It is a dog eat dog world with members taking sides and individuals being only concerned with themselves, and their jobs.
The career structures within informal organisations are also extremely suspect. It is a true fact of life that people in organisations, get promoted, and move up the ladder faster than others because they have friends in high places. An example might be someone whose father is a friend with the management and when a new higher position becomes available, they get in, because of their fathers background and relationship with the boss. Alternatively, maybe the secretary, who is having an affair with the boss, will be given a promotion in favour of a longer serving employee with higher qualifications. .
There are many types of organisational cultures; each organisation should adopt a culture that best suits its needs. The culture of an organisation is "the way that we do things around here." Typically, it is made up of a set of often unspoken expectations, norms of behaviour and standards of performance that the organisation has got used to. .
Whenever an organisations has no set of rules, or procedure manual, to cover every eventuality. It is the culture that fills in the gaps. High performing cultures expect high standards from their members and will even discipline failing people without the intervention of the manager. They will also teach new members how to behave. .
Learning about the culture of a company will tell you whether its values are the same as yours; what behaviours will be approved of in the company and which disapproved of; what sort of people are likely to get promoted and indeed what sort of people are likely to stay with the company in the long term. .
It is a mistake to think that all companies are the same. In fact, there are very great differences in the cultures of companies. Culture controls what people do and how they act in a company. .
An example might be a new employee working within a group of long serving employees, and if the group had a set way of carrying out procedures and tasks, it would instruct the employee how certain tasks were to be carried out.
