Organizational Culture

Organizational Culture

Towards the achievement of corporate goals, but to have employees align their personal attitudes and values with those of the company. One way to achieve that is through organizational culture.

• Schein (1985) defines culture as ‘the deeper level of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organization, that operate unconsciously, and that define in a basic, ‘taken-for-granted’ fashion, an organization’s view of itself and its environment’. (Linstead, S., Fulop, L. and Lilley, S. 2009, 157)
• “Shared values meant that everyone in the company was committed to common goals such as high quality output and customer service.”
• “The way forward, then, was for all companies to develop a set of shared values – a strong, homogenous culture – which would then ensure success.”
• Culture management aspires to intervene in and regulate being, so that there is no distance between individuals’ purposes and those of the organization for which they work.” (Grey, 2013: p. 62-64)

In what ways do companies seek to align employee values with those of the company? To what extent are corporations able to succeed in achieving alignment of employee values with company values?

Introduction

In the modern day setting, corporate leaders are expected to intuitively acknowledge the importance of organizational culture in contributing to organizational performance as well as building the corporate reputations. However, intrinsic issues such as values misalignment can be detrimental to the overall economic progression and stability of an organization. Understanding the emergence and origin of organizational culture is imperative as preliminary step necessary in providing solutions that are effective in solving these issues. In simple terms, organizational culture can be described as shared beliefs and values that provide directive on work approach as well as work related interactions. Its expression is elaborated through customs, behaviors and practices displayed collaboratively by employees and the overall management. It is imperative for there to be an alignment between values highly prioritized by the workforce and organizational values in order to assure the functionality of organizational culture. Thus, by developing an understanding on the strategies through which this alignment can be achieved, organizations can be able to not only succeed in establishing and maintaining a highly functional organizational culture but also motivate high performance within the workforce.

Importance of Value Alignment and Employee Engagement

Organizations that have experienced high performance and engagement within the recent decade attest this success to effective value alignment and employee engagement in understanding and behaving accordingly in order to achieve organizational strategic goals. Thus, they have been able to achieve and sustain long-term high performance within all their organizational departments. High performance, an outcome affiliated with value alignment is highly important and prioritized by organization because it is able to

1. Energize the Workforce

A high performance corporation is able to continuously energize its workforce through providing clear directives on achieving organizational goals as well as inspire the employees to engage in achieving these set objectives.

1. Encourage Employee Engagement

Successful value alignment is potentially useful in motivating employees to become highly engaged in the achievement of organizational goals primarily because they fully comprehend that success is not only important for the company but also enables them to achieve personal goal attainment.

1. Allow Execution of Long Term Goals

Corporations that are geared towards achieving high performance through value alignment are able to ensure that their activities and plans are also intricately aligned. The execution of this plan is resourceful in motivating managers to set exemplary standards for collaborative teams that are highly accountable and complaint with the high performance culture. This in turn is effective in ensuring that he workforce and organizational systems are functional and able to meet stakeholder and clientele needs and demands.