Blog 1: Can cultures be managed within organizations?

Corporate culture has long been regarded to be of critical importance to the development of organizations in different industry sectors (Oertig and Buergi, 2016). It is especially the case when it comes to the influences of the concrete culture shared among an organization on the management efficiency and work performance of employees included in different departments of the organization while competing with other business rivals in the marketplace that is filled with all sorts of barriers to desirable successes. Despite that, compared with many aspects of management in an organization in the business world, corporate culture is viewed as to be more intangible in a sense, especially in terms of its formation and evolution processes.

Challenges in culture changes in retail industry

In the process of making changes to their corporate cultures, business players in the retailing industry sector, especially chain stores, tend to be facing a variety of challenges on the way to expected successes (Smith, 2012). For retail businesses, they are likely to be facing such main challenges in their culture change processes as resistance from existing members, lack of innovative thinking, cross-cultural management barriers and contradiction between different interest groups within the organization.

(Devine et al., 2017)

Some leaders and workers in a retailing business tend to be reluctant in accepting or supporting changes of cultures or relevant management solutions to be implemented. That may be due to their worries about harms to be observed or great efforts needed for them to re-adjust to the new work environment they are in. Without sufficient attention paid to innovative thinking, managers in a retailing business would find it difficult to create or implement practical change management solutions relating to their corporate culture. That would involve a variety of factors relating to the resources or capabilities, as well as environments facing the organization. When members from varying cultural backgrounds work in an organization in the retailing industry sector, as is the case in many other industry sectors, it would be a challenging task for practical or feasible solutions or plans to be used in exploring optimal potentials of all members (Devine et al., 2017). That makes a critical source of barriers in effective cultural change management practices. The varying concerns or contradiction between interest groups within an organization can lead to disputes or conflicts between them, thus causing barriers to culture change practices as well.

Principal challenges facing Tesco in its cultural changes

While operating its businesses in the British market, Tesco has been enjoying outstanding successes by way of making good use of its capable management talents in the past stages of its business development (Barbosa and Cardoso, 2018). However, under the recent changing contexts, in terms of economy and politics, especially those relating to the Brexit, the organization has been facing great barriers on the way to desirable business performance. It is in need of making adjustments or improvements to its corporate culture to positively respond to the plight facing it. The principal challenges facing it in changing its culture in management practices mainly relate to the reluctance of some senior managerial personnel who prefer to rely on their past management experiences in decision making and implementation of plans on varying occasions. In addition to that, it is reported that the organization is also facing the problem of lack of attention paid by the top management group in application of innovative thinking in reality management processes. The marketing strategies adopted in the organization are regarded to be ineffective in helping it positively and timely respond to the uncertainties and changing trends in the target market.

(Barbosa and Cardoso, 2018)

Strategies of managing cultures

To achieve desirable successes in the future, the organization has been paying special attention to talent retention and development, as well as innovative thinking to be applied in key areas of operations practices. The advertising programs used in the organization are featured in higher level of attractiveness and diversity when compared with that in the previous stages (Toit, 2018). More motivational measures, such as awards for novel designs in management or product development, and unconventional solutions to the same problems are encouraged by the senior management for reaching greater successes in changing its culture for improving competitiveness.

Cultures can be managed

On the whole, cultures in organizations in the retailing industry sector can be managed. That would require high level of comprehensive thinking and innovative thinking on the part of the decision makers though. The relationships between varying variables or groups involving the culture change management processes should be considered systematically to reach optimal successes.

References

Barbosa, I., & Cardoso, C. (2018). Managing diversity in current organizations: a challenge to organizational culture. New Perspectives in Management Review, 22(22), 274-288.

Devine, F., Baum, T., Hearns, N., & Devine, A. (2017). Managing cultural diversity: opportunities and challenges for northern ireland hoteliers. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 19(2), 120-132.

Oertig, M., & Buergi, T. (2016). The challenges of managing cross-cultural virtual project teams. Team Performance Management, 12(1/2), 23-30.

Smith, M. E. (2012). The importance and challenge of managing the business culture. Sage Publications.

Toit, C. M. D. (2018). Transforming and managing the organisational culture of modern firms to meet the challenges of a changing environment. South African Journal of Higher Education, 10, 96-104.