Concept Of Organizational Culture

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Concept of organizational culture

The concept of culture has been derived from anthropology where it is defined in so many ways and, therefore, includes a variety of factors. At the early stage of study of organizational culture in the field of organizational behavior, the same situation existed and each researcher defined culture in his own way. However, over the period of time, some consensus emerged in the form that ‘organizational culture is a system of shared meaning’ [1] . O’Reilly has defined organizational culture in a precise manner. Accordingly, "Organizational culture is the set of assumptions, beliefs, values and norms that are shared by an organization’s members [2] . Thus, organizational culture is a set of characteristics that are commonly shared by people in the organization. Such characteristics may be in the form of assumptions, beliefs, values, and norms which are known as abstract elements of the culture; or an externally-oriented characteristic like products, buildings, dresses, etc. which are known as material elements of the culture. Vijay Sathe has exemplified some common things to demonstrate the components of organizational culture: [3] 1. Shared things (e.g., the way people dress), 2. Shared saying (e.g., let’s go to work), 3. Shared actions (e.g., a service oriented approach), 4. Shared feelings (e.g., hard work is not rewarded here). There are seven primary characteristics that aggregately capture the essence of an organization’s culture [4] .

Innovation and risk taking: the degree to which management focuses on results or outcomes and risk taking.

Attention to detail: the extent to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis, and attention to detail.

Outcome orientation: the degree to which management focuses on results or outcomes rather than on techniques and processes used on achieving those results or outcomes.

People orientation: the degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effects of outcomes on people of the organization.

Team orientation: the degree to which various organizational activities are organized on team basis rather than individual basis.

Aggressiveness: the extent to which people in the organization are aggressive and competitive rather than easygoing.

Stability: the extent to which the organization emphasis in maintaining status quo rather than change. All these characteristics exist in continuum from low to high. Based on these characteristics, an organization’s culture can be identified. Thus culture becomes unique for every organization and distinguishes it from other organizations. For example, while defining Tata group, its former chairman, JRD Tata said that: "I would call it a group of individually managed companies united by two factors. First, a feeling that they are a part of large group which carries the name of Tatas and public recognition of honesty and trustworthiness. The other reason is more metaphysical. There is an innate loyalty, a sharing of beliefs. We all feel certain pride that we are somewhat different from others" [5] .

Sub cultures

Though every organization has its own culture, either defied explicitly or implicitly. It does not mean that there cannot be any subculture within it. In fact, more large organizations have a dominant culture (also known as institutional culture) and numerous subcultures [6] . Dominant culture expresses the core values that are shared by majority of the organizational members. It is this macro view of culture that makes an organization distinct from others. When we refer to organizational culture, in fact, we refer to this dominant culture. Subcultures tend to develop in large organizations to reflect specific problems, situations, or experiences that organizational members face. These subcultures contain organization’s core values plus additional values relevant to the members of a subculture. In fact, in the context of organizational culture, there are four categories of behavior: (1) the universal, to which there is universal conformity, (2) the specialties, which permit commitments to the values of subsystems that are not incompatible with those of the whole, (3) the alternatives, which provide flexibility in behavior, and (4) the individual peculiarities, which involve experimental behavior and represent the source of innovation in the culture.

Generally, subcultures emerge along two dimensions: Functional and geographical. Functional subcultures emerge because people who work in a particular functional department tend to have specialized knowledge and training relevant to the function as well as values of the profession from which they come. Since, people come from different professional streams, they tend to have different professional values, hence subcultures. For example, management graduates have different professional values as compared to engineering graduates or people coming from other than management discipline. Geographical subcultures emerge because of the impact of locational features. In a large country like India, there are numerous subculture based on geographical locations. Since an organization is a social entity, it cannot remain unconcerned with locational peculiarities.

Emergence of subcultures and their impact depend on the nature of organizational culture. There can be either strong or weak organizational culture. In strong culture, the organization’s core values are both intensely and widely shared. The more members who accept the core values and their commitment to those core values are, the stronger the culture is. In such a situation, the impact of subcultures tends to be low. In weak culture, the organization’s core values are neither intensely nor widely shared; members’ commitment to organizational culture tends to be low. With the result, impact of subcultures becomes stronger. Cultural conflict is almost inevitable because of emergence of subcultures, especially when organizational culture is weak. Two types of subcultures one built on loyalty and belief in the organization and the other commitment to one’s profession, often produce each a conflict. The result is high turnover of professionals in the organization.

Organizational culture versus Organizational climate

Before we proceed to discuss various aspects of organizational culture, it is desirable to understand the difference between organizational culture and organizational climate as both these concepts are used interchangeably, if not in literature, at least in practice. Organizational climate is a set of attributes specific to an organization that may be induced from the way the organization deals with its members. Thus, climate usually refers to current situations in an organization and the linkages among individuals, work groups, and work performance. Factors that are included in climate are individual autonomy, degree of structure imposed upon the people, reward orientation, and warmth and support. Thus, both culture and climate have similarity in the sense that both deal with social context in organizations and both aim at affecting behavior of organizational members. Beyond this similarity, culture and climate differ in several significant ways which are as follows:

The study of culture is based on anthropology and sociology whereas study of climate is based on psychology. Thus, the contents of culture are anthropological and sociological while those of climate are psychological.

