Understanding Organizational Culture and Structure

By Danny Chung | April 16, 2019

Originally posted: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-organizational-culture-structure-danny-chung/

To better understand organizational culture and structure in an enterprise architecture (EA), we must take a closer look at the very framework what they are comprised of, how they function and how they interact with each other towards the fate of the enterprise.

Both structure and culture, particularly culture, have a very social aspect to it. This means that the human element is at the very core; and when the human element is involved, there is a tendency to have a particular “character” that the organization will reflect. The culture defines how humans interact with each other in a social setting which encompasses everything from their beliefs, customs, habits, values, symbols, language, assumptions, normative rules, preferences, material traits and of course, structure.

Structure would describe how the relationship and the coordination behave between each management level in the organization. This is crucial to the organization as it shows, and perhaps, establishes how various employees at different levels communicate with each other. And because of this, the structure drives the organization’s culture.

The Leavitt Diamond Model describes how the dynamics of four key components — namely structure, task, technology and people — interact with each other towards the organization’s success, or lack thereof. Any change in any one of these components will have an effect on the other components.

Meanwhile, the Parsons/Thompson Model, classified three general levels — namely technical, managerial and institutional — that are derived from various activities that transpire at each level. Further, the Parsons/Thompson Model also distinguishes various types of activities that may appear at each level. With this model, there is a stronger sense of hierarchy, formalization and goal-orientation on how medium and larger organizations function and behave.

Both structure and culture are crucial in an organization’s overall alignment with its goals, mission and objectives. In order for its stakeholders to buy-in, they all must be on the same page; they must come to a sort of agreement on how things should move forward and what is the best course of action to take. There must be a compromise on the allocation and utilization of the people, processes and resources to properly implement an effective EA in an organization.

Take for example an organization that has decided to change its vendor for their cloud computing services. This change is primarily a technology change. However, as we take a deeper look, we can see that there may be some tasks that would change, which could then cause some personnel changes due to those task changes, and this would result in a structural change. We can clearly see that there can be a cascading effect of how change in one element would have an effect on the other components.

References

Bernard, S. A. (2012). An Introduction to Enterprise Architecture (3rd ed.). Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse.

Bianca, A. (n.d.). Organizational Structure and Culture Change. Hearst Newspapers, LLC. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/organizational-structure-culture-change-16106.html

Needle, D. (2004). Business in Context: An Introduction to Business and Its Environment (4th ed). Italy: Thomson Learning

Ravasi, D.; Schultz, M. (2006). Responding to organizational identity threats: Exploring the role of organizational culture. Academy of Management Journal, 49 (3): 433–458.

Thakur, S. (n.d.). Leavitt’s Diamond: An Interactive Approach to Change. Bright Hub PM. Retrieved from https://www.brighthubpm.com/change-management/122495-a-look-at-the-components-of-leavitts-diamond/