Organizational Culture: The Key to Adaptability and Growth - Research Paper

Introduction

Organizations strive to ensure that they remain in business and grow even when the external environment changes. For instance, organizations aim to be competitive and remain profitable in such competitive environments. To achieve this, organizations need to be adaptable or to respond to changes in the needs of the clients. However, an organization's adaptability is affected by many variables. One of these variables is organizational culture (e.g., values). In this paper, the relationship between various dimensions of adaptability and organizational culture will be explored.

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Adaptability refers to the ability of the organization to scan its external environment and appropriately respond to the changing needs and wants of the customers and other stakeholders (Zakari, Poku, & Owusu-Ansah, 2013). The adaptability of an organization can be assessed through three dimensions: creating change, customer focus, and organizational learning (Zakari et al., 2013). According to Denison (2001), creating change is manifested through an organization's flexibility and ease of change in the way it does things, ease of response to competition and other changes occurring in the business environment, continuous adoption of novel and improved ways of doing work, absence of resistance to change, and cooperation of different parts of the organization in creating change.

On the other hand, customer focus is manifested through the capacity of customers' comments and recommendations to result in changes in the organization, the ability of customers' input to directly affect the decisions made in organizations, organizational members capacity to understand clients' needs and wants, customers' interest influence on organization's decisions, and direct contact between the customers and members of the organization (Denison, 2001). Lastly, organizational learning is manifested through an organization's willingness to see failure as an opportunity to learn and improve, innovativeness and risk-taking, and day-to-day learning (Denison, 2001).

One of the factors that have been reported to influence an organization's adaptability is organizational culture. Organizational culture refers to shared values, behaviors, and vision that make the organizational environment (Tsai, 2011). Kotter and Heskett (1992) were the first to utilize the term adaptive culture in their description of the many cultural attributes that make organizations more adaptive to changes in the business environment by supporting them to anticipate and appropriately adapt to the changes in the environment. It has also been established that cultural adaptability is essential because any system's survival and growth is anchored in its ability to sustain itself about its changing environment.

Harris (1998) also reported that the culture component of adaptability is the extent to which the aspects of culture are susceptible to adjustment. The degree of adaptability of components of organizational culture is affected by their cultural depth, especially assumptions and artifacts. Artifacts include visible and audible behavior patterns, art, and technology (Harris, 1998). On the other hand, the underlying assumptions of culture include nature of human relationships; nature of the human activity; nature of reality, time and space; and relationships to the environment (Harris, 1998). Harris (1998) noted that it is easy to adapt, change or manipulate, the artifacts to make them less or more market-oriented. However, many cultural assumptions and values are not easy to manipulate or change. Consequently, there is a high potential for market-oriented adaptability (manipulation or change) when the cultural depth of an organization is weak.

In one of the recent studies, Nesbit and Lam (2014) sought to explore the nature of adaptive culture and to investigate how adaptive culture influence an organization's response and adaptability to change efforts. Findings of this study revealed that the organization that was being studied (a Hong Kong's NGO that underwent a two-year quality improvement program) paid more attention to the adaptive culture dimension of "Focus on Customer" than creating change and organizational learning dimensions. Also, findings of qualitative data analysis indicated that before the implementation of a two-year quality improvement program, the organization's staff members exhibited strong client-centric attitudes and behaviors. This shows that the members of the organization genuinely cared about their customer's needs and wants.

Moreover, Nesbit and Lam (2014) established that the staff members supported the change as a way of improving things. This shows that the presence of a high degree of "Change Capability." The members' adaptability to changes in the organization was also manifested in the pre-change adaptive culture. This was shown through members' openness to change as "change was a fact of life" and a way of ensuring that things are improved. Consequently, the staff members indicated that they wanted to make changes that would be beneficial to their clients. Moreover, regarding the increasing attention made towards organizational learning and adaptability, researchers have sought to examine the nature of an organization' culture.

In another study, Deverell and Olsson (2010) sought to understand how organizational culture affects strategy and adaptability in crisis management. Findings of this study revealed that organizations that were fully adapting organization were capable of managing both its strategy and its management and operational decisions to deal with a crisis. On the other hand, the semi-adapting organization was found to be capable of changing its strategy but was unable to effect any changes at the operational and the managerial levels based on the novel strategy. Lastly, the non-adapting organization was found not to understand why strategy change is crucial in the first place. Following these observations, Deverell and Olsson (2010) concluded that organizational culture plays a vital role in the process of strategic change. Specifically, the researchers noted that the presence of strong expert cultures that were opposed to change explained why non-adapting and semi-adapting organizations could not make any changes at the operational and managerial levels. Conversely, fully adapting organization managed both its strategy and its management and operational decisions to deal with a crisis because of the presence of an organizational culture characterized by flexibility (Deverell & Olsson, 2010).

Conclusion

The capacity of an organization to adapt to changes in its external environment, especially adaptability, is crucial for an organization's survival and growth. The degree of adaptability of components of organizational culture is influenced by their cultural depth. Specifically, there is a high potential for market-oriented adaptability when the cultural depth of an organization is weak. From the findings of past empirical studies, it can also be concluded that an organization can achieve adaptability through the presence of a high degree of "Change Capability." That is, staff members' willingness to make changes that benefit their clients is critical in adaptability. Another essential constituent of organizational adaptability is the willingness of organizations to learn and improve, innovativeness and risk-taking, and day-to-day learning. Lastly, organizational adaptability can be achieved through organization's capacity to create change.

References

Denison, D. R. (2001). Organizational culture: Can it be a key lever for driving organizational change. The international handbook of organizational culture and climate, 18(4), 347-72. Retrieved from http://www.cmr-journal.org/article/view/12186

Deverell, E., & Olsson, E.-K. (2010). Organizational culture effects on strategy and adaptability in crisis management. Risk Management, 12(2), 116-134. https://doi.org/10.1057/rm.2009.18

Harris, L. C. (1998). Cultural domination: the key to marketoriented culture? European Journal of Marketing, 32(3/4), 354-373. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090569810204643

Heskett, J. L., & Kotter, J. P. (1992). Corporate culture and performance. Business Review, 2(5), 83-93. Retrieved from https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=139

Nesbit, P. L., & Lam, E. (2014). Cultural adaptability and organizational change: a case study of a social service organization in Hong Kong. Contemporary Management Research, 10(4), 303-324. https://doi.org/10.7903/cmr.12186

Tsai, Y. (2011). Relationship between organizational culture, leadership behavior and job satisfaction. BMC Health Services Research, 11, 98. https://doi.org/10.1186/1472-6963-11-98

Zakari, M., Poku, K., & Owusu-Ansah, W. (2013). Organizational culture and organizational performance: Empirical evidence from the banking industry in Ghana. Retrieved from http://ir.knust.edu.gh/handle/123456789/7366