Relationship Between Organizational Culture and Strategic Management
When any group of people live and work together for any length of time, they form and share
beliefs about what is right and proper. They establish behavior patterns based on their beliefs, and
their actions often become matters of habit which they follow routinely. These beliefs and ways of
behaving create the culture of the organisation. Culture is a pattern of shared tacit assumptions that
was learned by a group as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration,
which has worked well enough to be considered valid in organisation and it is necessary to be
taught to new members as the correct way to think, perceive, and feel in relation to those problems
that occur in many organisation today. Culture also influences the selection of people for particular
jobs, which in turn affects the way in which tasks are carried out and decisions are made in an
organisation. With the word of organisation added to the definition of culture, it can be defined as
the patterns of beliefs, values and learned ways of coping with experience that have developed
during organisation’s history, and which tend to be manifested in the behaviors of its members.
Organisational culture is the taken-for-granted assumptions and behaviors that make sense of
people’s organisational context and it contributes to how groups of people respond and behave in
relation to issue they face. It means that culture has important influences on the development of
organisational strategy. Strong organisational cultures are important strategic asset as it is the heart
of all strategy creation and implementation.
In the early 1980s, by using culture, organisations could become more strategically effective.
In order to support this statement, the popular global online book-seller known as amazon.com,
used their culture which described as intensely customer-focused to drives their organisational
strategy creation by focusing more on intensive training of each individual employee as these could
reinforce the culture. As the result of using their culture and become more strategically effective,
today’s amazon.com has become one of the most successful online shop worldwide. Moreover, an
effective strategic leader should understand and shape the culture of organisation in order that
vision can be pursued and intended strategic implemented. This is something that leaders of Apple
Inc. have applied, by leveraging their culture of innovation toward product as well as internal
processes; they have been able to survive among their competitors as well as venture into new and
profitable markets. In fact that in third quarter of 2012, Apple Inc. has made more than $35 billion
revenue as this determine their success in technology industry. Moreover, organisational culture is
dependent on the leadership such as particular individuals. For example, organisational culture of
the body shop company is based on the commitment of their founder, Anita Roddick, to produce
only environmentally friendly products. Through her commitment, nowadays The Body Shop has
grown and prospers to become large and international businesses. From all examples above, it
shows us the connection between culture and strategy of an organisation is necessary in order to
understand roles of culture that affect the creation and implementation of strategy in an
organisation.
Key Characteristics of Culture in an Organization
There are some key characteristics of culture in an organisation. Firstly, culture can be shaped
by people as employees’ personality and experience create the culture of an organisation. For
example, if most of employees are very outgoing, the culture in the organisation likely to be open
and sociable. The other characteristics are culture is negotiated; this is because culture cannot be
created by only individual person. Employees must try to change the work environment, the
direction, the way work is performed, or the manner in which decisions are made within the general
norms of the workplace. Its difficulty to change is another characteristic of organisational culture
. Changing in culture require people to change their behaviors. It is often hard for people to unlearn
their old way of doing things, and to start performing the new behaviors consistently. It takes time
and effort to change the culture in an organisation especially in firms with strong culture. Older
strong culture organisations have established stories, use symbols, conduct rituals and even use
their own language. In this type of strong culture organisations, the core values are widely shared,
respected and protected.
However culture is not static. A strong culture is extremely resistant to change but culture is
not static. Once a culture is established in an organisation, it tends to be reinforced by the types of
leaders chosen, by the selection, induction and training processes, by the systems, procedures and
structures, and by the statements and communications of senior leaders about the way things are
done around organisation. In addition, overtime, the environment changes, new technologies
develop, new social norms occur, and new competitors emerge, cultures will evolve to match these
developments. For example, as new technology developed, CEO of General Electronic (GE), Jack
Welch develop new strategy called ‘GrowYourBusiness.com’, aimed at getting the various
businesses to embrace electronic commerce as the new way of doing business and this had a
significant effect on the required culture. Benefits of electronic commerce are cost saving, provide
faster answers for customers and offer more interesting assignments for employees. Nowadays
most of GE’s customers are using web to track orders, sometimes right to the location of a delivery
van and instantly getting details of products.
