Organizational culture is defined by the way an organization structures itself and conducts business. Characteristics include employee-employer relationships, teamwork vs individual performance, aggressiveness vs relaxation, and innovation vs stability. The degree of formality in relationships and level of innovation are also important factors.
The characteristics of organizational culture are the components or factors that make up the very fabric of that particular organizational culture. In general, an organization’s culture can be described as the way an organization structures itself. It can also be described as the methods employed by an organization to conduct its business. Characteristics can therefore include aspects such as the relationship between employees and employers, whether the organization encourages team players or individual performance, whether the organization encourages its employees to be aggressive or more relaxed, and whether the organization is innovative or stable.
Employees and employers, or top management, within every organization have some type of relationship. This relationship can be strictly formal, semi-formal or informal. The relationship between workers is one of the characteristics of organizational culture. In organizations with strictly formal relationships between employees and managers, there is a separation in the contact of employees with managers. For example, in a large law firm, partners or summer interns may not have access to the firm’s senior partners. The organizational culture in such a place might be one of strict formality in the relationship between junior lawyers, senior lawyers and management partners. On the other hand, an ice cream shop might have the opposite organizational culture. Employees, ranging from cashiers to delivery people, can have free and open access to the manager of the ice cream shop.
Another aspect that is part of the characteristics of organizational culture is the degree of inventiveness or innovation of an organization. A company that is known for taking risks and being a leader in pioneering efforts in its related field might establish something to that effect as part of the characteristics of the organizational culture. For example, a high-tech company known for making the best phones with the latest technology has formed innovation and pioneering efforts as part of its organizational culture. This feature has been associated with the company to the extent that whenever it is about to launch a new product, people start camping out at select stores that will be selling the product up to three days before the sale starts. Customers trust their products and believe they will be worth the long wait.
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