Organisation Culture

Many organisations have a culture that they follow to help them run and maintain their business. A theorist called Charles Handy (1972) developed four different types of organisational culture that was used within an organisation. These were:

·         Power culture

·         Role culture

·         Task culture

·         Person culture

Power culture:

Handy described power culture to be the centre power source and is dependent on trust, have an understanding and have personal communication for it to be effective. Power culture also means that a key individual can control decision making and other rules and procedures that should be followed in the organisation.

Role culture:

Role culture was described as employees within the organisation to work to the job description, for example in Tesco, a sales assistant’s job is to help customers, stock products and product pricing and this is written in their job description there for it is their role in the company and must follow this. Also, the role of an individual is decided by looking at the rules and regulations, for example, a temporary worker is not allowed to be behind the till.

Task culture:

This culture is related to team work and how the task is completed by each individual.  Task culture also offers some benefits to their employees as they feel motivated because they are empowered to make decisions within their team and they also feel valued as they have been selected and given responsibility to complete the task. For example, Barclays allow their employees to participate in different tasks and certain people get given a task to help their customers with different needs.

Person culture:

This final culture that Handy has identified is person culture and this is when an individuals influence other in an organisation. For example, in many organisations, managers and other leaders influence their employees doing what they do. If their manger tells them this is wrong, they will believe it is and will not take the wrong step.

Reference:

·          Handy, C. B. Understanding Organisations, fourth edition, Penguin (1993)

·         French, W. L. And Bell, C. H. Organisation Development: Behavioural Science Interventions for Organisation Improvement, Sixth edition, Prentice-Hall (1999), pp. 25-6.