Definition of Organizational Culture

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The shared values, beliefs, customs, practices, behaviors, and artifacts that characterizes an organization.

Introduction to Organizational Culture: Understanding the concept of organizational culture is the starting point. This topic introduces the concept and its significance in organizations.
The Elements of Organizational Culture: Identifying the different elements that make up organizational culture is important. This topic explains the various elements such as values, beliefs, behaviors, symbols, and practices.
Types of Organizational Culture: There are several types of organizational culture. Understanding each type and their characteristics is important. This topic explains the different types of organizational culture such as clan, adhocracy, market, and hierarchy.
The Importance of Organizational Culture: Understanding the importance of organizational culture is crucial. This topic explains how organizational culture affects performance, employee behavior, retention, and innovation.
How Organizational Culture is Formed: Learning about the process of forming an organizational culture is vital. This topic explains how it is formed starting from the founder’s values and beliefs to other factors such as employee behaviors, leadership style, and external environment.
Measuring Organizational Culture: Measuring organizational culture is important to understand its effectiveness. This topic explains different ways of measuring organizational culture, such as surveys, interviews, and observation methods.
The Role of Leadership: The leadership style of an organization is an integral part of its organizational culture. This topic explains how leadership style affects the development of the culture and how it can be changed.
The Relationship between Organizational Culture and Organizational Change: Organizational culture and change have a deep connection. This topic explains how culture can either facilitate or hinder change depending on its strength and type.
Ways to Change Organizational Culture: Changing organizational culture is challenging but necessary under certain circumstances. This topic explains methods that can be used to change the culture such as reward systems, communication, and training.
Best Practices for Creating a Positive Organizational Culture: Creating a positive organizational culture requires a concerted effort from everyone in the organization. This topic explains different best practices such as promoting open communication, employee empowerment, and recognition of success.
Anthropological definition: Organizational culture is defined as the shared values, beliefs, assumptions, and practices that people in an organization have in common, and that are transmitted from one generation of employees to another.
Behavioral definition: Organizational culture is defined as the observable behaviors that employees exhibit, such as how they communicate, make decisions, and approach work tasks.
Cognitive definition: Organizational culture is defined as the shared mental models and beliefs that employees have about the organization, its purpose, and how things are done.
Structural definition: Organizational culture is defined as the formal and informal systems, policies, and procedures that govern how work is done and how people interact within the organization.
Humanistic/Values definition: Organizational culture is defined as the set of core values and principles that guide an organization's decision-making, behavior, and relationships.
Integrated definition: Organizational culture is defined as the combination of all the above types of definitions, which interact to create a unique and complex culture for each organization.
Quote: "Edgar Schein, a leading researcher in this field, defined 'organizational culture' as comprising a number of features, including a shared 'pattern of basic assumptions'."
Quote: "Elliott Jaques first introduced the concept of culture in the organizational context in his 1951 book The Changing Culture of a Factory."
Quote: "The study concerned itself with the description, analysis, and development of corporate group behaviors."
Quote: "Ravasi and Schultz (2006) characterize organizational culture as a set of shared assumptions that guide behaviors."
Quote: "The organizational culture influences the way people interact, the context within which knowledge is created, the resistance they will have towards certain changes, and ultimately the way they share (or the way they do not share) knowledge."
Quote: "In addition, organizational culture may affect how much employees identify with an organization."
Quote: "Schein (1992), Deal and Kennedy (2000), and Kotter (1992) advanced the idea that organizations often have very differing cultures as well as subcultures."
Quote: "Flamholtz and Randle (2011) suggest that one can view organizational culture as 'corporate personality'."
Quote: "They define it as consisting of the values, beliefs, and norms which influence the behavior of people as members of an organization."
Quote: "It may also be influenced by factors such as history, type of product, market, technology, strategy, type of employees, management style, and national culture."
Quote: "The organizational culture influences the way people interact, the context within which knowledge is created, the resistance they will have towards certain changes, and ultimately the way they share (or the way they do not share) knowledge."
Quote: "Culture includes the organization's vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, environment, location, beliefs and habits."
Quote: "Though Gallup finds that just 22% of U.S. employees feel connected to their organization's culture."
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Quote: "Ravasi and Schultz (2006) characterize organizational culture as a set of shared assumptions that guide behaviors."
Quote: "The organizational culture influences the way people interact, the context within which knowledge is created, the resistance they will have towards certain changes, and ultimately the way they share (or the way they do not share) knowledge."
Quote: "Schein (1992), Deal and Kennedy (2000), and Kotter (1992) advanced the idea that organizations often have very differing cultures as well as subcultures."
Quote: "In addition, organizational culture may affect how much employees identify with an organization."
Quote: "Culture includes the organization's vision, values, norms, systems, symbols, language, assumptions, environment, location, beliefs and habits."
Quote: "Though Gallup finds that just 22% of U.S. employees feel connected to their organization's culture."