从组织文化方面认识欧莱雅公司

Recognize L’Oreal from Organisational Culture Perspective

Introduction

Organizational culture is a very controversial concept. Some scholars believe that culture consists

of shared values, goals, practices, norms and beliefs that characterize an organization, while others

against

it.

Generally,

organisational

culture

could

be

considered

as

a

“personality,

philosophy,

ideology or climate of an organisation

”

(David and Andrzej, 2010). On one side, it affects the task

issues

—

how

a

company,

institution

or

group

performs.

On

another

side,

it

also

influences

the

emotional

matters

—

how

workers

interact

with

colleagues,

customers

and

managers;

how

they

think and feel about their organisation.

In

this

paper,

a

critical

appraisal

of

organisational

culture

is

conducted

at

the

beginning.

Then,

based

on

Edgar

Henry

Schein?s

Model

of

organisational

culture,

L?Oreal

Company

is

used

as

example to help the author

identify the main variables that influence company?s culture

and shape

organisational behavior.

Organisational Culture Concepts

Definition and Debate

In early 1980s, since the book of William (1981), Peters and Waterman (1982), Deal and Kennedy

(1982),

as

well

as

Pascale

and

Anthony

(1982)

have

been

published,

organisational

culture

gradually

became

to

a

hot

topic.

These

publications

all

pointed

out

that

the

culture

exerts

significant impact on organisation

s? behavior and performance.

During the same period,

Japan?s

industrial

success

also

proved

this

viewpoint:

the

managers

in

company

might

achieve

better

organisational

effectiveness via changing their companies? culture.

After

then,

not

only

managers

but

also

university

academics

began

to

throw

great

interests

in

organisational culture. In order to achieve various researching purposes, many scholars attempted

to refine the concept, seeking and operationalize the culture (Deal and Kennedy, 2000; Alvesson,

2001;

David

and

Andrzej,

2010).Edgar

Schein

(1984)

was

amongst

the

first

of

them,

and

his

theory of organisational culture will be discussed in next part.

Since the rise of organisational culture, the debate about it then appeared. While some managerial

writers asserted that there is connection between a strong culture and organisational performance

(Furnham

and

Gunter,

1993),

others,

include

some

social

science

academics

maintained

that

organisational culture

is “a term that is overused, over inclusive

, but under-defined

” (David and

Andrzej, 2010). The debate between these two camps could be simply summarized as follow:

The

writers,

such

as

Peters

and

Waterman,

Deal

and

Kennedy,

Schein

and

so

forth,

claim

that

every organization has its single, unique culture. It could be considered as a variable, and can be

created

and

modified

by

senior

manager.

Through

creating

a

strong

culture,

employees

are

encouraged to feel worthwhile to work (Smircich, 1993; Schein, 2004; Burman and Evans, 2008).

In contrast, the social science scholars see

“culture as something that organisation is”

(David and

Andrzej,

2010).It

is

produced

by

the

routine

interactions

between

organisation

members,

and

cannot be easily quantified or measured by manager. An organisation consists of many groups, and

each of them has own different characteristic subcultures. Employees in each group have various

motivations,

goals,

beliefs,

values

and

experience.

Thus,

culture,

as

a

useful

tool,

can

enable

managers to control and reduce these differences of employs (Ray, 1986; Ackroyd and Cowley,

1990; Gratton and Erikson; 2007).

Anyway, although the voice from two camps is different, both them think organisational culture is

important. Because, it can shape the image of an organisation; it guide employees behavior and

determine whether them collaborate or compete with each other; and, to some extent, it provides

the direction for organisation.

Strong Culture and Weak Culture

Since

the

culture

play

significant

role

in

organisation,

it

is

useful

to

indentify

the

distinction

between strong culture and weak culture.

O?Reilly described that

the core values of strong culture

could

widely

shared

among

employees

and

intensely

held

by

them.

In

contrast,

weak

cultures

made employees had less agreement about the core value of their organisation. However, although

some companies with strong culture, such as Apple, McDonald?s, perform brilliant in recent years,

it

still

cannot

prove

strong

culture

lead

a

better

perform

than

the

weak

one.

Because,

company

success, depends on many factors other than culture.

Companies?

financial success may cause its

culture become stronger, but, a strong culture leads success only if it is appropriate (Gordon and

DiTomaso, 1992). Not only that, strong culture also has some disadvantages.

For example, it is

slow to develop and difficult to change. And it makes merging with an organisation become more

difficult.

Culture Types

Organisational

cultures

have

been

classified

by

several

methods.

The

first

one

should

be

mentioned

is

Charles

Handy?s

(1993)

classification.

It

developed

from

the

1972

work

of Roger

Harrison,

which

based

on

the

culture

framework.

Charles

describes

Harrison?s

four

types

of

culture:

?

Power Culture

. A single, dominant person exerts his/her will; Few rules. For example, a

small start-up restaurant runs by its owner.

?

Role Culture.

Functional departments and specialties exert their power; Focus on rules.

For example, bureaucracies.

?

Task Culture.

Based on experts; Team work. For example, Ted Bates.

?

Person Culture

. Focus on individuals; Rare. For example, small start-up law firms.

The

second

import

classification

from

Rob

Goffee

and

Gareth Jones

(2003).

They

divided

also

four types of culture as:

?

?

?

?

Communal Culture

(High sociability/High solidarity).

Members think and act friendly

to each others; Adhere to company?s value; High degree of cohesion.

Network

Culture

(High

sociability/Low

solidarity).

Members

act

friendly

but

think

different to each other; High competitive environment.

Mercenary Culture

(Low

Sociability/High

solidarity).Members

think

alike

but

are

not

friendly to each others; High competitive environment.

Fragment Culture

(Low sociability/Low solidarity): Members think and act differently

and unfriendly; Depend on key individuals.

Actually, one organisation often has different culture in different sections. For example, at L'Oré

al

cosmetic company, product researching department has task culture but marketing and accounting

departments

own

role

culture.

And,

these

cultures

are

not

fixed

forever,

they

would

change

as

company personal and strategy changed.

Analysis Based o

n Schein’s

Model

Edgar

Schein,

an

MIT

Sloan

School

of

Management

professor,

His

model

of

culture

now

is

widely

accepted

worldwide.

According

to

Schein,

culture

has

three

cognitive

levels

(Figure

1).

The first level is the surface manifestation of culture, also called ?observable culture?. It included

the

most

visible

things

(e.g.

ceremonials,

courses,

heroes,

language,

legends,

mottoes,

norms,

sagas,

slogans,

stories,

symbols

and

others)

produced

by

a

culture.

The

second

one

is

organisational values. These are accumulated beliefs about how do employees work and how their

solve

problems.

Values

can

distinguish

on

organisation

from

another.

The

third

level

is

basic

assumption. Basic assumptions are invisible understandings held by members in an organisation,

concerning “the

nature of

reality

and

the

organisation?s

relationship

to

its

environment”

(She

in,

1997). It can be summarized in brief statements such as quality, morality, stability, responsibility

and innovativeness.

Figure 1: Schein’s Level of Culture (Schein, 2004)

Based

on

Schein?s

model,

the

author

tries

to

analyse

the

organisational

culture

of

L?Oreal

Company.

L?Oreal

is

the

world?s

largest

cosmetics

and

beauty

Group,

and

has

more

than

890

different companies around the world, selling hair care, skin care, make-up, perfumes and other

beauty products in over 130 countries. Walking into an L

?Oreal?s

retail store, you will notice that