Defining Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is the study of people in an institution whose shared values, norms and histories are intrinsically associated as part of the cultural framework of its respective environment. Organizational culture seeks to understand the web of cultural norms, values, and beliefs. Organizational culture is a mix of a variety of social sciences including sociology, and anthropology. The founding theoretician of organizational culture, Edgar Shein stated that:
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 373-374).
Edgar Shein basically interpreted an organizational culture to have a dynamic fluctuating atmosphere. In this manner, the culture can survive among the changing atmosphere. Here, Shein comments on the interplay of the external and internal forces which influence the progression of the culture. The exchanges between the internal and external environment respectively determine whether or not the organization will be successful. The sharing of values, norms, and beliefs becomes a critical asset for the sustenance of the organization. Newer members of an organization, says Shein, receive these respective norms, values and beliefs as a way of advancing and surviving. In summary, the organization must weave through generations in an attempt to survive. In Shein’s perspective, the organizational culture functions in retrospect with group contribution and preservation of the organizational unit.
Organizational Culture and Carl Jung
In contrast, Carl Jung, a swiss psychiatrist and the founder of analytical psychology proposes the archetypal indoctrination of the human psyche. Although not specifically oriented with the organizational cultural approach to corporate development and progression, the issue Jung raises is of explicit importance to the meaning-making systems that govern the organizational unit. Jungian psychoanalytic theory considers the presence of a collective unconscious in which its existence is best understood by “the primordial image, or archetype.” The archetype is a construction that is transcendental, existing without a medium and intangible. Jung notes that archetypes are like rituals in that they are “repeated countless times in our ancestral history” The notion of archetypes is relevant as a method for analyzing organizational culture because it explains the powerful associations held within the culture. The archetype functions as the norm, values and beliefs held with high esteem. These are practiced without conscious effort, hence the collective unconscious: processes that are produced without awareness. When organizations develop policies during the beginning stages of its development, they develop them out of its importance. These policies then become practiced repeatedly throughout the organizational unit’s history. In this manner, these policies become archetypal—the mythological behaviours, values and norms required by the organization to further its existence. Once these policies come into conflict with the society it has inhabited, the policies must be changed for the survival of the organizational unit. For example: A salesperson encounters a potential customer. The salesperson tries the sales pitch and finds that the potential customer is looking for a deal and not the regular prices; the salesperson lists all possible promotional rates for the potential customer but the customer finds no relevant savings opportunities. Essentially, the policies that the salesperson enacted did not work and, in order to get the customer, the salesperson must exercise creative fantasy. This way, the salesperson can adjust the organizational policies to suit the customer adding the customer as part of their enterprise—this eventually assists the organizational culture to maintain its influence. Essentially, the organizational unit is part of the collective unconscious. To survive, the organizational culture must understand the changes that take place throughout history.

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