An organisation can be maintained as a whole (integrated) by external or internal factors. In order to maintain it as a whole, it has to be integrated externally, institutionally and legally. Organisational coherence can also be studied from the system and internal perspectives. This makes it possible to look for the sources and mechanisms of integration on all levels and in all sub-systems. Strategy can be an important factor uniting an organisation – if both individual members and social groups (colleagues, employees and interest groups) identify themselves with the aims of the organisation, then this facilitates the integration of the whole system. Another factor that strengthens this integration in the area of strategy further is support for the organisation’s aims from broader social groups, and not only the organisation’s own members. This takes place when the ←34 | 35→organisation’s mission meets the conditions of social responsibility. An organisation is more integrated structurally when individuals approve and understand their place within the organisational structure and power relationships accompanying it, and when the structure is a reflection of the internal social diversification of the organisation and the external social structure.
Naturally, just as the areas of strategy, structure and culture can be treated as elements creating integration in situations when the aims, power structure or system of values at the level of individuals, social groups and organisations within a society are coherent, one can also see a contrary tendency (Tab. 3). An organisation’s disintegration arises from the lack of strategic, structural or cultural coherence. However, it has to be understood that both integrational and disintegrational forces can contribute to an organisation’s development.
Tab. 3: Levels and areas of the internal integration of an organisation. Source: Own work.
The extent of an organisation’s integration can change considerably with time. Internal reasons for these changes are usually difficult to foresee and are of a revolutionary character. They include, among others, the processes of takeovers and mergers, which happen in many globalised economic sectors. It is usually easier to diagnose the internal factors behind changes in an organisation’s integration level.
In conclusion, the functionalist view of organisational culture, being the oldest, classical and most popular cognitive perspective in the social sciences, has a number of characteristic features.
1.
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2.2 Elements of organisational culture
The differently interpreted models, elements and types of culture remain of key significance to the functionalist understanding of organisational culture. Thus, for the purpose of the conducted analysis, I propose to assume that the elements of a functionalist organisational culture are not other organisational sub-systems, such as strategy or organisational structure, but the strictly cultural variables, including values, basic assumptions, norms, artefacts and so on. A model could include those correlations between important variables describing organisational culture allowing us to predict the states of culture. This would fulfil the neopositivist postulates of causative relationships between variables and verifiability. This means that the model would offer the possibility of generating hypotheses concerning culture, and then, with the use of research methods, to reliably verify or at least potentially falsify them. Another consequence of creating a cultural model would be the generation of typologies (classifications) of the types of organisational culture, distinguished by significant criteria. Having made these assumptions, one can begin with the analysis of elements, move on to models and finish with the types of organisational culture and the methodology of studying them.
Values, norms and cultural models that are developed and spread in a given social group can be considered the fundamental elements of culture. ←36 | 37→In the case of organisational culture, the group which is based on the community of values, norms and cultural patterns is organisation. The elements of organisational culture were first distinguished by E. Schein, P. Bate, A. Pettigrew and other authors in the 1970s. Culture elements are of key importance to the neopositivist-functionalist-systemic paradigm because their assumptions are of a systemic and analytical nature. Naturally, this does not mean that the elements of culture are not used in other paradigms. Interpretative, critical and even postmodern cultural studies selectively include cultural elements. As certain divisions have been established in the subject literature, and cultural analysis has been adapted to business practice, it is worth pointing to the ‘canonical’ elements of organisational cultures, including:
• Cultural values,
• Basic assumptions,
• Social and organisational norms,
• Ways of communication, stories, narratives, myths and metaphors,
• An organisational stereotypes,
• Rituals,
• Symbols,
• Customs, traditions,
• Organisational heroes,
• Taboos,
• Cultural patterns,
• Cultural artefacts,
• Subcultures.
In most cases, a culture’s essence is formed by values or basic assumptions which include fundamental questions concerning the attitude towards an organisation (identity), the people in an organisation, the nature of the environment and other existential questions. Values give rise to social norms, understood as the rules of shaping an organisation’s members’ behaviour, which take the form of orders or prohibitions. An important element of organisational culture is the means of communication, which can be described with the use of stories, narratives, myths and metaphors. The first three of these are spread by employees, and are informal, oral descriptions of real – in the case of myths – unreal realities of the organisation from the past, rendering its ‘spirit’ (esprit de corps). Well-documented research shows that the human cognitive apparatus is well prepared to absorb, remember and even intuitively value narratives, especially those that ←37 | 38→are highly emotional63. Probably this is why stories about the unusual activities of an organisation’s leaders, important events or dramatic situations are so well-rooted in the organisation’s ‘collective awareness’. The rhetorical construction of these stories is usually simple, although they often make use of paradoxes, antimonies and metaphors. The humorous elements are also of importance, and are often reflected in suspense and original punch lines.
The fourth important element of communication in organisational culture is metaphor, which also reflects the organisation’s essence. Metaphors are deeply rooted in the minds of managers and other employees, and so influence the way the whole organisation, its social relationships and relations with its environment are perceived. For example, the use of the mechanistic or organic metaphor by managers should have an effect on the number of manifestations of organisational life64. The situation is similar to using war metaphors in relation to the free market and competitors.
Analyses of the next element of organisational culture – rituals, have been taken directly from cultural anthropology