Culture and climate differ in terms of emphasis. Culture is a means through which members learn and communicate what is acceptable or unacceptable in an organization in the light of its values and norms. Climate does not deal with values and norms. It is concerned with the current atmosphere in the organization.

Culture develops through evolution process and, therefore, it is more lasting. Climate develops through managerial prescriptions. Thus, culture is more difficult to change in short period of time whereas climate is subject to manipulation by managerial actions even in short term.

Impact of organizational culture

Organizational culture, being unique and distinctive, prescribes some specific modes of behavior for its members. These modes of behavior, then, affect the entire behavioral processes. Though such behavioral processes may have different dimensions, they ultimately create impact on objective setting, work ethic, motivational pattern and organizational processes.

Objective setting: Culture moulds people, and people are the basic building blocks of the organization. Therefore, it must reflect, at least in part, the objectives of its members, particularly those who are key decision makers. Thus, for one organization, the objective may be profit maximization, but the same objective may be unworthy, mean, and petty for other organizations.

Work ethic: Ethic relates to conformity to the principles to the principles of human conduct. According to common usage, moral, good, right, honest etc. are more or less used as synonyms to ethical act. Work ethic in an organization is derived from its culture. Thus, organizational culture determines the ethical standards for the organizations as a whole and its individual members.

Motivational pattern: Culture interacts to develop in each person a motivational pattern. Culture determines the way people approach their jobs and even life in general. If organizational culture is geared towards achievement, people will find it quite motivating and put their outmost energies for the work. In its absence, high achievement oriented people develop frustration and desert the organization. Therefore, organizational culture should be achievement oriented.

Organizational processes: Various organizational processes like planning, decision making, controlling, etc. are determined by the organizational culture because these processes are carried out by the people in the organization. Bhattacharya has analyzed the cultures of values professionally managed companies including multinationals as well as family managed companies in India to find out how cultures affect organizational processes. [7] 

Organizational culture or Wipro

In 1973, when Azim H.Premji took over the control of Wipro from his father, he formulated values and beliefs to govern individual and company relationships with the highest standards of conduct and integrity. These beliefs and values give a common cause and a sense of purpose across the business, making Wipro in essence one company. They define the spirit of the company. Premji comments that, "to meet the challenge, we are prepared to change everything about ourselves except our beliefs and values, as they alone, govern and bind us together".

Wipro does not compromise on values in its dealings. If any deal requires compromise on integrity, the company does not do it. The business heads are expected to achieve their targets despite lack of flexibility over the issues of integrity. Every year, the company issues 30-40 notices to employees who are suspected to being short on the integrity front, and if any inappropriate behavior is proved, the employee is sacked – regardless of his position. Sometimes, such actions have led to strikes and customer inconvenience but the company did not reconcile on the principle of integrity.

Culture as a liability

Though the concept of organizational culture is used in normative way as it is used to develop commitment on the part of employees, to actual practice, sometimes, it becomes dysfunctional. It, then, becomes a liability of the organization. In this context, views expressed by Arnavax aga, chairperson of Thermax Limited are relevant: "Out culture – once our strength – has in some ways contributed to our woes. We have also misinterpreted the culture to suit out convenience. In the name of Thermax culture, we have chosen to opt out of unpleasant and unpopular decisions relating to business and people. We have justified this analysis by arguing that Thermax is a people oriented company. Individual comfort is wrongly given higher priority than organizational survival and well being. The consequence of this inaction at the top is that our better performers are frustrated and are impatient and non-performers are complacent and there is a general belief that Thermax is a parking place for anyone who has once entered it." [8] Thermax is not an isolated case. There are numerous such examples. Culture becomes liability especially when it is low performing. A low performing culture is characterized by maintaining status quo, rigid organizational processes and rules, and centralized decision making power. Usually, such a culture is the byproduct of slow environmental changes and a well defied protective market. When an organization operates in this situation for long, it tends to develop a kind of complacency which percolates among its members right from top to bottom. Thus, organizational culture works as barrier to change, barrier to growth through external means, and barrier to tolerance of diversity. These phenomena are as follows:

Organizational culture works as resistant to change if it is based on the principle of maintaining status quo. Since environment is dynamic, organizational effectiveness depends on the degree to which it is able to align itself with environmental requirements. Because of its cultural constraints, an organization may not be able to do so.

Organizational culture works as barrier to growth through external means like mergers and acquisitions and joint ventures. In mergers and acquisitions, the acquiring organization merges in itself the acquired company. If the culture of the acquiring company differs substantially from that of the acquired company, the merger will be misfit and is unlikely to succeed. In joint ventures, two or more organizations join hands together to form a new organization. If the cultures of these organizations are incompatible, joint venture is unlikely to succeed.

Cultural diversity among employees is becoming more and more common because of economic liberalization and globalization. If organizational culture is not suitable to tolerate this diversity, it will become ineffective.

Creating organizational culture

Organizational culture is a long-term proposition that must satisfy the members’ need and values and match the cultural requirements of the society of which the organization is a part. Therefore, the organization has to develop a culture which is conducive to both members in it and social culture. For creating organizational culture, there may be two options to an organization. First, let the cultural characteristics of the persons, particularly the founders, of the organization percolate among the members. Most of the organizations which are not large enough adopt this approach. Thus, an organization’s current customs, traditions, and general way of working that are helpful in being successful become the source of organizational culture. However, this approach is not very effective for organizations which start as large. Second, there is explicit attempt to prescribe what the culture of an organization is. Where this approach is followed, creation of organizational culture proceeds as a process with distinct steps such as establishing values, creating vision, operationalising values and vision and socialization of employees. Let us discuss the steps involved in the process of creation of organizational culture.

