The Flexibility And Efficiency Of Organizational Culture In Organizations

Ioana Raluca Goldbach

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze problems concerning the organizational culture in institutions as a key phenomenon in the understanding of the methods by which the internal structure of a collective idea influences attitudes and behaviors. Organizational culture can decisively influence the actions which would lead to an increase in the profit margin or to the performance of activities within the framework of the institutions for the qualitative tubes. The importance of the organizational culture in the life of an organization can be deduced from the analysis of its functions, which most organizations don’t care about in the erosion periods of the company culture. We will show that the practice proves that in the conditions to ensure the maintenance of beliefs, values, regulations, perspectives and concepts that time have been considered valid and levels, without an adaptation to the social changes, economic, technical, political environment, they may be converted into large brakes, true follower of insularism and rigidity. Saying that “intensity of culture”, especially the ability to adapt them to the environment transforms it into an instrument of success or failure. Organizational culture allows the identification and description of numerous factual, human nature, of the organization, with implications on the progress and the results of the activities of the incorporated and it also involves by its nature an approach human managerial very precise. It has a substantial impact on the increase in the functionality and performance of the organization, both directly and through the human resources management.

Keywords: Organizationcultureadaptabilitycompetencestructuremanagement

Introduction

In the process of changes which takes place in contemporary society, organizational culture represents a major force in changing the human factor. Representing one of the factors that determine the performance and success of the organization work, culture is an essential and indispensable element for organizational progress (Thomas, 2004).

In a firm, organizational culture supports us to understand the formal and official differences offered by the managers and what is actually produced within it. By means of the organizational culture the various rules, procedures, statements, declarations or even decisions are interpreted and, to a certain extent, applied (Stian, 2009). Beyond the elements of a formal nature which tries to establish in a centralized manner a certain attitude and behavior for the members of the organization, organizational culture creates and develop certain behavioral patterns which may or may not be in accordance with the official versions. Countless times, a large part of the components forming the organizational culture are intangible, unwritten laws, but with a huge power of influence.

Organizational development at the level of the organization, group or individual, needs to improve the performance by the harmonization of the organizational culture with the flexibility and efficiency (Godwyn & Gittell, 2011).

To have an ideal organizational culture is need to raise the internal capabilities, finding levers in to ensure that the organizational structures, human resources, how communication and leadership increases the fully the motivation of the employees, will cause them to become more productive and more efficient in their work. Maintaining an effective culture is important and represents an advantage for the strategy of an organization (Nicolescu & Verboncu, 2008).

Knowledge of the specific features of the organizational culture and managerial culture represents an important need for a modern and knowledge in a dynamic globalization.

Problem Statement

Organizational culture is based from social point of view, created and maintained by a group of persons forming the organization, it is difficult to develop as a result of the complex elements of the human character defining it.

The two organizational culture and managerial culture are the important factors in order to obtain the competitive advantage of the organization , when their components are known, analyzed and focused toward the attainment of the objectives of the proposed by the strategies and policies of the firm.

The culture of an organization is unquestionable and inseparable linked to the organization and management because they produce a culture, and culture in turn influences them. Thus, culture, organization and leadership are in a interdependence, dynamic and interactive relationship.

The organization’s economic situation influence the organizational culture through expansion and accessibility of resources for employees, through restrictions, namely economic facilities, through the intensity of economic stress on the evolution of the company and its employees (Vlăsceanu, 2003).

Research Questions

This research paper comes in response to the needs we meet in the labor market for organizations to achieve through flexibility and armonizationarea corporate culture.

As the labor market gives signs of revival, companies must become more attentive to the level of satisfaction of employees. Promoting a positive atmosphere or by cultivating the talents of employees, organizational culture has an important role in fulfilling the objectives of business success.

Through organizational culture we can understand how employees describe the work and see themselves as part of the organization, therefore, as a manager, you need to be very well themed game combination every element that can affect your company and develop an organizational culture based on flexibility and efficiency at the level of the organization.

