Organizational culture is fundamentally about symbolic meaning and as Essay - 1

Organizational culture is fundamentally about symbolic meaning and as such cannot be managed. Discuss - Essay Example By symbolism people consciously give shape and form to their own reality. Reality does not constitute of objects to which humans react, rather it is the social environment within which people act according to their own perspective of the situation. Any object or action can be called a symbol when it has a differentiated meaning from its actual self. An object or action becomes a symbol when it is not perceived by their apparent form but by the meaning applied to it by the members of the organization. For instance a large desk is not viewed as an object of convenience for various activities, but is regarded as a representative of the organization’s power, status and influence. Thus, the desk becomes a cultural symbol of the organization’s status (Schultz, 1995, p.76). Organizational culture is imbibed with abstract aspects like feelings, emotions and thought processes of people, and also with objects for their symbolic values rather than their instrumental values. Organi zational culture is thus not easy to manage since many profound aspects of culture like visions and feelings of people must be considered with great value when objective is to bring possible changes to organizational culture. This paper focuses on the interconnection of symbolism and organizational culture. ... In the last few decades, most academics have been suggesting that the idea of culture is the environment and the climate created by the organization for management of its people. Organizational culture is the system of feelings, thoughts and beliefs of a group of people associated with an organization, and the meaning that people attach to their actions. It reflects the views of the employees about the way things are done in an organization (O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008, p.viii). Thus, culture provides a sense of identity to an organization. The culture of an organization encompasses everything that it is good at and all the things that worked in the past. These concepts are generally accepting by the employees who have been working in an organization for a long period. When new employees join the organization, they learn about the legends of the organization. With time such legends become the norm which means they become the normal and accepted pattern of behavior. (O’Donne ll & Boyle, 2008, pp.4-5) In recent times management theories have been emphasizing on the managers the importance of creating a strong cultural ambiance within the organization (O’Donnell & Boyle, 2008, p.viii). The fascinating thing about culture is that it indicates a phenomenon that is hidden beneath the surface and is invisible but has powerful impact. Culture shapes the behavioral patterns of the members of a group through the common beliefs that are held in that group (Schein, 2010, p.14). It has been suggested that â€Å"culture and leadership are fundamentally intertwined.† (Schein, 2010, p.xi) There are three elements to this – 1) the leaders are

Problems and Parallels Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Problems and Parallels - Essay Example The species homo erectus was almost human, because it was an advanced hominid which walked upright on two legs. This species disappeared 230,000 years ago and was replaced by homo sapiens. The word sapiens comes from Latin and means â€Å"knowing† and it refers to the larger brain size and greater intelligence of homo sapiens. Humans share a large percentage of their genes with apes and chimpanzees but their larger brain size and differences in the physical structure of their hands and their speaking organs make it easier for humans to adapt and learn new skills like tool use and language. Quite a lot of the social behaviors of humans and apes are similar and some chimpanzees have even been taught to speak sign language, and so the overlap is perhaps bigger than we might expect just by looking at the hairy bodies of other primates. 2. It was once thought that Neanderthals with their larger body size and heavier skulls were an earlier form of humanoid but scholars now accept that they are part of the same species as homo sapiens and probably interbred with the more slender form of human that we resemble today. Archeologists have discovered that the two species overlapped in time by many thousands of years, and it may be that the higher intelligence and better adaptability of anatomically modern humans gradually squeezed the Neanderthals to the edges of the known world until they died out. Homo florensiensis skeletons found just a few years ago have set the scientists rethinking the whole definition of homo sapiens because these tiny 1 meter tall pygmy like people have some similarities with older forms of hominid, and yet apart from their reduced size, seem also very similar to modern humans. They, too, seem to have co-existed with modern humans in the same area at the same time, and may have lasted until about 12,000 years ago, which is longer than the