CC BY
15
I.I. Volostnova
senior teacher, department of foreign languages, Sakhalin Institute of Railway Transport
A.V. Goreva senior teacher, department of economics, Sakhalin Institute of Railway Transport
THEORETICAL AND MANAGERIAL ASPECTS OF DEVELOPING A COMPANY'S ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE IN THE MODERN PERIOD
Annotation. The article deals with different aspects of developing a company's organizational (or corporate) culture in the changing economic and political situation in modern Russia. It analyses the interactions between a corporate culture and efficiency of a company's business activities.
Key words: organizational (corporate) culture, efficiency, effectiveness, potential, environment, competitive abilities, interaction.
Under the current conditions of complex social and economic situation in Russia, a company's activity is subject to serious transformation, namely, up-grading of innovation potential, business restructuring, strengthening of organizational culture, high producibili-ty and research intensity, etc.
The priority task of transforming Russian economy is to maintain and increase competitive abilities as well as to develop the company's economic potential. Under current market conditions, the companies are forming their own system of management aiming at up-grading of labour resources and raising operating efficiency.
We believe the importance of organizational culture to be under-estimated nowadays. The development and modernization of the company's organizational culture makes it possible to increase both the productivity rates and utilization of labour resources.
Modern companies should arrange their business with due consideration of Russia's historical peculiarities and specific features of the region where they operate.
Alongside with these factors, attention should be paid to demographic determinants, which importance is likely to increase at present, due to the strengthening of the role of human capital in the complicated and changing environment of the Russian society.
Thus, the mobilizing market environment issues a growing number of challenges to modern enterprises:
1. Raising the efficiency of management system;
2. Mobilizing of internal reserves;
3. Rational utilizing of resources;
4. Improving of management technology;
5. Raising the efficiency of scientific and technical activities;
6. Up-dating of organizational culture.
To develop competitive and efficient business, a company should overcome a problem of working-out some tools for reasonable and flexible interaction with the environment.
Increasing a company's competitive abilities in the market is the basic point of efficient business policy contributing to the best economic benefits.
One of the most efficient methods of coordinating a company's economic activity
nowadays is an organizational (or corporate) culture, as it binds all structural elements together and ensures their interaction, proving to be one of the main management tools.
At present, the efficient corporate culture is a qualitative dominant idea of economic growth and any company's potential.
During the Russian economy development, the companies mostly tended to make as much profit as they could rather than to build up an efficient environment. Today the tendency is to reform the system of management and shift the priorities to value-oriented approach.
A corporate culture is evidently becoming an integral part of any enterprise aiming to achieve maximum effectiveness, being no more a tribute to the 'West'.
The phenomenon of a corporate culture is quite controversial, with a number of approaches to define it. Most of them analyze the content of this phenomenon rather than its economic effectiveness. We, therefore, believe it important to make a research of the development of organizational culture and its impact on raising the efficiency and competitive abilities of a company.
A number of factors affect the development of a corporate culture within Russia's market economic environment:
1. Unbalanced and underdeveloped basic industries of national economy;
2. Transfer from mechanistic management tools to up-dating of human resources managerial system, thus raising a company's competitiveness;
3. Economic globalization and changes in a company's interactions with the environment;
4. Enhancement of the role of professional ethics and responsibility and others.
To strengthen its position in the world market, Russia needs to transfer to absolutely new innovative path of development which requires arranging an appropriate business culture with regard to the above-mentioned factors.
In order to develop an effective system of a corporate culture, the following conditions should be considered:
- transparency of managerial system,
- modernization of social and economic sphere,
- advance in moral and spiritual values,
- up-to-date system of economic development,
- integrated assessment of social and cultural factors.
An organizational (or corporate) culture can be defined as a set of the most important assumptions, ideas, sights, basic values and behavior models accepted by members of an enterprise, as well as the ways of organizing a business which define a company's individual style. [3].
The growing importance of a corporate culture as a factor essential for the development of a competitive organization is based on the following:
1. Business environment is a key indicator of the present-day economic society; a corporate culture is considered to be the essential factor affecting the development of this environment in terms of economic intercourse;
2. Modern society is moving to a totally new level of its development, this process contributing to the sources of a corporate culture formation and development;
3. At present, we face the problems of methodological nature affecting the development of a corporate culture, such as disordered and sketchy ways of studying and analyzing of the components crucial for both organizational culture and a company's effectiveness.
Efforts should be made to re-focus the existing corporate culture on such concepts like recognition and respect for the individual, a limited integration of personal interests
into a system of a company's inner relationship, orientation to a company's scale of values shared by all its employees [2].
The present-day economists define a number of reasons for decreasing of competitive abilities and effectiveness of modern enterprises. Many researchers have agreed that the most important of them is imperfection of the system of human resources management, namely a corporate culture.
Any crisis in society is sure to result in transformation and losing a person's social objectives and self-identification. This, in its turn, leads to violation of human values as well as social and economic integrity.
As the political and economic environment has been transforming from central planning into a market economy, the business sphere has also been a subject to fundamental changes within a short period. The uncertainty of economic objectives and overall imbalance in economy made it necessary to reconsider the goals and philosophy of a company's business activity, and to place a priority on the importance and effectiveness of human resources.
Nowadays, enterprises tend to act as multi-functional and mobile institutions carrying out their activity oriented at a set of goals and targets, with due consideration of industrial specific features and limited resources.
For a company to be effective, attention should be paid to the achievements of social, economic and cultural background. A constant monitoring of a company's activity should be performed in order to reveal ways and tools for increasing the efficiency of human resources management system. This will help optimize a company's social system and contribute to its dynamic development.
As we have already mentioned, attention should also be paid to demographic determinants, which importance is likely to increase at present, due to the strengthening role of human capital in the complicated and changing environment of the Russian society.
As far as personnel issues are concerned, efforts should be made not only to save but also to maintain and develop the human resources. Increasing a company's competitive abilities should provide for the creation of a strategy focused on employee's individuality and his self-development.
Globalizing of economic environment and increased integration of Russian business sphere, as well as the increasing activity of foreign enterprises in our country makes it necessary to build up a brand new system of relationship between an employer and a specialist both inside and outside the organization.
Besides this, a competitive specialist is considered to be acquainted with cultural features and traditions of those companies and individuals he has to deal with.
Russian companies are being actively involved into the transformation processes taking place in our society. And they have to respond accordingly and promptly both to the changing environmental factors and the dramatic re-forming of their organizational system.
The character of business environment having changed, the main target is set to create a mobile and effective organization with a stable corporate culture contributing to its dynamic development.
An organizational culture is a complex and diverse phenomenon with a system of both direct and indirect relations between its structural components [1]. It shapes the behavior rules and activity goals of a company's members, facilitates adaptation of employees, and helps reveal the potential and increase motivation and communicative skills. Alongside with recognizing each worker's unique features, skills and abilities, it therefore contributes to raising the overall efficiency and performance potential of an enterprise.
In summary, it should be noted that the scientists' and entrepreneurs' interest to a corporate culture and its interconnection with a company's effectiveness is likely to continue growing nowadays.
References:
1. Ivanova T.B., Zhuravleva E.A. Organizatsionnaya cultura i effectivnost'predpriya-tia (Corporate culture and effectiveness of a company). Moscow, RUDN Publ., 2011.152 p.
2. Knyshova E.N., Panfilova E.E. Economica organizatsii (Management economics). Moscow, Forum: Infra-M Publ., 2004. 336 p.
3. Shumeyko M.V. (2008). The typology of organizational culture. Society: political, economic and legal aspects, (1), 3-5.