It can be achieved by encouraging communication, improvised development programs or creative ways of decorating the offices through its corporate culture.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to analyze problems concerning the organizational culture in institutions as a key phenomenon in the understanding of the methods by which the internal structure of a collective idea influences attitudes and behaviors.Organizational culture can decisively influence the actions which would lead to an increase in the profit margin or to the performance of activities within the framework of the institutions for the qualitative tubes. The importance of the organizational culture in the life of an organization can be deduced from the analysis of its functions, which most organizations don’t care about in the erosion periods of the company culture.

Research Methods

For this paper I used primary research methods, namely: analytical and comparative method, deduction, induction, observation, analysis of documents as the main method of research.

Unfortunately, in Romania were done little research on organizational culture, and if we relate solely to research on public organizations, they are even less. I'll tell you, in the following analysis of the harmonization of corporate culture through methods that cause the organization to bring flexibility and efficiency of the company.

Findings

The concept of organizational culture and its role in the organization

The study on organizational culture has a relatively recent history, the term " organizational culture" started to be used in the 1980s of the twentieth century the XX century. The interest in the organizational culture is explained by the fact that at the present stage international community is marked by a wealth of processes that the scale of the globalization of the economy and the computerization of the company, which has led to the emergence of new forms and methods of human activity organization (Hofstede & Minkov, 2010).

The pace of technological changes and impose new requirements on information practices used inside organizations and human resources who work within them. Thus, under these conditions, modern organization focuses more on information and communication, rather than on control and administrative hierarchy.

Currently, attention shall be paid to the way in which human behaviors are caused by cultural elements (Vlăsceanu, 2005).

Moreover, many specialists in the fields of economic, managerial, sociological, psychological, etc. agree that, in an organization, culture is a major determinant of the need of the organization and operation of obtaining the necessary performance progress.

The concept of organizational culture is fundamental to explain the critical phenomena in the functioning of organizations, such as the establishment of paradigmatic framework phenomena of human relations, creating the hierarchy of values depends on the process of strategic targeting of the system, system configuration information, the interpretation of time and space, or determining the fundamental attitudes towards internal and external environment (Hofstede, 1996).

Development of the concept of organizational culture has been favored also by reconsidering the role of human resources in the organization.

The need for organizational culture

Organizational culture is considered to be the invisible "force" behind the easily noticeable and tangible things of an organization, it represents the social energy which causes people to act in order to achieve the aims of the organizational challenges. Organizational culture of a company is often compared with the personality of an individual, meeting the vision, the meaning, direction, the motivation and the energy necessary for production.

Organizational culture respond to the needs of the primordial human such as the need for finder, checking, positive feedback, the need for stability and safety or ideological needs what arranged the purpose, direction, the meaning of the organization and action in accordance with this.

In the study of the culture of the organizations shall be operates soon sociological perspective on the concept (set of notions and attitudes related to the life of the organization and of the individual, all modes of thought, he felt and to act, models of behavior etc.).

Thus, from the sociological point of view, culture designates the way of life of a group of individuals. This way of life includes sets of social values that orient social change directions, everyday behaviors, language symbols, religious beliefs, behaviors and rituals, traditional formal and organizational climate (Tamayo, 2005).

Currently, attention shall be paid to the way in which human behaviors are caused by cultural elements. Moreover, many specialists in the fields of economic, managerial, sociological, psychological, etc. agree that, in an organization, culture is a major determinant of the need of the organization and operation obtaining the necessary performance progress.

An organization's culture is unquestionable and inextricably linked to the organization and management in the sense that the last two produce a culture, and culture in turn influences them (Stanciu & Ionescu, 2005).

Thus, culture, organization and leadership are in a relationship of dynamic, interactive interdependence.

On the other hand, the economic situation influences the organizational culture through the size and accessibility of resources for employees, through restrictions, namely economic facilities, through the intensity of economic stress on the evolution of the company and its employees (Năstase, 2007).

