Culture is a tool that the group creates to co-exist, survive and succeed.
Synthesis
Just as people have personalities so to do organizations. Organizational culture refers to a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes one organization from another.
Research
Each organization has its own distinctive culture. It is a combination of the founders, past leadership, current leadership, events, history and size. It also takes into consideration the formal and informal systems, rules, traditions and customs
All of this directly impacts on the individual’s behavior in the organization.
Robbins (1984) describes ten characteristics which are combined to expose the essence of an organizations culture:
• Individual initiative
• Risk tolerance
• Direction
• Integration
• Management support
• Control
• Identity
• Reward system
• Conflict tolerance
• Communication patterns
Robbins (Essentials of an organizational behaviour 8th Edition) also explains through the ‘socialization model’ that new employees who enter organizations go through three stages before adapting to the organizations culture:
Socialization Model
Pre-arrival stage: Employee arrives with a their own culture
Encounter stage: Employee encounters new culture of the organization
Metamorphosis stage: Employees work out there problems that were discovered in encounter stage
Robbins Socialization model ...