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INTRODUCTION
Organization culture, defined as “the way we do things around here”
by Deal and Kennedy (1982) may sound so simple but in management
literature definition of organizational culture created a big debate.
(Martin 2002). In more of anthropological sense, culture is defined
as “the set of important understandings that members of a community
share in common” by Sathe (1985).
This essay tries to analyse what Organization culture is and why it
is important to discuss it now and what is the relationship between
culture and performance of the organization. It also tries to analyse
whether culture can be manipulated to improve the efficiency of the
organization and what is the role of leader in culture change.
Further it tries to analyse the role of the founder in creating and
nurturing the culture. In the end, how national culture and cross
cultural understanding could make a big difference to the
organization culture is discussed.
What is Organization Culture?
First of all it is necessary to get the concept of culture before
arguing how it helps to analyse organisational behaviour and its
relationship to organizational performance. Meek (1988) argues that
there are two different types of opinions upon the definition of
Culture. One group of people (Harris and Cronen 1979; Weick 1979;
Morgan 1980; Wacker 1981) argues, culture is something an
organization is (ROOT METAPHOR), and the other group of people
(Cummings and Schmidt 1972; Schwartz and Davis 1981; Deal and Kennedy
1982; Peters and Waterman 1982) argue that culture is something that
an organization has (VARIABLE), which can be controlled and
manipulated, created, discovered or destroyed by the management.
Alvesson (2002) quotes Smircich (1983) who has distinguished between
culture as a variable and culture as a root metaphor. Researchers who
see culture as a variable, draw upon objectivist and functionalist
view and try to improve models of organization. In contrast,
researchers who see culture as a root metaphor approach organization
as if they are cultures, behaviours and draw upon anthropology in
developing new theories and paradigms.
CONCEPTS OF CULTURE
The author intends to use Schien’s three levels, in analysing his
company AP MOLLER MAERSK’s Culture.
Schein’s Iceberg Model of culture
Three layers which are compared to three layers of an iceberg and
each layer is distinguished by another in the sense, how accessible
it can get, how visible it is and how individualistic in
nature.(Huczynski and Buchanan, 2007) According to Schein:
Organization culture is the pattern of basic assumptions, which a
group invented or discovered, developed in learning to cope with
pressures while evolving. These assumptions are considered valid
because of the sustained success it created. These are the
assumptions that can be taught to the newcomers as the correct way to
perceive, think and feel in that particular organization to cope with
problems and challenges. Culture, is not the openly visible
behaviour, or the artefacts that one might observe physically, but is
the underlying assumptions, behind the taken for granted behaviour
patterns and visible artefacts like architecture, office layout and
dress code and so on.
Surface manifestations of culture are the visible things that a
culture produces. It can be physical things and also the behaviour
patterns that can be seen. This culture spotting is realised by
everyone when we think of our own experiences.
Cultural artefacts in AP Moller group are enormous. One can keep
counting it and it will become endless. Nevertheless some of them are
The colour – we call it Maersk Blue (sky blue) colour.
One can see blue colour almost everywhere, where it can appropriately
suit – sometimes carpet floors, window screens in the head office are
blue in colour – blue working clothes onboard ships – distinguishing
blue colour hull for the ships, that’s a very unique one, which
cannot be observed in other ships.
Myths and Legends heroic maritime stories and adventures of sailors,
who sailed with company’s ships and the honour they received from the
company one can read these in the company magazines.
Motto – “second to none” that shows what a high performance culture
the organization is.
Values
Incorporate answers to questions like “what are we doing?” and “why
are we doing it?” and involve ethical statements of rightness.
Organization’s value might include equality in opportunity for
recruitment, solving human problems , attitude towards Environment,
maximizing for shareholders – which can be brought to light only
through careful questioning.
The author of this essay has 6 years experience in working with AP
MOLLER group and this company has exceptional policy in taking care
of their employees. When the author had an accident and bedridden for
a almost two months company paid the whole expenses and paid leave
for almost 7 months which is uncommon in other shipping companies.
These are not stated in the employment contract, but it’s the
unwritten value that the company follows for the benefit of the
employees which derives commitment from their employees.
Basic Assumptions
Basic assumptions, the third level in the theory and it’s fully
submerged below the values and artefacts. These basic assumptions
include the assumptions that individuals hold about the organization
and how it functions. They are invisible and taken for granted and
hence difficult to access.
