What is organizational culture?

Schein (1983) describes organization culture as the pattern of the basic assumptions that corporate management

' ... has invented, discovered or developed in learning to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration - a pattern of assumptions that has worked well enough to be considered valid and therefore to be taught to new organizational members as the correct way to perceive, think, feel and behave in relation to those problems'.

An example would be:

. . the only way to manage this growing business successfully is to supervise every detail on a daily basis, and if necessary, to hire competent people from out- side. Let's not waste time on all the training . . .

Schein (1983) explores the difficulties managers have in developing shared assumptions about the realities of the world in which they exist and how entrepreneur/founder/owners differ from professional managers in the kind of organizational cultures they create. If for instance Black advancement efforts within organizations in South Africa are to gain real impetus, top management must rethink its policies and ensure that the organizational culture is supportive of their policies. If the policies do not embed the culture corporate management wants  to manifest, management behaviour is likely to be in conflict with what corporate management desires to achieve and any change process is likely to be painfully slow and costly.