'Can managers influence the culture of their organizations Discuss Essay

'Can managers influence the culture of their organizations Discuss with reference to at least one example.' - Essay Example Organisational culture can be a source of competitive advantage for a company. Leadership style is one the determinants of organisational culture and it can influence various dimensions of organisational culture. Managers, executives, board of directors and the people who can lead the organisations to achieve the set directions are the leaders and they have potential to influence the culture of organisations. The aim of this essay is to determine whether managers influence the culture of organisations or not, if yes, then how? Early researchers have always been interested to determine the role of managers in organisations. Most of them have studied the impact of organisational culture on effectiveness of managers. Ghiat and Willey conducted a study in which they explored the ineffectiveness of organisations in Algeria as a result of influence of personalities and styles of managers. Their findings depict that effectiveness of managers is determined by the local culture in which organ isation is set (Davies, 1989, pp.26). The competition among the businesses and organisations is increasing and today leaders appear to the major assets for organisations which have the potential to influence the organisations. ... managers) are responsible to shape the culture (Ambler, 2009). It is the influence of the managers on the organisational culture, which makes them the change agents in organisations. Managers face the challenge to determine the most effective culture for organisations and how to effectively change the culture (Baker, 2002). Baker argues that it is the responsibility of managers to ensure the existing culture of organisation relevant to present and future while ensuring some continuity with the past. The example of WMATA shows the importance of a manager in an organisation and what problems an organisation can face when a manager fails to support the organisational culture. Governor of WMATA Board, O’Malley has announced that WMATA is planning to keep Richard Sarles as an interim General Manager/Chief Executive Officer of company rather than permanent GM (Alpert, 2011). Actually the company has been facing cultural issues such as administrative structure of organisation has bec ome very strict, departments do not communicate with each other, skilled change agents are lacking the ability to achieve important tasks and employee turnover has increased. Sarles is the General Manager of company and he has been more involved in making relations with local officials and bodies and he has also launched a track progress report system however, he has been unable to solve the issues which company is facing. Moreover, the culture of company has been transformed into a secretive culture with poor relationships with press. Therefore, company is considering Sarles as an interim manager for a few years because he is already at retirements and company