The author’s basic assumption about the company is similar to
reputation of the company. The company is second to none in the
shipping sector and best company to work for.
Cultural Frameworks – Handy’s Four types
Based on the research of Harrison (1972) and Handy (1993), it was
suggested that four types of culture exists. Power culture, Role
culture , Task culture and Person culture. The author identifies the
culture of AP MOLLER MAERSK is kind of mix of both Role culture and
Task Culture. Maersk culture is based firmly on the existence of
procedure and rule frameworks. Everyone has a role to perform and
important attributes of role culture like predictability and
stability can be seen in there. Attributes of the task culture like
decision making distributed throughout the organization (minor and
appropriate decisions can be made by local management) which depends
on the immediate task can be seen in Maersk culture. Like task
culture, culture in Maersk emphasise the need to concentrate on the
task and, individuals are given the power and responsibility to meet
the needs of the business.
What is the significance of Culture?
Alvesson (2002) points out that many authors who suggest this topic
is important for the functioning of the organizations did not
seriously question the underlying reasons for the current popularity
or why it was previously neglected by quoting Kilmann et al. (1985)
and Schein (1985).
According to, Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Peters & Waterman, 1982; Tichy,
1983, recent researches in organization like IBM, Proctor and Gamble
and Mcdonalds revealed the fact that their financial performance was
greatly influenced by their management values and beliefs inculcated
in their firms. In addition Schein (1988) argues that the concept of
organizational culture gained importance, because poor performance of
many mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures can often explained as
the failure to understand the depth of cultural misunderstanding that
may be present. Further he adds that organizational learning,
development and planned change cannot be understood without
considering culture as the main source of resistance to change. Hence
one could argue that culture has effective influence on the
competitive performance of the organization and cultural perspective
view is significantly important in improving the performance of the
organization. These are the views by different researchers, upon the
new found interest and, significance of the culture to understand
organizational behavior.
However Whipp , Rosenfeld and Pettigrew (1989) from their research of
two mature UK industries argues with supporting evidence that culture
as a independent variable can be helpful in achieving competitiveness
in an organization but if it is considered as a collective nature
(root metaphor) then it will not necessarily be a source of
competitive advantage. Their conclusion is culture is like a
Pandora’s Box and academics and practitioners should not make any
assumptions about their control of their contents.
Nevertheless the author thinks its reasonable to argue from his own
experience from one of the successful organization in the shipping
Industry, AP Moller Maersk , a high performance culture with a core
value of doing business with a demonstration of constant care,
uprightness and humbleness with a very long history of a successful
service which is second to none, since its beginning from 1904 (AP
MOLLER MAERSK website www.maersk.com ), that organization culture is
very important to build a highly successful , competitive and
respectable organization with a proven track record.
ORGANIZATION CULTURE AND PERFORMANCE
The author suggests that culture can be considered as the source of
sustained competitive advantage provided, the culture of the
organization is valuable, unique and inimitable. Based on his own
experiences of working for one of the most influencing and successful
high performance culture of AP Moller Maersk whose motto is “Being
Second to none” and “Influencing that everything we do”. The vision
of the company is to be world class group, known and highly
respected, an attractive business partner and employer and good
corporate citizen. The core value of the group includes high regard
for the employees, demonstration of constant care and protecting the
company’s good name. These values, vision and motto and a proven
track record, of this market leader demonstrates that, by being
unique and valuable culture the company acts as the source of
sustainable competitive advantage. The logic behind the argument is
one can get to know about the culture of a company from their vision
and mission statements. Above mentioned statements are taken from the
company website www.maersk.com , to demonstrate the culture of the
company and to support the argument.
Barney (1986) quoted Louis (1983) in his article by saying that
culture defines how an organization can deal with its key actors like
employees, customers and suppliers. This is the basic operation that
keeps the organization performing. Although this argument contradicts
Tichy’s (1983) conception of distinctions between organization’s
culture and its structure and strategy, it gives support to the
argument that culture can be a source for organizational performance.
Alvesson (2002) states that organizational culture is highly relevant
for understanding things, that characterize organizations including
financial and other performance.
