According to Graham et al. (2017), culture refers to customs, skills, ideas, and arts that bound particular people with common goals together in a given time. In the organizational setting, managers and leadership are concerned with the context of organizational culture as a unique concept in managing systems and employees. This research is aimed at analyzing the models, studies, and empirical studies to understand corporate culture and its organizational impacts. Through these lenses, businesses can understand the importance of demonstrating various organizational conceptualizations, measurements, and examining relevant organizational concepts that improve corporate culture. Managers are the only stakeholders that can introduce a productive corporate culture to familiarize employees with all organizational systems and processes (Dhir, 2019). Corporate culture should be designed in a manner that allows a learning environment for all stakeholders.
It is also essential to understand and analyze the literature review, which is crucial in understanding regulatory processes and impacts of the cultural operations on both the management and the employees. A description and evaluation of cultural dimensions in an organization reveal that employees’ commitment and motivation increase when the values and norms of an organization support their well-being and aspirations. The best way to determine such outcomes is through a “balanced scorecard,” which is an essential tool in the performance management system (Ramdhani&Ainissyifa, 2017). More research is, however, required to understand various dimensions of corporate culture and its effects on organizational performance and its ability to manipulate organizational changes. Organizational leaders and managers are the ones tasked with developing a strong and relevant organizational culture for the overall improvement of the organization and employees.
Introduction
The primary role of corporate culture is to act as a source of motivation, a sense of identity, reinforcement of values, and control mechanism of shaping organizational behavior for both employees and employers. According to Groysberg et al. (2018), corporate culture enhances the sustainability and improvement of a company. Culture aims at designing and directing the best organizational policies and procedures. It acts as a backbone of supporting organizational processes and functions, which gives a vast amount of time to implement organizational goals (Ramdhani&Ainissyifa, 2017). The importance of researching corporate culture is to understand what motivates and demotivates organizational processes through the roles assigned by employees and employers. This research is also essential as it dwells in analyzing corporate culture in terms of its role in managing diversity and innovations. The importance of studying organizational culture also helps to examine the values and vision of organizations and their relevancy to the development of the desired culture. The research paper also explores how corporate culture shapes workplace interactions and the extent to which employers and employees influence its effectiveness. Having an understanding of corporate culture enables the stakeholders and businesses to relate various cultural factors that affect the workplace. Businesses are also able to establish a link between their objectives and culture, which influences work performance.
Most researches, such as Dhir (2019) have shown a positive relationship between corporate culture and organizational performance, especially in the achievement of organizational goals. Having worked and currently working in a more diversified organization, culture has been essential in identifying and analyzing factors that contribute to the effectiveness and efficiency of organizations. Under my organizational culture, managers and departmental leaders are ready and willing to motivate and grow their employees to enhance a positive productivity index. It is, therefore, paramount for managers to introduce relevant objectives, values, and norms in an organization that enables employees and management to understand the importance of corporate culture.
Recently, the debate over corporate culture is emphasized. Most studies on organizational culture concentrate on strategic management from the perspective of employees, clients, and distributors. According to Groysberg et al. (2018), culture is understood in terms of social responsibility, customers, employees, and investors. To some extent, the management of the company is mainly dependent on its culture. Having a strong company’s culture provides a company with a clear idea with all company operations and processes. Quite simply, workers cannot perform without culture, since all the values, rules, and visions of a company are guided by its culture (Dhir, 2019). While utilizing a wide range of literature and cases, the paper critically analyses organizational culture in terms of its importance in management and performance elements. Further research is required to offer more insight into the corporate culture and its impact on employees and employers.
Literature Review
Culture
From Groysberg et al. (2018) perspective, culture refers to the arrangement of various characteristics that differentiate one organization from the others. According toRamdhaniandAinissyifa (2017), culture refers to collective minds or thinking that establishes a unique difference amongst various groups. As per Dhir (2019), culture means a set of unique behaviors and values aimed at guiding or directing certain practices or actions for the success of an organization. However, Lins et al. (2019) believe that culture is based on a series of fairly established set of behaviors, values, and beliefs which are unique from each society. The researchers seem to believe that culture is grounded in a set of beliefs, explanations, practices, values, and knowledge attached to specific groups of people in the same place.
