Eleuterio and Caridad have just joined a new job, within the Credit Analysis Department, which they will carry out for a major multinational financial company.
For Caridad it has been very easy to adapt to the daily procedures and actions of the company, where trust, the open door policy and cooperation between colleagues are in fact elements of daily presence within it.
Eleuterio, on the contrary, is taking care that they see what he is doing all the time, he is reluctant to cooperate with his companions, he is suspicious, and keeps his documents as trivial as they are, as if they were “secret information”.
The behavior of both has become more evident every day, in such a way that Caridad already responds to daily situations, as does the group of his companions, while Eleuterio, fails to fit into the activities, which require integration to develop collective functions.
At the conclusion of the reading of our example, it becomes evident that an important aspect of people's behavior within any environment is culture, and that within work, the culture of the organization predetermines this behavior.
Even though the example points out the difference between two people, when it is transformed into group or department behavior, the consequences can limit the process of growth or productivity of the organizations.
In this sense, it would be repetitive to insist on the analysis of what Organizational Culture means, but it is important to mention that Cultural Capital is formed, which we are going to talk about.
Initially, we could say that we understand Cultural Capital as the collective programming of values that make the company not only have a certain type of identity, but also give it superior performance.
Cultural Capital is not something materially tangible, but it impacts on the behavior of the organization and forms part of that particular “seal” of the companies that manage to transform it into a competitive advantage.
This same process is present in the actions of transformation of people within the company, such as in the case of career plans, or in the definition of change processes.
The elements of the Culture of the Organization that contribute the most to the Cultural Capital are: the organizational Climate, the learning of the values and all those mechanisms that allow the incorporation of relevant and competitive beliefs and behaviors.
These as a whole are called Management Values, which require people to be compatible with them and learn behavior or responses that are common to all of them, which we technically call Positive Resonance.
Management Values have four important uses within the formative process of Cultural Capital:
- References to understand our environment: that allows knowing intuitively or through informal learning, who is who in the work environment. Behavioral habits: what is transmitted through processes such as daily treatment and the way in which develop relationships between people. Analysis of the consequences: that through examples or stories within the company, they determine the psychological limits for the actions of people at work. Perspective of what to do and how: what in summary will be the model that will be applied to formulate and develop the work actions.
All of the above could be irrelevant or simply important concepts, and necessary to be elements of study in an academic environment.
However, the importance of the study of Cultural Capital lies in the fact
that its presence or absence directly impacts the production processes of the organization.
When it is not present, it gives rise to the phenomenon called: Lower Organizational Culture, where the company's achievements are not achieved due to individual failures, which become group and later collective, being recorded as normal behaviors within the groups of job.
An organization that shows a Lower Organizational Culture, may manifest some or all of the characteristics that we will present below:
- Resistance to assume or act within a role: what in other words would mean not taking actions, which despite being framed within what a job demands, are simply avoided by the person or persons.: It arises from the daily actions that make up the organization's climate.
They can start from the style of communication between people, in events such as rumors, suspicion, betrayal or power struggles, open or veiled, that may exist in groups.
- Difficulty collaborating with other people: this includes high levels of negative competition between members and constant friction between them. Lack of initiative: what determines, even, a management style oriented to set the tone for everything, since people without guideline they are not able to act Fear of assuming responsibilities: which may also imply a lack of confidence in themselves or in the people who make up their work groups Lack of precision or accuracy in performing tasks: which means acceptance errors, loss of resources and repetition of work, as normal, which in the long run determines a mediocre execution.
With all of the above, the work of the leaders and managers of the organizations require that they make an in-depth analysis of their work environments, in order to detect and discover the current situation of their Cultural Capital.
Being important, that at the end of it, this allows them to detect the strengths and weaknesses of the processes, to achieve an efficient Organizational Culture and therefore a Cultural Capital, which allows their companies to be more competitive every day.