In addition Furnham and Gunter (1993) quoted that organization
cultures which are well developed and business specific and in which,
management and staff are thoroughly socialized can inspire stronger
organizational commitment, higher morale, efficient performance and
generally higher productivity which all leads to superior financial
performance. (Barney,1986)
When trying to discuss superior financial performance, it can be
temporary or sustained. Barney (1986) Quoted competitive dynamics of
Hirshleifer (1980) to explain the temporary financial supremacy. The
reasoning is that a firm can achieve financial performance for any
variety of reasons. Other firms which are observing will try to
imitate to attain the same level of performance. This kind of
imitation will increase the competition, reduce the profit margin and
finally decreases the level of financial performance. Certain
organizations may enjoy sustained superior performance for some
reasons and these reasons are the source of sustained competitive
advantage.
Sustained competitive Advantage
According to Barney (1989) three conditions to be met in order to be
a source of sustained competitive advantage.
First culture should be valuable which means it should enable the
firm to do things which will lead them to high sales, low cost and
higher margins. Secondly culture should be rare which is not common
to their competitors and other firms. Finally the culture should be
inimitable. Barney argues that, the most important point is that
culture should be unique and inimitable because even if a culture is
rare and valuable, if it can be imitated then it will loose its
competitive advantage.
However, Peters and Waterman (1982) suggested that sustained
organizational performance cannot be maintained if other strategic
functions like financial and analytical functions are not properly
managed. This conclusion obtained by Peters and Waterman, when they
conducted their research on companies like IBM, Proctor and Gamble,
Hewlett Packard and McDonalds.
When Barney (1989) suggested the most important attributes of a
culture, which can be a source of sustained competitive advantage, he
mentioned uniqueness of the culture is the prime one. However he also
claimed that conclusion, based on the research of Peters and Waterman
(1982) who did their research on the above mentioned group of
companies which are from the same nationstate of USA, and as a
result of this demography they have much attributes in common.
(Martin 1983, 2002)
Though Martin (1983;2002) makes a more generalized point (which she
calls the uniqueness paradox) , the author of this essay tends to,
not agree with her in this particular case as there is no clear
evidence from her to prove that those organization have much in
common just because they are part of the same national culture.
According Smircich (1983) who was quoted by Barney (1988), the idea
that unique personalities and history of the firm lead to unique
culture was challenged by Martin (1983) by the statement, different
organizational experiences may sometimes lead to similar cultural
outcomes. While evaluating the theory , that cultures (which are
valuable ,rare and inimitable ) can be the source of sustained
advantage, Barney (1989) suggests by the evidence of research done by
eminent researchers like Martin ,Feldman, hatch and Sitkin and Tichy
that not all the cultures with the above mentioned qualities are high
performers .Also critics argue that there is disadvantage of being
the cultures with the above mentioned qualities because they can tend
to become arrogant, inwardly focused and bureaucratic as the
financial structure reinforces them as more stronger cultures. This
reinforcement can become a blind for their senior managers to the
need for strategic plans and create a resistance to change which
eventually will make them a weak culture. (Kreitner and Kinicki
(2007)
Barney’s argues that certain organizational cultures apparently
enable firms to influence and inspire its employees, suppliers and
customers. This argument is very much valid in AP Moller Maersk, as
the company is a very high performer (global shipping line of the
year – awarded by International Freighting weekly –
www.maerskline.com ) ) and its attitude towards employees (employees
are the core value of the company) and Freedom of association (open
communication between employees and management is the best way to
address workplace issues) is influencing and inspiring everyone
involved with the company. As one of the company motto itself
“influence everything that we do” and “be second to none “
demonstrates the impact it will exert on the performance
(productivity through people and financial performance) of the
company.
Can Culture be changed?
If we adopt Deal and Kennedy’s version of culture “the way we do
things around here”, then culture can be changed to achieve higher
efficiency.(Martin 2001).Kotter and Heskett (1992) demonstrated with
evidence that culture changes seems to be rare but feasible by
identifying ten cultures including SAS, Xerox, British airways,
General Electric and Nissan. They further explain that in all the ten
situations, most observers inside and outside these firms agreed that
a cultural change of some significance occurred in last fifteen years
accompanied by some performance improvements.
Further Siverzweig and Allen (1979) asserted a concept called
Normative Systems concept in which the main premise is people are
capable of designing and shaping the cultures in which they are part
of rather being shaped by them. In their research they have developed
a normative system model and this model consists of this following
four steps.
