Dysfunctions and Pathologies of Organizational Culture in the Perspective of Poland

Abstract

Considerations start agonizing over the role of human capital in the organization’s functio-ning in knowledge-based economy. Against this background, the organizational culture as a determinant of human capital development is presented. Because the importance of organizational culture as a significant element of one level of intangible resources forces the increased interest in issues prevailing in the area of its deviance. Therefore appropriate starting point of this paper is a synthesis of the theoretical literature on the identification of potential areas of dysfunction and pathology in the sphere of organizational culture. Then the organizational culture is presented as a source of deviation at the individual, group and system level. The main part of the work concerns the analysis of the pathology of the same organizational culture in the context of its functions and the types and conditions of the knowledge economy. Starting from the classification of the dimensions of organizational pathology by R. Stocki in the form of area of easily noticed symptoms of organizational pathology, pathological phenomena associated with the organization’s managers, irregularities operations and processes and pathogen environmental impact of the organization a set of selected areas of potential dysfunction in the sphere of culture is proposed. Basing on Ł. Sułkowski’s classification of organizational culture functions areas of potential deviations are discussed. Finally theoretical symptoms of emerging dysfunctions of organizational culture are identified. In this way the instruments of empirical analysis and diagnosis of the studied phenomenon are proposed. In this context results of pilot empirical studies of identified dysfunctions in organizations in Poland are discussed.