Tuesday 10 May 2011

Culture Week 4

CULTURE                                                                         WEEK 4

I worked for PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company) in customer care office as it was always flooded with loads of people with the small issues that they were going through. As my job was temporary so they always gave me to do job on different timings so that let me meet many people within the organisation. This let me think of many good aspects of working in that organisation as I saw every worker was happy with the job and the company policies. The very few visible aspects of culture I saw were:
The workers were highly motivated by the owner and owners had developed  a sense of belonging amongst the members of the workforce. And the employees had a feeling that they were integral part of the company and the contribution towards company growth was deeply valued by the owner.
The second visible aspect was the respect for each other’s culture and moral values. In other words the company had great respect for the ethics as they are very important part of a company. Ethics can be defined as a system of morals or rules of behaviour. These are the values and beliefs which influence how individuals, group and societies behave.
The next aspect was the feedback given by the customer. As there was a complaint box as well as a suggestion box for the customer and that box was opened by the manager and he used to give feedback to all the employees in order to maintain the standards of the company to the demands of the customers. Regular feedback was a best part of the company that I felt was the most helping. Job enrichment was also a visible aspect but was rarely seen in case of extra ordinary work and loyalty to the company.
 

HANDY:
The British management writer, Charles Handy, classified organisational culture by the power of individuals' roles and functions within an organisation. Handy's four cultures follow.
Power Culture is a situation in which a person is centre of attention or he is such a powerful personality who controls and coordinates everything on his own with no instructions. Individuals generate power cultures when they attract those who have faith in them but the main problem lies when the size of organisation grows and diversifies as it becomes difficult for the individual to sustain that high level of influence. The best example is of this is our politicians. They are the centre of attention of the people and their influence can be seen on everyone as they become ideal for most of people. People try to copy them or else follow them and their rules of life.
Role Culture are found in case of organisations which are huge in size where everyone has to follow the rules and regulations of the company and they can’t do anything with their own choice as they do not have the authority to do so. In this only the person who has authority to do anything can change or fix things otherwise ever member has to do what he/she is employed for. This can be seen in case of educational institutions in which everyone has to follow the rules and there is no one who can change the rules as management is the highest authority to make any leniency for anyone in case of any mishaps.
Task Culture is when the ultimate priority is to complete all the tasks before the deadline as it is job oriented. People have freedom as no rules are set so this gives an advantage to the people to complete in their own way so that they can bring out their best. This can be seen in case of group assignments in universities as the group is given a task to find and deliver the correct information on a topic before the deadlines. All students in a group share the work of assignment and they interrelate it with other work by just communicating that what ideas that are putting in the task given.
Person Culture sometimes also classified as People Culture exists for the people in it, which means a group of people with common interests join hands to start an organisation.  The example of this is the guys who made Facebook. They had common interest that they should create something in which they can contact each other with no barriers but they never knew that it will prove to be such a big success.
After a brief look over this wide topic ‘’Culture’’ I think it is impossible to classify culture in one of the four types. Every type of culture reflects a different situation and cannot interrelate it to the other. Culture depends on different situations, like if like people are working in an organisation there won’t be any unique or new ideas brought in as they are like-minded people and so if u see other culture like in power culture just one person is the centre of attention so till how long he would carry on and till how long people will follow him but at last people will get fed-up as the organisation size will grow.
‘’Introduction To Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger published

Conclusion:
           In conclusion I would say that there are many advantages as well as problems as these cultures do not exactly fit in large organisations and in case of mergers or takeovers as they might have different culture so an Organisation must use different policies in different parts of the world as there are different demands. A company must have respect for the ethical related issues as they might cause problems for a worker, owner, customer and the company. But I have learnt a lot from this topic as it has told me how different organisations operate and how individuals are different from each other.

References:
‘’Introduction To Organisational Behaviour’’ by Richard Pettinger published in 1996 (Macmillan press LTD) Page no. 402-404
http://www.newzealand.com/travel/about-nz/culture/culture-home.cfm  Accessed on 17-04-2011
http://www.ptcl.com.pk/pd_category.php?pd_id=5   Accessed on 17-04-2011

No comments:

Post a Comment