Establishing values: The first step in creating organizational culture is establishment f values which will govern members of the organization. Values define what is right and what is wrong; what is desirable and what is undesirable; and so on. Values of an organization are created by those who establish the organization, and in one way, organizational values depend on the values of the funders and other key personnel who are responsible for managing the organization. These values decide, to a very great extent, what business, the organization should be in. for example, founders of the present Bajaj Auto Limited who was in the business of trading in auto parts since 1945 decided to enter manufacturing sector around 1960. They considered several alternatives except liquor and mill cloth because of their values and staunch belief in Gandhian ideology. Values also determine how organizational activities will be carried out, that is, what type of practices will be followed. Peters and Waterman have described what types of values are followed by excellent companies. These are as follows: [9] 

A belief in being the best

A belief in the importance of the details of execution

A belief in the importance of people as individuals

A belief in superior quality and service

A belief that most members of the organization should be innovative

A belief in the importance of informality to enhance communication

A belief in and recognition of the importance of economic growth and profits.

Creating vision: Vision represents the imagination of future events and prepares the organization of rate same. It implies that the organization should create projections about where it should go in the future and what major challenges lie ahead. El-Namaki has defined vision as "a mental perception of the kind of environment an individual or an organization aspires to create within a broad time horizon and the underlying conditions for the actualization of this perception." [10] On the basis of six year study by Collins and Porras, they have concluded that companies may be grouped into two categories on the basis of success of long lasting high performance. These are visionary companies and comparison companies. A visionary company is characterized by the following features: [11] 

A visionary company holds a distinctive set of values from which it does not deviate.

It expresses its core purpose in enlightened terms which provides challenges for actions.

It develops a visionary scenario of its future, decides actions accordingly, and implement these.

Thus, vision is derived from values that have been set at the first step of creating organizational culture. A good vision, defined in a proper way, helps the organizational members in several ways:

It inspires and exhilarates them

It helps in the creation of a common identity and a shared sense of purpose.

It creates competitiveness, originality, and uniqueness.

It fosters risk taking and experimentation.

It fosters long term thinking.

Operationalising values and vision: Till values and vision are not operationalised, that is, these are not put into action; these remain just the thinking of those who have created these. For putting values and vision in action, the organization can undertake the following activities:

It is better that the organization prepares a written statement containing its values and vision and communication these to organizational members. Many companies adopt the practice of including this statement in employee handbook which is distributed to all new employees.

The organization should design its structure that facilitates employees to take those actions that have been envisaged by values and vision.

Various organizational processes should be prescribed in such a way that these inspire employees to adhere to organizational values and vision. While prescribing these processes, care should be taken that there is enough flexibility required for creativity and innovation.

In selection of employees, care should be taken that their values match organizational values. In fact, many progressive companies are the opinion that people can be made to learn; their skills can be developed. But their values cannot be changed. Therefore, it is desirable to hire those whose values match those of the organization.

Reward system should be such which encourages employees to engage in behaviors that are compatible with organizational values and vision. There should be enough provisions in the reward system which reinforce these behaviors and punish contradictory behaviors.

Socialization of employees: To ensure that culture of an organization is adopted by its employees, socialization of employees is required. The term socialization has been drawn from sociology where it is used as processes by which an individual develops into a functioning member of the group according to its standards, conforming to its modes, observing its traditions, and adjusting himself to the social situations. Some meaning of socilisation is used in the context of work organizations. Thus, socialization is an adaptive process that takes place as new employees attempt to learn and inculcate values and norms that are part of the organizational culture. Though socialization is more critical at the initial stage of an employee’s career, it being an adaptive process, goes in some form throughout his career in his organization, both in terms of job content and context as these go on changing from time to time. However, here, we are more concerned with socialization of new employees as no matter how effectively they are recruited, they are not fully indoctrinated in the organizational culture.

Socialization process

In general, a process consists of various related activities with definite beginning and end. Since socialization is an adaptive process, it consists of various activities, known as stages. Maanen and Chein have conceptualized socialization process made up of three stages: pre arrival, encounter and metamorphosis [12] .

Pre arrival stage: Pre arrival stage of socialization recognizers that every individual arrives in the organization with a set of values, norms, and expectations. These cover both the work to be done and the organization. For example, in professional education, such as management, the students acquire certain ideas regarding the nature of their future job and the organization. These ideas are supplemented from what they learn from their friends and others acquaintances. At the recruitment stage, most of the organizations give job previews which help the prospective employees to learn more about the job and the organization. To the extent these job previews are realistic, these create more realistic expectations.

Encounter stage: upon entry into the organization, the new employee enters the encounter stage. Here, the individual confronts with the realities of the situation in terms of his job and the job performance environment, such as superior, peers, subordinates, and organizational culture. If the expectations of the individual are in tune with the organizational realities differ, the adapts organizations culture quickly. However, where the expectations and realities differ, the new employee much undergoes socialization that will detach him from his previous assumptions and replace them with another set that the organization deems necessary. In other extreme, the new employee may become totally disillusioned with the realities of his job and resign.

