Organizational culture

Academic English Skills Coursework 1: Source Report

Name:

Class:

Date:

Essay title or question:

Title:

If organizational culture is simply “the way we do things around here”, discuss using business examples, why organizational culture is important to business success.

Plan for overall structure of essay:

Plan for overall structure

Introduction :

Organizational culture is arguably the most important point of discussion in last 20 years. There is on-going debate on organizational culture on whether it affects the business success or overblows the workplace out of proportion. Organizational culture is the most primary tool that fosters the success in the organization. Organizational culture is the one sure thing that reinforces the importance of the values and behaviour within the company and assist in changing the unfit values and behaviours. Given the modern discussion, it is claimed that company culture improves the quality of employees and productivity of company leading toward success. A great organizational work culture inspires employees to contribute to the growth of overall business and company.

P1. Scholarly definitions of organizational culture

P2. Why care about organizational culture

P3. Benefits of strong culture

P4. How culture is actually leads to success

P5. Big corporations inspiring healthy organizational culture (business examples)

Conclusion

Part 1: Annotated List of Sources

Select TWO sources you have read and plan to use in your essay and complete the table below outlining:

· why the text is useful for your essay

· how you found the source.

You will focus on three different sources in part 2. Note that you should summarise and paraphrase key information in the text in to demonstrate that you have understood the sources. You may use bullet points. You are not marked for your language accuracy, but you will be penalised for copying text from the source.

Include a reference in the following format:

Books / chapters of books:

Surname, I. and Surname, I. (Year) Title of the book Place of Publication: Publisher

Surname, I. (Year) ‘Chapter of the book’ In: I. Surname & I. Surname (Eds) Title of the book Place of Publication:

Publisher pp.1 – 18

Journal articles (print/ online)

Surname, I. (Year) ‘The Title of the Article’ The Name of the Journal 1 (1), pp. 1- 18

Reports / articles online

Surname, I. (Year) ‘The Title of the Article or Report’ [Online] The Name of the Organisation or website. Available at:

url [Last Accessed 23.07.19]

Lectures / talks

Surname, I. (Year) ‘The Title of the Lecture or Talk’ [Online] TED Available at: url [Last Accessed 23.07.19]

Source 1

Type of source:

Research Article

Reference:

Warrick, D. D. (2017). What leaders need to know about organizational culture. Business Horizons, 60(3), 395-404.

This source is relevant because…

The research paper is very adequate in providing insight on the organizational culture and why it is important in the business setting. The research article states about the influence of organizational culture on productivity and moral of employees. Developing organizational culture in the company is the responsibility of a leader and unfortunately the company leaders are not aware of the effectiveness of organizational culture and its influence in producing strong and successful business integrated practice. Through understanding this article, the importance of organizational culture becomes more prominent in the modern business setting and effectively elaborates the position of present day leaders in company.

I found this source by…

I utilize “Google Scholar” search engine for finding this article. I opened the scholar’s web page and entered the key word “organizational culture” and leadership. Many interesting research articles were lined up and among them I picked this article for my essay.

Source 2

Type of source:

Research article

Reference:

Adekoya, O. D., Jimoh, I., Olajide, M., & Olawoyin, F. (2019). The Significance of Organizational Culture and Leadership Behaviour on Organizational Success. International Journal of Science and Management Studies. 2(5). 48-61

This source is relevant because…

The research article provides on-going understanding and debate about the importance of organizational culture with respect to organizational performance. Culture of company includes values, assumption, approaches and even leadership style, but performance of company is based on positive organizational behaviour motivated by leader. Furthermore, this article stands as foundation to provide relationship between organizational culture and organizational success under empirical data. Through establishing business goals and link, culture is noted as two way effect on company success. This research article narrates the influence of top management and positive outcome of company under the organizational culture perspective.

I found this source by…

I found is research article from Google search engine while searching for relationship between culture and success in business sources. The key words for this search were targeted for broader understanding. “relationship between culture and company success” were my search key words and abstract of this article was given. I was able to get the whole article after downloading the article.

Part 2: Source Report

Complete the source report for THREE more sources you have read. Include:

· The reference

· How you have identified the source as suitable for academic use

· Three main points from the source which are useful for your essay, the supporting information for each idea or argument and which paragraph in the essay each main point is useful for. Make sure you cover at least three different aspects of your essay.

· Conclusions you have drawn from your reading.

Source 3

Reference:

Tran, S.K. (2017). GOOGLE: a reflection of culture, leader, and management. Int J Corporate Soc Responsibility 2, 10.

Source Evaluation

Currency

When was the text published? Are the citations and references used in the text current?

The research article is published in 2017 by a journal publication making its information correct in time frame. The references and citations used in this article expand from more than a decade, making this article well researched. The facts and information provided are relevant to the topic extensively.

Authority

Who is the author / organisation? Are they qualified? Is the source peer-reviewed?

The research article is published by academic scholar. So the authority of author over the information is authenticated. Furthermore, this article is published in peer reviewed journal and this indicates that author is experiences and professional in the academic publication and has appropriate degree in management sciences.

Accuracy

Where does the information in the article come from? Are academic conventions used?

The article is published in peer review journal. It has well researched information and holds authentication from journal peer review as well. The citation and references used in this article are academic publication and there are no possible contradictions in information.

Use of Source

Relevant key point from the text

Supporting evidence / example/ data for the key point

This point is useful for paragraph…

1. Culture is listed as number one in many factors leading to success of business processes.

There are many factors leading to the success of business process re-engineering in higher education. The four elements are culture, process, structure and technology. Culture is number one (Tran, 2017)

This point is important for the introduction part and for illustrating the significance of corporate culture in business paragraph 3. This supporting text would highlight the important and act as opening line for paragraph.