People come in an organization with their own ideas about the welfare, happiness, about bosses and subordinates, they have their own beliefs about behavior and language, they have their own heroes and villains. All these are part of the values which they charge, to respect them and they promote. The scope of the social practices makes behaviors individual or collective. The organization itself has its own standards, determined historical, to customers, products and employment relationships, which they promote through its agents for the purpose of integrating the new members (Punnett, 2009).

The importance and the effect of organizational culture

The practice shows that in the conditions of maintaining beliefs, values, norms, perspectives and concepts that have been considered valid for a long time and, without favoring an adaptation to social, economic, technical and even political changing of the environment, they can turn into powerful brakes, true mentors of withdrawal and stiffness. It can be asserted that not the "intensity" of culture, but especially its ability to adapt to an environment transformed into an instrument of success or failure.

Organizational culture can decisively influence the actions leading to the increase in profit of a company or the execution of activities within an institution to higher quality standards (Msoroka, 2012).

The importance of organizational culture in the life of an organization can be inferred from analysis of its functions (that most organizations do not take into account the periods of erosion of organizational culture):

  • Integrating employees in the company is a permanent maintenance of cultural and organizational integration of employees in order to avoid major conflict situations to occur.

  • The channeling of the employees in order to achieve the objectives of the organization represents the most dynamic, more complex and more difficult in organizational culture. Its mission is to contribute to the triggering of the latent energies of the employees, with a view to the completion of certain actions in such a way that the objectives contained in the strategies and policies of the company to be achieved. The most important objective is the adoption of the organizational behavior.

  • Protection of employees against the remarks of potential environment. Financial context, social, political, scientific cause developments which may affect both positive and negative the employees within the organization. Organizational culture represents the basics of the organizational preventive behavior or direct control of bad consecinces within the organization.

  • Preservation and transmission of values ​​and traditions to the organization. Organizational culture is the main custodian of the values ​​and traditions of each institution shaped over time. It is important that they maintain, especially when generations are changing within the organization.

  • Organizations performances dependence of their effectiveness organizational structure. This function consists in providing a suitable framework for the development of organizational capacity. The modern organization is primarily based on resources, knowledge and then on capital and equipment.

We admit that besides these functions listed above should be mentioned, last but not least, axiological function of the culture of the organizational challenges. This function emphasize genesis, structure, interaction knowledge, the ranking of the values in the existence of the organization, the correlation between them, the dynamics of the systems of values. Each organization has the panel of values, her axiological specific profile value the hierarchy of its own laws in balance directly with the objectives of the institution (Goldbach, 2015). 

In order to have a favorable organizational climate is mandatory application of the functions that form the organizational culture in order to achieve organizational goals.

The harmonization of the organizational culture with flexibility and efficiency in organizations

In order to harmonize the organizational culture with the flexibility and efficiency in organizations is needed to modify the values of the organizational culture existing at the moment.

As it concerns the changing of the organizational culture values existing in this moment, any modification which seems to start insignificant, makes an organizational change levied differently by each employee of the organization, depending on the degree of culture, personality, the function and the responsibilities which occupied within the framework of the organization(Goldbach, 2015). 

For this it is essential to define this new state sometimes perceived as a process, modification, production, revolution, variation, reinvent, reorganization measures or restructuring, in a word "change".

Organizational changing means transition from the original status (the existing situation in the organization) to desired condition (the situation where the organization wishes to reach).

This transition requires the removal of the differences between the two statuses which is carried out through modifications, restructuring, innovation, the redesign, etc. and can have the following types:

1. The change concerns the construction of a powerful crops, with a high fund cohesion. Strengthen the organizational culture will determine the achievement of a quantum leap in carrying out the specific activities to the organization. In the specialized literature analyze the four types of possible changes: - change by the crisis; - by collective learning;- as a form of development and;- changing by modernisation.

