Organisational Culture and How It Is Expressed within Organisations Literature review

Essays on Organisational Culture and How It Is Expressed within Organisations Literature review The paper "Organisational Culture and How It Is Expressed within Organisations" is a great example of a literature review on management. Organizational culture is central to the overall performance of an organization. Also, it is widely recognized that the leadership of an organization plays an important role in not only developing the cultural values of an organization but also maintaining the culture that has been developed in the course of time. Since this is so, it is important for organisations to maintain a strong sense of culture in their members.The purpose of this paper is twofold: one, to define what organisational culture is and two, to explain ways in which culture can be expressed within organizations. This is done in two parts; the first one gives different definitions of organizational culture together with different components that constitute the culture of an organisation while at the same time exploring different ways in which a cultural system is expressed within a n organisational setting. In the second part, different typologies of organisational culture are explored. These form the basis of how members of an organisation express the culture of the organisation.Although there are many such typologies, the paper examines only a few common typologies which include the following: Hofstede’s five dimensions of culture model, the seven cultural dimensions model as developed by Trompenaar, the Goffee and Jones model of organizational culture and lastly, Schein’s three levels of organisational culture. The three elements of culture as proposed by Schein (artifacts, espoused values, and underlying assumptions) are examined in light of how they are used to express the culture of organisations.There have been many definitions of the term organisational culture. The basic tenet of these definitions is that they attempt to apply the definitions of culture from a historical and social perspective to the corporate setting. For instance, Sche in (2010, p. 13), defines organisational culture as a pattern of basic assumptions which have either been invented, discovered or developed by a group of individuals who are in the process of learning to cope with problems resulting from the need to cope with internal disintegration within the organisation and external adaptation needs. The pattern of basic assumptions is proven to be the best way to react to such problems after being tried and tested over time. As a result, it is taught to new members who are joining the organisation as the correct way to perceive, think and relate to problems of a similar nature (Adler Gundersen, 2008, p. 66).On the other hand, Schneider (cited by Brinkman, 2001, p. 675), defined organisational culture as a system that has three basic tenets; one, values that lie deep within what an organisation offers in terms of rewards, supports and expects from its stakeholders; two, the norms that underpin the basic policies and procedures of an organisation and three, the meaning that the current group of employers holds together as the definition of values and norms of the organisation.