Outline the change we have seen in organisational culture using examples. Discuss whether the idea of culture can be managed.

The word ‘Culture’, is, as argued by Peter, one of the most complicated words in the human language. Prior to outlining how culture has changed and discussing whether it can be managed, we firstly need to derive what we mean by the word ‘culture’. Providing a rather simplified definition, Kennedy suggests culture is “The way we do things around here”. Others argue it is the shared behaviours and beliefs within a group of people or an organisation. The idea of whether culture can be managed has been discussed extensively among researchers and managers. During this discussion, I will provide arguments for and against the notion, enlisting examples.
Many managers and organisations view the idea of culture as being a variable that is subject to their manipulation. A clear example of how culture has changed in the last century is through airlines. British Airways, in the early 20th century wanted to portray the idea of flying as ‘adventurous’ and ‘thrill seeking’. They wanted to reflect the idea of consumer flying in a ‘brave’ WW1 fighter pilot way. However, as flying became more available to the masses, there was a move from adventure to safety within the culture of British Airways. Therefore, to reflect this in their organisation, women were hired (1987) to provide and element of nurture within the flying experience.
Furthermore, we have seen a development in culture through recruitment. Asda have undertaken Disney’s approach to ‘group’ interviews. In order to identify an individual's people skills, potential employees were placed together in an interview. Asda now have implemented this into the culture of their organisation, wanting to pursue the idea of improvement in customer service. 
One example that shows managers can implement a certain culture into an organisation is through Raleigh cycles. Raleigh want to build an element of trust and loyalty within their employees and therefore work with the strategy of internal promotion. They argue it is a method of which “builds their own timber”, focusing on the idea of family. However, this is contradicted with research findings from supermarket analysis. Wanting to improve their surface skills, six major UK supermarkets have shifted towards a focus of ‘surface skills’ - treating the customer as “king”. In theory, this could possibly increase customer satisfaction and therefore a long-term effect of customer loyalty, boosting long term sales. However, when asked why employees were changing their behaviour, they argued it was because of possible sanctions placed on them. This therefore suggests that culture as a ‘belief’ is manufactured and is implemented via blackmail. Is this the culture of the company changing, or simply incentives forcing behaviour?
Another example showing culture cannot be managed is with the American Police force. Many male police officers believed females were incapable of being good officers. This is because of the notion that makes believed they were physically superior and that a fundamental job requirement was physical presence. This belief was further reinforced by only males being shown how to search the opposite sex. Depending how strong these feelings are, this could provide as a classic example as to why culture cannot be managed. However, IBM, with the implementation of a number of employee events and weekends away manage to build a notion of family within their organisation. Despite probably not achieving their aim of employees wanting to repeat their company's logo more than their national flag being slightly farfetched, a culture can be clearly defined nonetheless.
In conclusion, although many managers wish to see culture as a variable that is subject to manipulation, many researchers believe that if anything there is a possibility it is malleable, but change can be fought with difficulties and ethical issues. There is not one unitary culture in an organisation as there are many subcultures as seen with the importance of race and gender within the examples I have provided. In my opinion, I believe true culture cannot be managed, but can be manipulated through the use of incentives.