What is the role of organizational culture in strategic analysis?
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Organizational culture includes the shared beliefs, norms and values within an organization. It sets the foundation for strategy. For a strategy within an organization to develop and be implemented successfully, it must fully align with the organizational culture. Thus, initiatives and goals must be established within an organization to support and establish an organizational culture that embraces the organization’s strategy over time. Show
Flexibility and Adaptability
Organizations that remain flexible are more likely to embrace change and create an environment that remains open to production and communication. This provides a model that welcomes cultural diversity and helps clarify strategy implementation. Culture within an organization can serve many purposes, including to unify members within an organization and help create a set of common norms or rules within an organization that employees follow. Characteristics of StabilityA stable culture, one that will systematically support strategy implementation, is one that fosters a culture of partnership, unity, teamwork and cooperation among employees. This type of corporate culture will enhance commitment among employees and focus on productivity within the organization rather than resistance to rules and regulations or external factors that prohibit success. Goal UnificationFlexible, strong and unified cultures will approach strategy implementation and affect implementation in a positive manner by aligning goals. Goals can come into alignment when the organizational culture works to focus on productivity and getting the organization’s primary mission accomplished. This may include getting products delivered to customers on time, shipping out more products than the organization’s chief competitor or similar goals. This will create a domino effect in the organization that ensures that all work performed by each individual in the company and work group focuses on performance and on the strategic importance of the company. This allows culture to align with strategy implementation at the most basic level. For this level of unification to work, goal setting must align with and be supported by systems, policies, procedures and processes within the organization, thereby helping to achieve strategy implementation and continuing the cultural integrity of the organization. Process ImplementationPart of cultural alignment and strategy implementation involves process implementation. Processes include utilizing technology to facilitate goal attainment and the results a company is looking for when working with customers to meet their needs. While most of the time the hard problems and needs of an organization get met, the culture becomes neglected in the process. That is where processes come into place and strategy implementation gradually comes into existence to uphold and maintain organizational culture and strategies. Cultural AlignmentWhen culture aligns with strategy implementation, an organization is able to more efficiently operate in the global marketplace. Culture allows organizational leaders to work both individually and as teams to develop strategic initiatives within the organization. These may include building new partnerships and re-establishing old ones to continue delivering the best possible products and services to a global market References Writer Bio Aanya Rose has been writing since 1998. Her work has appeared in "ADDitude," "Curl," "Diabetes Alternatives," "Fitness," the "Healing Path" and more. She has served as a channel manager for various websites and worked in consultation and training. Rose holds a B.S. and Ph.D. Image Credit Visage/Stockbyte/Getty Images As someone who manages a business, you’re familiar with the ins and outs of business. Creating a formal business plan, however, is just the first step on the journey to achieving success. What comes next involves establishing a healthy company culture to support your strategy and put it into action. After all, people are the strongest driving force behind great results from any plan. So, how can you consciously gear your Organisational Culture towards supporting your overall business strategy? Why is it crucial for accomplishing great results to have the two aligned? Let’s delve into this. What is a business strategy?Business strategy serves as a map that guides your organisation towards your desired goals amidst growing competition, evolving customer requirements and other external market factors. To define how your business will achieve its objectives, a business strategy should include a list of principles or rules that clearly state how to best allocate company resources, prioritise tasks and make well-informed decisions. Aside from providing direction on how to effectively conduct operations, implementing a business strategy offers the following five benefits:
How well is your business performing? Or how do you want it to perform in the future? Creating your business strategy will help you evaluate your company’s strengths, areas of improvement, external threats and opportunities for growth. Having an understanding of where your business currently stands will give you a clearer perspective over where you are now so you can head towards where you want to be.
Business strategy enables you to take a step back, reflect and think about ways to improve your systems and processes. Spending time to plan ahead also allows you to generate new ways to solve problems – even for those you didn’t realise existed in the first place.
Having a formal and well-researched business strategy allows you to find and capitalise on differentiating factors that make your organisation unique. This plan helps you become more accountable, focused and committed to fulfilling goals. With a business strategy, your company can also be proactive in addressing challenges and harnessing opportunities in the market.
The way forward is definitely together with your team. A business strategy ensures that everyone is on the same page by communicating your vision, setting standards for quality work and establishing transparency across all facets of the business.
