Organisational Culture
Different Culture Descriptors [8]
External vs Internal Emphasis: Task of satisfying customers, clients or having more of a focus on internal organisational activities e.g. meetings.
Task vs Social Focus: A focus on “organisational” work as opposed to a concern for personal/social needs of members.
Safety vs Risk: Conservative/cautious in adopting programmes, procedures or ability to change when confronted with new challenges.
Conformity vs Individuality: Distinctive or individual with work or is there a structure that has to be followed. This can extend to things such as clothing, work styles and personal activity.
Individual vs Group Rewards: Whether a reward is given collectively to a group who achieve a goal or if praise is dispatched individually.
Centralised vs Decentralised: Those in key positions, individuals or groups may have considerable impact on procedures/programmes or individuals/work teams make their own decisions depending on their situation.
Ad Hockery vs Planning: Instinctive responses to all changes or if elaborate plans are in place to anticipate future scenarios.
Stability vs Innovation: Reluctance to adopt any new procedure that is not well established as opposed to searching for new methods of approaching tasks etc.
Co-operation vs Competition: Individuals consider fellow workers as competiton to financial rewards, praise etc or whether everyone works together to constantly better themselves against rival firms.
Basis for Commitment: What keeps an individual going?
Simple vs Complex: Tendency for lengthy and elaborate procedures rather than having simplicity.
Informal vs Formalised Procedures: Informal would be more verbal communication and only formalised contact on major issues or are formal procedures used for all contact.
High vs Low Loyalty: More personal career interests or committed to organisations interests.
Ignorance vs Knowledge: Degree to which individual members know what they are expected to do and how their efforts affect accomplishment of organisational tasks.
From Behaviour to culture: an assessment of the cultural evolution and a new synthesis [9]
“Culture and society are mutually constitutive. Culture provides the shared knowledge system that enables members of a society to recognize fellow members and to coordinate their actions with one another, while society provides communities and thus the patterned interactions and experiences, out of which individuals construct their representations of culture”
Culture shows how people interact within a business and if the right message is enforced people are very likely to follow that message.
Implementing a safety culture in a major multinational [10]
The oil industry after Pipa Alpha needed not just the proposals suggested and enforced by HSE but a change in culture. It used a model “HSE Culture Ladder”.
Model showed opportunities for considerable improvement even after HSE management system had been implemented. More advanced cultures were ones that people felt were desirable and achievable for them and would help the colleagues and work-mates.
- Top management gave initial support and put into place major H&S strategies.
- A new culture was encouraged by enabling a bottom-up (pull) rather then a top-down (push).
Tools used to implement:
- Clear direction,
- Map of an advanced culture made by people working in the industry,
- To support lasting changes in attitudes and beliefs,
- Promote increased feeling of control when solving HSE specific problems.
- Have to allow local variations between different sectors.
VERY hard for huge multinationals to change their culture due to the many different branches or sectors it works in. Each sector will probably have its own slightly different culture so trying to change the company’s culture as a whole is extremely hard. Small companies can just insist/enforce a culture by demanding it and making sure all workers adhere to the same rules.
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