2. Change by the crisis is determined, according to the authors, by the centralized nature of decision made within organizations. This centralization makes change to become a downward motion. From this situation arises a crisis whose reverberations are a number of specific behaviors: personal authority tends to take the place of internal rules, while members of the organization are guided by a set of arbitrary rules imposed ad hoc, under these conditions the organization acclimatize to perpetuate and develop the bureaucratic system, which constitute that this system is not only formally routine, as it seems at first glance, but in short periods of crisis which reinforce the need for long phases of stability.

3. The change on the collective learning is conditional upon the discovery and learning of new capacity of collective agreements, new ways to calculate and to live together or by making use of new models of action. Consequently, the change is to be understood as a way of learning.

4. Change as a form of development is closely linked to the change as the form of learning. The orientation of the organization to the permanent development determine also a number of cultural adjustments carrier of creativity and renewal.

5. The change through modernisation covers a wide range of actions: investments in technical material sophisticated, redefining relations with customers or with users, the reorganization of labor, communication campaigns with a view to modifying internal and foreign image of the organization, etc.

An effective strategy for the development of the organizational culture will not delay to express their positive effects, but for that they should appear, the institution must be lead indeed after the mission which declare. The values promoted by the mission of the institution to be supported by the coherent actions and the duration in such a way as to transform himself into the fundamental values of the organization (Goldbach, 2015). 

An important element of which depends on the progress of the organizational activity at such times is "trust".

Here the leaders make clearly known their position and by attitudes and their actions are manifested in accordance with the declared values. In this climate of trust, employees are open and willing to assume the risks.

Ethics in these firms constitute a necessity . Compliance with the principles of ethics lead to results which, as we have highlighted are very important; they creates a favorable and firm image to the managers.

In order to obtain the best results , the organization must consider creating a favorable organizational climate to satisfy the following goals :

  • recruitment of people whose ambitions are temperate countries of other objectives; excessive ambition can motivate employees to break the law and to ignore the ethical constraints;

  • encouraging self confidence and the full loyalty ; this will help the employees to feel good when they encounter ethics or legality problems in the company;

  • increasing the contacts between staff and the leaders, encouragement of communication;

  • the structuring of tasks so that employees be motivated and to feel appreciated, and observe;

  • removal of the illegal or unethical objectives of the tasks of service of the fresh promoted employees;

  • the establishment of the internal mechanisms against illegal behavior and unethicals committee, which is as destructive as reduced productivity or theft;

  • the establishment of criteria for the premiere depending on the performance;

  • establishment of moderate punishments, but often when necessary; moderate punishments, when they are imposed in a predictable manner and categorical denial, are more efficient than those harsh and rare.

Conclusion

The management is one of the main factors which influence and shapes the organization . In the same way, the environment in which the organization shall carry out their activity has an important role in the development of it. Last but not least, each member component of the organization, in order of importance for the dealership can influence the way in which it operates.

The organizational structure can help or aggravate the change. This affects the way in which the exercise power, affect those processes which provide for the circulation of information and decisions are taken for the allocation of resources. The interest in the new structures is shown by the appearance of organizations such as the organization horizontal, the organization oriented toward customers, the network type, the organization composed of autonomous cells (Goldbach, 2015). 

The specialists argue that any organization which has ever thought of culture has got to see improvements, and those who have made a routine part of the concern for the culture of the organization have had successes in the long term.

Each manager must take care of the messages that gives them the organization, to ensure that these messages are some of the most powerful generating signs of culture. No employee will reach its full potential if the organizational climate is not good. Any disparity in messages generates confusion that turns into aggressive behavior or liabilities with the negative impact on the performance and results.

Sometimes managers are afraid of the truth and feel they must wear gloves to protect the employees of problems that I'm not sure they will understand. This is of course a mistake. Another frequent mistake is consulting "parade" of others to the change and its necessity. In this way, managers consult employees just as though they already decided what to do and do not want to hear the others views. Thus, several potential organizational changes are inhibited from communicating the idea of ​​those interested. Therefore, after the decision to perform changes, it is necessary for the entire organization informed about changes intended to be made: for what purpose, why and about how.

Both the formal and informal communication must highlight that change is beneficial not only for the organization but also for employees. The result will be to reduce tensions, more relaxed adoption of new amendments.

