour. 7th ed. indiana university: Prentice Hall/Finacial Times 2005.

Nando's (2012) [online]. Available from: http://www.nandos.co.uk/careers/our-careers/nandoca.

PrettyGreenIdears (2012) [Photograph]. Available from: http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?um=1&hl=en&biw=1525&bih=712&tbm=isch&tbnid=Y29_gubH3L4nlM:&imgrefurl=http://www.itsprettygreen.com/blog/tag/nandos/&docid=obbc4WH97TfwnM&imgurl=http://www.itsprettygreen.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Nandos-121.jpeg&w=.

Sherwin, L. (n.d.) [online]. Available from: http://www.lindsay-sherwin.co.uk/guide_managing_change/html_overview/05_culture_handy.htm [Accessed: 23 january 2012].