Business strategy empowers you to track your goals and have key performance indicators (KPIs) that will determine the progress and growth of your organisation. With a solid business strategy, you’ll be able to assess success and see where activities didn’t produce results, so the organisation can adapt accordingly. What is organisational culture?Professor Geert Hofstede defined culture as “the programming of the human mind by which one group of people distinguishes itself from another group.” Organisational culture refers to how a particular organisation conducts itself as a whole, in a way that is different from others. For example, how you run meetings, train new talent, communicate rules, provide benefits and implement employee engagement activities. It’s also how everyone in the team works together and the relationships and behaviours that result. Moreover, Organisational Culture sets out what is deemed acceptable within a business. If an Organisational Culture is developed well, it can foster the right attitude amongst employees and motivate them to effectively fulfil their responsibilities to contribute to the long-term goals of the business. Keep in mind - the best Organisational Culture for your company is the one you design for yourself. What is the relationship between business strategy and company culture?Businesses often separate strategy and culture from one another. However, this is unfortunate as they have a strong impact on each other. Top management tends to focus only on strategy since it’s associated with rational decisions, logical actions and overall company direction. On the other hand, culture is left in the hands of mid-managers or the Human Resources (HR) department due to its perception of being less formal, more emotional, intangible and flexible. However, because mid-managers and the HR team are often not involved with strategy discussions, they might not be able to design the matching culture that will best support the overall business. This may then lead to problems and misalignment across different departments of your organisation. This is why it’s important to realise that company culture and business strategy go hand-in-hand. Company culture can’t be considered as a lower priority as it’s what gives the strategy momentum and action. While the strategy provides guidance, culture is what motivates everyone in your company to have the same purpose of driving the business forward. It's very hard to implement an effective strategy if the organisation’s culture is not supportive of this and resists change. For instance, if a part of your strategy involves improving customer satisfaction ratings, yet your staff feel unempowered and unsupported, chances are, this will be a difficult strategy to implement. How does company culture support business strategy?“Company culture is the backbone of any successful organisation.” – Gary Vaynerchuk Taking into account all the different ways in which culture shapes how employees undertake business activities, processes and philosophies - we can’t help but agree. To help understand this connection better, here are some key points that show how company culture enables business strategy:
Learn from real-life examples: how culture supports business strategySo, what does this look like in practise? Here are some real examples of how other businesses are aligning company culture and business strategy to achieve great outcomes.
Tesla has cultivated an organisational culture in which proactive learning is the norm. They encourage their team to explore, be open-minded and creative to support the company’s strategy of driving real-world (and off-world) innovation forward. Now, Tesla is a global leader in developing all-electric vehicles and other products run by clean energy technology.
Zappos’ business strategy revolves around delivering a strong “WOW” factor by providing happiness to their customers, employees, shareholders and the whole community. Their company culture of enjoyment supports this. Zappos nurtures a positive and productive culture through its different employee engagement activities – ensuring the team is satisfied enough to also empower high levels of customer satisfaction.
HubSpot aims to always be evolving, and its strategy prioritises doing good for the business and its customers. To achieve this, HubSpot approaches company culture like it would a product. From free classes, training opportunities and books to TED-inspired “HubTalks,” HubSpot ensures their employee development is taken to the next level so each member feels empowered to reach their full potential. From these three of many examples, you can see how business strategy lays down the overall direction and path to success, but it’s the Organisational Culture that facilitates this through action, behaviour and purpose. Implement a more active approach to cultureJust like the above case studies, your organisation can also foster a strong Organisational Culture and use it to implement business strategy more effectively. At Hofstede Insights, we help you build and strengthen this synergy. Our network of experts business consultants collaborate with you and your team to unlock meaningful insights to align your culture with and strategy, all backed by rigorous academic theory and data-driven analysis. From consulting and training to certifications and tools, we help you achieve excellent results and realign your internal culture to achieve business strategy results. Speak to us today to discuss your organisation and how we can assist you. What is the role of culture in strategy?Strategy offers a formal logic for the company's goals and orients people around them. Culture expresses goals through values and beliefs and guides activity through shared assumptions and group norms. Strategy provides clarity and focus for collective action and decision making.
What is the role of organizational culture?An organization's culture defines the proper way to behave within the organization. This culture consists of shared beliefs and values established by leaders and then communicated and reinforced through various methods, ultimately shaping employee perceptions, behaviors and understanding.
What is Organisational culture in strategic management?Organizational culture is the collection of values, expectations, and practices that guide and inform the actions of all team members. Think of it as the collection of traits that make your company what it is.
What role do culture and values play in the strategy?Developing a strategic plan is vital to an organization's success. An organization must be able to efficiently execute that strategy to achieve its performance improvement goals. The organization's culture is often the most important determiner in successful execution.
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