SELF-MANAGEMENT CULTURE IN MANAGING CONTEMPORARY ORGANIZATIONS
Abstract
Most organizations' success relies heavily on their culture, policies, and work environment tailored for employees. This paper examines the concept of a self-management culture as a change strategy in modern organizational management and its effects on individual employee performance. Self-management involves individuals controlling their behavior by setting personal standards, assessing their performance, and applying consequences based on self-assessment. Emerging self-management initiatives strategically support organizational goals related to innovation, competitiveness, and sustainable productivity. These initiatives embody a revolutionary approach that moves away from traditional hierarchies and boss-subordinate relationships, instead relying on principles, agreements, team decisions, and peer negotiations to allocate responsibilities— effectively replacing conventional structures. Qualitative research provided the data for this study. Prior studies suggest that lean organizational structures facilitate value creation, waste reduction, highly skilled teams, collaboration, a mission-driven philosophy, and outsourcing. A self-management culture acts as a normative glue and a critical element for organizational survival through practices such as colleague letters of understanding, conflict resolution, honoring commitments, thorough consultation, collective mission statements, team involvement, internal competition, vacation policies, ad hoc meetings, budgeting, and forecasting. The study finds that the high expenses associated with traditional management, including numerous overheads, often harm organizational financial performance. This insight has led to a shift toward self-management as a cost-effective and productivity-boosting strategy.