It is a crucial part of success for any company to match individuals to organizations. The people that working in an organizational have to match with the kind of organizational culture which have exist in a long time. This knows as organizational culture. Essentially, organizational culture is the personality of the organization which is an idea in the field of organizational studies and management that describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, assumptions, beliefs, norms and values between the personal and culture values of an organization.

It defined as the specific collection of values and norms of the organization where they shared by people and group, and the control of the way they interact with each other. Culture form the basis for how individuals operate within the context of the organization. The way a group or individual behaves, defines what is “normal” and sanctions what is not normal is determined by his or her culture. Culture can be defined either by a set of observable behaviors or by the underlying values that drive behavior. In large organizations, vision statements, mission statements and statements of values are often formalized to describe the company’s culture.

This definition continues to explain organizational values. The kind of goals that members of an organization should pursue based on the belief and ideas, and the way they choose the appropriate kinds or standards of behavior should use to achieve these goals. Prescribe appropriate kinds of behavior by employees in particular situations and control the behavior of organizational members towards one another from organizational values develops organizational norms, guidelines, or expectations.

Being aware of an organization’s culture at all levels is important because the culture defines appropriate and inappropriate behavior. In some cultures, for example, creativity is stressed. In others, the status quo is valued. Some cultures are more socially oriented, while others are task-oriented, “business only” environments. In some company’s teamwork is key. In others, individual achievement is encouraged and valued. An organization’s culture also determines the way in which employees are rewarded. Management tends to focus on a dominant source of motivation, such as pay, status, or opportunity for personal growth and achievement. The accessibility of management and the ways in which decisions are made are reflections of an organization’s culture as well.

Individual values match with organizational culture is important because a culture give a shared meaning or purpose which results in actions and works that help the organization gain profit and achieve a common or collective goal. When key values are shared among the majority of its members, an organization will operate more productively as a whole. To that end, employees need to be comfortable with the behaviors encouraged by the organization so that individual motivation and group productivity remain high. High functioning organizations are comprised of individuals whose overt behaviors are consistent with their covert values.

Types of Organizational Culture

In the corporate world, it existing more than one type of organizational culture. It can be classified into strong or weak organizational culture which most of the companies will use it for operating their business, improving company performances, maintaining ethical in the company, and other purposes.

While different companies might have different type of organizational culture to standardize their company operation. Most companies or corporations in their style or plan can fall into any one of these general organizational culture as the following:

1. Tough-guy culture or Macho culture – One of the most common aspects of the tough-guy or macho culture is the quick feedback and high rewards. The pace can be break neck at times, but the obvious reward of the action is seen very quickly. From a corporate stand point, this type of organizational culture will be most often associated with really fast financial activities, such as currency trading, and brokerage. This can also apply to organizations such as a police force, or an individual athlete on a sports team. If a receiver catches a touchdown pass, you see the impact right away. This tends to be a stressful type of organizational culture that requires a certain mentality to thrive and succeed.

2. Work hard or Play hard – This type of an organizational culture that doesn’t take a lot of risks, but it does take a few, and all receive fast feedback. This is something most likely to be seen in a very large company which is dependent on strong customer service. This type of organizational culture is often characterized by multiple team meetings, specialized jargon, and buzzwords.

3. Bet your company culture – It is another type of company where huge decisions are made over high stakes endeavors. In this type of culture, the end results of these decisions may not be seen for months or even years. The most common type of company that would have this type of a culture is one that is involved in experimental projects or searches. Two great examples would be like prospecting for new oil fields and designing experimental military weapons.

4. Process culture – A process culture is most often folded in organizations where there is actually no feedback. This is rarely a good culture. In this type of an organizational culture people are so obsessed with the process of how things are done that the focus is lost on what the goal is. Process organizational culture is a synonym for bureaucracy. These cultures are overly cautious, obsessed with the letter of the law as opposed to the idea of the law. The only positive argument for this culture is that the consistency of results makes it good for public services.