1. Analyzing the existing culture,
2. Experiencing the desired culture,
3. Modifying the existing culture and
4. Sustaining the desired culture.
In addition, Wilkins and Ouchi (1983) argues in a different
perspective by saying organizations will not often, if not ever reach
the depth and richness of the culture which the anthropologic
metaphor would suggest(which are embedded deep and immutable and may
not be changed) by reasoning organization culture can be changed
because learning about culture happens only in adulthood and members
of the organization not living entirely in the organizations and
their orientations change often and hence their bond to the culture
will not be very strong and hence can be changed.
Conversely, Martin (2001) puts forwards a criticizing point of view
by quoting Turner (1986) that culture can be managed but it would not
be possible to manipulate accurately because it becomes such an
integral part of the organization’s fabric.
ORGANIZATION CULTURE AND LEADERSHIP
In this topic the author tries to analyze how culture is influenced
by leadership, in the creation of the culture as well as the change
and continuous improvement. As the author proved his stance on the
concept of culture as a variable rather than a metaphor earlier in
this essay, he firmly believes that culture can be manipulated and
improved by the top management. In addition, the founder has enormous
ability to influence the culture which he is trying to create. This
argument can be supported by examples from well renowned authors like
schein(1998) as well as from the authors own experience and knowledge
and experience from AP MOLLERMAERSK.
First he would like to put forward his company’s culture creation and
development by quoting references from the company’s webpage as well
as a book called “with constant care “ by Ove Hornby. AP Moller
Maersk was started in 1904 but in a different name as “Svendborg
Steamship Company” by the Arnold Peter Moller and his father Peter
Maersk Moller. The founders come from a long line of seafarers and
Peter Maersk Moller was a ship’s captain and his long dream was to
start his own company. Arnold Peter Moller who was a clerk, developed
significant experience in ship broking and chartering in various
parts of Scandinavia and Russia and also worked in Newcastle, England
for few years. They bought their first steamer “Ada” which was
renamed as “svendborg” denoting its home port. It was commanded by
Hans Moller who was AP Moller’s eldest brother and Engine department
was headed by chief engineer Oluf Maersk who was AP Moller’s second
eldest. The point that the author trying to make by giving this
background information is, that the company is started as family
owned and operated company (literally) and still today it has been a
family owned company with its family values and philosophy. The main
philosophy of Arnold Peter Moller was to run the company without any
loss which can be avoided by constant care.
One can infer the point about the influence of leadership of the
founder on the company’s culture by pondering over the below
statements which is AP MOller’s Philosophy.”When our founder Mr AP
Moller wrote No loss should hit us which could be avoided with
constant care. He summarized in a few words one of the central themes
of Maersk groups business philosophy. Living with the seas and
respecting nature is ingrained in our culture and matches the quest
for constant care. This concept has wide and deep meaning at AP
Moller. Constant care implies a strong dedication to promote the
health and safety pf our employees and others in the industry and in
the world around us. (www.maersk.com)
Schein (1992) argues that firms are created by entrepreneurs who have
a vision of how concerted efforts could create a new product or
service in the market place. The process of culture formation in the
organization begins with the founding of the group through actions
founders who operate as strong leaders.
He also argues that founder leaders have strong theories to do things
based on some assumptions. These theories are tested very early
itself and if the assumptions behind the theories are found to be
wrong the group fails early in its history. If their assumptions are
correct they create powerful organizations. If the environment
changes and those assumptions come to be incorrect, then the
organization must find a way to change its culture. This theory is
very valid especially in the AP MOLLER MAERSK. They have started a
company with a single steamer which was put into tramping business
(no particular route or commodity – ship any cargo to anywhere,it
depends on the demand) and developed into a middle level company with
20 ships and entered into oil trading during 1930’s. But during 1950’s
the pressure was increased to get into liner trade (shipping in
particular route with specific port of calls container shipping)
which was considered as a challenge because in order to operate in to
regular business ports, company needed offices and resources in those
ports. (Hornby 1988). But MAERSK overcame all these problems and
along the way developed into a largest carrier in the world and also
the Best Global business liner in the world. (LLOYDS LIST 2007) .The
Company also launched the biggest container ship “EMMA MAERSK in
2007.
Notwithstanding the above mentioned argument and evidence, schein
(1988) also argues that its not always that founder leader can be at
the helm of the organizations. When the original founders cannot
solve the problems which makes the working group or the board
anxious, new leaders will emerge. In these cases the views of the
original founder can be modified by the current senior management.
In addition Robbins (2005) was quoted by Huczynski and Buchanan
(2007) that senior managers are the organization’s culture carriers.
