1Good morning everyone.
2Now whether you're going to university to study business or some other subject,
3many of you will eventually end up working for a company of some kind.
4Now, when you first start working somewhere you will realise that the organisation you've joined has certain characteristics.
5And we often refer to these social characteristics as the culture of the organisation.
6This includes its unwritten ideas, beliefs, values and things like that.
7One well known writer has classified company cultures by identifying four major types.
8The first type is called the Power Culture,
9and it's usually found in small organisations.
10It's the type of culture that needs a central source of power to be effective,
11and because control is in the hands of just one or two people,
12there aren't many rules or procedures.
13Another characteristic is that communication usually takes the form of conversations
14rather than, say, formal meetings or written memos.
15Now one of the benefits of this culture is that the organisation has the ability to act quickly,
16so it responds well to threat, or danger on the one hand, and opportunity on the other.
17But on the negative side, this type of organisation doesn't always act effectively,
18because it depends too much on one or two people at the top,
19and when these people make poor decisions, there's no-one else who can influence them.
20And the kind of person who does well in this type of business culture is one who is happy to take risks,
21and for whom job security is a low priority.
22The next type is known as Role Culture -
23that's ROLE, not ROLL, by the way,
24and this type is usually found in large companies,
25which have lots of different levels in them.
26These organisations usually have separate departments
27that specialise in things like finance, or sales, or maintenance, or whatever.
28Each one is co-ordinated at the top by a small group of senior managers,
29and typically everyone's job is controlled by sets of rules and procedures.
30For example, there are specific job descriptions, rules for discipline, and so on.
31What are the benefits of this kind of culture?
32Well firstly, because it's found in large organisations,
33its fixed costs, or overheads as they're known, are low in relation to its output, or what it produces.
34In other words it can achieve economies of scale.
35And secondly, it is particularly successful in business markets where technical expertise is important.
36On the other hand, this culture is often very slow to recognise the need for change,
37and even slower to react.
38What kind of person does this type of culture suit?
39Well, it suits employees who value security,
40and who don't particularly want to have responsibility.
41Moving on now to Task Cultures.
42This type is found in organisations that are project-oriented.
43You usually find it where the market for the company's product is extremely competitive,
44or where the products themselves have a short life-span.
45Usually top management delegates the projects, the people and other resources.
46And once these have been allocated, little day-to-day control is exercised from the top,
47because this would seem like breaking the rules'.
48Now one of the major benefits of this culture is that it's flexible.
49But it does have some major disadvantages too.
50For instance, it can't produce economies of scale or great depth of expertise.
51People who like working in groups or teams prefer this type of culture.
52And finally, the fourth category is called the Person Culture...