5. Formal or informal culture – The work culture of an organization, to a large extent, is influenced by the formal components of organizational culture. Roles, responsibilities, accountability, rules and regulations are components of formal culture. They set the expectations that the organization has from every member and indicates the consequences if these expectations are not fulfilled.

However, informal culture has tangible and intangible, specific and non-specific manifestations of shared values, beliefs, and assumptions. This part of organizational culture comprising of artifacts, symbols, ceremonies, rites, and stories is highlighted in almost all the definitions of organizational culture.

6. Strong or weak culture – Organizational culture can be labeled as strong or weak based on sharedness of the core values among organizational members and the degree of commitment the members have to these core values. The higher the sharedness and commitment, the stronger the culture increases the possibility of behavior consistency amongst its members, while a weak culture opens avenues for each one of the members showing concerns unique to them.

7. Baseball Team Culture – In this kind of culture, the employees are “free agents” and are highly prized. These employees find employment easily in any organization and are very much in demand. There is, however, a considerable amount of risk that is attached to this culture, as it is also fast paced. Examples of this kind of culture are advertising, investment banking, etc.

8. Academy Culture – as the academy culture, employees are highly skilled, and the organization provides an environment for the development and honing of employee skills. Examples of this kind of culture are hospitals, universities, large corporations, etc. Employees tend to stay with the organization and grow within it.

Other types of Organizational Culture

Other types of organizational culture consist of control (hierarchy), compete (market), collaborate (clan) and create (adhocracy). Each type of the organizational cultures has their own objectives and functions.

Collaborate or also called as clan culture is an open and friendly place to work together where people can share a lot of themselves. It is like an extended family which leaders are considered as mentors or even parental figures. Group loyalty and sense of tradition are strong. So, there is an emphasis on the long term benefits of human resource management and great importance is given to group cohesion. Besides that, there is also a strong concern for the people in which the organization places a premium on teamwork, participation and consensus on it.

Create or also called as adhocracy culture is a dynamic, entrepreneurial and creative place to work. Innovation and risk taking are embraced by the employees and leaders. A commitment to experimentation and thinking differently are what unify the organization. They strive to be on the leading edge. Therefore, the long term emphasis is focus on the growth and acquiring new resources. Success means gaining the new unique and new products or services. Being an industry leader is important, individual initiative and freedom are encouraged.

Control or hierarchy culture is a highly structured and formal place to work. Rules and procedures are governing the behaviors. Leaders strive to be a good coordinators and organizers who are efficiency minded. Maintaining a smooth running organization is the most critical part. Formal policies are what hold the group together while stability, performance and efficient operations are the long term goals. Success means dependable delivery, smooth scheduling and low cost that management wants the security and the predictability.

Compete or market culture is a results driven organization that focused on the job completion. People are competitive and goal oriented whilst leaders are demanding, hard driving and productive. The emphasis is focus on the winning unifies the organization. Reputation and success are common concerns, this make the long term is focus on the competitive action and achievement of measurable goals and targets. Here, success means the market share and the penetration. Competitive pricing and market leadership are very crucial.

Positive Organizational Culture

It is a culture that builds on employee strengths and focuses it on discovering, sharing, and building on the strengths of individual employees. Several studies support that more positive culture such as consensual culture appears to increase satisfaction, and thus, lower the turnover intention. Gifford et al. (2002) also found that human relations culture that emphasizes teamwork, trust, morale and leadership and frequently uses the terms such as ‘family’ and ’empowered’ is positively related to job satisfaction.

Besides that, a positive organizational culture also rewards more than it punishes. It articulates the praise and ‘catching the employees doing something right’. By doing this, it can reduce the mistakes make by the employees. If those employees are performing well, company can appraise them by giving those rewards or others things.

Lastly, positive organizational culture also emphasizes the individual vitality and growth. It helps the employees to learn and grow in their jobs and careers.

