ABSTRACT
Organizational culture has to do with the informal norms and values that evolve and become important for the activities of formal organizations. Both a government ministry and a municipal unit can have an organizational culture. In a public organization it is important to distinguish between informal norms and the formal norms presented in Chapter Two.These two sets of norms have differing origins and operate in different ways, yet they also influence each other, as we shall discuss later. According to a logic of consequence, goals are often given a priori, or are agreed on by political leaders, and they are achieved via formal structures and norms. Goals in a logic of cultural appropriateness, by contrast, are discovered in the course of a process, while informal norms, values and identities develop gradually.The classic distinction made by the American organization theorist Philip Selznick is between
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toolvalues in addition to the formal variety, it acquires institutional features,and one speaks of institutionalized organizations.This makes for a more complex organization, less flexible or adaptable to new demands, but also one equipped with new and necessary qualities that will potentially help the organization to solve tasks more expediently and function well as a socially integrated unit. A good metaphor to illustrate the difference between organizations and institutions is to say an organization is the skeleton, whereas an institution is the flesh and blood. Both elements are crucial.
