The assignment is about the organizational culture and the effectiveness on the organizational process and outcomes. During this assignment I will start with the culture definition, than I will identify the factors that affecting the organizational culture either internally or externally. Moreover, I will try to analyze my organizational culture and to recognize the type of my organizational culture and its appropriateness with my department plan. Before I end with the conclusion, I will speak about the main key lessons taken from the organizational culture assignment and how will apply it on my department using two effective different ways which is one of the biggest challenges in this assignment.

Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey (1988) defined the culture as the learned beliefs, values, norms, symbols and traditions that are common to group of people. It is these shared qualities of group that make them unique culture in dynamic and transmitted to others. In short, culture is the way of life, customs, and script, of group of people.

II – Factors Affecting the Organizational Culture:

There is no single definition for organizational culture; it’s influenced by multifactor, like the organizational behavior or the communication of the organization, and also some people affected by the management science of the organization to analyze the organizational culture. A system of knowledge, of standards for perceiving, believing, evaluating and acting…….. that serves to relate human communities to their environmental settings (Allaire & Firsirotu, 1984). A set of understandings or meanings shred by a group of people that are largely tacit among members and are clearly relevant and distinctive to the particular group which are also passed on to new members (Louis, 1980).

There are numbers of external and internal factors affecting any organization. External factors are beyond the control of the organization, whereas the internal factors can be controlled to an extent. (See table 1)

External factors

Internal factors

Political

legal

Economic

Socio/Cultural

Technological

Demographics

Competition

Suppliers

Distributors

Employee

Wholesalers

Shareholders

Partners

Table 1: factors affecting the organization.

III- My Organization’s Culture:

Analysis of My Organization’s Culture:

I had analyzed my organizational culture depending on the Harrison’s questionnaire (see Appendix 1) to identify the type of culture whether its power, role, task, or self culture. I have found that my organizational culture is “Role culture” (See table 2). I totally agreed with the result, it fits with my department and organizational culture.

Culture

power

role

task

self

Score

39

57

34

20

Table 2: Organizational Culture.

My organization is one of the biggest hospitals in the United Arab Emirates; it’s called as Tawam hospital. It’s a governmental facility, operated by the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi (HAAD) and managed by John’s Hopkins medicine. It provides healthcare services to the community of Alain city and referral for the emirates and other surrounding gulf countries. It’s a 477 bedded tertiary centre, and also it has with polyclinics with 92 specialty clinics per day and 3 primary healthcare centers located around the city to facilitate the healthcare for the surrounding areas. The organization was established on 1979 in Alain city while I have joined the organization in 2006; it’s accredited by JCI since 2006.

My organization is one of the biggest healthcare organizations in the country, it has a divisional structure, its composed from multidisciplinary specialties and divisions, each division work as a small organization focusing on their specific plan leading in the end to achieve the general plans and objectives of the organization under the supervision of the top manager of the organization (CEO).

My culture is really a role culture , it runs by the coordination of senior managing group, all works inside the organization controlled by rules, regulations, and fixed polices that protect the employees and provides a high quality of care to all customers. The CEO is impersonal and correct, he never use his authority for his own personal issues. All leaders in the organization follow the appropriate ways/channels of communication structure directed from top to down and information flows upward within the functional pyramids which meet at the top, but the cross-communication is totally rejected.

Most of the employees are competent, responsible and reliable and they meet the duties and responsibilities of their job description with strong sense of loyalty to the organization leading to provide a high quality of care to all customers. The relation between the employee and the organization is controlled by rules and regulations through clear contract between them, leading to build up strong trust and relationship. The controller of the employee’s activities is the responsible one for directing them with impersonal exercise of economic and political power to enforce procedures and standards performance.

Due to the role culture of the organization, works run through formal rules and regulations, and that help in improving the control and managing conflicts between the staff by formal ways, also it protects the security of the employee against the external factors and enhancing the team work between them. Finally, I believe that the role culture is acting properly during this period, with the new JCIA standards and the organizational rules; there is a good environment for the employees to provide the best care for all types of customers with safe and evidence-based practice.

The Appropriateness of the Culture with the Department:

All cultures are good in the right place, because each culture is good for something and less good for others (Handy, 1990). Before going deeply and critically analyzing the fitness and appropriateness of the role culture with the strategic plans of my organizational/department objectives and, what are my department’s mission, vision and values?

The department’s mission is to provide a full range of medical, surgical, and specialized services to our patients (Employee Handbook, 2007, p. 4). However, my department’s vision stated that the department will provide high quality, affordable, medical services delivered in friendly, safe, and caring environment which meet JCIA standard of care (Employee Handbook, 2007, p. 4). Lastly, my department’s value stated that the department believes in treating all patients, visitors and employees with respect dignity and quality and guided by UAE laws and respect for patient rights (Employee Handbook, 2007, p. 4).

I believe that the role culture is the ideal one for his department which is dealing with clinical services and with high quality of care in suitable environment and all these issues controlled by accredited standards and country laws. Harrison (1972) who analyzes the organizational culture defined the role cultures as those in which behavior is governed by rules, regulations and legitimacy. Priority is given to developing appropriate policies and procedures, and thus emphasis is placed upon means rather than ends. In addition to that, there are several factors which lead the role culture to be fit with the objectives of the department starting from the formal way of communication which lead to enhance the effectiveness of work, and will provide good and suitable environment for work. Also, all the employees are aware for their rights and responsibilities which will provide safe and comfortable media for work and protect them from any external assault.

