Social Awareness and Responsibility in Context of Polish Service Companies

Companies operating on the market have to cope with a variety of crisis situations which may adversely affect their development and jeopardise the achievement of their objectives. A crisis situation may, on the one hand, have a negative impact on the development of the company, but, on the other hand, it may provide a stimulus and have a constructive effect on its functioning. One of the factors influencing the ability to function of a business, including crisis situations, is its organisational culture. Therefore, a company responding to the situation should assess the conditions both in its environment and inside it and verify the artefacts, the system of values and the main principles that are the basis for building an organisational culture. Many companies that are dealing with a crisis situation decide to undertake a conscious process of cultural transformation. However, it requires the management to take appropriate actions and the time of a crisis situation is a test for many companies – whether in such a difficult moment something can still be done with the organisational culture, or whether the entrepreneurs can only wait for its inevitable impact on the functioning of the company. The subject of this article is the impact of a crisis situation on changes occurring within the organisational culture. The study attempts to evaluate the role of organizational culture in crisis situations based on the current state of knowledge and crisis events related to COVID-19.