Organizations As Culture

1695 Words7 Pages
As this course has progressed, I have found that metaphors are quite useful when trying to understand various issues encountered in organizations. In previous case assignments, we discussed “organizations as machines”, “organizations as organisms”, and “organizations as brains.” In fact, I look forward to the opportunity to discuss the utility of these various metaphors and how they interrelate. This I will attend to during my summary. In the mean time, I will relate definitions of culture prior to addressing the case assignment issues. The American Heritage Dictionary defines culture as, “the totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought characteristic of a community or population.” Another definition embraced by sociologist states that culture is “the social heritage, all the knowledge, beliefs, customs, and skills that are available to members of a society.” Now that we have dealt with the definition of culture, we will discuss culture and why it is so important to organizations. According to Edgar Schein, a Professor of Management at MIT, one must “understand culture in order to understand the organization.” He explains that culture surrounds us all, and we need to understand how it is created embedded, developed, manipulated, managed, and changed. So, what is organizational culture? Schein believes that there is no single definition of organizational culture; but, holds the view that culture is an explicit social product arising from social interaction either as an intentional or unintentional consequence of behavior. In other words, Schein believes that an organization’s culture is comprised of distinct observable forms (e.g., language, use of symbols, ceremonies, customs, methods of problem solving, use of tools or technology, and design of work
Open Document