Consider this statement in relation to how we understand and make sense of culture in the post? bureaucratic era. Introduction Culture is an important aspect of an identity.
It is what we believe, how we behave and culture influences an identity’s decision making. Organisational culture is the deep, basic assumptions, beliefs and shared values that define organisational membership. It is also defined as member’s habitual ways of making decisions and presenting themselves and their organisation.In this essay, I will be discussing about organisational culture in the post-bureaucratic era.
First of all, I will be talking about how top management and employees related through culture by utilising Parker, M. (2000). In the first paragraph, it will cover how organisations shape the identities of their members and influence their culture in order to manage effectively. Furthermore, by drawing on Ogbonna, E. & Wilkinson, B.
(2003), the essay will cover the impact of organisational culture change on managers and employees.Thirdly I will employ Rosen, M. (2007) to demonstrate the importance of building organisational culture and relationship between employees and top management, which helps to improve an organisation’s communication and working environment. And last but not least, Karreman, D. & Alvesson, M.
(2004) have indicated the distinction between bureaucracy, where the organisation focuses on controlling, and post- bureaucracy, where the organisation develops more in culture and people. BodyIn this paragraph, I am going to discuss about how organisations relate to their employees through organisational culture. First of all, I will employ a reference from Parker (2000) in order to bring out the main point of the book of where we gain important insights from applying culture to organisations. According to Parker (2000), an organisation is treated as a whole family which includes every member from the CEO to employees. In a cultural organisation, people all have different responsibilities which bring out the distinction to competitors.However there are ideas saying hat organisations shape and influence the identities/ culture of their employees in order to manage more effectively.
It also means that the organisation takes control on their employees’ culture which contrasts to the idea above where everyone is treated as a whole family. In the same way, the first idea reveals the post-bureaucratic concept where organisations apply soft HR and reduce control on members. On the other hand bureaucracy applies hard HR and focuses on controlling the employees. I will discuss more on this argument through the writing of Parker (2000).
Culture change is a huge issue that strongly impacts on organisations which is demonstrated in Ogbonna (2003). In this section, I will discuss about the perceptions and responses of managers to organisational culture change initiatives. I shall use Ogbonna (2003) experiments to reveal that managers are ambiguous about culture change. As Ogbonna (2003) indicated, “managers are as ambivalent as lower level employees on the issues of culture change”, they are both influenced not just organisational culture itself but also related to cultural processes and organisational re-structuring.
Next by utilising more references from Ogbonna (2003), I will demonstrate how organisational culture change impact on career insecurity of managers and employees, since they have to learn and adapt new methods as well as processes, or the organisation wants to cut off expense. If a person failed to adapt the change, it is more likely that he/she would fall behind or lose their job. However it also influenced by whether the organisation applies soft or hard HR and its Harvard model of HRM.In this section, I will be talking about how organisations build up the culture and relationship between employees and top management.
By applying Rosen (2007)’s reference, I will describe the response and act of employees as well as top management in their Christmas party, and how it will influence their organisational culture. Rosen (2007) brings up the of positive effect of the Christmas party where everyone in the organisation are treated equally, which helps to tight up the relationship between people in the organisation and improve good culture.According to Rosen (2007), ‘workplace is not only a place to work, but also a place where one is loved or may love’, I will show that organisational culture in the post-bureaucratic era is more focused on social skills, treating people as a family and reducing on controlling employees as machines. The article emphasises the stage where an organisation gets out of bureaucracy (Taylorism) and applies Mayo’s rule, improving social skills and paying attention to group needs. Finally in this section, I will be discussing about the distinction between bureaucratic and post-bureaucratic era through Karreman (2004)’s references.
I will analyse the meaning of bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy as well as the different methods, models that applied in the two eras. I draw upon Karreman (2004)’s experiment to show bureaucracy’s positive and negative sides, as well as post-bureaucracy’s sides. According to Karreman (2004), Taylorism focuses on work procedures and constrains workers to do only the correct thing in an economic way. It improves efficiency and gets the organisation structured.
However the method treats employees like machines by using hard HR, which reduces the culture and relation between workers and management.On the other hand post-bureaucracy applies Mayo’s rule (soft HR) where organisations focus on social skills and employees’ feeling. Therefore it improves motivation and efficiency in an organisation’s environment. By utilising Karreman (2004)’s references, I will discuss more about bureaucratic structures such as technocratic and socio-ideological layers, as well as how they influence the organisational culture. Conclusion In summing up, the four articles demonstrate the identities and different areas of organisational culture.Organisational culture is an important aspect that distinguishes one from its competitors.
The way of culture that an organisation chooses will influence its process, productivity and environment. If hard HR is chosen as the management method, the bureaucracy level is high which constrains workers to follow the procedures in an economic way and treats employees like machines, which leads to efficiency. However reduces the movement of freedom and motivation in workers therefore decreases organisational culture and might reduce productivity as well.If soft HR is chosen to be used as an organisation’s management method, then it comes along with Mayo’s rule where social skills are focused; workers are treated well and motivated, therefore improving efficiency and productivity. In the post-bureaucratic era, organisations need strong culture, where they focus on treating people well and improving motivation in the environment, as well as creating good relationship in the organisation as a whole. By utilising all four article’s references, I will demonstrate clearly all the concepts and issues that related to organisational culture and the culture of post-bureaucratic era.
