The Concept Of Culture

Introduction:

The concept of corporate culture has been used in recent years to develop and understand the concept of culture in connection with the study of organizations.

Culture:

There are many definitions of culture. However, the concept of culture which is now considered for the theory of organizations has its origin within anthropology and is given by Tyler (1871–1958) as follows:

Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

• In recent years a number of behavioral scientists have used the above definition in the area of corporate culture.
• In 1956 Juran also proposed the application of the anthropological concept of culture in order to create a meaningful change within the organization.

ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY AND CORPORATE CULTURE:

The theory of organizations is often described through different types of organizational models. These models may be mutually different but have certain characteristics which are based on a stable structure. The traditional model of an organization is therefore most often a model emphasizing characteristics of hierarchy, division of labour and communication.

• It is a well-known fact that the organizational structure is traditionally described in an organization chart and this is important in the understanding of an organization, but has a limited perspective.

• Therefore, it is traditional to supplement the description of the formal organization with a description of the informal organization.

• By informal organization we mean non-planned management, often unknown but stable patterns of behaviour which fulfill the major parts of the daily routines.

• The informal organization is described in different ways, e.g. the human group, where the informal aspect is described as norms and roles in the sociocultural system and the concept work group, describing a shadow organization established by the workers in defence of management’s infringements.

• In recent years, another important source of understanding of an organization has been demonstrated through different forms of environmental relationships.

• It provides a model, which includes the importance of the environment to organizational structure and behaviour emphasizing some important variables in the environmental relations, e.g. market, technology, politics, financing and manpower.

• Understanding the formal, the informal and the environmental-related framework of description is important in order to understand Total Quality Management and quality culture.