Can cultures be managed within organisations?

I experience international and multicultural space all the time. Here I will examine if culture can be managed within organisations. I will also explore types of cultures within organisations and their impact. I will provide an example of an organisation that failed due to their culture and one that succeeded. The goal is to become more educated in business culture and learn the ways to manage it within organisations. We may face dilemmas related to culture nearly every day within our organisation and understanding the topic will help to make right decisions and have a positive impact on the organisation as well as own professional career.

Let us question if the culture even matters and whether an organisation can exist without it. If we look at the definition, a culture is the assumptions, beliefs, values and norms that drive ‘the way we do things around’ the company (Egan, quoted in Mullins, 2016). From my experience, this can apply even when you work alone as you will have a certain way of practice, values and approach. Handy defined this as a Person culture (Handy 1998).

This technically answers the second part of the question.

We will explore further why an organisation needs it for. Let us review the first part, Adam says an organisational culture can make or break your company (Adam 2020). From cases we learn that this is particularly deadly in organisations with a Power culture. One of the recent ones was with Uber. The company became a hollow from inside out due to its ex-CEO’s arrogant and macho attitude towards his employees (BBC 2019). Not only the top management, the CTO Thuan Pham and the SVP of global operations Ryan Graves among few resigned, but also a large number of contractors switched to competitors (Forbes 2018). This culture triggered an opportunity for competitors to enter the market and employ a friendly and driver-friendly environment to acquire these contractors. Many stakeholders were upset with the way they were treated and left for alternative in a search for a positive organisation culture (Isaac 2017). Another very famous case of a negative culture was in Amazon. Tony Gobato, a vice president for human resources once reported “Nearly every person I work with I saw cry at their desk” (Jodi kantor and David stripebelt 2015). This was a consequence of a toxic role culture with a massive pressure across each department within the organisation (Entrepreneur 2018). Both companies suffered huge losses in intellectual property, human resource and market capitalisation as reported by respective sources. To resolve it they had to address the organisational culture issue in its core.

Let us learn how to transform the organisational culture. Usually the company management approach this task by thinking “we should do things differently” and start with hard variables namely strategy, structure and systems as in McKinsey’s Seven “S” model (Chris 2015). Chris suggests that the impact of this approach is limited or counterproductive and suggests focusing on soft variables namely style, stuff and skills of the same Seven “S” model. Chris stresses the importance of getting it right is in understanding the current culture. He introduces analogy with a map where before setting the direction it first needs to understand the current position, then plan how to get to your destination.

There is another dimension to culture which is realised when you tap into the international business environment, it is cross-national cultural differences (Aacsb 2011). This topic is deeply researched by Hofstede while working for multinational organisation on employee satisfaction (Aacsb 2011). His son joined the research and continued trying to learn how these differences originate and perpetuate themselves. Hofstede identified that at a deep level the metaphorical social landscape in which people live is different across societies (Hofstede-insights 2020). Such values are instilled in one’s mind from day one, it is not something that can be eliminated but can be built upon existing and developed once location or country changes (Chris 2015).

I want to retrace my steps and hit some key points within the role of a culture in organisation.

First, it is very important that as a part of the organisation and nation you understand the culture you are in. As the organisational iceberg demonstrates it is not only formal aspects, but also invisible behavioural aspects that take a long time to perceive and understand it. (Hellriegel 1998) Also, in an international organisation which will have both national and organisational dimensions it will require more time and aptitude to learn and adapt to it. We established that it is critical to have a strong positive culture within organisation as it is crucial for success. The organisational culture can build the reputation of the company as well as ruin it, it can add value as well as slump it. For more than 73% of employees in the UK, the culture is the top three criteria for their future role (Ofsted 2020). If we agree that the talent is the biggest asset within the organisation, then building a great culture is the top three areas every organisation should focus their development. If the culture of your organisation is not how you want it, it is vital to understand the current culture and make an action plan on how to rebuild it working on McKinsey’s all seven S. It is not easy, nevertheless with the clear understanding of the existing culture and the main pain points it is possible to plan out the right strategy to build it up to a strong powerful asset.