Organizational Culture in the Workplace

Posted: December 2nd, 2013

Organizational Culture in the Workplace

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Organizational Climate in the Workplace

Culture in the organization comprises the values of the organization together with the visions, beliefs, work language, habits, norms, symbols and systems. Additionally, organizational culture is a collection of common mental postulations that direct action and elucidation in organizations by defining apposite mannerisms for a variety of situations. Organizational culture has an effect on the change and development of an organization. For instance, organizational culture maintains the status quo of routine processes and procedures in an organization. Hence, introducing an adjustment threatens the status quo and negatively affects organizational change and development. Hence, it is vital to analyze the effects of organizational culture on organizational change and development.

In order to perform the analysis, it is necessary to use a formidable illustration of an organization to assert the effects. The American Red Cross is the perfect illustration for the analysis. The American Red Cross is a non-profit organization that offers education, emergency aid and disaster relief within the United States. The organizational structure of the organization is horizontal. This is attributed to the structure stemming from the top management, which comprises the Executive Director, the middle management that comprises the chapter managers and the CNA and Health and Safety mentors, who are volunteers, at the operational level. Thus, the organizational workforce of the organization is considerably comprised of volunteers who are more than one million as well as informal employees who number 30000 and are responsible for relief mobilization and training of people (Gilliard, 2004).

The organizational structure of the American Red Cross constitutes a workforce that is culturally diverse due to the organization’s nationwide network. Therefore, the organizational culture can have an impact on the cultural diversity of the employees in the organization positively and negatively. Foremost, organizational culture influences identity negotiation and hence the workforce is bound to benefit due to the verification of the employees’ identities by appraisals by other employees. Organizational culture also enables diverse members of the workforce to congregate and learn what to do such as during training and responding to disasters. Moreover, organizational culture can intensify the relationships between the culturally diverse workforces since the employees all share same cultural assertions stemming from their workplace despite their different cultural backgrounds. Regardless of the benefits of organizational culture on the workforce, there are few demerits associated from cultural diversity. For instance, organizational culture can cause the workforce to be in conflict due to the cultural differences in the teams (Trefry, 2006).

Annotated Bibliography

Gilliard, D. J. (January 01, 2004). American Red Cross. International Business and Economics Research Journal, 3, 1, 53-66. Gilliard explores the American Red Cross as a business organization without neglecting the social aspect of the organization. In the article, Gilliard focuses on the history of the American Red Cross by focusing on the symbol of the Cross, the type of workforce in the organization, the hierarchy and management level of the organization and the organizational structure of the organization. Moreover, Gilliard focuses partly on the International Red Cross, which from which the American Red Cross is derived.

Trefry, M. G. (January 01, 2006). A Double-Edged Sword: Organizational Culture in Multicultural Organizations. International Journal of Management, 23, 3, 563-575. From the Sacred Heart University, Trefry explores on the organizational culture of multi cultural organizations. Through the article, she asserts the effects of organizational culture on the cultural diversity of an organization, specifically pertaining to workforces that are culturally diverse. Additionally, Trefry also surmises on the latent ability of organizational culture to initiate a much considerable impact in culturally diverse organizations than mono-cultural organizations due to the nature of organizational culture in intensifying effects of cultural diversity.

References

Gilliard, D. J. (January 01, 2004). American Red Cross. International Business and Economics Research Journal, 3, 1, 53-66.

Trefry, M. G. (January 01, 2006). A Double-Edged Sword: Organizational Culture in Multicultural Organizations. International Journal of Management, 23, 3, 563-575.