The Importance of Organisational Culture in a Multicultural Work Environment – a Preliminary Study

The Perspective of Managers from Selected European Countries

DOI: https://doi.org/10.35765/pk.2023.4203.17
Keywords: organisational culture, multicultural work environment, multicultural teams, cultural differences, managers

Abstract

Organisational culture has been studied by researchers for decades. Their avid interest in this issue is primarily related to its considerable impact on various areas of organisational life and on a company’s relations with its environment. The importance of organisational culture is of particular relevance in multicultural work environments, in which managers’ daily work consists in dealing with employees from various national cultures and with multicultural teams pursuing a company’s goals. Organisational culture is directed at eliminating organisational behavioural ambiguity and promoting employees’ pro-effective behaviours, which seems particularly pertinent in case of a culturally diverse workforce.

In the theoretical part of the article, the Authors define the term organisational culture, discuss the functions of this culture, and present the Cameron and Quinn competing values model, while in the research part, they describe the methodology of the study, report the results of the interviews, and draw the conclusions. The Authors conducted the interviews analysed in the article with the Polish, Spanish and Portuguese managers in 2022. The analysis of both the literature and the results of the study allowed them to demonstrate the importance of organisational culture in contemporary management, especially in the context of managing people in multicultural work environments.

Author Biographies

Agnieszka Knap-Stefaniuk, Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow

PhD in Economics obtained at the SGH/Warsaw School of Economics (The Socio-Economic Collegium), BA and MBA from Thames Valley University, and a graduate of the School of Trainers at Wszechnica UJ. She was a member of the PKA (State Accreditation Committee) team for the Economic Sciences and Head of the Department at the Institute of Human Resource Management at the Polish Open University, a lecturer at BA, MSc, and MBA studies, and a member of the Rector’s Committee and the Scientific Council. Between 2007 and 2015, she was the Dean of the Krakow Faculty of Wyższa Szkoła Zarządzania (Polish Open University); from 2015 to 2017 she was the Dean of the Krakow Faculty of Vistula University. She was a lecturer of the BA and MA studies at AFiB Vistula (Assistant Professor at the Institute of  Management). Since 2018, she has held a position of a Vice Director of the Institute of Political and Administrative Sciences for Didactic Affairs at the Faculty of Education at the Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow. She works as a trainer, consultant, and facilitator for such companies as Lexmark, Galeco, Biprocemwap, and Capgemini. She has written numerous papers on Human Resource Management. She specializes in issues related to strategic and international HRM, leadership, motivation, and contemporary challenges in HRM, including corporate culture, competency management, and talent management. She is particularly interested in intercultural management, identification and development of key competencies for the management systems and leadership, and in broadly understood multiculturalism. She conducts lectures and workshops at universities in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Czechia. She is a member of the Polish Economic Society, the Scientific Society for Contemporary Management, and the Polish Association of Cultural Studies.

Beata Domańska-Szaruga, Military University of Technology

A habilitated doctor of the economic sciences in the discipline of the management sciences. She is a professor at the Jarosław Dąbrowski Military University of Technology in Warsaw, Faculty of Security, Logistics and Management. Until 2021, she held a position of a professor at the University of Natural Sciences and Humanities in Siedlce, where she has worked for many years as a lecturer. She is a consultant and expert in the SMCG SenseMaking Consulting Group. She specialises in financial management, risk management, internal control and shaping organisational structures in enterprises and public organisations. Her interests also include banking, financial exclusion, and human resource management. She has authored and co-authored nearly one hundred scientific papers, including monographs, chapters in monographs, and scientific articles, including those devoted to organisational culture.

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Perspektywy Kultury
Published
2023-06-09
How to Cite
[1]
Knap-Stefaniuk, A. and Domańska-Szaruga, B. 2023. The Importance of Organisational Culture in a Multicultural Work Environment – a Preliminary Study: The Perspective of Managers from Selected European Countries. Perspectives on Culture. 42, 3 (Jun. 2023), 227-252. DOI:https://doi.org/10.35765/pk.2023.4203.17.
Issue
Vol. 42 No. 3 (2023): Culture (in) Hybrid Reality
Section
Management and Marketing

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