Describe The Aspect Of Culture In Organisations (Essay Sample)

Culture and Organisations
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Introduction
Background Information
Many companies and their economic growth take a downward trajectory, a recessionary spiral (Jalabert-Doury, 2012). This trend is observed in almost all companies across the globe There has been an increase in the competition for the environment in the recent past. The competition has not only heightened but has also become more complex. Companies have resolved on innovation for their survival. The current times, in terms of economic crisis, have made the performance of although there are those that are more affected than others.
The industry dealing with steel is characterized by different cycles depending on the demand for steel. In the years around 1990 pushing to the years of the early 2000s, the global demand for steel went down as the price of steel went low. This was the period when steel was said to have taken to its worst in terms of sales and demand. The steel industry came under pressure to try and save on the costs so that companies could restructure and reshuffle their workforce. This led to commissioning and building of several factories producing steel in China for the industry to satisfy the demand but this also did not mitigate the strain that the steel companies were under (Jing, Cheng, Gan, Woon & Lo, 2014). The effects and the strain went on increasing day in day out.
At this time, the steel and mining industry was also characterized by consolidation. Prior to this period, this industry was filled with a few medium sized players and most of the world’s steel originated from these very small companies. The downward pressure that was present in the industry especially in respect to the price of steel, made these companies to close down while others were swallowed by the mega companies which emerged. Among the companies that arose from this turmoil is one company known as ArcelorMittal (Shi & Wang, 2011). The recent years have seen an increase in the global demand for steel which has been driven so much by the rapid economic growth in China. Demand has further been fueled by rapid infrastructural developments in India as well as in Africa. This rise in demand has led to the steel becoming one of the major trade items and thus attracting very many key players in the industry.
This upsurge came to an abrupt halt when the current economic crisis unraveled. The fall in the credibility of the world banking system and the acquisition of credit becoming an infeasible task has led to a decline in industries such as the motoring industry. This affects steel industry directly as the motor vehicle industry is one of the major consumers of steel (Clark & Jokung, 2015). There is the perception among many novices that there is a high demand for steel but the truth is that steel traders and merchants are still struggling to be able to lessen the stock that they have for steel, motivated by inadequate availability of credit in the banking sector. Consequently, this has led to a severe increase in the price of steel. Similarly, it has led to some steel companies announcing the reduction in their operations or complete closure in their operations.
Over the years, the steel industry focused on the reduction workforce for it to save on costs but the current industry is focusing on heightening the productivity of the existing workforce (Akkas, Chakma & Hossain, 2015). Indeed, there is great need to increase the productivity in the steel industry. This study will focus on the impact and implementation of an initiative known as World Class Manufacturing. It will focus on this initiative as applied in ArcelorMittal South Africa – Saldanha Works.
The steel industry is one of the key pillars of economic growth across the world. It is steel that makes up almost everything that is used by people all over the globe. These items range from kitchen utensils, metal furniture, houses we live in, and cars to mention but a few. The industrial revolution was motivated by steel. Success and preference of steel is attributed to the low cost that is involved and its ability to satisfy varied demands of manufactures, designers, builders as well as it ductility and malleability. That is the ability of steel to be able to be shaped into different forms (Li, Xu & Bai, 2013). Many infrastructural investments in the current world are pushing for a high demand of steel especially in the developing countries such as Asia, China, India and Africa.
ArcelorMittal South Africa began in 1996 engineered by Iscor as well as by the Industrial Development Corporation as a way of creating jobs to the residents of West Coast of South Africa(Jones & Birch, 2011). Since the steel industry was on the decline, this was a very wise move. The company faced challenges from its inception due to the fact that it was mainly financed by debts. It was known as Saldanha Steel Pty. Limited. ArcelorMittal was formed as a merger between Arcelor and Mittal Steel which was another mega producer of steel. This led to the creation of one of the biggest producer of steel in the world controlling more than 10 percent of the steel production in the world. This research seeks to look into the theoretical framework and concepts in analysing the culture of an organization especially ArcelorMittal Company.
Theoretical framework
There are about four main motivators as to why a company would wish to implement World Class Manufacturing. The first one is due to the fact that the economic environment has become unfavourable and unfriendly and the organization or company wants to concentrate on reducing the cost through eliminating disturbances that come in the process of production. The other one is that the customer demands for the quality of products have gone high and the company wants to refurbish these products (Tшnnessen, 2013). In addition, customers want quicker delivery of well packaged products and lastly the need for working conditions that are harmful and the company wants to do away with dangerous working conditions.
Cross cultural leadership has been found by many researchers to be a dominant factor in determining the culture of an organization. Dimensions of culture are best assessed through Hofstede’s model of culture. These include power distance, human orientation, uncertainty avoidance, individuality versus collectivism, egalitarianism, a long term orientation, assertiveness and performance orientation (Zamanabadi, 2013). With many organizations in South Africa, it is of noble importance to look into where the organizational culture comes in. This is essential as it limits the effects of cross cultural conflicts in an organization as workers are able to co-exist harmoniously and in understanding. As this research basically highlights the cultural implications in ArceloMittal Company in South Africa, it thus addresses conflicts that occur in managerial positions and the high employee turnover and such others like cultural clashes which kills individual’s morale to work hard to meet the organization’s goals.
Other than Hofstedes model, there is the Scheins model which does not adopt culture. This is formed as employees undergo through various changes and as they adapt too new changes in their workplaces. It is based on the levels of artifacts, values and assumed values. Artifacts refers to those characteristics of an organization that can be viewed or observed. Values is the other level and constitutes the organisation’s values of the followers or employees. The last one is the assumed values which cannot be measured but makes a difference to the behavior and culture of an organization. Certain beliefs and facts that are usually hidden affect the way in which an organization acts and progresses. The best model for this research was however Hofstede’s model.
This paper sought to use Hofstede’s model of national culture as this would be effective in evaluating the adjustments and changes from organizational culture at ArceloMittal company. The objectives being to ascertain as to whether there are any changes in the ArceloMittal organizational culture, which consisted of whites only, and whether there has been visible changes that include Africans and other ethnic communities in the management pillar (KoзyiДџit, 2015). It also seeks to analyze changes brought about by other ethnic groups in the organization and ultimately attempt to establish other workplace implications realized as a result of the factors mentioned above. In the year 2007, ArcelorMittal conducted an employee engagement survey which sought out to discover those factors that prevented diversity as well as the transformation of organizational culture (Rakowska, Valdes-Conca, & Juana-Espinosa, 2015). It was evident that the organization’s workforce became more inclusive since other ethnic communities were represented and there was a lack of balance between the operating environment and the organizational culture
When the apartheid system of leadership died, there has been increase in the equal representation in many managerial positions for both men and women. Black females are however not well represented (Merkin, 2011). The structure of management of ArcelorMittal was no exception in the representation and the underrepresentation. Before 1994, ArcelorMittal’s ladder of management comprised purely of 100% white males. There has however been a change in the succeeding years due to the policy of attaining a cross-cultural leadership that would assist in obtaining a non-racist and non-sexist society in South Africa.
Discussion of Central Topic
The culture of an organization refers to system of shared assumptions, beliefs and values which actually govern the in which people behave and act in an organization. The shared values usually have a strong influence on t...