Metamorphosis stage: This is the completion phase of socialization process in which the new employee works out any problem discovered during the encounter stage. He reconciles with the values and norms of the organization and brings necessary changes in his role behavior to suit them. He tries to internalize these values and norms. The new employee feels accepted by his peers as a trusted and valued individual and feels self confident that he has the competence to do his job effectively. The completion of socialization process is indicated by the following features:

Feeling of competence in the new employee for the job

Feeling of commitment to the organization, and

Feeling of confident about himself.

Methods of socialization with organization

Organizational norms and values transmitted in employees in a number of ways, the more important being stories, rituals, material symbols, and language.

Stories: learning organizational norms and values through stories includes circulations of informal and oral narration of events about the organization, its founder, rules in practice and other organizational practices. These stories reflect the true perspective of the organization rather than what has been written in organizational documents. Boje has observed that these stories anchor the present in the past and provide explanation and legitimacy for current practices [13] .

Rituals: Rituals are repetitive sequences of activities that express and reinforce the key values of the organization, what goals are most important, which people are important, and which are expendable [14] . For example, many organizations have rituals, such as organizing functions to honour top performers which convey that high performance is held as extreme important.

Material symbols: Various material symbols used by the organization convey specific meanings. For example, status of a person in the organization can be distinguished on the basis of various facilities provided to him at the workplace. It is quite common to provide rooms of different sizes, tables of different sizes, name plates of different sizes, etc. however, in today’s context, many organizations have emphasized the concept o common culture in which all employees, irrespective of their category, wear the similar dress, or take their lunch in the same canteen, and so on. For example, Maruti Udyog Limited has adopted this practice. Such a practice conveys the feeling of equality which generates commitment.

Language: many organizations use language as a way to identify members of a culture or subculture. By learning this language, members attest to their acceptance of the culture and, in so doing, help to preserve it. Organizations, over time, often develop unique terms to describe equipment, offices, key personnel, suppliers, customers, etc. that relate to the business. Once assimilated by the new employees, this terminology acts as a common denominator that unites members of a given culture.

Socialization options

There are several options for socializing new employees. These are formal and informal, individual and collective, fixed and variable, serial and random, investiture and divestiture [15] . Let us have a brief discussion of these.

Formal and informal: Formal socialization occurs when a new employee learns about the organization and its practices in a programme conducted by the organization at a place away from the employee’s workplace. This programme is usually referred to as orientation programme. In informal socialization, the new employee is directly placed at his work and he learns about the organization and its practices through his peers, superiors, and subordinates.

Individual and collective: In individual socialization, each new employee is socialized individually. This practice is followed mostly in professional offices. In collective socialization, new employees are socialized in a group. In an orientation programme, generally, collective socialization is adopted.

Fixed and variable: Fixed and variable socialization refer to the time schedule in which newcomers make the transition from outsider to insider. A fixed schedule establishes a standardized stages of transition. It may include putting newcomer as a trainee or as a organization probationer for a specified period of time. After expiry of this period, he is inducted into the organization provided his performance is satisfactory. In variable schedule, no time period is fixed for transition but it depends on the performance of t he newcomer.

Serial and random: In serial socialization, the trainer who trains encourages newcomer’s acts as a role model, and the new comers try to internalize his behavior. In apprenticeship and mentoring, role model concept is used. In random socialization, role model is deliberately withheld and newcomers are left free on their own to figure things out.

Investiture and Divestiture: In investiture socialization, it is assumed that the newcomer’s qualification and qualities are the necessary ingredients for success in the job. Therefore, these qualifications and qualities are confirmed and supported. Divestiture socialization tries these qualifications and qualities are confirmed and supported. Divestiture socialization tries to strip certain characters of the newcomer through fraternity to shape him into the proper role.

Spirituality and organizational culture

Of late, concept of spirituality has been applied in work organizations because of the reasons discussed later. The term spirituality has been drawn from religion. Religion is generally defined as a system of belief in powers superior to man which are believed to direct and control the course of nature of human life. These powers are referred to as god, known by different names in different religions. God create human being with soul (known as spirit also). Human being is mortal while the soul is immortal. Spirituality in religion deals with soul. Thus, spirituality is the philosophical orientation that nothing is real but only the soul. However, at workplace, concept of spirituality cannot be practiced in this form as it is too abstract and complicated. Therefore, spirituality applicable to workplace, known as workplace spirituality, is the recognition that people have an inner life that nourishes and is nourished by meaningful work that takes place in the context of community [16] . Organizations that promote spiritual culture recognize that people have a mind and a spirit and, therefore, seek to find meaning and purpose in their work and desire to connect this with their ultimate goal of life. According to belief, the ultimate goal of life is salvation (deliverance from sin) through noble work.

Need for spirituality

The concept of spirituality has existed in society since the emergence of religion, but it has not found a place until recently in the literature of management of which organizational behavior is a part. Therefore, a question is raised: If spirituality is so relevant for human beings, why has it not found a place in the past while people are emphasizing it at present? There are number of reasons because of which, researchers and practitioners in organizational behavior are emphasizing spirituality at workplace:

A completely rational model of organizational behavior which ignores an individual’s inner life consisting of inner feelings has not produced results as envisaged at the time of application of this model. This phenomenon has forced managers to understand employee’s behaviors by treating them as whole persons rather than merely being organizational members.

