![Image](https://www.worldsupporter.org/sites/default/files/styles/medium/public/tips_suggestions/wereldbol_summaries_joho_single_boek_1_150x190px.png?itok=rEljlfYL)
- What is organizational culture?
- How does organizational culture influence performance?
- What are the characteristics of high performance cultures?
- What are the characteristics of low performance cultures?
- What are the visible and invisible factors that define culture?
- What are the internal and external factors that influence culture?
- How do (de)valued behaviors influence organizational culture?
- What are the guidelines for building and sustaining organizational cultures?
What is organizational culture?
Culture can be described as the beliefs, values, attitudes, behaviors, and practices that are characteristics of a group of people. The term group can refer to a whole organization or any group of people of any size. Groups of people are likely to form specific cultures. Organizational culture refers in a broad sense to the culture of a whole organization or any unit of people working together within the organization. It describes the environment in which people work and the influence it has on how they think, act, and experience work. Culture is increasingly becoming a concern for skilled leaders, because of the significant role culture can play in an organization's success or failure.
How does organizational culture influence performance?
Since the 1980s a lot of research has been done examining the effects of organizational cultures on performance and other factors. Culture can, among many other factors, influence performance, morale, loyalty, job satisfaction, turnover, and employee attitudes and motivation. Healthy cultures seem to be the result of effective leadership and management, whereas unhealthy cultures seem to be caused by ineffective leadership and management. There are different opinions as to whether culture is the cause or the result of organization practices. The reality is however that culture affects how an organization is run and organization practises affect organizational culture. Both affect the other and both need attention to achieve the best results. High performance cultures can only be achieved by running an organization well, and running and organization well requires effort by the leaders in building and sustaining culture.
What are the characteristics of high performance cultures?
In high performance cultures, leaders are skilled and admired. They build organizations that achieve great results and take good care of their employees and their customers, and are committed to excellence and ethics. They tend to have a clear vision, mission, goals, and strategy. The culture is driven by core values that are used to make decisions. The roles and responsibilities are clear and there is a strong commitment to empowering and developing people. Communication is open, straightforward, and transparent. Teamwork, collaboration, and involvement are all important. There exists an emphasis on constant improvement and the use of new knowledge. The culture has a willingness to change, adapt, and learn from successes and mistakes, take reasonable risks, and try new things.
What are the characteristics of low performance cultures?
In low performance cultures, leaders don´t provide a lot of leadership and are generally not admired nor trusted. They do not try to engage and involve their employees. Their vision, mission, goals, and strategy tend to be unclear or non-existent. There is no commitment to excellence and the ethics are questionable. The roles and responsibilities tend to be unclear and there is very little to no interest in developing the capabilities of people. The work environment tends to be negative, tense, and stressful. Communication is guarded and people are reluctant to be open and straightforward. There is minimal teamwork and collaboration and there tends to be top-down decision making. Change is poorly planned and resisted, there is little learning from successes and mistakes, and risks tend to be avoided.
What are the visible and invisible factors that define culture?
Culture can be viewed on two levels, namely the visible and the invisible level. The visible level is observable and refers to dress, office layout, office design, and an emphasis on technology. It can also refer to leadership style, the nature of the work environment, how people are treated, and how decisions are made and implemented. The invisible level includes underlying assumptions, deep beliefs, and expressed values (consciously held convictions, clearly stated or practiced, that influence the behavior of group members),.
What are the internal and external factors that influence culture?
Internal and external circumstances can influence culture. External circumstances include, among other things, government regulations, lawsuits, or acquisition by another company. Internal circumstances may include organizational structure, budgets, leadership styles, changes in leadership, or key internal decisions. Important is also the group history as it can provide insight into the traditions and dynamics that should be kept or those that need to change.
How do (de)valued behaviors influence organizational culture?
People respond to behaviors that are valued and rewarded and tend to avoid behaviors that are not valued or rewarded. It is important for a leader to examine the reward system of the organization, as it may be possible that the rewarded behaviors actually encourage self-serving actions and discourage teamwork. It can be as subtle as not noticing or rewarding extra effort by the employees. It is also important to identify if there are any influential group members and what their behaviors are. A group member can have a positive or negative influence on the culture of a group. It is important for a leader to select the people who fit with the desired culture, and to correct behaviors that undermine the desired culture.
What are the guidelines for building and sustaining organizational cultures?
The following guidelines are identified:
- Strategy and culture should be important leadership priorities and leaders should set the right example.
- A clear understanding of the current culture so the strengths can be reinforced and any weaknesses or inconsistencies can be addressed.
- Identify, communicate, educate, and engage employees in the cultural ideals.
- Role model desired behaviors (especially the leader should stick to his words and give the right example or he may not be taken seriously).
