Response to chapter 10, Ryo

This week’s reading topic is the organizational culture. When we consider the cultural difference, we are likely to think a cultural theory applies to all cases, however, in reality, culture is not absolute factor that determines the all people’ character or behavior. Culture is just only one of the factors that influence the people’ character or behavior to some extent. Therefore cultural organizational theory is not only thing that determine their organizational behavior. There are some other factors such as the scale, industry, gender, age proportion of the company. We should keep that in mind when we think about the organizational culture.

In the reading, the author mentions some cultural organization dimensions such as open or closed system, loose or tight control and normative or pragmatic orientation. In the open organization, members are open to newcomers and outsiders, and it is easier for them to fit into the organization. Newcomers and outsiders need just a few days to feel at home. In contrast, in the closed system organization, they feel to be more closed, even among insiders, and only special limited people fit into the organization. Employees need more than a year to feel at home in the worse case.

Loose control organization refers to casual culture.Meeting times are not punctual and flexible , and jokes about the company and organization are frequent. In contrast, tight control organization refers to more strict culture, and they tend to be more cost conscious. Meeting times are kept punctually and jokes about the organization are rare.

Normative organization tend to follow an organizational procedure much more than results although pragmatic organization emphasize on meeting the customer’s need and results are more important than correct procedures.