Culture

(research from Wing Tam)

The word “culture” is most commonly can be interpreted as the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group.

For humans, we describe someone as warm, innovative, relaxed or creative, we are describing their personality. In term of collaboration, we call it the organization/group culture. It can be said as a system of shared meaning within a group that determines or how the group members act.

In an organization, the culture of it usually reflects the vision or mission of the organization’s founders. They got the original idea and establish the early culture of the organization, the founders’ biases and assumptions thus affect the members learn subsequently from their own experiences. The culture in a group or an organization may have an effect on its structure, depending on how strong the culture is. Such culture can substitute for the rules and regulations for the group members because they have the shared attitudes, values and goals. In the other hand, if such culture is weak, management to the group/organization may rely on those written documentation for rules and regulations.

Robbins suggested several characteristics of organization culture in the followings.

Member identity

-          The degree to which members identify with the organization as a whole or with their field of expertise

Group emphasis

-          The degree to which working with groups or individually

Control

-          The degree to which rules, regulations and direct supervision needed to control employee behavior

Risk tolerance

-          The degree to which members are encouraged to be aggressive, innovative and risk-seeking

Conflict tolerance

-          The degree to which members are encouraged to conflicts and criticisms openly

References:

Robbins Stephen P. and De Cenzo David. A 1995, Fundamentals of management: essential concepts and applications, 3rd edition,Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs N.J.

Vin, S 2008, Ideal Culture For A Development Organization, accessed 7 May 2009, <http://bigapplezlp.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/ideal-culture-for-a-development-organization/>