Organizational Culture. Creativity & Innovation

Is organizational culture important to the success of a business? This is the fundamental question that many authors have tried to answer in their books and articles. The idea that has been put across is that effective organizational culture is an advantage to any business as it is one of the main strategies that lead to a successful organization. However, it has been discovered that for an organizational culture to be effective it must also be integrated with values and norms that promote innovation and change (Büschgens 2013).
It is noted that a good organizational culture promotes and boosts employee performance. This is because culture goes beyond setting some rules and regulations that must be followed to creating a discipline in which the objective is not whether rules are being broken rather the objective becomes whether the target and goals of the organization are being attained (Chatman & Cha 2003).
Who is responsible for establishing and maintaining a culture in an organization? Is it the management team, the employees or both? This is a question of significance that needs to be addressed because understanding this will help improve an organizations performance.
What makes a strong culture? This is another key idea that is always mentioned when looking into the subject of organizational culture. A strong culture is characterized by the level of agreement among employees and the intensity of the identified values. However, in many organizations it is difficult to find both characteristics in place, mostly it is only characteristic that is working, and this becomes more of a challenge than a benefit to the organization.

Organizational culture should have its main goal as customer satisfaction, and therefore every employee should work with this goal in mind. How effective a culture will be is dependent on the attitude and behaviors that the employees have, and it is thus important to foster good relationships with them (Blanchard & Barrett 2010).
When deciding on the type of organizational culture to adapt, it is important not to make assumptions. One should consider all the stakeholders and make a decision that can accommodate the majority, and that will boost the performance of the business. Founders/owners of businesses have also been found to take more risky decisions compared to professionals. This is because the founders are willing to do everything to see their business succeed (Schein 1983).
References
Blanchard, K., & Barrett, C. (2010). Lead with LUV: A different way to create real success. FT Press.
Büschgens, T., Bausch, A., & Balkin, D. B. (2013). Organizational culture and innovation: A meta‐analytic review. Journal of product innovation management, 30(4), 763-781.
Chatman, J. A., & Cha, S. E. (2003). Leading by leveraging culture. California management review, 45(4), 20-34.
Schein, E. H. (1983). The role of the founder in creating organizational culture. Organizational dynamics, 12(1), 13-28.