Organizational Culture
According to Wardaleand Lord (2017), organizational culture refers to something that is learned and shared in organizations. Wardaleand Lord (2017) argued that corporate cultures are based on the cognitive systems that are relevant in explaining how managers and employees make decisions and execute their duties. They also noted that there are different levels of organizational culture based on the different sets of values, beliefs, customs, and assumptions that determine how organizations conduct their operations and processes. Elsewhere Haiand Tien (2018) noted that organizational culture is “normative glue” that holds the goals and aspirations of an organization together. They further stated that organizational culture provides a framework of determining the nature of differentiating what can survive in between organizational processes and what survives outside corporate culture systems. Essentially, Hai and Tien (2018) meant that organizational culture is built from two essential elements of social groups; incorporation of a unique factor in organizational standards and structural stability of corporate stakeholders.
Moreover, Hsieh et al. (2018) defined corporate culture using different characteristics. They defined corporate culture as a set of common and unique value and beliefs that can estimate common behaviors of people and describe individual, organizational goals which define their roles and duties. These values and beliefs apply to each stakeholder of the organization, even if the background and nature of their job are different from the other organizational members. According to Zeyada (2018), corporate culture, through its norms and values, provides a strong foundation of organizational success since unique values bound all duties and roles. Zeyada (2018) believes that organizational standards can be invisible. Still, if organizations need to grow their presence and performance, they should consider embracing a relevant organizational culture that motivates each organizational player.
In their research, Graham et al. (2017) concluded that designing a relevant and useful corporate culture raises the level and degree of role commitment in an organization. Also,Dhir (2019) reveals that a distinctive corporate culture incorporates the impacts of human resource systems on organizational turnover and production performance, which also increases the levels of employee commitment. He also suggested that particular corporate culture traits can be vital in predicting the effectiveness and performance of an organization; findings that were confirmed by Hsieh et al. (2018) in their conclusions about the application of various models of corporate culture in improving the commitment to detail by both organizational leaders and employees. Dhir (2019) again suggested that organizational performance and commitment relies heavily on organizational culture through the positive perception of corporate roles.
Analysis
In this research, various empirical research and case studies presented a theoretical examination and evaluation of organizational culture and its elements, such as organizational commitment and performance. The research study established the possibilities and impacts of corporate culture regarding management and employee performance. The findings from many research studies, such as Lins et al. (2019), established a direct relationship between organizational culture and organizational performance. This relationship is established through an employer and employee commitment to the company’s goals and objectives. The finding from Wardale and Lord (2017) suggested organizational culture as a framework of assembling all organizational processes and pulling its activities towards a common goal. This can be explained from the structural functionalism theory that supports group work. The theory views organization like a society whose parts should work together to achieve development. This means that in an organization, culture helps to bring all stakeholders together to work towards a common goal and vision.
The current research findings also indicate that the management style of learning organizations demands new levels of organizational culture. This strategy guides the cultural orientation that helps organizations realize their potential. According to findings by Groysberg et al. (2018), corporate culture is vital in shaping all organizational processes that help in the modification and creation of new cultures. For instance, Netflix is a prominent company that invests in an active corporate culture that keeps on updating its operations based on the existing organizational surrounding. The company has a policy of enhancing employee freedom and responsibility and does not worry about the number of hours one works, but her accomplishment matters. The company understands that recruits are an investment and tend to invest in them through rewards to increase performers and eliminate low performers. More findings by Groysberg et al. (2018) also reveal that organizational culture is essential in enhancing overall job performance. The performance favors everybody because the outcome will improve company’s reputation, corporate social responsibility and welfare of all clients. This concept can be understood from the utilitarianism perspective. Utilitarianism focuses on the outcome at the expense of the process. As long as the outcome serves to benefit majority, the actions that lead to such outcomes are relevant. This is the same case with organizational culture. It makes sure everybody works within a certain framework to maximize outputs, speed up processes and achieve what is the best for everybody.
However, corporate culture can also create organizational liabilities. These liabilities range from frequent change in organizational set up to departmental mergers. The changes, according to Zeyada (2018) can lead to dysfunctional roles. An example of such change is experienced by General Motors whose corporate policy makes it challenging to adapt to changes in the competitive and dynamic environment. Lins et al (2019) concurs with these findings by relating ineffectiveness of corporate culture to small organizations which experiences leadership turnovers. More research conducted by Hai &Tien (2018) highlights organizational culture from a managerial and organizational theory. Organizational theory understands corporate culture in terms of organizational processes, symbolism and comparative management. The managerial theory claims that organizations use culture as their independent variable in all perspectives. These assertions are also supported by Dhir (2019) through his findings on importance of culture in determining organizational fragmentation, management control and role differentiation.