- Recruit and develop for culture. Culture fit should be as important as skills and experience. There should be careful selection, orientation programs, and training and development of current employees.
- Consistency between strategy and culture (decisions should be in line with the desired values).
- Desired behaviors and practices should be recognized and rewarded.
- Use symbols (actions, objects, or events that communicate meaning), ceremonies (planned activities that are meaningful), socialization (making clear the kinds of behaviors and attitudes that will help them succeed), and stories (narratives that reinforce the cultural values) to reinforce culture.
- Appoint a culture team to monitor the culture throughout the organization, advise the leadership, and help implement ways to strengthen the culture.
- Monitor and manage the culture.
Study Guide with article summaries with Social Psychology in Organisations at Leiden University
Article summaries with Social Psychology in Organisations at Leiden University
Table of content
- Pygmalion and Employee Learning: The Role of Leader Behaviors
- Well then - What now? An everyday approach to managerial leadership
- Leader Humility and Team Creativity: The Role of Team Information Sharing, Psychological Safety, and Power Distance
- The Interplay of Diversity Training and Diversity Beliefs on Team Creativity in Nationality Diverse Teams
- Reflections on the Looking Glass: A Review of Research on Feedback-Seeking Behavior in Organizations
- Job Crafting at the Team and Individual Level: Implications for Work Engagement and Performance
- Dispositional resistance to change and emotional exhaustion: moderating effects at the work-unit level
- What leaders need to know about organizational culture
- Distinguished Scholar Invited Essay Behavioral Decision Making: Implications for Leadership and Organizations
- Conflict Templates: Thinking Through Interdependence
- Flow theory and research
- Pursuing happiness: The architecture of sustainable change
- 1 of 2158
- next ›
JoHo can really use your help! Check out the various student jobs here that match your studies, improve your competencies, strengthen your CV and contribute to a more tolerant world
Online access to all summaries, study notes en practice exams
- Check out: Register with JoHo WorldSupporter: starting page (EN)
- Check out: Aanmelden bij JoHo WorldSupporter - startpagina (NL)
How and why would you use WorldSupporter.org for your summaries and study assistance?
- For free use of many of the summaries and study aids provided or collected by your fellow students.
- For free use of many of the lecture and study group notes, exam questions and practice questions.
- For use of all exclusive summaries and study assistance for those who are member with JoHo WorldSupporter with online access
- For compiling your own materials and contributions with relevant study help
- For sharing and finding relevant and interesting summaries, documents, notes, blogs, tips, videos, discussions, activities, recipes, side jobs and more.
Using and finding summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter
There are several ways to navigate the large amount of summaries, study notes en practice exams on JoHo WorldSupporter.
- Use the menu above every page to go to one of the main starting pages
- Starting pages: for some fields of study and some university curricula editors have created (start) magazines where customised selections of summaries are put together to smoothen navigation. When you have found a magazine of your likings, add that page to your favorites so you can easily go to that starting point directly from your profile during future visits. Below you will find some start magazines per field of study
- Use the topics and taxonomy terms
- The topics and taxonomy of the study and working fields gives you insight in the amount of summaries that are tagged by authors on specific subjects. This type of navigation can help find summaries that you could have missed when just using the search tools. Tags are organised per field of study and per study institution. Note: not all content is tagged thoroughly, so when this approach doesn't give the results you were looking for, please check the search tool as back up
- Check or follow your (study) organizations:
- by checking or using your study organizations you are likely to discover all relevant study materials.
- this option is only available trough partner organizations
- Check or follow authors or other WorldSupporters
- by following individual users, authors you are likely to discover more relevant study materials.
- Use the Search tools
- 'Quick & Easy'- not very elegant but the fastest way to find a specific summary of a book or study assistance with a specific course or subject.
- The search tool is also available at the bottom of most pages
Do you want to share your summaries with JoHo WorldSupporter and its visitors?
- Check out: Why and how to add a WorldSupporter contributions
- JoHo members: JoHo WorldSupporter members can share content directly and have access to all content: Join JoHo and become a JoHo member
- Non-members: When you are not a member you do not have full access, but if you want to share your own content with others you can fill out the contact form
Quicklinks to fields of study for summaries and study assistance
Field of study
- All studies for summaries, study assistance and working fields
- Communication & Media sciences
- Corporate & Organizational Sciences
- Cultural Studies & Humanities
- Economy & Economical sciences
- Education & Pedagogic Sciences
- Health & Medical Sciences
- IT & Exact sciences
- Law & Justice
- Nature & Environmental Sciences
- Psychology & Behavioral Sciences
- Public Administration & Social Sciences
- Science & Research
- Technical Sciences
Add new contribution