An assessment of the contribution of organizational culture literature to the history of management thought.
This paper analysis organizational culture literature as a management style in its own right, using theories such as transformational leadership. Taylorism and Human Relations Theory are compared and contrasted with culture management and parallels are also drawn between the classical and contemporary perspectives, using theories such as MacGregor’s Theory X and Y. It also discusses whether organizational culture literature represent a major departure from scientific management and human relations theory.
The many different views of culture, along with its benefits and drawbacks, are caused by the difficulties associated with actually defining culture. As most employees in company’s with strong cultures are either aligned with the culture, or against it, they invariably either view their beliefs and values as completely natural, or view the company’s as completely unnatural and harmful. Edgar Schein argues that culture is built up in three layers: artifacts, values and basic assumptions. Of these, artifacts are those that can best be influenced by a company’s management, such as mission statements, lists of values and corporate logos. If these artifacts are effective, then they can begin to alter peoples values and beliefs, like in the P&G example, where the company’s stated commitment to quality lead to their employees being unwilling to sacrifice this quality, even at the expense of failing to meet demand.