Contemporary Firms: Organisational Culture and Stakeholder Impact

This essay provides an analysis of organisational culture within contemporary firms, focusing on its various aspects and implications for stakeholders. It defines organisational culture as a shared collection of values, philosophies, and experiences among staff members, highlighting its role in shaping employee behavior and business functions. The essay identifies different types of organisational cultures, such as Adhocracy, Clan, and Hierarchy cultures, and explores dimensions like dominant vs. subcultures, strong vs. weak cultures, mechanistic vs. organic cultures, and authoritarian vs. participative cultures. It emphasizes the importance of organisational culture in employee engagement, turnover rates, brand identity, team environment, and transformational power. The essay uses Marks and Spencer as a case study, examining its customer-driven and employee-centric culture and its positive impact on employees, customers, shareholders, and suppliers, illustrating how a strong organisational culture fosters positive relationships and enhances overall business performance.

Identify different aspects of organisational
culture in some contemporary firms. What
are the implications for the organisation
and its stakeholders?

Table of Contents
Introduction:.....................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8

Introduction:
The organisational culture is the collection of philosophy, values as well as experiences
which is collectively shared among the staff members. The organisational culture reflects the
culture of the company in terms of behaviour of workers and how the business functions are
performed within the organisation. The essay will provide the explanation about the term
organisational culture as well as will also highlights the different aspects of culture within the
organisation. In addition to this, the essay will also discuss about the importance of
organisational culture towards management activities. Moreover, the essay will also cover
identification of culture in contemporary companies and its implications on the various
stakeholders. The essaywill be able to explain about the theories related to the organisational
culture of the company.
MAIN BODY
The organisational culture defines the consistent behaviour of employees with their
leaders as well as goals of the company. The culture of the company depicts about the how
leadership role is crucial in terms of taking care of business activities, various stakeholders and
their team members. The moral culture of the company reflects the proper achievement of firm's
goals and objectives (Erthal and Marque, 2018). In relation to this, the culture of the organisation
also facilitates the attention of competent employees in their business operations. The proper
organisational culture supports the company to make draw attention of various investors to invest
in their business activities. Furthermore, the culture basically provides an overview of the firm's
core values and also depicts the leadership style followed by the company(Martínez-Caro,
Cegarra-Navarro and Alfonso-Ruiz, 2020). The culture of the organisation can be analysed by
observing how the decision making process is performed that can be from top to bottom or could
be bottom to up. Along with this, the company's culture can also be identified by evaluating the

level decision making power possessed by their employees and whether they are being rewarded
for their well efforts or not. There are different types of organisational culture that can be seen in
various multinational firms of the world. The first one is Adhocracy culture, the organisation
which follows this type of culture basically runs their operations in the highly dynamic
environment where innovational and technological changes takes place at faster pace. The
Adhocracy culture is flexible in nature towards employing newer technologies and the operations
of the firm is not inhibited by the bureaucratic pressures. For instance, the Apple company
follows this type of culture in their business environment. The other type of culture is Clan
culture, the company which possess this type of culture reflects the strong common interest
among the group of people in the company (Oh and Han, 2020). This culture is more common in
family owned businesses where the all employees feel connected with their team goals and
objectives. The other culture is Hierarchy culture where the chain of authority is well
established and there is proper chain of command that defines who will be accountable to whom.
This type of culture supports the firm in managing risk in better manner(Liu, Tsui and Kianto,
2021).
The different dimensions of the organisational culture is classified into four types. The
first important dimension of organisational culture is Dominant culture and Subcultures, The
dominant culture of the organisation represents that the core values is shared among the large
number of staff members (Carvalho and et.al., 2019). In addition to this, the dominant culture is
the macro concept, that supports the firm's in guiding day to day to behaviours of the workers.
However, the sub-culture is the core values which is shared by less number of company
members. Moreover, the sub-culture arises on the basis of problems shared by team members of
the organisation. In this, the dominant culture of the organisation is retained but changed as per
different situations of individuals (Prasanna and Haavisto, 2018). The other of organisational
culture is termed as Strong and Weak culture, the culture of the company can be strong or can
be weak. The strong culture depicts the sharing of strong values as well as strong leadership style
within the firm. The strong culture of the corporation reflects the higher level of commitment
among group members towards accomplishing organisational objectives in the shared manner.
The strong culture also facilitates lower turnover rate as well as higher employee satisfaction.
Whereas, the weak culture of the firm represents lower employee commitment towards common
goals and objectives of the firm. The other important dimension is Mechanistic and Organic