Contemporary workplaces are characterized by pressure and stress of a turbulent pace of life. In order to counterbalance these, it is desirable that people engage in community life, that is, common involvement and enjoyment.

In the present situation, job demands have made the workplace dominant in many people’s lives, yet they question the meaning of work. If the work is perceived to be meaningless, people have frustration to do it.

People seek to reach their full potential but the present nature of work does not provide this opportunity. Therefore, they seek such an opportunity somewhere else, and not at workplace.

Religion has not worked well for many people and they continue to look for anchors to replace lack of faith and to fill growing feeling of emptiness. It may be mentioned that a religion (a) rationalizes and makes bearable individual suffering, (b) enhances self importance, and (c) helps to knit the social values of a society into a cohesive whole.

Characteristics of a spiritual organization

A spiritual organization is concerned with helping people to develop and reach their full potential. It is concerned with directly addressing the problems created by work/life conflicts. In order to do so, organizations have to develop certain characteristics to become spiritual organization. However, what these characteristics should be, there is not unanimity though various research studies on workplace spirituality indicate the following characteristics [17] :

Strong sense of purpose: spiritual organization builds their cultures around a meaningful purpose. While profitability may be important. It is not the primary value of an organization. For example Matsushita Electric Company of Japan has framed its values (called as spiritual values by the company) as follows [18] :

National service through industry

Fairness

Harmony and cooperation

Struggle for betterment

Courtesy and humility

Adjustment and assimilation

Gratitude

All these values help people to develop positive meaning of work and work environment.

Focus on Individual Development: Spiritual organizations put people first and recognize their worth and values. They do not just provide jobs: they create cultures in which each individual can continuously develop himself and grow. These organizations recognize that every individual has certain hidden qualities in varying proportion. When these qualities are not properly tapped and utilized, these remain dormant. These qualities come on surface only when situations warrant like the challenge that one has to doing a work. If an individual has done by utilizing all his means including the hidden qualities. With the result, he develops a sense of accomplishment and self actualization.

Trust and Openness: Spiritual organizations emphasize trust and openness in dealing with all whether they are organization’s employees, customers, or suppliers. Trust is worthiness of being relied on. If the organization creates a system based on trust, mutuality of trust develops as trust is a two-way traffic, that is, if one trusts another, the latter will also trust the former. Openness implies transparency in all types of dealings. With the result, if anyone commits mistakes, he admits it openly irrespective of the organizational level at which he works. Trust and openness taken together help employees to attach meaning to their work.

Employee empowerment: Spiritual organizations put emphasis on employee empowerment. Employee empowerment is the process of enabling employees to set their own work goals, makes decisions, and solves problems within their responsibility and authority. Empowerment affects employees in the form of developing self-confidence, attaching high value to their work, and increased use of their talent. All these features enable employees to develop a feeling that their lives are meaningful.

Toleration of employee expression: Spiritual organizations allow employees to express their emotions – personal feelings, moods, and other forms of emotions – at the workplace without any fear or reprimand. Perhaps, this is the most important feature that differentiates spiritual organizations from non-spiritual organizations. When employees are allowed to express their emotions freely, their tension and stress are reduced to a very great extent.

Criticisms of spirituality

When the concept of spirituality was introduced in organization, particularly to the USA, critics of spirituality movement criticized this practice. They raised two questions: Do organizations have legitimate right to impose spiritual values on their employees? Is spirituality and profit compatible? Both these questions appear valid prima facie and, therefore, the answers of both these questions should be found out to decide the rationale of spirituality in organizations.

The first argument against workplace spirituality is that since an organization, particularly, a business organization, is a secular entity and not a religious entity, it has no right to impose spiritual values on its employees. The basic theme of secular is that it is not oriented to religion in any way. Thus, the argument against workplace spirituality is valid if it contains religions activities at workplace in any form. However, workplace spirituality is not defined and practiced as its is defined and practiced in religion. Workplace spirituality involves helping employees to find out the meaning of their work. If the work is meaningful, it contributes to meeting one’s basic purpose of existence. This phenomenon can be explained further. In the case of an organization, its objectives are arranged in a hierarchy and purpose is put at the top that is, defining why the organization exists. For this purpose, operational objectives emerge in the form of long-term and short term objectives, departmental / functional objectives and so on. This is the case with an individual too. Every individual defines his purpose in individual can justify his existence by undertaking those activities that are meaningful to him as well as to the society in which he lives. This crux of intrinsic motivation which is more powerful than extrinsic motivation. Viewed in this context, workplace spirituality has quite high relevance in the present day organizations.

The second argument of critics is that workplace spirituality and profitability are incompatible, that is, higher degree of workplace spirituality leads to lower profitability. Theoretically, this argument is not valid as employees will put more efforts if they find that their work is meaningful which results into higher profitability. Operationally too, the argument of incompatibility between spirituality and profitability does not hold good. For example, Japanese companies have been outperformers and they have spirituality at their workplaces, the example of spiritual values of a Japanese company has been given earlier. In the USA too where the argument of incompatibility between spirituality and profitability has been raised, research evidence indicates that both are positively correlated. Those organizations which follow workplace spirituality are outperformers in comparison to those which do not follow it [19] . Workplace spirituality affects employee creativity, satisfaction, and organizations commitment positively. Each employee perceives himself as a valuable team member resulting into better team performance [20] .