2. Organizational culture leads to hiring of new employees that are not attracted on monetary basis but due to strong working environment and meaningful work.

If an organization wants to hire talented people who cannot be recruited in cash, they must focus on building a great working culture. This includes working environment, meaningful work, and employees’ freedom (Tran, 2017)

This point is very essential in Paragraph 5 which illustrates the business example and how culture inspires best work. Google is taken as case study and this supporting text would provide essential foundation to elaborate that Google works on this philosophy and currently is best company.

3. The pre-dominate culture at Google is to contribute ideas and opinions for more friendly working environment.

The predominant culture aimed at Google is an open culture, where everybody and customer can freely contribute their ideas and opinions to create more comfortable and friendly working environment (Tran, 2017)

The supporting text would be beneficial in Paragraph 5 in Google case study to elaborate the dominate culture of organization and how company is benefiting from it for long term perspective.

Source 4

Reference:

Patel, S. (2015) ‘10 Examples of Companies With Fantastic Cultures [Online] entrepreneur. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/249174

[Last Accessed 2.04.20]

Source Evaluation

Currency

When was the text published? Are the citations and references used in the text current?

The website article was published in 2015 and the information founded in the web page is relevant to the topic. Although there are no current citation and references used in this web page but the case studies are used to explain their point under current relevancy.

Authority

Who is the author / organisation? Are they qualified? Is the source peer-reviewed?

The author is this web page is Patel who is entrepreneur, marketer and co-founder of Web Profits. He is also a valuable contributor of Entrepreneur. His opinions are noted as expert view on management and entrepreneurship. Keeping his experience in mind, this article contain authority element in it.

Accuracy

Where does the information in the article come from? Are academic conventions used?

The opinion by author is presented under close observation and the information is accurate to the best of observation. The author is expert and opinion expression for this website and thus his views are respected in the website contribution as accurate as well.

Use of Source

Relevant key point from the text

Supporting evidence / example/ data for the key point

This point is useful for paragraph…

1. Google sets the tone for the culture in many business start ups and expanded it to have uniform culture.

Google has been synonymous with culture for years, and sets the tone for many of the perks and benefits startups are now known for (Patel, 2015).

This text is relevant for the Paragraph 5 to elaborate the role of Google in providing uniform culture for start up.

2. Twitter employees can’t stop raving about company culture.

Employees can’t stop talking about how they love working with other smart people.(Patel, 2015).

This supporting text would be beneficial for the paragraph 5 and to put forward another case study of successful company that benefits from organizational culture.

3. Facebook is highly influenced by Google and continue to follow its suit to become number 1 in technological field.

Just like Google, Facebook is a company that has exploded in growth as well as being synonymous with unique company culture (Patel, 2015)

This information is relevant to put forth the examples of Fortune 500 companies and illustrate the fact that there are other companies who follow the Google initiatives and become best in culture.

Source 5

Reference:

Kotter. P.J. (2008). Corporate Culture and Performance. Simon and Schuster. London

Source Evaluation

Currency

When was the text published? Are the citations and references used in the text current?

The book was published in 2008 and is published by well know published. The book is very relevant to the topic of corporate culture and all the information presented in the book is noted to be accurate and relevant to text.

Authority

Who is the author / organisation? Are they qualified? Is the source peer-reviewed?

The author of book is John P. Kotter and in this book author has done comprehensive critical analysis on the management. The author is professor at Harvard Business School and thus the text holds authority.

Accuracy

Where does the information in the article come from? Are academic conventions used?

The author of book is professor at Harvard Business School and he has extensive literature available to comprehensively provide insight on corporate culture perspective. The book is published as academic contribution and thus accuracy element is present in it.

Use of Source

Relevant key point from the text

Supporting evidence / example/ data for the key point

This point is useful for paragraph…

1. Culture becomes the strength , when it is aligned with goals.

The logic of how cultural strength related to performance is through goal alignment (Kotter,2008).

This source is very beneficial in the Paragraph 3 and 4 that effectively elaborate the benefits of strong culture and company utilize the power of culture for their benefits. In these two paragraphs, strong culture and how it can be used by the top management is analysed and assessed. What factors contributes to the corporate culture success in any business and how top management creates strategic values through culture. These are important points extracted from this source and elaborated in the topic.

2. motivation is another factor that contributes to the culture of company in positive way.

Strong cultures help in business performance through unusual level of motivation in employees (kotter, 2008).

3. The top management under the corporate culture can preform performance, but inwardly economic performance and strategies matters.

In the increasing competitive and rapid changing world, the culture undermines economic performance and blindly follows new corporate strategies (Kotter, 2008).

Conclusions drawn from your reading

Organizational culture is the most important element that fosters success in business. Success is not obtained through hard work and building strategic management. Rather, business success is largely contributed by motivating and aligning the organizational goals with company culture. The big corporations like Facebook, Google, Twitter and IBM all take advantage of corporate culture in building their team stronger and enhancing their innovation under cooperative culture. Employees are not targeted on the monetary basis, but productivity and integration of stable working environment and condition become bench mark for companies. Unfortunately leaders underestimate the power of organizational culture, but in reality culture holds more power to turn any failure into success. Organizational culture thus becomes the significant element in company success.

You will be given a tutorial following submission of the assessment. In the tutorial, you will be asked to:

· Show your tutor how you found your sources

· Talk your tutor through what you think are the useful parts of the sources

You will also be given opportunity to:

· Ask any questions you have on the assessment

· Get feedback on the work you have done so far

This assessment is worth 40% of your reading mark.