Relationship between Cultural Artifacts and Social Norm
Analyzing artifacts in an organization gives internal and external members a shared meaning the goals, values, and mission of the organization are all about hence a uniform approach for the benefit of what the organization is trying to achieve. It also instills a team spirit among the employees allowing them to make a significant input in their work; this is healthy for the organization. A sense of belonging is also achieved through shared memories and meanings. This may be portrayed through inside jokes shared among the members creating a fun open organizational culture, even making solidarity among its members. In an attempt to determine the relevance of artistry, this essay analyzes the relationship between cultural Artifacts and Social Norm
First of all, analyzing the artifacts allows the organization to learn from past mistakes and not repeat them. For example, documents explain the previous downfalls and achievements of the organization enabling the members to improve on their decisions according to explanations of past choices and their results, comparing them with present occurring and also learn how recent victories were achieved.
Besides, artifacts in an organization may act as motivation for employees, for example, hanging a best employee photo on a shared space may create a culture of appreciation and feedback to employees from management on their performance. This creates an excellent open relationship among members of the organization while at the same time, motivating employees to work harder at what they do. This has a significant impact on the organization’s output hence the achievement of goals and delivering of promises made.
It also makes employees aware of the company’s expectations in terms of the work environment and organizational culture. This gives them a choice to choose what type of work environment and culture they are comfortable with. This is good for the organization because if they decide to work in that organization, they will give their best and become healthy. At the same time, if they don’t, it saves the organization the trouble of dealing with unmotivated employees because they don’t like that working environment.
Moreover, artifacts as human-made objects portray apparent elements of the organization are clear to see and play a significant role in creating an organizational culture; this is something that all members of the organization share in stock daily hence creating a particular image, beliefs, and habits among the employees. This, in turn, shapes the culture of the organization. Thus an organization creates and makes use of artifacts with a purpose in mind, an object that will trigger the desired results among the members of the organization hence reflecting the norms, beliefs, and values of the organization to guide the members towards achieving the desired goals. A great example of artifacts that might be misaligned is the use of employees picture monthly to show his/her success in the organization and office structure.
The management here had a purpose of openness, creativity, and fun, which was a success shaping the desired culture of the organization through installing the desired norms, beliefs, and beliefs reflected.
Glass walls
The purpose of installing the glass windows in the organization is to achieve transparency and openness. Glass windows also improve creativity, giving it a touch of creativity.it also was to allow employees to at ease while at work and have fun at the same time. Despite all the above being achieved, most members of the company started drifting away from the organizational culture. One of them is that the employees, at times, did not take their work seriously hence delivering their work late. This was as a result of the employees having too much fun communicating unnecessarily during work hours. It also did cost the company a lot of money in terms of resources required within the company.
Photograph of the best employee
The best employee’s photo may be framed and placed in a shared space like the cafeteria or conference room or at the reception area where all employees and even visitors can see. The photo creates a culture of appreciation in the organization and acts as motivation for the employees to strive to do better.
The purpose of this was to create a culture of feedback and appreciation for employees of the organization. The photo also motivates members of the organization towards hard work and, in turn, the sound output from the organization. It will also let the outside members appreciate the employees. The objective is also to instill a fun culture among the employees through positive and healthy competition among them. However, there are certain limitations such as misaligning with the companies culture since some employees may tend to take this competition a little bit too far. At extreme levels, some workers may sabotage each other’s work to win the championship. Lastly, the seclusion of the best employees creates unhealthy competition hence killing the team spirit, which is essential in a work environment.
References
Higgins, J. M., & Mcallaster, C. (2004). If you want strategic change, don’t forget to change your cultural artifacts. Journal of change management, 4(1), 63-73.
Higgins, J. M., Mcallaster, C., Certo, S. C., & Gilbert, J. P. (2006). Using cultural artifacts to change and perpetuate strategy. Journal of Change Management, 6(4), 397-415.
May, D. (2001). Building the Cultural Artifacts of the Organization. In EuroPLoP (pp. 459-476).
Scaratti, G., Gorli, M., Galuppo, L., Ripamonti, S., & Cortese, C. G. (2014). Using artifacts for practices tuning and performance refining. The Nursing Record artifact between affordance and agency: A case study.