Socio cultural features of India and their impact

We have seen earlier that an organization is collectivity of individuals. When these individuals join the organization. They not only bring with themselves their ability, intelligence, and personality but also their socio cultural features too. These socio cultural features have significant impact on the working of the organist ion – setting up of its goals, methods adopted for achieving these goals, interpersonal relationships, and mechanism adopted for controlling organization behavior. Therefore, understanding of the socio-cultural features of India is quite important for devising various organizations practices.

It is quite apt to say that India is developing into a modern society but with many traditional characteristics, some of which are backward. While analyzing the characteristics of Indian society, however, it should be borne in mind that Indian society is essentially heterogeneous. Therefore, any generalization ahs its distinct limitation. Following are some of the major characteristics of Indian society relevant to managerial application.

Joint family

Family is that basic unit of society, the majority of social scientists who have studies the Indian family as the smallest and most viable unit of the larger society is the opinion that it is one of the earliest institutions o human society. The most common form of family system in India is the joint family. Joint family consists of a set of men, related as fathers and sons and brothers, together with their wives and children. It is generally a unit of production and consumption the property is held in common under the trusteeship of the eldest male member. Usually, all members of the joint family are fed from a single kitchen and have a single purse. The family is essentially patriarchal, that is, authority is exercised by the father or some male member. The head of the family is responsible of rand has authority over its members. The children are taught obedience to their elders. Female members are subjected to rigorous discipline. Though the sons are important, it sis the eldest son who enjoys a special position in the family. Thus, discrimination is made between male and female members.

Referring to the influence of the joint family system on the outlook of managerial personnel, P.L.Tandon who hold the position of chief executive in companies like Hindustan Lever and State Trading Corporation, observes that

"I find from my personal experience that the traditions of the joint family system permeate into out working institutions and quite often the reactions of people, even managers, to situations of a certain kind are influenced by the norms of the joint family system [21] ".

The characteristics of joint family give the impression that authority is centralized in the hands of the head of the family, and authoritarian culture in India is responsible for lack of delegation of authority and for the serious delays, inefficiencies, and low morale in industry. However, the actual functioning of authority system in joint family is somewhat different from the observations held above. P.L.Tandan further observes that ‘contrary to the popular belief, a joint family is not built around a central authority. Like any cognate organization, a joint family has an authority which directs its affairs but there are two peculiar features. First the authority is diffused and, second, there is a good deal of consultativeness built in it. Thus, the major decisions are taken through consultation. In the organizational situation, a superior, though has authority, is expected to consult more frequently and informally. To quote Tadon again, "Indian managers like to be kept in touch and consulted more that their Western counterparts. I think this arises from the diffused authority in the joint family, where young adults are consulted even though they have no powers and most of the decisions are taken by the seniors. Similarly, the younger Indian managers feel that they ought to be in on things and not kept out, whereas their Western counterpart will say that this has nothing to do with me and they the right to decide because they have the authority. In the western industrial culture, delegation works better than it does in India because authority and responsibility are more clearly defined and not bedeviled by constant consultation merely to keep people happy".

But there is another implication of this characteristic, that is, a patrimonial approach is applied in superior-subordinate relationship. This implies that superiors may think themselves as the protectors of the subordinates and the latter cannot decide anything on their own. Joint family system has another feature. Since, the children are brought up in large joint practice, and skills in dealing with peer relationships. There is much criticism of each other at the peer level, but also there is high degree of tolerance which the experience and circumstance have taught. This aspect is very important in choosing a managerial style in the organization. Chowdhary opines that the lack of competitiveness on the one hand and the strength of peer relationships on the other are distinctive factors in the Indian social systems as compared with Western culture, and have great relevance to the style of leadership and of management practice in Indian business and industry [22] . Rangaswamy and Helmick, in a study of leadership behavior, have found that Indian managers are more employee orientated as compared to their counterparts in the USA. They explain that this is due to Indian cultures and religions pattern which influences them towards helpfulness and peaceful cooperation [23] . A.D.Moddie observes that, "as a creature of the family, the Indian manager would seem to be the creature of a traditional authoritarian method, lacking strong individuality, and needing the supportive strength of the group, upon which he is more dependent that upon himself alone. He is accustomed to a consultative rather than an individualistic process of decision making [24] ".

Ritualism

Another aspect to social and cultural life which has significant role is ritualism. The term ritualism has traditionally been associated with religious and tribal observances requiring a number of persons to act in unison according to a prescribed formula. The purpose of the rituals is to express and enforce group solidarity. At the societal level, we have many rituals, right from is to express and enforce group solidarity. At the societal level, we have many rituals, right from the birth to death. Large number of even educated people believes that if they follow rituals prescribed in their religion, they would be favoured by their god. Many Hindus would even believe that this would make them happy in next birth. By and large, there is fear of god. People devote considerable time to various rituals like reading scriptures, attending to religious discourses, visiting religious places etc.

Ritualism has implications affecting ability to live under strain and stress and to take decisions in conditions of uncertainty. Kamla Chowdhary observes that ‘there are two important implications of ritual. First, it reduces anxiety, like other given ways of doing things provided by tradition and society. The term precedent used in the governmental or commercial bureaucracy serves the same purpose. Rituals and precedents help in the smooth functioning of a system or an organization, and reduce anxiety and tension relating to new situations. Second, ritual prevents the development of the exercise of the exercise of discretion and the power of decision making in situation of uncertainty.

