Organizational cultures 107

memory of banks since the 2007 crisis could result in the repetition of the same problems.
Others argue that such a repetition is more likely due to the same senior management being
in place, denying responsibility for what had happened, and recruiting similar new staff to a
fundamentally unchanged culture.
Two culture change solutions have been proposed, both involve changing people.
First, having more women – the UK Parliamentary Committee on Banking Standards
reported that ‘The culture on the trading floor is overwhelmingly male’. A better gender balance
would reduce the amount of male testosterone that fuels greater risk taking (Thompson and
Jain, 2013). Second, by training employees more, so as to reinforce company work codes,
values, desired staff behaviour and positive corporate culture. Managers would then monitor,
measure and maintain adherence to corporate values, especially when competitive pressures
mounted (Hill, 2013).

EMPLOYABILITY CHECK (creativity and innovation, people management, leading and

managing change)
The government is frustrated at the slow speed of change in bank cultures. They are planning to legislate
to force bank chiefs to implement changes to counter the potential for future mis-selling. They have asked
you to recommend new, radical measures in areas of human resource management, compensation and job
design that will lead to significant differences within a year. What suggestions would you make?

Has banking culture really changed?

In this video, Gillian Tett discusses the ‘flaw’ in Alan Greenspan’s thinking and how
culture has been overlooked at the cost to the global economy ten years on from the
financial crisis. By understanding the role of culture in banking, can we become more
resilient to the next crisis? (14:50)

Organizational cultures
Organizational
culture the shared
values, beliefs and norms
which influence the way
employees think, feel
Copyright © 2019. Pearson Education, Limited. All rights reserved.
Organizational culture can be thought of as the personality of an organization. It is also
often referred to as corporate culture. It deals with how things are done in a company on a
daily basis. It affects how employees perform their work; how they relate to each other; to
customers, and to their managers. Organizational culture affects not only task issues (how
well or badly an organization performs), but also emotional issues (how workers feel about

and act towards others
inside and outside the
organization.
their work and their companies), as well as ethical issues (how companies behave in society).
Organizational culture has been increasingly discussed and written about since the early
1980s. First used by management consultants as a quick-fix solution to virtually every
organizational problem, it was later adopted by researchers as an explanatory framework
with which to understand behaviour in organizations (Alvesson, 2001). Ann Cunliffe (2008)
states that organizational culture is important because it:

• shapes the image that the public has of an organization

• influences organizational effectiveness
• provides direction for the company
• helps to attract, retain and motivate staff

Some writers argue that just as one can talk about French culture, Arab culture or Asian
culture, so too it is possible to discuss the organizational culture of the British Civil Service,
McDonald’s, Microsoft, or of Disney. It is generally recognized that organizations have
‘something’ (a personality, philosophy, ideology or climate) which goes beyond economic

Buchanan, David, and Andrzej Huczynski. Organisational Behaviour, Pearson Education, Limited, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central,
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/warw/detail.action?docID=5821088.
Created from warw on 2023-12-16 17:36:41.