On the other hand, the main problem that faces my department in the last recent years is the existence of few people still believing in the power of national culture and how they can affect and change inside the governmental organization, but by the accredited standard that applied in the organization, it was started to resolve gradually and people start to believe by rules and regulations.

Finally, I believe that the role culture going with the same direction with my department’s strategic plans in a very effective way to achieve the main goals and mission for his department by providing high standards of clinical services and customer services with high accredited standards and evidence-based practice.

Key Lessons:

During the last two years, my job was a staff nurse in my department, but a team leader responsibility was allocated to me to take care about one of the treatment rooms in the infusion center inside the oncology department, my team consists from three nurses and I am the younger staff. I learned a lot of management skills and good experience from daily activities that helped me in managing the team in a good manner, but I still missing the basic part, that will support me in all decisions and will change my way of thinking and improve my problem solving skills, which is the updated knowledge. During the analyzing of my organizational culture, I learned several useful lessons in improving the outcomes of my practice. The main two key lessons are: managing conflicts and managing team work.

Managing Conflicts:

The 1st lesson is how to manage conflicts; Marquis and Huston (2003) defined conflict as the internal or external discord that results from differences in ideas, values, feeling between two or more people. To be a good manager, you need to understand the personality of all your employees in your department, to clarify all the rules, standards, rights and responsibilities for the employees and to be the reference in all the problems occurs in the department.

Conflicts have two different faces either positive or negative. In the positive face, conflicts will lead to more safe competitions and team work and it should be controlled by rules and regulations. Tjosvold and Tjosvold (1995) stated that conflicts also have appositive side, however for example, in the process of learning how to manage conflict, people can develop more open, cooperative ways of working together. On the other side, conflicts also having the negative face which will increase the stress and affects the team works if it kept unresolved. Lombardi (2001) found that unresolved conflicts have potentially harmful effects on people. Serious conflicts can be very stressful for the people involved.

To manage and control conflicts, you need to prepare good the environment in your department, to be fair between the employees, to make sure nobody will lose from this conflict and try always to make conflicts having positive face, which will lead to reach your objectives and outcomes in good manner. The optimal goal in resolving conflict is creating a win-win solution for all involved. This outcome is not possible in every situation, and often the manager’s goal is to manage the conflict in manner that lessons the perceptual differences that exist between the involved parties (Marquis & Huston, 2003).

Managing Teamwork:

The workforce or people factor is recognized as an important organization asset in contributing to performance at an individual, team or organizational level (Senior, 1997). One of the most important lessons from this assignment is how to manage teamwork, to apply this lesson in the real practice, you need to have common purposes between the manager or the team leader and the group, all rules and responsibilities should be clear for all, and tasks should be contributed equally between them, climate of trust, learning and mutual support should be inserted in the department, team must be composed from different characteristics like experience, skills and knowledgeable people, in addition to that you also need good manager who manage the team and direct them in the correct way and to solve the conflicts and problems in professional way .

A managerial challenge when developing and recruiting teams is to ensure that they have necessary collective skills and competencies to deliver not only the organization’s business objectives but also to establish effective teamwork (Kieran & Judith, 2006).

IV – Conclusion:

To conclude the assignment, I talked about the organizational culture and the correlation with the internal and external factors that can affect the organization, moreover, I critique my organizational culture “Role culture” using Harrison’s questionnaire to distinguish it, then I try to approve the appropriateness of the role culture with my department strategy and finally I ended my assignment with most key lessons that he learned from my organizational culture which are managing conflicts and managing teamwork.

Finally, to manage people and organization, you need to be good manager or a team leader by building good teamwork, understanding the organizational behavior and culture and putting a development plan for your department and keeping your employee motivated all the time. No manager can make a team perform well but they can create a supportive environment and ensure the right conditions are in place to encourage the development of the characteristics of effective team work (Kieran & Judith, 2006).

V – References:

Allaire, Y., & Firsirotu, M.E. (1984). Theories of organizational culture. Organization Studies 5,193-226.

Gudykunst, W.B., & Ting -Toomey, S. (1988). Culture & interpersonal communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Handy, C. (1990). Understanding schools as organizations. London: Penguin

Books.

Harrison, R. (1972). Understanding Your Organization’s Character. Harvard business Review, 119 – 128.

Human Resources Department. (2007). Employee Handbook: Tawam hospital.UAE.

Kieran, W., & Judith, S. (2006). Healthcare Management, U.S.A, New York: Open University Press.

Lombardi, D.N. (2001). Handbook for the New Healthcare Manager. Sanfrancisco: Jossy-Bass.

Louis, M.R. (1980). Organizations as culture-bearing milieu: In Organizational Symbolism. Greenwich, CT: JAI.

Marquis, B. L., & Huston, C. J. (2003). Leadership Roles and Management Functions in Nursing: Theory & Application (4th ed.). Philadelphia PA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Senior, B. (1997). Team role and team performance: Is there really a link. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 70(3), 241.

Tjosvold, D., & Tjosvold, M.M. (1995). Psychology for Leaders: Using Motivation, Conflict, and Power to Manage More Effectively. New York: John Wiley & Son

VI- Appendix 1: