Organizational Culture

Organizations can be considered to have a culture of their own, depending upon what the goals of the organization are and how the various divisions function in relation to one another. An organization is in fact a small community of sorts where people interact with each other and spend a significant portion of their lives.

I used to work as a volunteer at a pro-literacy organization, whose members tutored illiterate people to read and write. Those who worked and volunteered there treated each other with respect and openness, since they were accustomed to do the same with their students who needed to be treated in this manner. The culture here may be described as "gentle and easy-going".

Contrast this with my internship experience at a company that manufactured chips that went into mobile phones. The people here had to be on top of the competition, were stressed out with their work, and rarely even said hello to each other. The culture here could be best described as "hectic".

What is Culture?

Page 76 of the Textbook defines culture first as a certain kind of opposite of nature, and then as a system of meaning that guides in the construction of reality in a social community.

I think that one merit of this definition is that it helps one understand that culture is not only in the conduct of people belonging to a community, but especially in the meaning that one may ascribe to that conduct. For example, it was considered good manners a few centuries ago in the Middle East for a guest to belch after eating his food, indicating satisfaction with the meal offered. But the same conduct in the West might be seen as offensive, indicating a lack of self-restraint on the part of the guest. Hence the same conduct (belching) is seen as good in one culture and bad in another, since the meaning ascribed to the conduct varies with the perception of the community.