CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK OF CULTURE

In ordinary usage, Culture refers to the finer things of life. It denote such things as good taste, fined manner, class achievement, appreciation of fine arts, and music or literature (Adelakun, 1990:141). Culture is meant to meditate the level of sophistication of the individual. In this sense a person who does the right thing in the right way is referred to as a “ cultured man”.  On the other hand, somebody whose behaviour is deemed to be at a level of crudity is regarded as unrefined “uncultured”. The definition of culture cannot be defined in terms of one person

possessing it and another lacking it.

It is fact inconvincible to have human being who lack culture (Adelakun, 1990:143).Culture also refers to all non-biological actions and behaviors of a man as a product of  his culture. For example, the functioning of the ear, nose, eye etc is “biologically” determined.The usage of any part of the body to communicate appreciation or social disapproval is cultural and not biologically determined, and it is being learned. Human beings learn all such behaviors as greeting , shaking of hands and interaction. Such learned ways of doing things that are modified from time-to-time and passed from generation to generation is what is referred to as culture of the people (Barridam,1990:145).

Nida (1993:201) agrees that culture is learned behaviors from our social environment, which is passed or transferred from generation to generation. Also culture not what we inherited from our genes or   biologically determined. Shapard and green (2001:198) say that culture define how people in a society behave in relation to others and to physical objects.

 Culture consists of the knowledge, language, value, custom and physical objects that are passed from generation to generation among members of a group. 

In addition, shapard and green (op cit) are of the opinion that culture helps to explain human social behavior. What people do and do not do, what they like and dislike, what they value and discount are all based on culture. Culture provides the blueprint that people in the society or organization use to guide their relationship with each other. Culture and society are tightly interwoven. One cannot exist without the other. But they are not identical. A society or organization is a group of people who come together or live in a common place while culture is that society’s total way of life (Shapared and Green 2001: 203).

Fundamentally, it can be seen that human behavior then is based on culture, and culture is the total way of life of a given people. It includes such things as the pattern of behaviour, the attitude, norm, value, object, skill, belief system and world out-look which human beings learn and adopt as members of a given group of society. Since people are not born knowing their culture. Organization cultural behaviour must be learned. It must also be modified and transfer generation to generation.

The concept of organizational culture is held to be vague and diverse (Cray, 2001: 371). This is largely on the account of the problem of exact definition of culture. Indeed, several definitions exist and each is applied to wide variety of settings. But for the purpose this work, the definition according to (Scheins, 1991:131). Is most appropriate Viz:

“Culture is pattern of shared basic assumptions, invented, discovered or developed by a given group as it learn to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, is to be taught to new members of a group, as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems”.

Organizations develop shared values and ways of doing things, which constitutes their culture and serves the purpose of uniting the members and getting them committed. Culture focuses on the development of shared values and gaining workforce commitment to those shared values.