He leads to the argument that organizations values are the values of
the current company elite. However this does not does not mean that
other groups within the organization do not try to influence the way
in which the organization operates. (Brewis 2007)
Organization culture leadership
According to Schein (1992), in order to decipher the priorities for
leader and leadership one has to understand cultural issues of an
organization deeply. Further he adds if one wants to distinguish
between leaders and managers/administrator, again he points to the
direction of culture. Leaders create and change cultures whereas
managers live within them. In addition he warns the leaders , that
if they do not become conscious of the culture in which they are
embedded in the culture will manage them and this shows how essential
the knowledge of culture for the leaders, if they remain to be
leaders rather mere managers.
Martin also agrees with Schein that charismatic leaders generates a
set of beliefs and values and propagate them through stories and
myths to members. In modern organizations these are expressed in
mission statements and newcomers to the organizations are educated
through company logos, uniforms and ceremonies.
The author of this essay aims to validate the above mentioned
argument, by narrating his experience. When he joined his
organization AP MOLLER MAERSK the above mentioned stories, myths and
legends were there floating around. Slowly the knowledge was acquired
as days go, by knowing the procedures, why is things are working in a
way as they are, who are the founders and what’s the history of the
company (company often conducted seminars about organization’s vision
, safety meetings, cross cultural workshops in which history of the
company was discussed and literatures like elearning materials were
distributed to the employees – these are the methods to embed the
culture into the employees) and what is their philosophy, what is the
meaning of company name and logo (that seven pointed star in the
Maersk company flag) and what is the safety culture and uniform
procedures while working out at sea etc.
Story behind the Name and Logo
When Captain Peter Maersk Moller cofounder and the father of the
founder Arnold Peter Moller , commanded his maiden voyage on board
steamer “Laura” in 1886, the black funnel had a blue ring with white
seven pointed star. The reason behind this was previously years ago
when he was accompanied by his wife Anna Moller, she had suffered a
serious illness and Peter who was a religious man felt that he was
responsible for her condition and prayed for her life, looking at the
grey overcast sky, for a sign that god might hear his prayer and she
survived. So when he wrote a letter to his wife on October 1886 he
explained the background for the company’s new emblem , that white
star, is the remainder of that day he anxiously prayed for her life
looking at the sky. This little story is available on the APMOLLER
MAERSK webpage www.maersk.com.
Culture change and leadership
According to Schein (1997), Leadership is the source of the beliefs
and values, where a group will look for, to deal with its internal
and external problems. If the ideas of the leader, gives solutions to
the problems then those assumptions behind those ideas of the leader
will gradually become the shared assumption of the organization.
These basic assumptions are the bedrock for the underlying, taken for
granted behaviors and norms, which we call culture. So when a
management wants to change the culture to improve the financial
performance, it is basically trying to change its basic assumptions
which is difficult , time consuming and highly anxiety provoking.
Hence the challenge for the leaders to achieve the cultural change is
how to get at deeper levels of a culture, how to assess the
functionality assumptions made at each level and how to deal with the
anxiety that is unleashed when those assumptions are challenged.
Kotter and Heskett (1992) argues from their finding from ten cases of
cultural change ,that the single most visible factor that
distinguishes major cultural changes that succeed from ,those that
fail is competent leadership at the top. Further they add that in all
the ten cases they studied, the change began after an individual who
already had a track record of leadership was appointed as the head of
the organization. Each new leader, succeeded in persuading important
groups and individuals in the group to commit themselves to that new
direction. One important finding they observed was that all the
leaders came from outside their firms, grew up outside of their core
companies with an outsider perspective and a greater emotional
detachment with company that cannot be found in an insider.
The reason why such a change can be achieved by only a strong leader
is, culture change is a difficult thing to achieve and great power is
needed to overcome the resistance.
ORGANIZATION CULTURE AND CROSSCULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
Organizations have to deal with globalization in the modern business
world. There is strong necessity to explore different cultures of the
world in order to do business with them successfully. Most high
performing companies started to reach beyond national boundaries for
various reasons like tapping new markets, outsourcing to get the best
talent and acquisitions and mergers to compete in the market. So in
order to excel in this global economy, multinational companies have
to think global and act local, and to do that they need more
knowledge about new national cultures as well as the cultures of the
partnering companies.
The author intends to argue firmly that companies should focus and
apply more initiatives to get multicultural people closer by adopting
training programs and teambuilding programs so that they make the
multicultural employees know each other more closely by exchanging
their cultural values and customs. This will make it easier for them
to work together with out conflict and even guide as a bridge to help
each other during crisis and enhance productivity.
