Edgar Schein, one of the most prominent theorists of organisational culture, gave the

following definition: The culture of a group can be defined as: "A pattern of shared
basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external
adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered
valid and therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive,
think, and feel in relation to those problems. (Schein 2003:3)
Organisational culture this needs to be based on values and norms which people
promote openness, creativity and experimentation in order to support successful
learning (Cummings and Worley 2001: 522-44)
n this report, 'm going to analyse Tesco's organisational culture, and ways that it
could become more effective if it could change its culture.
t is essential to understand the organisational culture of a company if you want to
make changes to how work is done, what type of work is being done. Understanding
the culture and, as required, changing it, can mean the difference between attracting
and retaining good employees and driving away the best employees with an
environment that doesn't encourage, challenge, or reward them. The beliefs and
ideas that organisations hold about who they are, what they are trying to do, and
what their environment is like have a much greater tendency to realize themselves
than is usually believed. (Morgan 2004:149)
Organisational Culture is really "the way things are done around here t describes
the psychological, attitudes, experiences, beliefs and values of an organisation.
Beliefs and assumptions form our mental concepts of what we consider reality. How
we perceive events around us and the interpretations we make in our daily lives.
Cultures do not emerge as a random set of beliefs and thoughts. They have a
purpose, and that purpose is to enable the organisation to survive in the environment
in which it operates in.
The culture of an organisation should fit the external environment in which the
organisation operates. There are strong cultures and weak cultures. an Pyper's
view of a strong culture is characterised by intensely held, clearly ordered and widely
shared core values as cited in Management of Change (2009:382).
While organisations in different cultural settings have a tendency to become
increasingly similar in terms of organisational design the people who work in them
can still differ considerably in terms of culture and a person who moves from one
cultural setting to another may need to change his or her behaviour to match the
cultural norms of the new location.
An organisational culture is a group of people who have been trained, or who simply
have learned by those around them, how to act in any given situation. The other
aspect of organisational culture that is often true is that it becomes very deeply
rooted. t is the identity of a company, and because of that, in some ways it becomes
an identity of those who work there, as well. The people end up affecting the culture
as much as the culture is affecting them.
n this report will look at the organisational culture that Tesco have adopted over
the years and how they have changed to improve the overall culture of their
company. am going to use the cultural web, which was developed by Gerry
Johnson and Kevan Scholes in 1992. The cultural Web is made up of six
interrelated elements that help to make up what john son and Scholes call the
"paradigm the pattern or model of the work environment www.mindtools.com as
accessed on 27/11/09.
When Tesco started out, the business had a culture of being a company of cheap
affordable products. The reason for this was due to Sir Jack Cohen (the founder of
Tesco) as he would always buy products in bulk as well as tins that Sainsbury's had
discarded because it was his vision to be able to 'pile it high and sell it cheap'. The
culture usually comes from the founder of the company. They have developed their
culture through extending their logo every little helps to prove their commitment to
employees as well as to customers. The managers within each strore at Tesco's
have now been given a much broader span of control with their workforce.
This means that each manager will have more employees to communicate with, but
each employee has been trained to a set standard, which allows the manager to
trust them to get on with the job with little guidance from him or her.
Tesco is widely reported in news papers, this is due to the success of the business.
They are rapidly expanding in the UK with the opening of their Metro stores and into
new and foreign markets. This has taken a great deal of their resources in the
planning and implementing stage of expansion. The core units need to remain
focused, to retain the reputation they have built. reinforcing the culture and values
through training will focus Tesco's employees on their roles.
n Tesco today the company is still recognised by the motto of 'pile it high and sell it
cheap', but the company has introduced quality into its products by offering three
different key areas of products. The first area consists of very high quality products
such as organic and these products are usually the most expensive. The middle
group of products are usually a collection of Tesco and company branded products
and covers a wide price bracket. The third group of products are Tesco's value
range, which consists of the cheapest products such as toilet rolls, bin liners and
ready meals. These types of products are all about value for money and are not
priced by the level of quality. Tesco now offer their customers the opportunity to
purchase clothes, electrical goods, DVD's, CD's, etc. By offering their customers
these other products Tesco are changing their culture into becoming a 'one stop
shop', which offers customers the chance to purchase almost anything they need at
the same time. Recently they have expanded into the financial services offering
customers products from Credit cards to insurance.
Their slogan every little helps is used to show their commitment to customers, this has
been used to reduce prices and to increase the level of customer service. This slogan is
now used in their staff training, that any intervention will increase the knowledge of the
work force. Tesco's long term culture is to continue to place value on employee training
and to integrate this value into the culture of the organisation. They are using this
approach to maintain their competitive edge. The value that is placed on HR
demonstrates commitment from the top levels of the organisation to training. Tesco's
intentions are to maintain this increased emphasis on staff training and to integrate this
learning fully into the organisation.
There is constant reviewing of the intervention, and make adjustment were necessary.
There's a training scheme for every major career stage at Tesco which is often flexible
and tailored to your personal needs - which is one of the reasons why 80% of our
management roles are filled by existing team members. This year also Tesco offered
450 people the chance to train for an apprenticeship.

BibIiography
www.wikipedia.co.uk
www.thetimes100.co.uk
www.ikmagazine.com