Disadvantages for Organization Culture

Organization culture will bring few disadvantages for the organization. The first disadvantage is less sharing new idea between employees. For example, a merger between organizations, it will definitely bring changes to the organization culture. There will be an increase in talent and ideals with emerge with organizations. By this, it enables the organization to produce more new products to the consumers. When a company maintains at the same organization culture, it minimize the changes of the organization product.

Moreover, organization culture changes will also bring acquisition less of new clientele. For example, when an organization changes is able to serve much wider client with more resources with current management and redirect even broader customer base. Changes can easily increase your potential to attract more customers and may even undermine customers’ loyalty to your competitors. Without changes of organization culture, it will be less acquisition to new clientele and at the same time, the organization employees will become less motivated to search for new customer because employees know the organization just able them to serve same categories if the organization maintain at the same organization culture.

The third disadvantage is that there is not challenging to employee. Employees have the opportunity to tackle the new challenges that arise from organizational changes. The organization will also tackle those new challenges with the new or expanded market they are in. From the research, “consistent with the theme of power, new coworker, new bosses, and new power bases are cited by Marks and Mirivis (1992) as important factor impacting in the integration process.” (Mike Schreader and Dennis R.Self, (2003) Enhancing the success of merges and acquisition: an organizational culture perspective Management Decision, page 515). Without the changes of organization culture, it will become less challenge to the employees and become less effective to all employees if less challenges to employees.

Advantages for Organization Culture

First advantage for the organization cultures is to create energy and momentum. Culture is dynamic and people be taken seriously. It will create a real energy. This positive energy will penetrate organization to creating a successful new momentum. Positive energy is contagious, it will build itself to strengthen cultural and organization attraction.

Second advantage for an organization with strong organization culture is it creates greater synergy. A stronger culture has brought people together. When people have the opportunity to communicate and understand each other better, they will discover new connections. These connections will lead to greater productivity and new ideals. From the research of George Pun, quality, R&D manager at DHL for 13 years, says that the backbone of the culture is “communication, consensus and commitment. New people will be shocked by this kind of directness. But the attitude is very important” (Andrew Chan, (1997), Corporate culture of a clan organization: a case study of DHL international, page 95)

Third advantage for a strong organization culture in the organization is to attractor talent. Organization culture is also a part of the package for future employees in the assessment of the organization. Strengthen the human resources market and those who are looking for a new organization is more selective than ever before. The best talent requires more than just salary and good benefits. They also want to enjoy the environment and success in.

The Important of Organizational Culture

Goffee and Jones (1996) mentioned “organizational culture has been characterized as the “glue that holds organizations together”. Organizational culture has played an important role in the process of merger and acquisition. Culture can support linkages between technology adoption and organizational growth (Chatman and Jehn, 1994); it can be a critical success factor in implementing manufacturing strategy (Bates et al., 1995) and can play a crucial role in determining the success or failure of mergers and acquisitions (Weber et al., 1996; Javidan, 2001). Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI), a statistically normed and validated survey used for organizational consulting and change purposes, developed by Human Synergistics International (Cooke and Lafferty, 1987). It has been administered for a variety of purposes, including to direct, evaluate, and monitor organizational change (e.g. Gaucher and Kratochwill,1993); identify and transfer the cultures of high performing units (Human Synergistics,1986); study and enhance system reliability and safety (Haber et al., 1991; Shurberg and Haber, 1992; Keenan et al., 1998); facilitate strategic alliances and mergers (Slowinski,1992); promote collaborative relations within and across units (Leeds, 1999); and test hypotheses on the relationship between culture and antecedent variables (Klein et al.,1995a).

