Introduction: For this blog, I have to provide examples
of the ‘visible’ aspects of culture in an organisation of my choice, and then I
have to go onto explaining what Handy meant by a power, role, task and person
culture with an organisational example for each, then I have to state what
problems are of trying to classify culture into one of the four types and then
lastly summarise my findings on this topic.
What is organisational culture?
Organisation culture is simply defined as ‘how
things are done around here’, the shared values, beliefs, attitudes and expectations, Mullins, L (2007) states that organational culture is made up of the values and beleifs of an organisation and they tend to build their own culture which sets out their values and
beliefs. Organisation culture is also build around the employees who work for the company and are accepting
the rules and regulations of what is expected of them from the organisation.
Visible aspects of B&Q:
Visible aspects of an organisation such as
B&Q, is the uniform the employees wear that differentiates the customers
from the employees and also indicates the professionalism of the company, also
the building as it is modern and is widely recognised by customers with the two
colours that represent it black and orange, the setting is rather like a warehouse, the layout of the store is
easy to adapt to with clear promotional offers as you walk through the doors,
making it easier for customers to look at what is on offer and increase sales
the logo is eye-catching in a bright colour that most people are familiar with
it as they are a well known DIY retail company, the staff are customer
orientated, friendly and approachable in addition to providing excellent
customer service along with good product knowledge a s they have specialist
people in different departments who can help for example, showrooms staff from
that department would be familiar with the products and services they have to
offer and can help or assist customers
in that area. B&Q primary objective is ‘to provide customers
with solutions to enable them to accomplish their home improvement ambitions,
in particular by removing the cost barrier to home improvement, and to create
and maintain rewarding relationships for both the customers and B&Q’, this
objective indicates that B&Q take pride in helping customer find their
needs to their solutions. They also have clear signs indicating the different
areas within the store such as signs indicating with the product would be found
making it easier for customer to find what they are looking for as the store is
huge.
Schein (1992):
Schein (1992) describes organisation culture similar
to an ‘onion’ because you can only see the visible layer. Schein divides it
into three levels. Artifacts this is the visible layer, and looks at the visible
aspects that are easily seen such as the different departments within an organisation,
uniform, building etc, the second is the espoused values and this explores into
the deeper aspects which are not easily seen for example the company’s goals or
strategies. Third level looks at the basic assumptions and values, this is hard
to justify as the assumptions are mainly formed around human existence such as
human relationships/activity.
Source:
French & Bell (1990) theory:
Organisation Iceberg (French and
Bell, 1990) looks at two contrasting aspects to begin with is the top layer which
you can only see 10% this looks at the formal aspects within organisation which
looks at the structure of the organisation, its goals and strategies and the
other 90% is the bottom layer which looks at the informal aspects within the organisation
this includes its values, beliefs attitudes these are not seen as easily as the
formal aspects as they are hidden underneath.
Formal
organisation:
·
Goals
·
Strategy
·
Structure
Informal organisation:
·
Values,
beliefs and attitudes
·
Power
·
Leadership
style
(Handy 1993) Four types of cultures:
1.
A power
culture is referred to as ‘the web’ by Handy, and tends to have one or more
people working within the organisation, usually have few rules set and all decision
making is made by the individual, also the ability to adapt to changes within
the environment would be determined by
the person who has the power. This culture would suit for example Alan Sugar
on his show ‘The Apprentice’, as he is known as a powerful character and has
the control to make decisions, Alan Sugar is a good example of an individual who
follows this type of culture.
2.
A role
culture is referred to as the ‘Greek temple’
and is usually found within larger organisations where individuals have
set job roles and work closely with their job description and abide by the
company’s rules and policies. This culture relies strongly on a hierarchy for
example B&Q follow this type of culture as the employees have set job roles
and follow their job descriptions whist following company’s procedures.
3.
A person
culture is focused around the individual who has an interest in the chosen occupation,
there is no hierarchy and is run simply with individuals that have a specific interest,
for example organisations that follow this type of culture are mainly barristers,
lawyers or doctors.
4.
A task
culture tends to be formed to complete particular tasks together and the team
has the control to make any decisions and tend to be creative, an example of an
organisation that follows this type of culture is larger organisations such as
Apple, as they come up with creative new outcomes such as the iphones, ipads,
ipods etc work together in a team to get the job done.
The problems of trying to classify culture
into one of the four types is quite difficult to categorize simply because it
would not work for example, B&Q in their stores they have role culture as every
employee has a different job role, checkout staff, staff from other departments
such as showrooms, flooring, building, gardening etc have different roles so
they would fit in with role culture along with the management team, the chief executive
of the company would fit in with power culture as he would be the one who makes
all the decisions within the company, the people working in the head office that
would be doing projects or tasks together to promote in-store offers or
improving the layout of the stores would ideally fit in with task culture. In general I would state that organisation
culture play an important role in any type of business, and cannot be
classified into one as it would not work so companies that have strong
organisation culture are more likely to be better than the one that don’t.
Conclusion: overall from this blog, I have learned that organisation
culture plays an important role in any organisation, and large companies such
as B&Q would need to use most of them in order for them to be successful
not only to keep the customers and employees happy but to be a profitable
business, therefore without organisation culture an organisation would not be
able to develop or grow for long.
References:
[1] B&Q [Online] Available
From: www.diy.com/corporate [Accessed 24th October 2012]
[2] Schein Theory [Online] Available
From: http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/methods_schein_three_levels_culture.html
[Accessed 24th October 2012]
[3] Mullins, L. (2007) Management & Organisational Behaviour: 8th edition. Harlow: Prentice
Hall.
[4] Simpson, M (2012) PowerPoint.
