When we talk about Organizational Behavior, we refer to de study of individual behavior and group dynamics inside organizations through the use of many disciplines that complement each other such as Psychology, Sociology, Engineering, Anthropology, Management and Medicine.
Human behavior is such complex and broad subject at this stage its important to grouped it into two major perspectives. The first one is the internal perspective, which says that people behaves according to feelings, thoughts, past experiences and individual needs. The second one is external perspective that considers that human behavior depends on factors outside the person such as external events, and environmental forces.
When it comes to the organizational context , we can identify first the organization as an open system where internal components (people, technology, tasks and structure interact to each other, and with the environment trough inputs (Material, Capital, Human),corporation’s task environment (Competitors, Unions, Regulatory agencies, Clients) and outputs (Products, Services). After this, we can identify in side the organization two forms of design. One form can be compered with the smooth and organize functioning of a clockwork so here we can find goals an objectives,policies and procedures, authority structure and all those thinks that make a corporation integrate an follow a same path of behavior. The other form, the informal organization can be compared with the unpredictable and confusing snake pit and in this type of organization we find beliefs and assumption, perceptions and attitudes, feelings, informal leaders and all those components that deflect the formal organization from its course.
But non of these make sense if the role of culture and its influence are not taking into account when studying an organization and the individual, because culture has impacts in all the dimensions to be study in an organization such as managements processes, costs, negotiation, communication, production, advertising, employees relations and so on. By culture it is meant : “the collective programming of the human mind that distinguishes the members of one human group from those of another. Culture in this sense is a system of collectively held values” (Geert Hofstede). In these sense we refer to what its important when studying an organization those share values that induce certain behaviors in a group of people. It is important to remember that although there is the conception of national culture it can be misleading as even within one nation, we can find many subcultures that differ from the so called national culture. The important thing here is to recognize the importance that culture has in shaping a organization.
To understand national culture there are some theories such as Cultural Clusters by Gupta, Trompenaar’s cultural dimensions, Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. This theories facilitate the understanding and comparison between cultures. After we understand National culture can we then understand the culture inside a organization as set of values, beliefs, and assumptions considered appropriate in thinking and acting inside an organization by all its members. Organizational culture have two functions, one internal, which refers to how members relate to each other, and one external, which refers to how a organization adapt to the environment. We can then identify that there are advantages and disadvantages of having a strong organizational culture, for example for strong culture its easy to draw consensus, core values are intensely held and widely shared, reduce potential conflicts and so on, but it also carry inflexible cultural barriers, resistance to chance and biding people together in a defensive way. So by understanding this we can asses the two paradoxes ( Consistency vs Adaptability, and Top-down vision vs Bottom-up involvement)
1. Considering the conference "Dealing with Cultural Differences" by Nick B. Meyer, choose cultural dimension and use 2 hypothetical but realistic situations - or real ones - to illustrate the business implications of cultural differences. you may not use situations or examples already discussed in class or in the conference.
High Individualism
A. For example in a American organization if sells star to decrease, the sells management is the one responsible for this and for a solution, and in the case of failure he/she is the one to be punished. Whereas in a Japanese organization if the happens, the section of sell, which is composed by one o more working groups, its the one responsible and the solution is expected to be designed by all members of the section while sharing ideas and proposals between them, so in the case of failure the group is the one to be punished.
B. For example Korean people when speaking they doesn’t use the possessive word my except for some specific situations as for them my means greed and selfishness so instead the use ours. Wheres individualistic societies refers always to my
2. Write a short essay considering the following questions
- Do you think there is a corporate culture in every organization?
- If we assume there is: Can it be modified?
According to Helen Deresky “The culture of a society comprises the shared values, understandings, and goals that are learned from earlier generations, imposed by present members of a society, and passed on to succeeding generations. This shared outlook results, in large part, in common attitudes, codes of conduct and expectations that subconsciously guide and control certain norms of behavior”. By taking this definition from the national concept to the organization we find that this statement explains as well what happens in a more small scale. In this sense a would affirm that every organization has it own culture, even within the same national culture because every time people band together, the interaction and bonds that those people creates make for new behavioral patterns that end up developing a new and unique group culture that represents that group and which affects employees and organizational operations, making every organizations develops its own corporate culture. Its important to bear in mind that culture developed in each organization can be either a cohesive or destructing force.
This affirmation is better understand when we analyze the differences that we can find when we compare to different organizations within a same country are not the same so for example whereas in a given corporation their culture can be base on cooperation, on a horizontal organization and bottom-up decisions process and at the same time another company in the same place can have the opposite and be equally successful than the other. So we can conclude that corporate culture has to be aligned to the corporate objectives and goals in order to translate into a positive force within the company so for example if we examine walt-mart and Target in the United States we can see that although the are companies in the same sector and country they culture is very different but both are equally successful.
Some times corporate culture represents a negative force within the company or might be no longer suitable for the changing environment,it becomes then very important to modify it in order to align to the corporate strategic goals. But this is not that easy as to say it, because culture values are embedded into the more profound part of the individual and take a long time to be internalized by an individual. So it is not a impossible task but it is one that needs lots of patience and understanding of the individual in order to be able to change over time those values inside the individual without producing resistance by the employees and the whole organizational structure. So take the example of Hewlett Packard, to which problems several years ago encouraged it to modify its culture; “staff are required to formulate three personal and three professional goals each year, and are encouraged to cheer those that meet them, such as getting away early to be with family. Two years into the program, HP reports no loss in productivity despite staff working shorter hours and there is an increased staff retention rate. The program has been marked by the extent to which managers bought in, and modeled it in their personal lives”(1). So we can see that corporate culture can indeed be modify to better, in order to develop cohesion and more specific behavior to the strategics goals of a company.
Sources:
- (1)http://www.evancarmichael.com/Human-Resources/840/Examples-Of-Strong-Corporate-Cultures.html
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bJBeCI0e3U
- Nelson, D.L & Quick, J.C. 2010. Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publishing. Chapter 1.
- Mead, Richard. 2004. International Management: Cross-Cultural Dimensions London. Blackwell Publishing. chapter 1
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