The last characteristics of organizational culture is more than one culture might which means
that two or more subcultures might exist in same organisation. However, most of the researchers
assume that there should be a single culture for the organisation. It might be true for small or
extremely focused or geographically concentrated organisations, but for organisations with a broad
range of products, customers and geographical locations, separate subcultures are necessary. For
examples, the China operation of a multinational manufacturer seeking low-cost production will
have quite a different culture from its sales and marketing operation in Singapore and Australia,
where the company is trying to present an up-market image. Therefore it is important for an
organisation to have appropriate cultures in each unit and to be able to coordinate these cultures
for the benefit of the organisation as a whole.
Internal and External Factors that Impact Organizational Culture
Organisational culture is subjective by several factors which affect its development,
performance and growth. Organisational culture originates and keeps evolving from the dynamics
of the interaction between internal and external factors. Internal factors consist of organisation’s
values, leadership style and structure. Values in an organisation determine the inner culture of each
individual employee. Moreover, managerial focus and leadership style has known as the
contributor of shaping organisational culture as it could preserve an innovative and creative culture
in an organisation. Healthy organisational structure includes procedures, expectations and policies
are likely for employee to be motivated, more efficient and creative that could influence the culture
in an organisation. On the other, external factors that affect organisational culture, includes
business relationships, technology, laws and policies. Business relationships have a great impact
on employee’s behavior and the culture in an organisation. For instance, if an organisation has
association with a further business and that business is based on high prospects, staff may react in
their working as the reason of those high prospects. As the result of today’s technology
advancement, it could lead to changing in culture of an organisation particularly with an increasing
interaction between human and machine. Furthermore, technological creating competitive
organisational culture as it reduces face-to-face interaction between human. Lastly, organisational
regulations, policies and external work related acts significantly influences organisational culture,
for example employee who work in organisation that performs a strict “work to rule” policy, they
exhibit characteristics such as do things as they are told, less passionate about their job and refuse
to be creative, thus it could directly change the whole culture in an organisation. This combination
of internal and external factors will influence the organisation’s culture and have an effect on
interpersonal relations. What is important is to be aware of it and to take account of how plans to
develop the organisation may be affected by and affect its culture.
Organizational Cultures and Organizations Performance
High-performance organisations usually have strong organisational culture. A strong culture
will help to align the elements required for effective implementation. Each organisation in same
industry requires different business strategies. Different strategies require different cultures.
Clearly, the culture of the organisation needs to be matched to the business strategy of the
organisation. The issue is to align the culture with the strategy, not to seek some ideal culture.
There are some views on the relationship between organisational cultures on organisation’s
performance. The most common one known as strong-culture thesis, that assumed the commitment
of employees and managers to the same set of values, beliefs and norms will have positive results
that directly correlated with the level of profits in a company. It is possible that success brings
about a common set of orientations, beliefs and values. This culture may be more than just a by-
product of high performances, but values and meanings may reproduce a successful organisation
and thus contribute to performances. Since the cultural values are observable and measurable, it
can be compared directly between organisations, employees and organisational performance.
Recently, employee engagement has become a key measure of people’s commitment to the
organisational culture and high scores have been linked to high organisational performance. For
example, Italian eye ware and eye care company Luxottica improved its employee engagement
and achieved improved performance. This company found that employees in its Australian and
New Zealand operation of total 6500 people were disengaged and 56% of them did not understand
the business strategy. However after employee engagement program was constructed which
include understanding the culture of the organisation, Luxottica has achieved 15% of improvement
in engagement, 30% reduction in recruitment costs and an 8% reduction in turnover. Many
business leaders are convinced that culture does have a substantial influence on performance.
Therefore, when an organisation performs consistently at their capability, the outcome is not only
improved strategic success but also an organisational culture permeated with a spirit of high
organisational performance.
Organizational Culture Influence on Strategy
Because of its crucial role in organisation performance, it is necessary to examine the
relationship between culture and strategy because chance of success will be higher if there is a
close incident fit between culture and strategy. Organisational cultures should be accompanied by
any changes in strategy of organisation; otherwise the strategy is probably failed. In other hand, if
supportive cultural arrangement is supported by right strategy, most likely the strategy will be
succeeding. The taken-for-granted nature of culture makes it centrally important in relation to
strategy and the management of strategy. George Davis, the founder of clothing retailers Next and
GIVe, sees culture as central to management. He added that culture is the thing that makes us do
things and stops us doing things. There are benefits in the taken-for-granted nature of culture.