cultures, in the mechanistic type of culture the level of bureaucracy is clearly defined in the
systematic manner. This culture reflects that the authority is systematically allocated from top to
bottom where the roles and responsibility of each team member is clearly defined. In organic
culture, there is no such boundation regarding following of authority chain of the company. This
culture facilitate flexible and open communication channels while performing business related
actions (Mansouri, Singh and Khan, 2018). The other crucial dimension of organisational culture
is Authoritarian and participative culture, In the authoritarian type of culture the power is
centralised in the hands of leader and it is mandatory for all subordinates to follow the rules
made by their leader. This type of culture fosters the level of professionalism in the firm by
stressing on following disciple. However, in the participative culture, some of the authority
regarding making decisions is given to the staff members of the organisation. The collective
decision making in this culture improves the chance of developing effective solutions to the
business problems(Rezaer, Allameh and Ansari, 2018).
The organisational culture is very crucial for the organisation in terms of attracting new
employees or retaining older. The main importance of organisational culture for the day to day
operations of the firm can be stated in into five points. The first one is Encouraging employee
engagement, the work environment of organisational culture reflects clear objectives as well as
responsibility. This supports the employee to become more active in group decision making
activities. In addition to this, the supportive culture also induces employees to interact more
properly with their team members and also plays a strong force in boosting productivity level of
employees. The other importance of organisational culture is Decreased employee turnover, the
organisational culture values the feeling and also recognises the efforts made by employees. This
create a positive work culture that motivate workers to work for longer period of time in the
company (Chen, Jiao and Harrison, 2019). In addition to this, the favourable culture of
organisation supports employee in realising full potential by participating in decision making
process. The other importance of organisational culture is to Build powerful brand identity in
market, the culture of the company directly reflects its reputation as well as brand image in
market. The well structured and strong culture of the company improves the brand visibility as
well as goodwill in the market. Moreover, the better brand identity can support the firm to
attract large number of investors and customers in the market. The other crucial role of
organisational culture is Fostering healthy team environment, the strong culture supports the

organisation in improving its workflow areas as well as also guides in making effective decision
making strategy by boosting interaction level among team members and with leaders. The
culture also assists the employees to be more informed about certain processes that leads to
positive working environment(Kuo and Tsai, 2019). The other importance of organisational
culture is Transformational power, the culture that is strong helps management of the company
to transform its position into improved one. This is because strong culture in organisation
promotes the participation level of employees in decision making process that leads in innovative
and transformational decisions. This can support the business in attaining competitive position in
the market.
The firm which is identified in order to analyse its organisational culture is Marks and
Spencer company. The firm is the famous as well as second largest chain of supermarket based
in London, England. The firm specialises in selling a wide range of products such as clothing,
food products as well as home products. The type of culture that Marks and Spencer practices is
customer driven culture. The customer oriented culture supports the firm to better understand
demands of their customer by improving customer services. In addition to this, the customer
centred culture also assists the company in recruiting right people as well as providing effective
training in order to promote positive experience of customers. Moreover, the culture of the
company is positive in terms of employee participation in decision making process. The
employee centric culture of the firm supports the employees in sharing opinions during strategic
planning activities. Due to this, the employee of the firm feel valued and more engaged in the
business activities towards achieving business objectives. The company also experiences lower
employee turnover rates as due to higher interaction of employees in the decision making
process the workers feel motivated and more engaged with the companies goals and objectives.
The productivity level of workers is also viewed higher due to the deployment of flexible
communication channels into their organisational structure. This encourage their employees to
gain a quicker solution of problems which supports Marks and Spencer company in enhancing
the productivity level of employees(Nguyen, 2019).
The impact of the identified organisational culture on the stakeholders of Marks and
Spencer company is described in this paragraph. As defined in the above paragraph, it has been
cleared that the leader of the company adopts employee centric style or consultative style of
leadership. The practising of this style positively impacts its relationship with employees. The

