Executives, managers, and leaders in organizations want to learn how to manage the culture of their organization and how to change it so that they can achieve the highest level of organizational performance. If key leaders fail to adjust the culture of an organization to meet its goals or align with them, it can lead to a culture that hinders performance. Robbins and Judge present a model of how an organization’s culture is created. This starts with the founder’s philosophy and selection criteria, continues through top management, and then it becomes an acceptable culture. The model shows that an organization must go through certain stages to create a unique culture.
However, emphasizing founders as the builders of organizational culture is just one piece of the puzzle. A founder may have paved the way, but for culture to develop, more involvement from the employees is required.
The leader’s influence gets the group moving in a certain direction, but it is only when the solutions offered by the leader are useful that the elements become implicitly and perhaps explicitly accepted by the group and ultimately become part of the group culture.
Organization’s Culture Development from Employee’s Perspective:
One other way to look at how an organization’s culture develops is by looking at the individuals’ characteristics. This helps in attracting homogeneous people, the selection of such individuals, and attrition for those who don’t fit this group mold. This is the ASA (Attraction-Selection-Attrition) framework as introduced by Schneider. Schneider continues to state that the ASA framework is usually initiated by the founder, who will surround himself with people who share his vision and values. It is possible to see the origins of an organization’s culture through its founder, its industry effects, and its people. However, to preserve the memory of the organization, it is crucial that its culture be transmitted to its heirs.
Read: What is a centralized market?
A culture that is not serving the organization’s needs can be changed either by a group or an individual. If a group finds that a certain culture is affecting its competitive market performance, the leaders of the organization and its founders may review the culture for possible change.