The author of the essay, would like to add his experience to provide
credibility to the argument. While working onboard APMOLLER MAERSK
ships as a navigating officer, he encountered multinational crew from
Denmark, Britain, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and China. In such
diverse multicultural working environment lack of crosscultural
understanding could cause big chaos .Specially the power distance
culture phenomenon was really creating problems. Like the author who
comes from India the power distance culture is strong and Indian
culture is more of collective culture, it is hard for him to
understand and cope with the Danish Senior officers. Danish people
are more of individualistic and they don’t follow the same power
distance culture as Indians. This really gave lot of difficulties to
understand and work together. One simple example is in India people
are used to addressing the senior management people as “SIR” and it
means showing respect where as Danes would like to be addressed by
their name and when Indians tend to call them with “SIR”, and Danes
they get irritated because, their perception is ,if someone who tries
to show big showery respect (like calling them SIR) that means they
are not honest and they have something to hide. This is very simple
issue but it makes a big difference in the interpersonal relationship
and, this is one amongst many similar issues.
This issue is addressed by Smith (1992), where he concludes that we
have very partial understanding of how cultural issues can be
addressed. In industrialized nations of Europe and North America,
which were all classified by “Hofstede” as individualist and low on
power distance, will encounter broader range of problems with more
collectivist cultures. The problem is, the validity of many of the
selection and training methods in use remains to be established and
the prime reason for this is the companies’ perception that these
programs and strategies will be ineffective. Smith(1992) refers the
above mentioned conclusion based on the research by Tung
(1981,1982,1984) who has conducted, research on the cross cultural
understanding in US , European and Japanese multinationals and also
expatriate assignments.
National cultures versus organizational culture
Culture helps to deal with variations among organizations and
managers. It helps to explain why different groups of people perceive
things in their own way and perform things differently from each
other. (Joyant and Warner, 1996). There is certainly difference in,
how people from different national cultures perceive things and
behave. Maruyama (1980) was quoted by Joyant and Warner, where he
says western thoughts are characterized by categories, distinctions
and separateness whereas eastern thoughts relate to continuity and
connectedness. These are all the positive qualities and it leads
towards the goal of achieving harmony and success in teamwork. But
there is one more perspective to this issue and that is to view it as
the organizational culture’s impact on national culture. Huczynski
and Buchanan (2007)
The organization culture neither erases nor diminishes the influence
of national culture is concluded by Lubatkin (1998). This is more
evident in companies where multinationals are working together in
foreign soil or neutral land than people working for a foreign
company in their own country.(Hofstede,2001;Laurent,1983) The author
of this essay can relate to this above argument from his experience
from a environment where people from different culture work together
in a neutral or foreign land, makes the cultural difference more
pronounced and also makes one to realize his national culture
strongly than ever. He also suggest that people from different
cultures have different styles and ways of thinking and solving
problems which sometimes leads to conflict. Further Adler (2002)
suggested that pressure to conform to foreign owned companies,
brought out resistance and made them to cling strongly to their
cultures. Tinselly(1998 ) found that different cultures have different
ways of resolving conflicts and this caused problems in multinational
teams working together. (Huczynski and Buchanan; 2007)
CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion,
Organizational culture is a very controversial topic to discuss as so
many different concepts considering culture as background,
organizational variable (Schein,1997;Deal and Kennedy,1982;Peters and
Waterman,1982) and as a root metaphor (Martin,2002;Smirich ,1983) have
been discussed and yet the debate goes on. But the author supports
Schien’s concept of culture, which considers culture as a variable
which can be created , nurtured and developed rather than a root
metaphor, which views culture as the lens to observe the motivations
behind the cultural behavior. Culture can be a source of sustained
competitive advantage provided the culture is rare, valuable, strong
and inimitable. If culture can be created by the founders and
manipulated by the leaders then it can be changed also but if the
motive of the culture change is to improve the financial performance,
it will be only temporary unless it can able to preserve the
uniqueness of the culture which cannot be imitated.
Culture can be changed even though it is tough to do it, and is a
complex process which takes time and requires strong visionary
leadership. Crosscultural understanding is very critical to
organizational performance in this globalized economy and companies
should focus much attention on improving the crosscultural
understanding by spending more resource on surveys, cross cultural
workshops and tailor made training programs.
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