From the web lectures Metaphors and Culture discussing the topic of the practical view approach. This approach claims that "culture is an internal organizational variable that can be manipulated and change to improve organizational effectiveness." I agree with this to some extent, because the culture can be manipulated to benefit the company but it can also harm the company as well.
The web lecture states that everyone: employees, managers, executives etc. all have part in the manipulation and compilation of the organization, which is true, but it also wonders if managers actually can change the culture.
I think they can. Managers can make the culture negative with poor managing skills, now this may not affect the entire organization but it can happen to a small group, and we all know how negativity can spread! But good managers can also make the environment fun and inviting creating a place where employees want to be so they can be challenged and successful.
Overall, I do feel that managers have a major part in shaping an organization's culture simply because they have a lot of say and choice when it comes to how things are implemented, projects are completed, and the happiness of their employees.
For example when I was a manager I believe, overall, everyone was happy and people enjoyed coming to work because of the new procedures I implemented to make work fun when I left I received so many phone calls from employees asking me to come back. Evidently the new manager came in and began acting like a tyrant making everything very stressful - I think its safe to say that most of the employees who had worked for me left that company.
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I agree with you that managers can definitely have a big influence on the overall mood of the company, however, I would have to argue that the potential influence managers or employees have on the culture of their company depends on how pervasive that culture is; the stronger the culture, the harder it would be to change it. The inability for managers or employees to change the culture of their company is not always a positive thing though. The example that comes to my mind is Enron. As the book says, Enron had a very strong company culture that promoted unethical practices so even though some employees may have not agreed with the Enron culture, there was really no way for them to change it.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that managers can have a tremendous influence over what kind of environment the workplace can be. During my undergraduate I worked at Home Depot and one of our managers would constantly yell at employees for the slightest infractions in company policy, or if he didn't think you were trying hard enough to please the customer. He made people so uncomfortable that they would call in sick if they knew they had to work with him all day. Finally he was let go and employee satisfaction surveys jumped in approval ratings, because the environment was so much happier.
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