Question

answer these questions in very short essays

1- Define “culture” for a business.

2- Describe how culture can be a competitive advantage for a business.

3-Discuss the seven dimensions of culture in the Organizational Culture Profile.

Answer 1

1. Define "culture" for a business.

Organizational culture, an important area of research in industrial psychology, is the collective sum of the values and behaviors displayed by an organization's employees. Organizational culture, often also called corporate culture, is evident in the interactions that employees have with internal teams and external vendors and customers. Often times, this type of culture is not explicitly defined by the organization but is organically developed over long periods of time. However, the organization can seek to shape the culture by refining its hiring practices, incentive programs, organizational structure and various standard procedures such as business hours and dress code.

2. Describe how culture can be a competitive advantage for a business.

Organizational culture is most prominent in attracting and retaining employees. A company with a reputation for rigid and uncooperative culture will lose out on the opportunity to hire the best employees who will naturally gravitate towards a company with flexible and collaborative culture. Often times this will allow companies with superior culture to attract employees while offering market average or below market average compensation. Such practices translate the value of maintaining a robust corporate culture into a competitive advantage via real financial savings. Even as corporate culture is important for employees, it is equally valuable in attracting and retaining customers. A company with superior culture will tend to offer a better product or experience to the customer, simply because of improved internal business processes. This results in competitive advantage via offering a better mouse-trap.

3. Discuss the seven dimensions of culture in the "Organizational Culture Profile".

The organizational culture profile is a tool developed in 1991 to access the extent to which an employee fits within an organization's culture. The tool lists seven dimensions - innovation, stability, people-oriented, outcome-oriented, easy going, detail-oriented and team-oriented. The innovation factor seeks to match individuals with inquisitive companies who will encourage new products, often by allowing employees to work on pet projects during business hours. The stability factor seeks to match individuals with steady companies with a strong internal structure and hierarchy with defined roles. The people oriented factor seeks to match individuals with caring companies who often treat employees as family and value fairness and equality. The outcome oriented companies seeks to match individuals with aggressive companies that value results more than the process. The easy going factor seeks to match individuals with relaxed companies that offer a relatively stress-free work environment. The detail oriented factor seeks to match individuals with companies that expect attention to every single detail with meticulous record-keeping. The team oriented factor seeks to match individuals with companies that encourage team work as a way of building robust relationships.