The Hindu Business Line : Defining culture

INDIAN economy is becoming globalised and over the past few years, organisations have been forced to re-examine basic assumptions about how they operate. The forces of globalisation, deregulation and increasing segmentation of markets have led to re-examination of corporate mission, of the strategy required to support mission, and of the organisational culture required to support strategy.

Culture in an organisation can best be defined as a body of practices that employees share and transmit to new employees. In other words, "the way things get done in an organisation".

Most people have a sense of the culture of their organisations. When asked they can tell stories that characterise the culture for them. If one collects these stories from a number of employees, one can identify partners that provide an impression of the culture. Often, the stories focus on an individual. This may be the founder or the current leader who has had a substantial influence on the organisation. Other stories may focus on incidents that illustrate the culture such as the way employees bonded together to face an obstacle or the success of a new product. To measure culture more systematically, it is possible to proceed in a more quantifiable way.

The core dimensions in culture assessment are:

How clearly are the company goals set?

Decision-making: Is the decision making process decentralised?

How quickly are decisions made?

How far down are authorities delegated?

Organisational integration: What is the degree of cooperation and coordination among various units?

Management style: Are initiative and risk taking encouraged and conflicts discussed?

Performance orientation: What is the degree of emphasis placed on individual accountability?

Management Compensation: Is the pay competitive?

Is it performance based?

Are promotions based on capability?

Corporate identity: What is the overall image of the organisation with the staff and the public?

The framework described above forms the basis for measuring an organisation's culture. Data is collected through personal interviews, observations of meetings, interactions, events, analysis of organisational charts, plans, policies and written culture questionnaires.

We can quantify scales for each of the above criteria and the answers to the questions will be related to a quantifiable value, the total of which will give a value, that will define the culture of the organisation.

R. S. Ramakrishnan

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