Elements of the Case Study Management Term Paper Essay

Elements of the Case Study
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Elements of the Case Study
Organizations as Culture or the Culture Metaphor
Culture is a term that has been used extensively in organizations today. People talk of organizational cultures and how they impact the performance of an organization as well as the productivity of its employees without fully comprehending the term culture. Initially, people talked about the term culture alongside the ideas or concepts of norms, values, shared ideologies, and the day-to-day rituals. However, as Morgan notes, the world has moved from this understanding of culture to one that denotes the different perspectives or understandings that people have regarding a similar concept or idea. Organizations today employ different techniques and appear to submit or subscribe to ideologies which in the end shape the behavior and image of the organization entirely. Seeing an organization through the lens of culture means looking at its set of values as well as how the interactions between different groups within an organization ends up shaping behavior.
Every country has its own set of cultures which influence how things are done as well as how people approach work. These influences trickle down to the organizations which are found in a particular country. In his book, Gareth Morgan (139) agrees with the above notion and notes that “the point is that culture, whether Japanese, Arabian, British, Canadian, Chinese, French, or American, shapes the character of organization.” Organizations in Britain, for example, will embrace a culture that is guided or influenced by the culture of Britain. However, it goes further than this in that organizations further develop their own cultures which in turn influence how they conduct themselves and how their employees work. It is thus appropriate to say that organizations are mini-societies within the larger society of the country. These mini-societies also have their sub-cultures as well as other subcultures within the main subculture. However, it is crucial to stay vigilant as some of these subcultures could negatively influence the trajectory of an organization. Morgan (122) notes that “in Great Britain, generations of social change and class conflict often perpetuate antagonistic divisions in the workplace that no amount of conciliation and management technique seems able to overcome.” It is thus crucial to have certain rules and limits which seek to curtail or oversee the subcultures to avoid the instances when subcultures interfere with the goals of the organization.
AIG does adhere to the culture metaphor in the sense that it does have an organizational culture. The organization is multinational, and its influence is always felt in the world just like it was during the 2008/2009 financial crisis. AIG has been a leader in the world for several decades. However, because of its dysfunctional culture, the company found itself at the center of the financial crisis which almost crippled the entire world. This multinational organization almost fell, and it took a government bailout of $180 billion as well as the fact that it was too big to fall. The company’s culture has always been a liability in the sense that it denies p...