Nevertheless, Hai &Tien (2018) argues that corporate culture can be a tool for countering organizational productivity. Organizations have defensive rules that limit growth. Culture creates a sense of victim mentality among employees for fear of violating organizational procedures. Through systematic analysis, Wardale & Lord (2017) compares organizational culture and employee performance. The study confirms that corporate culture negatively affected the ethics and morale of employees. A colleague once mentioned something to me, “culture is important to organization just like personality is to a person, but how you use it determines the outcome”. The statement kept ringing in mind as the colleague went ahead to explain that reconnecting with the positive side of personality equates to establishing a relevant organizational culture. This means that a bad culture disconnects employees from their reality. A bad culture creates a negative trait which lowers competitive advantage and productivity of employees. It is true that culture has positive impacts on employees but the nature of its contradictory concepts inhibits organizational innovativeness. In this case, Organizational culture is understood as a fragmented unit where people are united at one point and divided with their colleagues.
Having worked for a miller company for two years, the organizational culture was significant in shaping the roles and performance of employees. This was the period when advocacy groups and activism on gender equality shaped the labor force in the country. Against the backdrop of increased calls for change in working conditions, most of our clients, colleagues, partners and managers questioned the nature of our culture. To their credit, the company decided to conduct a survey through a proactive approach to determine the effects of its organizational culture. More than half of the clients and employees claimed that their freedom and flexibility to perform their job differently was limited by company policy of zero-tolerance. Employees were supposed to work based on fixed schedules. The company was not vigilant on what motivates and improves employees’ performance. This is an example of a bad organizational culture that limits innovation, creativity and flexibility. However, an organization can achieve better results by changing their culture to fit all stakeholders.
Synthesis
From the research findings and analysis, organizations should effectively design their structure and strategies to suit their culture and its needs. Organizational structure and culture are crucial since they help a company to focus on the main areas of relevancy and urgency to position the company in a position of success. One of the ways a company can utilize organizational culture is assessing and evaluating its operational environment to incorporate relevant corporate cultural elements. For example, organizations can decide to check on their rivals, cultural variations, and consumer trends. Through this way, the company can realize its weaknesses and strengths and its economic capabilities and incorporate proper strategies to guide their new directions. This will also provide a clear focus on its goals and align its corporate goals with its optimal mission.
Moreover, organizations should take advantage of their structure support strategy to shift the corporate culture to their advantage. According to Zeyad (2018), strategy follows structure, which is a powerful tool that companies can use to design a productive organizational culture to their advantage. Since the total of what an organization does depends on strategy, an organization should carefully think on all aspect of corporate culture that supports its structure. This option is the only way to implement an effective organizational culture and focus on each person to work towards one vision and direction. Organizations should also realize that the right strategy and structure are important for a thriving organizational culture. For instance, a company that is only on forcing people to produce results is not suitable for organizational culture (Zeyada, 2018). The top management should implement change within their systems first and create a corporate culture that marries organizational strategy. Thus, companies cannot design a plan when the organizational culture is not compatible. Proper environmental scrutiny is required to incorporate the well-being of everybody in an organization.
Conclusion
Organizational culture impacts significantly on the miscellany of all organizational operations. Corporate culture is the focal point of management decisions and employee performance. The impact of corporate culture is measured from the changes in the production levels and efficiency of business units. This study has evaluated empirical research evidence and other research and concluded that organizational culture determines the nature of organizational performance and continuity. Most of the research findings, especially by Ramdhani andAinissyifa (2017), reveal a much positive relationship between an influential corporate culture with the improvement of decision making and performance in an organization. Based on this research, it is conclusive that organizational culture mainly impacts the performance of employees, meaning that employees are the primary recipients of organizational rules and procedures. Corporate culture determines the adjustment patterns of employees and their decisions on job performance. Adopting a relevant organizational culture that motivates the aspirations and efforts of employees is a significant step in realizing organizational sustainability. The research is, however, based on empirical studies and literature; more research is required to establish a more concrete relationship between corporate culture and organizational performance.
