Culture is the sum of the beliefs that shape norms of behavior and
dictate the ways things get done in an organization. Ιt is not like a skin that
an organization can discard as it selects a new organizational culture that is
perceived to have strategic fit with its commercial strategy. Hofstede (2001)
thinks that culture is the collective programming of the mind that
distinguishes the members of one group from another. Others consider
culture as a system of shared values (Deshpande and Webster 1989).
Understanding culture can be useful in two ways. First, cultural insight
provides awareness of the extent to which organization members are willing
to accept change and a cultural assessment is likely to determine the root
cause of the problems that need stronger performance.
Culture is the sum of the beliefs that shape behavior and dictate the
ways things get done. A parallel definition of culture (Burke, 1994)
emphasizes on the meaning of events that are occurring in the workplace,
and how they influence how ways of doing things are introduced.
An organization with the best strategy in the world, but a culture that
won’t allow it to make that strategy happen is doomed from the beginning.
The importance of culture for managements lies in the fact that culture may
constrain business organization or may create opportunities and affect
marketing and product development (Blake and Laurence 1989). We must
say here that culture is ultimately held and maintained collectively by all
members of an organization and it acts as a moderating variable with respect
to the implementation of change.