The impact of organisational culture on gold mining activities in the Free State

Abstract

The political and social transformation process in South Africa is forcing organisations to avoid the sensitive, unpleasant and potentially volatile behaviour at workplace that can arise when groups or individuals who differ work together or come into close contact with each other. Therefore, management developed a corporate culture which creates an environment that is conducive to performance improvement, shapes the way people act and interact, as a result, this culture influences how things get done. The corporate culture encompasses the organisation's goals, business ethics and dominant ideologies. Based on the results of this study, these cultural changes ought to be driven by the fact that employees respond to the way in which the organisation treats them. The research aims to investigate the impact of organisational culture on the gold mining activities. The impact of organisational culture is demonstrated through a sense of identity and unity of purpose by the members of the organisation, commitment of employees to their work and existence of strategies and programmes which provide guidance on what is expected. The premise is that organisational culture determines socialisation, power relationship, policies and procedures, reward systems, communication systems and ideology, all of which have a significant impact on the day to day experiences of all employees.