Comparison between chapters of Gareth Morgan and Daft views on organisation theory
self-organizing subsystems (teams) that have a restricted formal organization and moreover can change rapidly.
Change in culture
Because of the self-organization and double loop learning capabilities the systems are now self-designing instead of ‘designed’. This means that the working groups need less formal leadership. Besides this these groups often stay together for a long time; determine their own goals and how to achieve these. Due to this long time spent together members are cross-trained to perform the work of the other members as well.
To make it possible for these self-organized teams to exist an appropriate culture should be created. As described in the structure analysis the organizational structure has an important role. Besides this people should be motivated to be innovative and creative (e.g. socialization practices) and also given appropriate property rights.
In the long run this means eventually a changed culture for the company. Actually there will be a mosaic of subcultures within the overall company culture, because every self-organized unit will in some way develop an own appropriate subculture. Within the subunit the culture is formed for a great part by the characteristics of the people in that unit together with the specific organization structure. Of course there is the influence of the property rights and ethical organization too, but I expect that these are mostly determined from the aggregated organization level.
5 Conclusion
Organizational culture is something intangible that resides in shared values, shared thinking, shared acting and shared beliefs of the members within an organization. This organizational culture is responsible for the organization’s identity and it determines the organization to be ‘successful’ or a ‘failure’. Four different factors where organizational culture comes from can be determined. One of them organizational structure is analysed more in depth with help of the brain metaphor.
In order to create an organization that can function as a human brain the right culture is a prerequisite. When considering the organizational structure there can be said that the company should structure itself in such a manner that it unites the needs for a brain-like organization and an appropriate culture. This means for instance decentralization and autonomous teams.
Another aspect that is treated more thoroughly is change. As is shown change cannot just be imposed but emerges. The manager has to create the ‘context’ in which desired changes are made possible. The holographic approach can be used to reform the organization by introducing self-organizing teams. The result is a very flexible organization that is capable to deal with unexpected and changing circumstances. By this approach it is possible to gradually let the culture change instead of impose a change by rigorous decisions.
Of course, as already mentioned, there are much more aspects that can be analysed in a similar way. In the scope of this report it was not possible to analyse all the important aspects without being too general. That is why I chose to restrict myself to just the two aspects I considered most important.