NOTES ON ORGANIZATION CLIMATE

 

Organization climate, or organizational culture, sometimes also called organiztion ideology refers to a pervasive way of life and a set of norms.

In organizations there are deep-set beliefs about the way should be organized, the way authority should be exercised, how people should be rewarded, and how they should be controlled. The culture of an organization can sometimes be visible in its build ing and its offices. It can be manifest in the kinds of people it employs, the kind of career aspirations they hold, their status in society, their level of education and their degree of mobility.

A large research university will have a culture quite different from that of a manufacturing firm or a retail store. Different kinds of libraries have different cultures, reflecting the environment in which they are placed.

Even within an organization cultures will vary. The research department will have a different atmosphere than the administration, which will be different from that of the place where operational activities take place.

Four cultures identified by Roger Harrison and used as a basis for the organization climate self-test are: power, role, task and person.

The power culture is most often found in small entrepreneurial organizations. Its structure can be pictured as a web.

The power culture depends on a central power source with rays of power and influence spreading out from that central figure. The rays may be connected by functional or specialist strings but the power rings are the centers of power and influences.

This organization works on precedent and by anticipating the wishes and decisions of the central power sources. There are few rules and procedures and little bureaucracy. Control is exercised from the center. It is a political organization in that deci sions are taken larged based on the balance of influence rather than on logical or procedural grounds.

A power culture can move very quickly and react rapidly to threats or opportunities. These cultures put a lot of faith in the individual, little in committees. They judge by results and care very little about the means used to obtain results. Size is a problem for power cultures; when they get large or when they seek to take on too many activities, they can collapse.

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The role culture is called a bureaucracy. The structure for a role culture can be pictured as a Greek temple.

The role culture works by logic and rationality. Its strength in its its pillars or functional specialties, e.g. the finance department, the technical services department, the public services department. The work of the functional departments is contro lled by:

• >Procedures for roles -- Job descriptions, authority definitions
• Procedures for communications -- required sets of copies of memos
• Rules for settlement of disputes -- appeal process.

The functional departments are controlled at the top by a small group of senior managers (the pediment of the temple). It is assumed that these folks are the only co-ordinators required if the separate departments do their job as laid down by the rules and procedures and the overall plan.

In the role culture, the job description is often more important than the individual who fills it. Individuals are selected for satisfactory performance of a role and the role is usually so described that a range of individuals can fill it. Performance above and beyond the role prescription is not required and can even be regarded as disruptive. Position power is the major power source; personal power is frowned upon and expert power limited to its proper place. The efficiency of this culture depends o n the rationality of the allocation of work and responsibility rather than on individuals.

The role organization will succeed very well in stable environments where little changes from year to year and predictions can be made far in advance. Where the organization can control its environment, where its markets are stable, predictable or controllable, the rules and procedures and the programmed approach to work will be successful.

Role cultures are slow to perceive the need for change and slow to change even when the need is seen. If the market, the product/service needs, or the environment changes, the role culture is likely to continue without change until it collapses or until the top management is replaced.

Role cultures offer security and predictability to the individual -- a steady rate of ascent up the career ladder. They offer the change to acquire specialist expertise without risk. They tend to reward those wanted to do their job to standard. A role culture is frustrating for the individual who is power-oriented or who wants control over his/her work. Those who are ambitious or more interested in results than method may be discontent, except in top management.

The role culture is found where economies of scale are more important than flexibility and where technical expertise and depth of specialization are more important than product innovation or product cost.

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The task culture is job or product oriented or focused on service delivery. Its accompanying structure can be represented as a net.

Notice some of the strands of the net are thicker and stronger than the others. The power and influence in a task culture lies at the intersections. A matrix organization is one form of the task culture.

The task culture seeks to bring together the appropriate resources, the right people at the right level of the organization, and then to let them get on with it. Influence is based more on expert power than on position or personal power, although these power sources have an effect. Influence is more widely dispersed than in other cultures and each individual in the culture tends to think he/she has influence.

The task culture is a team culture where the outcome, the result, the product of the team's work tends to be the common goal overcoming individual objectives and most status and style differences. The task culture uses the unifying power of the group t o improve efficiency and to identify the individual with the objective of the organization.

The task culture is highly adaptable. Groups, project teams, or task forces are formed for a specific purpose and can be reformed, abandoned or continued. The net organization works quickly since each group ideally contains within it all the decision-m aking powers required. Individuals have a high degree of control over their work in this culture. Judgment is by results. There are generally easy working relationships within the group with mutual respect based upon capacity rather than age or status.

The task culture is appropriate where flexibility and sensitivity to the market or environment are important. The task culture fits where the market is competitive, where the product life is short, where speed of reaction is important.

The task culture finds it hard to produce economies of scale or great depth of expertise. Large scale systems are difficult to organize as flexible groups. The technical expert in a task culture will find him/herself working on various problems and in various groups and thus will be less specialized than his/her counterpart working in a role cultures.

Control in a task culture is difficult. Control is retained by top management through the allocation of projects, people and resources. But little day-to-day control can be exerted over the methods of working or the procedures without violating the nor ms of the culture. Task cultures flourish when the climate is agreeable, when the product is all-important, when the customer is always right, and when resources are available for all who can justify using them.

When resources of money and people have to be rationed, top management may wish to control methods as well as results. When this happens, team leaders begin to compete for resources using political influence. Morale will decline and the job become less satisfying as individuals begin to reveal their individual objectives. When this happens the task culture tends to change to a role or power culture.

The task culture is usually the one preferred as a personal choice to work in by most managers especially those at junior and middle levels. It is the culture which most of the behavioral theories of organizations point towards with their emphasis on g roups, expert power, rewards for results, merging individual and group objectives. It is the culture most in tune withcurrent ideologies of change and adaptation, individual freedom and low status differentials.

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The person culture is an unusual one and won't be found in many organizations but many individuals cling to some of its values. In this culture the individual is the central point. If there is a structure or an organization it exists only to serve and assist the individuals within it. If a group of individuals decide that it is in their own interests to band together in order to do their own thing more successfully and that an office, a space, some equipment, some clerical support would help, then the resulting organization will have a person culture. Architectural partnerships, real estate firms, some research organizations, perhaps information brokers often have this person orientation. Its structure is minimal, a cluster or galaxy of individual stars may be the best picture.

As most organizations tend to have goals and objectives over and above the set of collective objectives of their members, there are few organizations with person cultures. Control mechanisms or even management hierarchies are imposssilbe in their cultures except by mutual consent. The organization is subordinate to the individual and depends on the individual for its existence. The individual can leave the organization but the organization seldom has the power to evict an individual. Influence is share and the power base is usually expert.

The kibbutz, the commune, the co-operative, are strive for the personal culture in organizational form. Rarely does it succeed beyond the original creators. Very quickly the organization achieves its own identify and begins to impose it on its individuals. It becomes a task culture at best, but often a power or role culture.

Although there are few organizations with person cultures, many individuals with a personal preference for this type of culture operate in other kinds of organization. Specialists in organization often feel little allegiance to the organization but regard it rather as a place to do their thing with some benefit accruing to their employer. Individuals with this orientation are not easy to manage. As specialists employment elsewhere is often easy to obtain so resource power has less potency. They rarely acknowledge other people's expert power. Coercive power is not usually available which leaves only personal power and such individuals are not easily impressed by personality.

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The second diagram below points out some of the organization design policies variables that need to be considered when considering the nature of an organization and its fit with its environment.