Ravalier PhD Theis.pdf - Anglia Ruskin Research Online

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cultures individuals decide on their own work allocation, with rules and
coordinative actions between employees of little significance. The God of
wine and song Dionysus is used to describe the person culture because
the individuals making up the organisations are in charge of their own
destiny, as opposed to being instruments of any ‘God’ which could rule
the culture.
Figure 5: The Person Culture A group of individuals converge as a collective. Exists solely for the individuals
that comprise the organisation.
These cultures are attractive to individuals who would like to
operate on a freelance basis but within the security of an organisation.
However, this is not always possible and conflict can arise when
individuals attempt to operate according to a person culture whereas the
organisation is essentially that of a role culture (Salaman, 2000).
Individuals have near-complete autonomy and influence and power is
shared on the basis of expertise (Brown, 1998). Also, due to the networks
available of peers with differing expertise often in the same area,
members of the organisation have a good support network and flexibility.
However, due to no (or few) individuals holding absolute power the
organisation can be hard to effectively manage. Alongside this problem it
is difficult to bring about changes in organisational and individual
behaviour without resorting to extreme measures due to the lack of
management.
Charles Handy’s work on organisational culture has been
influential to organisational management and researchers alike. For
example, a review of the theory in 1998 by Andrea Dragon describes the
theory as being highly significant, even describing it as seemingly
predicting the trend in changing organisational typology over time.
Despite the conceptualisation being described as focussing on
organisational culture, the work is equally as important and influential in
helping understand types of organisation and thus put research or
management perspectives alike into context. Therefore the four ‘cultures’
(or types of organisation) are an important tool, particularly for contextual