The industrialization in a developing country brings many changes. It brings rapid technological change and, therefore, managers have to live in an environment full of change and uncertainty which often leads to anxiety, stress, and strain, as well as the problem of identity. Different rituals help in reducing such stress and strain. At the organizations levels, there are many rituals, Kamla Chowdhary even feels that ‘the increase in the number of management consultants, management development programmes and conferences shows that attempts are being made to find some institutionalized and ritualized methods of dealing with new knowledge and new stresses.

Social class

Social classes may be identified as relatively permanent and homogeneous groups of people in the society. Every society has some classes based on certain identifying characteristics and the frame of reference. In recent years, some sociologists have questioned the validity of social classes. They maintain that the life style of middle class persons have become increasingly representative of the vast majority of the society. This is referred to as ‘embouragoisement’ of society of ‘massification’ theory. The class classification in any country has been right from the old traditional society. However, this class consciousness has emerged in different ways in the contemporary society. Industrialization has produced a marked concentration of power which has created an elite class. An elite class is a social upper class which owns a disproportionate amount of country’s yearly income, and contributes a disproportionate number of its members to the controlling institutions and key decision making group of the company.

In a study by Subramaniam, it was found that "a large majority of managers come from families having such elite professions as civil services (both higher and lower, more from former) business executives, landlords, lawyers, and business owners [25] . This is so because these groups have distinct advantages in regard to academic achievement. Further, the managerial class believes that education at public schools affects the success in managerial role significantly. This class distinction creates class consciousness at workplace. A.D.Moddle observes that "The Indian manager gives the impression of being an isolate in the society around him. His style is western, bureaucratic, affluent, and aloof. He is a plutocrat in a poor country, a high class man in a class conscious society seeking to be egalitarian. The Indian manager seems to suffer from the social isolation of a higher class and a different culture; he is not too involved in the social responsibilities of a citizen; and he takes the political environment for granted. This isolation is perhaps his biggest weakness, and may well reduce rather than enhance his further influence in a society where he is an island of the haves in an ocean of have nots".

Attitudes towards wealth

The social attitude towards wealth plays an important role in determining whether within a given culture, wealth will be actively sought and used to satisfy human wants. In some societies, the personal acquisition of wealth has been looked upon as evil, or as being beneath the dignity of man. Attitude to wealth is crucial in poor society, driven and dedicated to economic development. Apart from the nebulousness around the area of legitimacy in public conduct, there is a similar nebulousness around concepts of wealth too. The value of ‘mukti’, which may be defined as human liberation or freedom is no longer relevant in its traditional form in the contemporary society. Two distinct trends appear on this issue within the philosophical community: (i) the complete rejection of mukti ideal particularly to its spiritual and religious grounding, and (ii) the attempts to redefine mukti ideal to include a number of social elements and, thus, to make it more relevant in contemporary setting. The mukti does not involve renunciation of the world but it is something that contributes to mental health.

Nagaraj Rao held that ‘the Hindu outlook did not stand for an acquisitive society nor for an affluent society without any State control. It stood for a Dharmik society. It allowed men to get as much wealth as possible without contravening the principles of dharma and dharma involved obligation to pious causes, Brahmins, parents, and family members: the social obligation then [26] . The contemporary Indian society is in milieu, where concepts of wealth are confused between Gandhian austerity and socialistic pattern of Indian Society. As a consequence, it is not sure whether it is ethically right or wrong to pursue artha. It is said that ‘money-mindedness’ is legitimate if you are poor, but not if you are well to do. But the question is at what level, people should cease to be money-minded. In such a circumstance, profits are confused with profiteering. Thus, urge for business control becomes strong.

These values of the Indian society hold largely true today also. However, change is the law of nature and over the passage of time, there is a change in socio-cultural values, with traditional values yielding place to appropriate values conforming to the requirement of contemporary society, though such a change is slow and gradual. It follows that the process of industrialization generates a clash between the old institutional order and the demands of industrialization. To the extent that people retain their allegiance to the traditional structure and value, they fall to commit themselves to the emergent society and growth is stunned. For example, joint family system is disappearing to some extent because of situational requirement. Kapadia makes an interesting observation in this context. He feels that the general sentiments and attitudes of Indians are in favour of joint family system; and elementary or nuclear families are established only under dire conditions, out of compulsion rather than by free choice [27] . This is more true particularly in urban society. Similarly, ideological gap between the younger generation and the older one is increasing menacingly reflecting many new westernized cultures. The role of women is increasing in a different way, from subordinate positions and household activities to equal positions and outdoor activities. Such changes have their own implications for managerial behavior in the organization.

Various Indian socio-cultural characteristics have important implications for managerial effectiveness. Chakaraborty has done a pioneering work on Indian psycho-philosophical thought, contained in ancient works, to derive insights for developing managerial effectiveness in the present context. His basic idea is to rely on education versus training, values versus skills, principles versus policies, and wisdom versus knowledge to develop managerial effectiveness. His model of managerial effectiveness is based on seven ancient Indian thoughts: concept of self and reality, misidentification, theory of Gunas (qualities), theory of Samskars (values), doctrine of Karma (Action), theory and method of work, and giving model of motivation [28] .