In fact, organizational culture is also known as the key factor for a long lasting success company. Due to the rapid change of external environment and technology, changes are needed to avoid drop behind. Stability is interpreted more often as stagnation than steadiness, and organizations that are not in the business of change and transition are generally viewed as recalcitrant. (Kim S. Cameron, Robert E. Quinn, 1999). George Pun, quality, R&D manager at DHL for 13 years, says that the backbone of the culture is “communication, consensus and commitment. New people will be shocked by this kind of directness. But the attitude is very important” Besides, Kotter and Heskett (1992) also argued that only cultures which help an organization to adapt to external changes contribute to higher performance in the long run.

There are many approach used to enhance the organization performance but the result had proved that having a good organizational culture is the only way for a company to operate a long period. Others approach used such as total quantity management (TQM), downsizing and reengineering had shown a fail result in the research.

In the research for TQM, Rath and Strong (a consulting firm) surveyed Fortune 500 companies and found that only 20 percent reported having achieved their quality objectives, and over 40 percent indicated that their quality initiatives were a complete flop. A study of 30 quality programs by McKinsey (another consulting firm) found that two-thirds had stalled, fallen short, or failed. Ernst and Young’s study of 584 companies in four industries (autos, banks, computers, health care) in the United States, Japan, Germany, and Canada found that most firms had not successfully implemented their total quality practices. Most firms labeled TQM a failure and were actually cutting back their quality budgets. (Kim S. Cameron, Robert E. Quinn, 1999).

Downsizing has been another attempt to improve productivity, efficiency, competitiveness, and effectiveness. However, a survey of corporate executives in six industrialized countries found that less than half had achieved their cost-cutting goals, and even fewer met operating objectives such as improved productivity. Another survey found that 74 percent of senior managers in downsized companies said that morale, trust, and productivity suffered after downsizing, and half of the 1468 firms in still another survey indicated that productivity deteriorated after downsizing. As for reengineering, study reported that 85 percent of those firms found little or no gain from their effort. Less than half, for example, achieved any change in market share, one of the primary goals. (Kim S. Cameron, Robert E. Quinn, 1999). The authors concluded that reengineering was not enough to achieve desirable change.

Researches had shown that “the failure of reengineering (as well as TQM and downsizing) occurred in most cases because of the culture of the organization remained the same. The procedure was treated as a technique or program of change, no as a fundamental shift in the organization’s direction, values, and culture. When the culture of these organizations was an explicit target of change, so that the TQM and/or downsizing initiatives were a part of an overall culture change effort, they were successful. Organizational effectiveness increased. Culture change was the key.” (Kim S. Cameron, Robert E. Quinn, 1999). In contrast, without culture change, there is little hope of enduring improvement in organizational performance.

Conclusion

An organization’s culture is reflected by what is valued, the dominant managerial and leadership styles, the language and symbols, the procedures and routines, and the definitions of success that make an organization unique. Inside an organization, subunits such as functional departments, product groups, or even teams may also reflect their own unique cultures. Difficulties in coordinating and integrating processes or organizational activities, for example, are often a result of culture clashes among different subunits. One reason is that each different unit often has developed its own perspective, its own set of values, its own culture.

Building a constructive organizational culture may enhance employee satisfaction and create a positive work environment where members have positive colleague interactions and approach tasks in a manner that helps them to attain high-order personal satisfaction and meet organizational goals (Meterko et al., 2004; Mulcahy and Betts, 2005). The individuals in the organization must decide to change their behavior to create the desired organizational culture. High functioning organizations are comprised of individuals whose overt behaviors are consistent with their covert values.

Culture is a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations. Managers need an accurate understanding of the organization’s culture in order to direct activities in a productive way and to avoid the destructive influence of having employees who are not committed to the company’s goals. Bring in people whose values are in line with the organization’s culture, and continue to acknowledge success and involve the whole organization in maintaining an environment that allows people to enjoy working hard to meet the company’s goals. As a conclusion, it is important for individual values to match organizational culture because a culture of “shared meaning or purpose” results in actions that help the organization achieve a common or collective goal.