Because of all employees take as given the way the firm operates, it reduces the need for constant
supervision. The stronger the fit between culture and strategy, the less managers have to depend
on policies, rules and procedures, which means that lesser supervision needed to enforce what
people should and should not do. There are then benefits to the taken-for-granted aspect of culture.
Moreover, a positive culture might influence in achieving strategy in an organisation. For example,
Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) is the second largest financial institution
in the world which comprises of more than 10,000 offices in eighty countries. HSBC has their own
unique and effective culture as part of its strategic management. One of the known practices within
the HSBC organisational culture is its regard for work-ethic endorsement. This practice involves
the careful screening of employees with the necessary skills and high potential for improvement.
Through this culture, the HSBC are able to create an effective workforce that is determined to
succeed and is highly committed to work. It believes that when employees are highly committed
with their job and always do their very best, it could help in achieving strategy and plan in an
organisation. Business strategies of HSBC are to increase revenue growth, developing brand
strategy further, improving productivity and maintaining the company’s prudent risk management
and strong financial position.
In the situation of declining performance of an organisation, managers or leaders need to
improve the implementation of existing strategy such as trying to lower cost, improve efficiency,
tighten controls or improve accepted way of doing things. If this not effective, a change of strategy
may occur, however change in line with the existing culture. For example, when there are attempts
to change highly bureaucratic organisations to be customer-oriented so there is a need to change a
culture’s of an organisation. However, some employees do not readily to accept the cultural change
in an organisation as they are used to the culture they had before. People prefer the familiar and
typical culture as to minimize uncertainty or ambiguity in the organisation.
The connection between success and culture may seem obvious as successful business is the
result of successful execution of a good strategy, and therefore culture is all about execution.
Strategy can be effectively implemented only when an organisation’s culture is both strong
(consistent) and healthy (employees are engaged and committed, customers are satisfied and other
stakeholders are included in organisational discussions). In the case of Southwest Airlines, they
believe that the link between strategy and its culture are the one of the reasons that makes this
organisation become successful. The culture in an organisation is strong as there is consistency of
what people see, hear and feel about it and employees are clear of how things are done and are
willing and able to help the airline achieve its goals. Furthermore, their business strategy is good
includes stretching and addressing short-term and longer-term goals and they are clearly
articulated. As the result of the strong culture and good strategy, Southwest Airlines has reached
their business success in airline industry. The CEO of Southwest Airline, Gary Kelly added that
strong culture contributes to business success and is instrumental in some of the strategic decision
of the organisation.
Organizational Culture and Strategic Decision
Nowadays, terms of strategic is used more often in its broader sense, including strategic
decision. There are some important key elements of strategic decisions that are related primarily
to the organisation’s ability to add value and compete in market place. This include making
sustainable decisions that can be maintained over time, it must be able to delivers sustainable
competitive advantages over its actual or potential competitors, it has to exploit the many linkages
that exist between the organisation and its environment and lastly it must have the ability to move
the organisation forward a significant way beyond the current environment. Therefore, it is the
responsibility of strategic decision maker to reach and maintain key elements of good strategic
decision to an organisation. It is important to a strategic decision maker to make decisions by
considering the different cultures, agencies, agendas, personalities and desires in an organisation.
Strategic decision makers must not only be aware of the culture within an organisation, but they
must also work to shape an organisation’s culture to help achieve its objectives. If an organisation
needs to improve the public’s perception of its customer service, then strategic decision makers
must steer the organization’s culture so it promotes or encourages high achievement in customer
service activities. Changing an organisation’s culture helps guard against unethical or illegal
behavior by members of the organization. Organisational culture directly affects how the members
of the organisation view and interact with the environment the organisation operates in, including
their interactions with the general public. For example, Howard Levin, President and CEO of
Digicon Electronics, he took the time to understand the company as an organisation and he even
undertook the benchmarking the company’s culture against companies with reportedly effective
business culture and not just in that industry. Every operational improvement and new strategic
decisions he undertook was linked to the new culture that he was building for the company. He
was determined that the company would have a culture that would support enlightened leadership.
Over time, the student of culture became the teacher as Digicon became an industry leader.
