In recent years, organisational culture has become one of the most “trendy” subjects of management theory and practice. There are many different ways to define organisational culture. Perhaps, the most well known definition is “the way we do things around here” (Luncy and Cowling, 1996). Still, based on a more formal context, Martin (2002) defined that an organisational culture is about deeply held value, share beliefs, and assumptions. In the post-bureaucratic era, organisational culture has a great influence on the degree to which an organisation encourages innovation, change and creativity. It appears to be a core element in the success of any organisation (Martins and Terblanche, 2003). A culture that support creativity will inspire innovative ways of indicating difficulties and finding solutions, regards creativity as both normal and desirable and supports innovators as models to follow (Lock and Kirkpatrick, 1995). To be more precise, Tushman and O’Reilly (1997) once said, “organisational culture lies at the heart of organisation innovation." The purpose of this essay is to present the determinations of organisational culture that inspire innovation, change and creativity. The determinations are structure, strategy and support mechanism. However, managing innovation involves focus on the politics of change. In another word, change is inherently political activity (Clegg et al., 2011). Hence, political aspects will also affect organisational culture on creativity and innovation, and it also will be explained in the essay.
The fundamental elements of organisational culture (share values, beliefs) inspire creativity and innovation in two ways. Firstly, it impacts through socialization processes in organisations; individuals understand what behaviour is suitable and how activities should operate. Secondly, it is about the basic values, beliefs and assumptions become enacted in established forms of activities and behaviors and it reflects as structures, management practices and procedures (Martins and Terblanche, 2003). Thus, organisational culture has an influence on the organisational structure in an organisation (Armstrong, 1995). The structure appears to emphasise certain values that influence on the restriction or promotion of creativity and innovation in organisations. According to Arad et al., (1997), a flat structure, work teams and autonomy will promote innovation while standardisation; specialisation, centralization and formalisation will hinder innovation. Considering the influence of organisational culture on structure that supports innovation and creativity, principles like flexibility, cooperative teamwork and freedom will promote innovation and creativity. However, values like control, stability, rigidity, order and predictability (mostly related with hierarchical structures) will inhibit innovation and creativity (Arad et al., 1997). It is mainly the value of flexibility as different to rigidity and freedom different to control. A high chance of adaptability and responsibility also accompanies an organisational structure that allows for flexibility. Examples of flexibility in organisations are the practice of job rotation program or the elimination of rigid and formal job descriptions. With co-operative teams, there are two types, which are well-established teams and cross-functional teams. The main idea of this is that team member should trust; understand other’s perspectives so they can communicate effectively to be opened to new ideas and strategies. Team members' skills, ability and also on the shared values within the group would create an efficient team-work (Tushman and O'Reilly, 1997). Followed by freedom, based on the concept of post-bureaucracy that employees have the freedom and right to join in the decision-making in solving problems determines the level of empowerment (Heckscher, 1994). It connected to the level of innovation and creativity in an organisation. This connection indicates that