Factors of Organizational Culture Change

This article examines various factors that affect organizational culture. It considers the macro-environment, the micro-environment, and leadership as influential factors in organizational culture. A company's founder(s) and its leadership are the biggest influencers on culture in their responses to external events. Furthermore, the organization's development stage also affects the organizational culture's change mechanisms.

Results of the research of organizational culture change

Control

Assessment of control as one of the organizational characteristics was changing during the research period. In 2006 46.8% of employees agreed with the statement that there are strict rules and procedures in the company to perform a certain job or task. In 2008 the number of employees who agree with this statement decreased to 26.4% and the number of employees who failed to be sure how to evaluate the given statement increased to 45.3%. This can be accounted for by the fact that by reducing the number of managerial employees some work has been prescribed to people who previously were not doing it. In addition, employees are encouraged to show personal initiative and make decisions, so employees do not have the possibility to use the rules and procedures as they are encouraged to adopt other types of decision making than before. Rules, instructions and strictness average assessment decreased from 3.6 in 2006 to 3.1 points in 2008 in the 5 point scale.

During in-depth interviews, great bureaucracy, which during the research period was declining and the company grew more flexible, was identified as one weakness of the organizational culture. Only in the production department direct supervision of workers has increased and this was associated with the efforts to ensure high quality of products and reduce the number of defects. However, little attention as an opposition to direct control has been paid to the motivation for employees.

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Picture 2. Average assessment of organizational culture characteristics, in points