An organizational structure is the way lines of authority and power, roles and responsibilities are structured within an organization and how duties are communicated and the rights entailed ( Shafritz, Ott & Jang , 2015 ). A structure highly depends on objectives and strategy an organization has in force. An organizational culture entails the uniquely shared organizational values, behaviors, and attitudes. Organization culture defines the personality of an organization that is distinct from any other. The paper is intended to shed light on the interdependence between the structure and culture of an organization.
Characteristics and Importance of Implementing Organizational Shared Culture
The culture of an organization is a major competitive advantage that an organization can invest in ( O'Neill, Beauvais & Scholl , 2016 ). A manager intending to implement cultural beliefs in an organization should consider important traits and principles before making any other consideration. The management should consider evaluating how consistent employees view culture. In addition, they should evaluate the current cultural structure and how it’s possible effects.
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The management should take into account sub-cultural features that might probably affect group performance ( O'Neill, Beauvais & Scholl , 2016 ). They should rapidly assign new executives to spearhead institution of the shared organizational culture and influence attitudes of the subordinates. Finally, they should measure the relationship between individual beliefs and organizational culture to determine the impact caused by a leader. The management should then come up with an appropriate culture and properly communicate changes necessary.
The management should work with their current culture, identify its desirable traits and those that are not desirable, and discern the traits hindering organizational development ( O'Neill, Beauvais & Scholl , 2016 ). Second, the management should consider behavioral and mindset changes. They should communicate values and influence mindset to develop desirable behaviors. An organization should then identify the few critical behaviors. Since an organization may not be able to focus on all aspects of its culture, it is important for an organization to focus on the few major behaviors which will result in great development within an organization. An organization should then employ informal leaders in influencing behavioral changes by doing it themselves to establish emotional commitment and the tone for others to follow ( O'Neill, Beauvais & Scholl , 2016 ).
In order to set it right, it is important the management to identifying and account for the characteristics of implementing a culture. Implementation of a shared culture will help an organization reduce employee turnover since they will be made to feel as part of the organization ( O'Neill, Beauvais & Scholl , 2016 ). A shared culture will also help an organization increase its productivity and profits. The organization will also succeed in developing leaders for a succession plan. An organization will also benefit from teamwork and loyalty from their employees. Finally, a shared culture will enable individuals and their teams relatively adapt to change.
Global Implications of Implementing a Shared Culture
Globalization of organization makes it necessary to rely on a labor from the different geographical location ( Lee, Shiue & Chen , 2016 ). A globally shared culture creates shared norms and collective cultural identities. The management is faced with the challenge of bridging the differences and building unity. The management has the duty or reminding individual members that they share a common purpose and they should focus on the main business goals. A diverse culture helps the stakeholders of an organization understand the bigger picture and also creates a sense of belonging.
The globalization of culture within an organization is still faced with great challenges irrespective of the multiple ways it can benefit an organization. Amongst the major challenges, an organization face due to implementing a shared culture is communication barrier ( Lee, Shiue & Chen , 2016 ). The language diversity of people involved makes it difficult to formulate a shared culture since individuals from their different languages understand different cultural values and beliefs differently.
A shared culture is also faced with great resistance to change by subordinates. Some individuals become uncertain or also feel insecure when change is proposed. People in different geographical setting also value different aspects differently hence harmonizing the different values creates a great challenge. The diversity of culture breeds cultural complexities which are difficult to understand and cope up with ( Lee, Shiue & Chen , 2016 ). When implementation of shared cultures goes wrong, an organization may end up setting beliefs and values employees cannot be able to relate to.
Importance of Ethical Leadership When Implementing Organization Structure
An organization structure outlines the flow of power to authorize and the duties and responsibilities involved at all levels of an organization ( Bolman & Deal, 201 7 ). When implementing an organization structure leader should consider basic ethical requirements in order for such a structure to be effective. Ethical leadership is the code of conduct that defines the acceptability of behaviors ( Bolman & Deal, 201 7 ). Ethical readership also defines morality and acceptable and unacceptable action.
Ethical leadership is paramount in developing sound corporate governance and control. It ensures the interested parties about the organization social responsibility through commitment to values and ethics. Ethical leadership enables an organization to avoid unlawful conduct and enhance compliance with all statutory regulations. Ethical leadership enables an organization build organization trust which translates into the promotion of organizational economic value, teamwork, and productivity. Ethical leadership also creates a favorable working environment which creates job satisfaction through trust.
A structure formulated ethically should outline the basic functions important for proper organizational strategy execution ( Bolman & Deal, 201 7 ) . It should also establish how the critical tasks and organizational units should relate to each other and how they affect other functions. It should also establish authority necessary to be in charge of organizational divisions, factoring in benefits and charges to be incurred. The leaders should finally make provision for coordination among the various organization divisions to achieve desired results.
Current Organizational Structure Analysis and Effective Establishment
XYZ current structure is characterized by a management art of decentralization. Decentralization is a management technique that involved the delegation of power and responsibility to divisional managers. Decision making capability is vested in the divisional managers and they are held responsible for the results of their actions.
In order to develop an effective organizational structure and culture, the management should consider the different cultures within the organization and solve the culture loopholes. They should not do away with the current structure but work to improve it. The management should then focus on changing behaviors to influence mindsets and match personal values and efforts with behaviors. The management should also understand their organizations design in order to determine the appropriate cultures to implement.
Employee view and attitude to changes in the culture should be quantified to determine how fit employees can adopt change. The organizational strategy should be considered and the management should establish whether their current organizational strategy can facilitate cultural changes.
References
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2017). Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership . John Wiley & Sons.
Lee, J. C., Shiue, Y. C., & Chen, C. Y. (2016). Examining the impacts of organizational culture and top management support of knowledge sharing on the success of software process improvement. Computers in Human Behavior , 54 , 462-474.
O'Neill, J. W., Beauvais, L. L., & Scholl, R. W. (2016). The use of organizational culture and structure to guide strategic behavior: An information processing perspective. Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management , 2 (2).
Shafritz, J. M., Ott, J. S., & Jang, Y. S. (2015). Classics of organization theory . Cengage Learning.