A joint venture in International market is created when a foreign company joins hands with the local company having a local interest in that country and together they own some type of business operation. The two companies in joint venture join the contributions with a feeling of cooperation. It may include sharing of ownership and control in an economic enterprise, licensing agreements, contract manufacturing and management contracts.

For a developing country like India, the problem is two-fold to propel the economy forward and limit the extent of foreign participation, management and control. Joint venture may achieve this dual purpose. These are three ways in which a joint venture may be initiated:

A new business enterprise may be created in partnership sharing profits and management.

The foreign company may invest in the existing local company, or

A local company may invest and acquire interest in an existing foreign company.

Regardless of its form in which it is created, the central theme of joint venture is the sharing of ownership and management control.

Joint venture in Home country or abroad

Joint venture is a partnership having two sides – technical and emotional. On the technical side, they share contributions, profits etc. on the emotional side there is a feeling of cooperative efforts. As pointed out earlier, a joint venture may be established in home country in collaboration with a foreign firm or the local firm may join a foreign firm. It hardly matters as far as its basic concept of sharing ownership, management and control concerned. Where a joint venture should be established in home country or in a foreign country? The decision is based on many economic and other considerations. We shall analyze the rationale of getting of joint venture in home country and abroad.

Why joint venture abroad?

There are various reasons why a local firm wants to create joint venture in foreign countries:

To utilize the special privileges and influence of the local partner.

To make use of production facilities, sales network and indigenous capital available in the local country.

To reduce the risks involved in the venture caused by economic and political circumstances of the capital importing country by sharing it with the local partners.

To enjoy, the special tax benefits of the capital importing country.

Why joint venture in Home country?

People want to have joint ventures with a foreign firm in the home country in order to:

Expand foreign manufacturing and service activities equipped with modern techniques.

Develop a source of supply of required raw material.

Integrate the joint venture activity and the normal activity of the local partners (supplier-customers relationship) for the advantage of both the local company and foreign company.

Ensure government participation in joint ventures with a view to increase the rate of economic development.

Acquire means by which an international marketer is able to penetrate an overseas market.

Advantages of joint ventures

The advantages of joint venture are many and varied:

The joint venture approach enables the company to enter more overseas markets with a limited capital and manpower resources than would be otherwise possible.

Risk is minimized because the management skills and experience of local partner facilities easier adaptation to the particular changes of an unfamiliar business environment. The risk of adverse action by the local government is also reduced because the local interest is also involved in joint ventures. The risk is minimum, especially in those ventures where the local partner has some agency of the government.

The moral of labour is high because of the local ownership. On the other side, there is the potential of favourable effect which local participation in ownership can have on the moral of labour.

As the joint venture is looked upon with more favour by nationalistic consumers because it is not considered a foreign concern. The sale and profit of the joint venture, therefore, may be greater. A joint venture approach can, therefore, achieve good public relations.

Disadvantages of joint ventures

The limitations of joint ventures are:

As all profits and prosperity are shared with the partners, the amount of resources and profits potential for the company are reduced.

As is usual, potential disagreement began to creep in beta partners after some time.

Companies that are either multinational in character or tend to become multinational may find that joint venture may complicate long run international manufacturing and marketing policies. This is particularly true when the management and control of a joint venture is in the hand of local partners.

When a party enters into joint ventures, its operations in other foreign markets may be substantially affected. The problem may be peculiar when the party wants to operate in or to create a joint venture in third market where the joint venture has been selling its products. The international marketer, by creating a new venture in the third market, becomes a competitor of the joint venture in which he is a partner. So, competing with one self is a very ridiculous situation. This policy has not yet been accepted by many companies in foreign countries. Hence, its activities in foreign countries are restricted.

Where, a foreign company, buys into an existing local enterprise, a serious problem may arise often, a joint ownership does not work out satisfactorily because the joint-ownership, unknowingly, changes the combination of attributes which were responsible for its success before the foreign company entered into the picture. Hence, difference creep in very soon.

Joint ventures may be appropriate

Joint ventures may be said to be appropriate when:

A company lacks resources to expand its international operations,

A company wants to enter an overseas market where wholly owned activities are prohibited,

The company wants to utilize the market position or the management skill of the local partner,

Complete control over the projects is not necessary for the success of venture, only part control may suffice.

Thus, before entering into a joint venture agreement, a local firm, that wants to seek cooperation, must consider well, the interest of its own in the long-run and the country’s interest as well. Local country’s interest where the joint venture is to be established should not be ignored. The success of joint venture will also depend upon a good partner. Better is to find all possible areas of disagreement and specifically provide for them in the joint venture agreement.

Evaluation of India’s joint ventures

Performance of Indian joint ventures abroad

The position of joint venture abroad as on 31.12.1983 was that there were only 235 effective joint ventures out of which 154 were in production or operation and 81 were in various stages of implementation.

Extent and pattern of investment

In about 85 per cent of the joint ventures, Indian partners held only minority shares. This is because the old guidelines governing Indian joint ventures abroad stipulated only minority participation. The present guidelines are flexible and allow majority participation if host country does not object to it.

Indian investment by way of equity capital in the 154 joint ventures in operation at the beginning of 1984 was mainly effected by through exports of capital equipment 64.5 per cent, capitalization of know-how etc. 6.7 per cent, cash remittance 8.9 per cent, issue of bonus shares 18.9 per cent and loan