Strategic Management

‘As the soil, however rich it may be cannot be productive without cultivation, so the mind without culture can never produce good fruit’. The great Roman philosopher Seneca (2011) did mean a lot when he quoted the above lines. For any house to last, it must be built on a solid rock foundation so as to withstand the pressure of the wind, storm or any other natural calamity. On the other hand a house built on sand will collapse under the pressure of these external factors. Similarly organisational culture acts as a building block without which it is difficult for organisations to embark to success. The last few years have witnessed the explicit growth of Strategic Management as various Companies have taken a step towards augmenting themselves in paving a path for success in this increasingly competitive world. An organisation is composed of people of diversifying cultures, who have their own mindset and way of work. Helping them adapt to the culture of the organisation can indeed prove to be like a can of worms. Therefore before getting down to brass tracks with any strategy a pleasant culture in the organisation is vital. Thus, there is a strong basis to say that organisational culture plays a very critical role in Strategic Management.

It is primarily important to know what an organisation is, without which implementing any strategy would prove to be next to impossible. An organisation consists of a group of people who have been given an aim to fulfil an overall, common goal or set of goals and who are bound by a legal framework which restricts them from doing particular things and on the contrary allows them to carry out particular tasks (Haberberg and Rieple 2008). Thus organisations play an important role in encouraging and motivating employees to bring in flexibility in the organisation which helps improve the organisational culture.

What makes our country, India so different is the fact that despite being from different backgrounds, there is unity in diversity. Correspondingly what makes an organisation well known is the culture of its people. Culture can be defined as the civilization of the organisation, the way in which a company and its employees behave in preparation and in response to external and internal opportunities and threats (Handscombe and Norman 1993). Similarly, organisational culture can be defined as the set of artefacts, values, assumptions and beliefs that develops from the interactions of organisational members (Keyton 2011). A strong organisational culture results in the development of a strong organisation as there exists a link between the employees and customers while a weak culture would give rise to a not so successful organisation.

Globalisation has been the prime reason for advancements in technology, at the same time the demands and expectations of the customers also keep changing. Moreover there has also been an increase in the per capita income, employment opportunities and