Managing a Change of Organizational Culture

Topic: Corporate Culture
Words: 908 Pages: 3

Introduction

Organizational culture plays a fundamental role in establishing an effective communication system, significantly reducing the costs associated with information. The importance of organizational culture for any enterprise is determined by a number of circumstances. It gives employees an organizational identity and defines an intra-group view of the company while being an important source of stability and continuity in the organization. Knowledge of the basics of the organizational culture of the company helps new employees to correctly interpret the events taking place in the organization, identifying everything most important and essential in them. To a large extent, the success of the corporation is established by the moral principles by which the company lives, its general culture and the spiritual world that organizational culture provides.

Discussion

What Is the Organizational Culture?

Organizational culture is a specific system of relations and actions characteristic of a given organization, carried out within the framework of a specific activity, a way of setting and conducting business. Organizational culture can also be understood as a set of relationships established within an organization by its members. The culture of the enterprise expresses certain collective ideas about the goals and the way of activity of this enterprise. Sociologist Fitria emphasizes that the culture of an enterprise is a system of representations, symbols, values and patterns of behavior shared by all its members (Fitria, 2018). The creator of organizational culture is a person within the organization.

Describe the Obstacles Educational Leaders Face in Changing an Organization’s Culture

Leaders implementing organizational changes may face challenges such as excessive formalization and focusing on internal rules and procedures. It can also be difficult for a leader because of the strong impact of a company’s dominant competitive position. The problem may also be created by the fact that the criteria for the success of the company as whole and individual employees are unclear. Any transformation of the formed organizational culture necessarily faces resistance and opposition to its change on the part of the organization’s employees (Asbari et al., 2020). The challenges associated with employees constitute the greatest problem when implementing a new organizational culture by a leader.

Has the Organizational Culture Changed in Recent Times?

In recent times, organizational culture is starting to have more value than before. Now the emphasis is on employees who work for a common goal, on their personal motivation to work, through moral encouragement and holding various joint events. Organizations strengthen team spirit and commitment to their company and their workplace (Paais & Pattiruhu, 2020). Moreover, with the advent of the digital economy in modern society, the requirements for organizations and employees themselves have changed. Organizational culture and communication today are increasingly acquiring the status of virtuality.

What Has Caused the Change and How Have Leaders Had to Respond?

Changes in organizational culture were caused by the situation of an unstable economy in the market, in which only the most persistent, stable, highly adaptive organizations survive. In order to be competitive in the market, it is necessary to constantly develop human capital (Meng & Berger, 2019). Constant self-realization and professional qualities such as activism, innovation, and striving for the best results in everything are required from the employee (Abdi et al., 2018). Therefore, leaders had to respond to the changes by conducting various pieces of training, seminars, and courses for their employees. By raising the organizational culture, they strive to ensure that labor activity in conditions of uncertainty and increased risk is effective.

Moreover, changes in organizational culture can be caused by the introduction of digital technologies that affect both the organization’s activities and employees. There is an opportunity to manage the organization remotely, new market opportunities, and the growth of the intellectualization of human capital (Harel et al., 2021). However, the Internet allows employees to work without leaving home, become mobile, and have no attachment to the workplace (Elsbach & Stigliani, 2018). Therefore, the leader needs to respond to changes by constantly working on team building in the organization. They need to control the presence of interpersonal relationships among staff and personally influence subordinates. The main goal of a leader when working with remote employees should be to preserve the importance of collectivism in the organization.

Conclusion

Organizational culture changes occur under the influence of many factors related to both the peculiarities of technology implementation and high competition. In addition to these factors, the change in organizational culture is also influenced by the business environment in general and the industry in particular. Difficulties are generated primarily by resistance to cultural changes. This becomes clearly noticeable when changes begin to affect the deep content of organizational culture. Of great importance are the personality of the leader or founder of the company, their personal impact and their response to the changes taking place in the recent world. For the successful development of a modern organization, constant modification of management practices is necessary.

In conclusion, it can also be noted that most transformational changes fail due to the fact that the presented conditions are not created in them. A leader can achieve real and significant cultural changes only when they really set themselves the goal of transformation and put a lot of money and resources into this aim. At the same time, ensuring the fulfillment of all the conditions presented above is really associated with high costs. Therefore, it is not surprising that in conditions of resource savings, the desired organizational changes sometimes turn out to be short-lived.

References

Abdi, K., Mardani, A., Senin, A. A., Tupenaite, L., Naimaviciene, J., Kanapeckiene, L., & Kutut, V. (2018). The effect of knowledge management, organizational culture and organizational learning on innovation in the automotive industry. Journal of Business Economics and Management, 9(1), 1-19.

Asbari, M., Purwanto, A., Maesaroh, S., Mustofa, P., Hutagalung, D., Mustikasiwi, A., Ong, E., & Andriyani, Y. (2020). Impact of hard skills, soft skills and organizational culture: Lecturer innovation competencies as meditating. Journal of Educational Psychology, 2(1), 101-121.

Elsbach, K. D., & Stigliani, I. (2018). Design thinking and organizational culture: A review and framework for future research. Journal of Management, 44(6), 2274-3306.

Fitria, H. (2018). The influence of organizational culture and trust through the teacher performance in the private secondary school in Palembang. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 7(7), 82-86.

Harel, R., Schwartz, D., & Kaufmann, D. (2021). Organizational culture processes for promoting innovation in small businesses. EuroMed Journal of Business, 16(2), 218-240.

Meng, J., & Berger, B. K. (2019). The impact of organizational culture and leadership performance on PR professionals’ job satisfaction: Testing the joint mediating effects of engagement and trust. Public Relations Review, 45(3), 64-75.

Paais, M., & Pattiruhu, J. R. (2020). Effect of motivation, leadership, and organizational culture on satisfaction and employee performance. Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business, 7(8), 577-588.