Culture Analysis
Introduction
There have been so many definitions of what organizational culture is over the years as many scholars have investigated and come up with different dimensions. According to Alvesson & Sveningsson (2015), culture encompasses a set of beliefs and guiding values that guide people in any given organization. It is a set of shared understanding by organization members about what is termed as right and wrong behavior in the organization and it is taught to new members. On the other hand, organizational culture has been defined as the norms and values of an organization, management styles, interpersonal behavior and priorities that prevail repeatedly over the course of time (Hogan & Coote, 2014). Together, all these things create an influential climate to the members of the organization and they end up controlling the way they carry out their. This part of my research paper is an analysis of organizational culture and I will collect and analyze data from the organization I work with to explain concept along three dimensions: values, artifacts and underlying assumptions.
Data collection
The research in this study will be conducted mainly using qualitative research method because the main aim is to reach an in-depth understanding of the concept of organizational culture based on people’s behavior, feelings, opinions and personal experiences. As opposed to quantitative research method that strives to use numerical statistics, qualitative research method helps the researcher investigate certain meanings that people ascribe to their feelings and behavior as well as their actions when interacting with each other. While quantitative research is best used to determine relationship between variables such as the relationship between organizational culture and performance, qualitative method of research is the best method to shed light as to why such relationships occur by going directly to the people affected by the subject under investigation. This makes qualitative method the most suitable method for this study. Therefore, I will make use of primary data sources like observation, interviews for this research.
Observation is one of the best methods to analyze people’s daily routines and so I decided to observe how people behave in my organization for two weeks. By definition, observation in qualitative research is a type of correlational research whereby a researcher observes a natural phenomenon continuously to understand their behavior (Merriam, 2015). One of the main advantages of using this method of collecting data is that it is highly flexible in that it allows the researcher to observe and record exactly what people do or say as opposed to what they say they do through reports and other forms of records. In addition, I chose this method because it can access situations and people where other methods such as interviews and questionnaires cannot access. In addition, I found the method of observation quite appropriate because I work in this organization which means I participate in tremendous activities and projects with my fellow employees as well as individually. Therefore, I will be able to determine the feelings, opinions and behavior that can help me analyze organizational culture in different dimensions including individually, from a group setting and from an organizational level. I will be able to sustain my findings from the beginning of the day to the end with lunchtime and other breaks included because I am part of this organization. Therefore, I will have hand on information on everything I need to help me analyze organizational culture without missing out on some important things. More so, observation will also cover other things such as rituals and symbols within the company, something that other methods such as interviews may not cover.
I will also collect data using interviews with different people in the organization to ensure that the data is accurate and reliable. For the sake of reliability, I choose to use unstructured interviews whereby there will not be a specific number of pre-planned questions although I already have the specific set of topics that I desire to ask. Using unstructured interviewing will increase chances of me getting more information about the topic under investigation because it is quite informal and the interviews will flow like normal daily conversations that I have with my co-workers (Merriam, 2015). This will make them feel free and more comfortable to speak freely. The interviewees for this research will be randomly selected. Since the topic under investigation is organizational culture, I will stick to asking questions comprehensively related to organizational culture.
However, I cannot ignore the fact that interviews deal with past events and second-hand information rather than what the researcher observes directly. Dealing with the unconscious is very important because true motivations and feelings are captured as opposed to when the subject knows that they are under investigation (Merriam, 2015). On the other hand, there are several activities that cannot be investigated using observation such as the sexual relationships and what they mean in organizational culture. In light of these weaknesses, I will also incorporate other secondary methods of collecting data to support the data collected through interviews and observation.
Secondary data sources used in this research include historical data and information and previous research on the topic. Historical data such as archive materials stored by the organization as well as documentaries preserve by the organization will be used to support real time perspectives determined using primary data sources (Heaton, 2008). Historical data will be very convenient for this research because it will inform me on the organization’s past culture and social interactions that relate to organizational culture. I will also refer to previous literature on organizational culture to know what other researchers found on organizational culture and then relate it to the information I will acquire through observations and interviews with the case organization. I will then interpret and summarize the collected information through interviewing and observation according to the major components of organizational culture which include values, artifacts and assumptions.
Data analysis
Following the already existing literature about organization culture, several researchers have come up with different definitions of organizational culture. However, most of them have characterized organizational culture as a factor that deals with people in the organization and their distinctive qualities and styles of doing things. The most outstanding thing about culture from the existing definitions, from the conducted interviews and observation as well as the historical data acquired is that it comprises of three dimensions namely: values, artifacts and assumptions.
Members of an organization eventually come to sense the unique culture of their organization following these specific dimensions. From the data collected, it is evident that organizational culture is one of the most difficult terms for employees to distinctively express but once they sense it, they automatically know it. One can tell the culture of an organization by basically looking at the type of furniture and its arrangement, by listening at what people talk about most of the times, by looking at what the employees wear and how they address each other among other things. One of the findings deduced from the collected data is that organizational culture is what improves and strengthens the cohesion and oneness in an organization. It is also what encourages and motivates employees to be more enthusiastic about their job and to be more creative to add value to the organization. Additionally, organizational culture greatly impacts on the overall behavior of the employees.
Consequently, the findings are such that an organization’s values are a central part of its culture. From the interviews I conducted, most employees stated that the vision of the organization articulates the main goal and purpose of the organization but it is the values of the organization that offer guidelines towards their behavior and way of thinking and this is what contributes to their daily focus towards attaining that vision. The case organization sells its values to the employees using certain artifacts. For example, they have different symbols symbolizing that it is a corruption free entity. Most employees that I interviewed are very much against corruption because it is one of their most essential values. I also learned through observation that they the employees are fair and they treat all the customers equally which is a sign that they are very ethical and they recognize what is right and wrong and act accordingly.
I also found out that both the management and the employees are highly committed to each other in that employees work very hard to add value to the organization while the management does everything possible to make the employees comfortable. According to the interviewed subjects the management is very committed to honoring their life and work balance, leave policies and training opportunities. Additionally, it is part of this organization’s culture to empower each other as seen in several symbols with slogans such as “be your brother’s keeper”. Through observation I learned that all employees are ready to help each other because they are working in solidarity towards a common goal.
Artifacts, which are the physical parts of culture are easily formulated and this organization has a tone of them. From the interviews, almost all the employees stated that they highly uphold the ceremonies carried out in the organization including training of new employees and orienting them, offsite meetings and the annual conferences that they hold each year. There were also several symbols and slogans which the employees identified as the summary of the organization’s internal behavior. For instance, in the historical data that I analyzed, there is a list of awards such as employee of the month and the best new employee of the year. All these were identified as symbols of preferred behavior by the interviewed employees. Consequently, the historical data consisted of stories about the founders of the organization, its leaders and the challenges they faced as well as how they dealt with them. Employees related to these stories and I concluded that they act as the medium towards creating their own legacies.
Finally, I deduced that both values and artifacts give rise to assumptions because the employees that I interviewed drew from them to explain what they understood to be organizational culture. These assumptions are what guided what they determined as good and bad behavior. They also guided their emotions and feelings about their jobs and the organization in general.
References
Alvesson, M., & Sveningsson, S. (2015). Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge.
Heaton, J. (2008). Secondary analysis of qualitative data: An overview. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 33-45.
Hogan, S. J., & Coote, L. V. (2014). Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A test of Schein’s model. Journal of Business Research, 67(8), 1609-1621.
Merriam, S. B. (2015). Qualitative Research: Designing, Implementing, and Publishing a Study. In Handbook of Research on Scholarly Publishing and Research Methods (pp. 125-140). IGI Global.