The organizational climate determine employee performance, influencing the state that they have while they work. Motivation, stress levels, safety / job insecurity, clarity of own role or conflict role are indicators that can be measured and presenting management organizational climate impact on employees. 

Specialists compare the organizational culture with human personality. Thus, changing it can be a difficult process that can take initially between eight months and two years, but may continue for ten years.

It is important to understand where you are now, where you're going, what prevented you already get there and what actions you can do to get the best model for business culture where you are. Basically, there are four steps to be taken: diagnosis, prognosis, intervention and re-testing. Of all these, the first two are decisive because they help the organization to align to a common purpose and all actions conducted from this point on should be checked whether they support this (Goldbach, 2015).

The process of change is proving difficult especially for those in the leadership. The changes are profound, must be supported by consistent management, managers must be extremely flexible in addressing changing steps. The process of change can generate "side effects". Although changing conditions can be met, the question that arises is maintained by the leaders of the new culture. At the same time, the new "coat of organization" is probably not fit employees.

To remain competitive long time, organizations must connect the new conditions arising in its external and internal environment, which requires the adoption and successful introduction of various changes in some or all system components (Goldbach, 2015).

Privatization is undoubtedly one of the main external factors that require changes in companies. Restructuring involves major changes towards forming a modern organization, competitive, flexible, open competitive market.

On the other hand, clear and profound perception of the need for change is essential to the process of change. Although it may seem paradoxical, many people, including managers do not sufficiently understand the organization, the system working. It manifests as shown specialist Berry Oshrey "blindness to the systems in which we find ourselves, which leads us to be in their hands."

It is essential that we examine the organization and understand its weaknesses and strengths. In this context as accurately identified the need for change, given both its own system and the environment in which it belongs.

Ideal culture becomes the benchmark when it is compared with the current culture and the analysis of the differences will emerge clearly the areas where efforts are needed to change. Ideal culture evaluates and availability of an organization to begin a process of change. 

In general, it was found that employees are expected to constructive behaviors, such as:

  • to be concerned with achieving performance; 

  • take challenging tasks; 

  • to encourage and support them; 

  • to work with pleasure.

Studies have revealed several important features for organizational culture, which meets the specific job satisfaction , such as the variety of work, professional skills elevated it requires, innovation, atribuţii1e management and, not least, the correlation between work and skills of individuals. 

In contrast, the monotony of work and routine professional skills low and, especially, the mismatch between jobs and skills, can turn into sources of dissatisfaction professional and may entail installing an organizational climate with failures, which do not present elements beneficial to members of the organization. Interventions that occur in the workplace by implementing specialized programs that reduce stressors and enrich the content of employee activity, suggests that the level of organizational culture, they are part of a dynamic process that reflects the optimization of organization life.

Regardless of the type of culture of an organization, it is important that "community residents" feel comfortable in their skin, believing the proposed values, to accept, respect and build on them as they feel it's good. As long as there is harmony between the values ​​of the organization and those of its employees, all is well and both sides can move forward (Goldbach, 2015).

In conclusion, the organizational culture does not refer only to the foundation and the transmission of values ​​in the group, but also how to communicate in that company, the attitude to change, descent top managers "among ordinary people" or isolating them from an upper floor in an ivory tower, from art to develop a creative climate where people come every morning dearly.

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Publication Date

30 July 2017

Article Doi

https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2017.07.03.33

eBook ISBN

978-1-80296-026-6

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Future Academy

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27

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1st Edition

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1-893

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Teacher training, teaching, teaching skills, teaching techniques,moral purpose of education, social purpose of education, counselling psychology

Cite this article as:

Goldbach, I. R. (2017). The Flexibility And Efficiency Of Organizational Culture In Organizations. In A. Sandu, T. Ciulei, & A. Frunza (Eds.), Multidimensional Education and Professional Development: Ethical Values, vol 27. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 257-266). Future Academy. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2017.07.03.33

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