Running head: ASSESSING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

1

Assessing Organizational Culture Aaron L. Bedingfield Southern Nazarene University - T-51 Master in Business Administration T 51 BADM 6123 Organizational Communications Professor, Rebecca Marks-Jimerson (Ruth)

ASSESSING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Assessing Organizational Culture In the life of any healthy organization there are always times that the culture must be examined and pronounced healthy, or correctly diagnosed for change. Typically the first

2

assessment a potential employee goes through is the general culture check, to see if they are a fit for the culture of the organization. Most often where this can go awry is when the organizational culture is unclear, incorrectly defined, or has no real stability. These types of cultures tend to morph constantly based on moods or fads. What most organizations do is attempt to capture the culture and describe it in written details. Organizations do this by distilling their beliefs and ideals into corporate policies and procedure manuals, which are commonly referred to as employee handbooks. The “Employee Handbook” now becomes the main purveyor of the company culture to the new employee, and the mentoring and journeyman apprenticing roles that once dominated our workforces has all but disappeared. Transfer of the culture really only happens when humans interact with one another. Yes, it is good to have some written guidelines and informational understanding, but the real contextual transfer of culture happens person to person. Most often the new employee is left to read the book on their own, possibly take a short test on the content, sign a form stating they were provided the material, and attest to the idea that they now understand nothing,,, err… everything about the culture. When in fact, they really do not know anything about the culture, at least