The Pattern Of An Organizational Culture Commerce Essay

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Organizational culture is "A pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems that has worked well enough to be considered valid and is passed on to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems." (Schein E. , 2005)

Organizational culture refers to the culture within the organization and also referred to as corporate culture. Every organization has some unique configuration of norms, values and beliefs (such as value for money, time, and people), artefacts (such as literature, office layout, and dress code), the ways of behaving and so on. (Crombie, A sociology of organisation, 1974)

The culture existing into one organization can be different from other, because it is a pattern of assumptions which group is following that might have already invented or discovered though they may not have tried to change, manage or manipulate it. (Schein E. , 2007)

A discussion on the nature of organizational culture is followed by an examination of how managers attempt to control the culture. It focuses that an organization's culture can change over a period of time and that success of a business depends on amount of awareness and understanding of the culture and how managers attempt to control organizational culture in Hewlett Packard and Tesco.

Two founders of Hewlett Packard have developed unique management style that is called HP-way which is still followed by the company till the date.

The organization trust in the individual's own motivation to work and treat their employees as family members, their company objectives such as Profit, Customers, Fields of Interest, Growth, People, Management, serves as a guidelines in HP. (Greoeger, 2006)

Hewlett Packard unique style of handling the organization is "Management by Objectives", "Managing by Wandering around"(MBWA), means informal communication within the company, and "Total Quality Control". As HP slogan says "Nothing inspires like knowledge and "At HP our technology is smart so are our people" (, 2009).

Their culture follows the aggressive style of management they have open atmosphere in which every employee can participate, manager's offers help for the personal problems of the employees. Organization deals with common culture among national boundaries.

They have flexible environment in which every individual can contribute to company something relevant and help it to generate profits. They have proper intervals of break to keep the individuals active so that they perform the work with full zeal. Organization keeps reminding the workers about their objectives. (HP video)

Apart from the basic and performance related pay there are other benefit as well that organization shares such as health plan, retirement and pension schemes, stock ownership, telecommuting. (, 2009)

"An organisation can be represented by an Iceberg". The part that is visible above the water is formal aspect of organisation and the part which is beneath the water is difficult to change and can only be understood by exploring deeper structures below it. (Senior & Fleming)

This is organizational culture. Tesco organisation has developed high commitment model which offers training and development to the people. Organisation ensures that every employee has the opportunity to understand its individual role in contributing to the Tesco core purpose and values. They have an orientation program that caters for different cultures, styles of learning and varying commitments to the job. Their slogan "every little thing helps" is used for staff training, that if any unplanned circumstance arises then it will help them to increase the knowledge of the work. Their motto also focuses on "pile it up and sell it cheap". (Tesco,, 2009)

Their culture has formalised style of working. As due to their busy schedule in an organisation there is not much of socializing. The company main motive is to train the employees efficiently so that its effectiveness is measured in their work. There is informal communication within people of same departments but not in Tesco as whole (Manager, 2009). The organisation ensures that staffs are cared financially so they run three successful share schemes: save as you earn, buy as you earn and share in success, that helps them ending up with earn more

(, 2009).

As a reward Tesco provide Tesco Privilege card that gives ten percent discount and Club card points on most Tesco products to the staff and facilities. (Tesco,, 2009).

Successful organizations keep people issues at the fore front of their thinking and at the core of their decision making and planning. Being the largest Private employer in the UK Tesco takes this responsibility effectively; this is demonstrated through their training and development policy. (Delany, 2001)

The discussion explores the different cultures and the ways by which organization been controlled by managers of HEWLETT-PACKARD and TESCO.

Hewlett-Packard deals with innovation and changing technology, it has strategy, structure, technology and employees. It is more of managerial organization that's why it follows "has" culture which infers that culture being an attribute is 'given' to its members when they join. Whereas Tesco follows 'is' culture which means that culture is formed artificially and is based on shared cognitive perspective. (Smircich, 2007)

HP follows the more traditional form of approach while Tesco is more contemporary in its approach and is customer oriented; there is more hierarchy to be followed in Tesco because of which a sense of belonging and spirit to work for team's best is lost in the team. This is however more pre-dominant in the HP way of organization where the staff is goal oriented and the various incentive policies motivate them to work towards the desired goal. (Needle, 2007)

Moreover Hewlett Packard decisions are collective, they believe in joint efforts on the contrary Tesco follows individualism, decision making and control is done by the management.

Thus we can infer that Hewlett-Packard managers are more likely to achieve cultural control.