employees feel more comfortable as well as more informed about their duties which assists the
employee to make well calculated action plans for accomplishing organisational objectives. In
addition to this, the employee oriented style of leadership also supports the workers to
collaborate more effectively with other team members as well as leaders. Moreover, the strong
organisational culture of Marks and Spencer also help the employees in realising their true
potential by allowing them to take part in group decision making process. The positive culture of
the company also positively impacts customers by launching a well quality products in the
market. The culture of the Marks and Spencer organisation promotes the innovation and
technological modification of their products by taking best use of innovative decisions made by
the employees (Stapley, 2018). This supports the company in achieving higher satisfaction level
of customers by offering valuable as well as good quality products in the market. The strong
culture of the organisation also helps company to make positive relations with the share holders.
The culture of Marks and Spencer organisation has assisted the company to increase the level of
profitability in the market due to improvement in the efficiency of operations. This helps the
shareholder in receiving their dividends on timely basis which leads to the better relationship
with shareholders. The strong working culture also supports the company in making better
relationship with suppliers as due to their culture the company has gained improved performance
in the market and also a better financial position. This assists the company in making good
relationship with suppliers by making timely payments to them in regular basis. Furthermore, the
employee oriented culture of Marks and Spencer firm also helps it in forming better relationships
with employee unions as the firm takes care of the values and rights of employee in the utmost
level. Along with this, the betterment programs for employees also assists the firm to comply
with the rules and policies of the employee unions of the country(Nguyen and et.al., 2021).
The development as well as execution of strategic plans mainly based on the type
of culture that the organisation adopts in order to perform day to day activities. The culture of the
company is the most crucial determiner about the successful implementation of strategic plans.
The strong culture as well as employee oriented culture of the company boosts the personal
accountability of employees that leads to faster implementation of strategic plans without any
disruptions. In addition to this, the favourable organisational culture supports the firm in
accelerating the pace of future growth projects by establishing change in the most effective
manner. The organisation with positive work culture helps the employees to find better action

plan by discussing with other team members and their leaders freely. In relation to this, the
positive culture supports the employee's of the company to better understand why the change is
necessary of their careers as well as for the objectives of the company. This allows employees to
take fuller responsibility for the successful implementation of change in the organisation.
Furthermore, the other theory of organisational culture is considered as Leadership theories. The
core leadership theories is essential in order to use the right approach of leadership theory in the
current situation. The leadership theory is mainly classified into three major steps. The first
important leadership theory is Trait theory, this approach focuses that effective leaders share the
common traits of personality. This theory states the inner quality of the leaders as well as helps
in identification of emotional qualities which are helpful in leading employees properly. The
other point of leadership theory is Behavioural theory, this type of leadership theory deals with
the behavioural attitude of the leaders(Khalid, Bibi and Akhtar, 2020). There are mainly three
types of leaders with different action patterns. The first is Autocratic leaders that makes their
own decision without consulting with their team members. The second one is Democratic leaders
that makes decisions by interacting with their team members and ask them to make opinions
about making strategic plans. The third one is Laissez faire style of leadership where the leader
does not make decisions but transfers the power of decision making to the team members.
Furthermore, the other main theory of leadership is Contingency theories, this theory explains
that the right leadership theory depends upon the situation of the company. If the goal of the
company is to make faster decisions than Autocratic leadership style is best viable in the
situation and if the goal of the organisation is to foster customer satisfaction level then it can
adopt democratic style of leadership.
Conclusion
It has been concluded that organisational culture is the collection of ethics as well as
values within the organisation structure. It was also evaluated that strong organisational culture is
crucial in order to improve competitive position of the business. The essay has covered about the
organisational culture as well as the various dimensions of the organisational culture. The essay
has also included the importance of organisational culture in enhancing competitive edge of
business. In relation to this, the essay has also covered about the implications of culture towards
different stakeholders of the company. Moreover, the essay has also highlighted the relevant
theories of organisational culture.

References:
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