**3. The concept of organizational culture**

The term culture, which originally referred to the cultivation of fields, quickly gained a wider meaning. Since the times of Cicero, who wrote about the "cultivation of the human soul," it has been used in a metaphorical sense, referring to other spheres. In the broadest sense, culture encompasses all that is the aftermath of collective activity in the behavior of human societies. If one refers culture to an organization, it is the result of a joint action of managers and subordinates, aimed at achieving the set objective. It determines the manner of its implementation, resulting from the values professed in a given organization. Culture is about shared views, ideologies, values, beliefs, expectations, and norms [14]. By studying the organizational culture of a company, one learns about the way of thinking of its employees and the principles and norms they follow. With this knowledge, it is possible to choose effective methods of influencing their behaviors [15].

The adaptation of cultural analysis to business practice resulted in creating an organizational cultures elements canon. It includes cultural values, basic assumptions, social and organizational norms, ways of communication, stories, narratives, myths, metaphors, rituals, symbols, customs, organizational heroes, taboos, cultural patterns, cultural artifacts, and subcultures [16, 17]. Organizational culture is therefore a set of values manifested, among others, in such areas of behavior as the way employees are treated. It is a set of norms on how managers relate to their subordinates and how these subordinates relate to their subordinates [18].

The concept of organizational culture is broad-based, ambiguous, and abstract. Being a complex phenomenon, it is uneasy to analyze. The difficulties are caused by many reasons, one of which seems to be utterly important. It is the fact that organizational culture is not isolated from other elements of the whole organizational system. Multidirectional relationships with other subsystems (strategy, structure, human resource management, etc.) make culture arduous to study. Many elements and relationships between them are invisible, often unconscious, and thus difficult to observe and measure [19]. Despite that, researchers persistently strive to get to know organizational culture better because of the functions it performs. It sets boundaries, provides employees with a sense of identity, and facilitates their engagement not only in their own interest but in the interest of the entire organization. It is a social binder that serves to maintain the integrity of the organization thanks to standards that define what employees should do and how they should do it and what values should guide their behaviors. It also serves as an explanatory and control mechanism, shaping the attitudes and behaviors of employees [20]. The recognition of organizational culture as part of the organizational system makes it possible to study its relationship with other subsystems, for example, with the management system. In this work, the research problem was the interdependence between one of the organizational subsystems, that is, management and organizational culture. This issue has not received much attention so far. The article is an attempt to fill the existing gap in this field.

#### **3.1 The place of values in organizational culture**

The study of values is recognized as an appropriate and necessary part of the research on culture. "If we shy away from considering values, we cease to deal with something that is most important both within individual cultures and in human culture seen as a whole (…). When we eliminate values, we are left with a barren list of cultural elements or events, and there is a constant temptation to revive it by introducing the values we have just discarded, or by camouflaging the introduction of values derived from our culture" [21]. Benedict in "Patterns of Culture" [22] argues that the difference between cultures is not determined by the presence or absence of important values, but by the extent to which opposing values cooperate, that is, whether they are more or less synergistic in nature. If Benedict only analyzed values

### *Organizational Culture in Enterprises Applying the Humanistic and Economic Paradigm… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.113155*

without paying attention to the relationships between them, she would not be able to understand the subtleties and power of culture. Referring to her concept of synergy as transcending the dichotomy of values, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner [23] formulated the definition of culture, assuming that it is a scheme by which a group habitually mediates in the case of differences between values—for example, between rules and exceptions, technology and people, conflict, and consensus. Cultures can learn to reconcile such values at ever higher levels, so learning the many exceptions leads to better rules. Such reconciliation brings health, wealth, and wisdom. On the other hand, cultures in which one pole of values dominates and combats the other are a source of stress and plunge into stagnation.

American anthropologists Kluckhon and Strodbeck [24] argue that each culture emphasizes a limited number of values (called cultural values) that concern solving basic human problems. According to the dictionary, "values are culturally conditioned, established and transmitted views on what is desirable, beneficial and valuable in a given social reality: these views enter into mutual relations according to a hierarchy, creating a system of values and norms within a specific culture" [25].

The determination of individual cultures' typical values has long been used in the descriptions of cultures made by anthropologists or historians. In the most valuable characteristics or synthetic analyses presented by researchers such as Malinowski et al. an extraction of value determinations can be observed. "In this way, the description brings characteristics of the actual physiognomy of culture. Such a characteristic is important both in the internal aspect of its own coherence and non-contradiction, and in the external aspect – by formulating an implicit or explicit comparison with other described cultures" [21]. Values, like any other manifestation of culture, are part of nature and therefore fall within the field of science interest.

The concept of value derives from German words *Wert* and *Wuerde*, which mean honor, dignity, and seriousness. Values in an organization are a set of common features that determine the actions of people and thus constitute the criteria for making decisions. Some authors define values as the unique DNA of an organization that allows it to maintain its continuity and contributes to the consolidation of its market success. A value system assures that when making choices, everyone throughout the organization follows the same principles.

Numerous research of organizational culture emphasize that values are its key component. Ł. Sułkowski, who defines it as a "learned product of group experience based on values, norms, and resulting cultural patterns," perceives values as the core element. This view is consistent with the method of defining adopted by Schein et al. [17].

Ł. Sułkowski states that organizational culture contains four elements, the first of which—the most central—includes both terminal and instrumental values. The second element, forming another cultural circle, includes patterns, norms, and cultural rules, as well as rituals, myths, symbols, and taboos. These elements of culture are directly related to personal and environmental values and influence organizational behaviors (third element), constituting their basis. By embracing the behaviors of employees—intentional (conscious) and habitual (unconscious)—they shape the structure of communication and power in the organization. The last element, artifacts, is related to external, material aspects, such as the layout of space [26]. They are secondary to values, norms, and basic cultural assumptions. The system of elements established by Ł. Sułkowski is presented in **Figure 1**.

Assuming that values in an organization are centrally located, the study of organizational culture consists in the search for these values. It is easiest to observe the

#### **Figure 1.**

*Axiological model of organizational culture. Source: Sułkowski, 2002.*

"outer" layer of culture, including artifacts and behaviors [27]. By examining the external symptoms of culture, one can indirectly look for basic, internal elements. A study in search for different value configurations in organizations should include an analysis of all presented spheres leading to the identification of key values. Such a study—indirectly also through the study of "external" symptoms of culture—makes it achievable to reach the internal key elements. However, it is also possible to take a different path, omitting external elements, consisting in reaching the values directly. Such a straight way gives a greater chance of reaching all the values present in the organizational culture, allowing for its better recognition.
