...TEACHING NOTE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND CHANGE By Romuald Stone, DBA The construct of organizational culture has raised considerable interest of both academics and practitioners in the field of change management. Organizational culture is “derived from the anthropological concept of culture that attempts to explain why people in societies believe and behave as they do.” It has “become a common way of thinking about and describing an organization’s internal world—a way of differentiating one organization’s ‘personality’ from another.” This organizational self-image develops over a period of time with the core elements typically coalescing during the organization’s formative years. In many organizations we find a strong dominant culture that is pervasive not only in the headquarters element but across divisions and geographic regions. However, in large organizations this culture is not uniform but instead is composed of many subcultures. Subcultures may share certain characteristics, norms, and values yet they can be totally different with some functioning collaboratively and others in conflict with each other. Definition Organizational culture is defined as a complex set of shared beliefs, guiding values, behavioral norms, and basic assumptions acquired over time that shape our thinking and behavior; they are part of the social fabric of the organization—its genetic code. As such, culture drives the organization and guides the behavior of everyone in that...
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...Chapter 1 – Organizational Behavior and Opportunities Facebook: Opportunities, Problems, and Ambitions Organizational Behavior Sep 15 ‘2013 1 Chapter 1 – Organizational Behavior and Opportunities Overview Facebook, a social network, is an exceptional case of success and is changing not only the business scenario, but also habits of million people around the world. Besides all the transformations already implemented, that changed the habits of million people, they have audacious plans to keep implementing changings and innovations that may affect users’ behavior and innumerous business in the future. With all these phenomenal growth, also started to surge questions about how Facebook is handling the entire database from million users, all the personal information they have access in their severs and the fact they were stimulating their public to input additional content and how it was being used to increase, even more, their revenue with on line advertising. 2 Chapter 1 – Organizational Behavior and Opportunities Questions 1. How does Facebook’s privacy management of users’ personal information affect the behavior of Facebook patrons? The Facebook’s...
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...political, and legal forces that affect an organization and its task environment. Opportunities and threats resulting from changes in the general environment are often more difficult to identity and respond to than are events in the task environment. Changes in these forces can have major impacts on managers and their organization. LO6-3: Identify the main forces in the global task and general environments, and describe the challenges that each force presents to managers. Task Environments: 1) Suppliers- the individuals and organization that provide an organization with the input resources it needs to produce goods and services 2) Distributors- Organizations that help other organizations sell their goods or services to customers. 3) Customers- Individuals and groups that buy the goods and services an organization produces. 4) Competitors- Organizations that produce goods and services that are similar to a particular organization’s goods and services. General Environments: 1) Economic Forces- interest rates, inflation, unemployment, economic growth, and other factors that affect the general health and well-being of a nation or the regional economy of an organization. 2) Technological Forces- outcomes of changes in the technology managers use to design, produce, or distribute goods and services....
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...Running Header: Organizational Change MICHAEL HEDRICK BUS610 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR WEEK# 6 JOSEPHINE CAROLA 03/26/2012 ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE 1 INTRODUCTION Organizational Change is when a company or organization goes through a transformation that occurs when business strategies or major sections of the organization are altered. Planned change is an effort to move an organization to a higher level. Unplanned change happens when pressures of external factors are so overwhelming that resistance to change is unavoidable. Today it is commonplace to note that the volatility of changes confronting organizations has dramatically increased (Greenwood & Hinings, 2006). In this paper I will describe the organizational change that my company implemented when taking over a college bookstore that it obtained in a multi-bid competition. Given the opportunity to advance within the company, a stable work environment will lead to job satisfaction and a long-term commitment to the organization. Organizational change is by no means a distinct discipline with clearly defined boundaries. It borrows from a number of disciplines, making it difficult to define its core concepts (Burnes, 2005). In order for a merger or takeover to be successful, organizational change must have participation and commitment from the employees affected. DESCRIPTION OF CHANGE My...
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...1. Define organizational culture and discuss its three layers. Organizational culture represents the shared assumptions that a group holds. It influences employees' perceptions and behavior at work. The three layers of organizational culture include observable artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions. Artifacts are the physical manifestations of an organization's culture. Espoused values represent the explicitly stated values and norms that are preferred by an organization. Basic underlying assumptions are unobservable and represent the core of organizational culture. 2. Discuss the difference between espoused and enacted values. Espoused values represent the explicitly stated values and norms that are preferred by an organization. Enacted values, in contrast, reflect the values and norms that actually are exhibited or converted into employee behavior. Employees become cynical when management espouses one set of values and norms and then behaves in an inconsistent fashion. Chapter Scan Corporate cultures provide identifying characteristics and values for organizational members to appreciate and learn. Cultures are distinguished by artifacts, values, and basic assumptions. The socialization process is the entry stage in an organization that provides clues about its culture. Cultures are difficult to change, yet change is necessary in some instances for survival. Organizations need an adaptive culture in order to respond effectively to the...
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...has also witnessed a major shift from the pre – liberalization years. Thus the changes that are occurring worldwide are very important and forcing organizations to change. Therefore the change agent working in a traditional organizational development framework, describing culture is the first step in a rational change process which involves moving an organization from ‘here’ to ‘there’. For the practitioner who works from a complex or living systems perspective, describing culture is also as a key part of the change process itself. The paper is an attempt to investigate as to how much a given Organizational Culture can predict the prevalent Organizational Citizenship Behaviors in three different sectors namely, Manufacturing, Banking and Information Technology. Index Term—Organizational culture, organizational citizenship behavior, correlation. I. INTRODUCTION The concept of organizational culture is relatively new and is still evolving. The discipline of organizational culture emerged from the fields of anthropology and sociology. The formal writing on the subject began by Andrew Pettigrew in 1979 from an anthropological point of view. Pettigrew focused on the concepts of myth, ritual, and symbolism in an organization context [1]. The culture is particularly important when attempting to manage organization-wide change. Practitioners are...
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...to new competitive pressures in the business environment. Change is the movement of a company away from its present state toward some desired future state to increase its competitive advantage. One of the principal reasons that companies fail is their inability to change and adapt to a new competitive environment because of organizational inertia—a force that makes companies resist change. For example, the Icarus paradox suggests that companies continue to rely on the skills and capabilities that made them successful long after these capabilities cease to match the new competitive environment. Inertia also results from power struggles among managers and their vying for control over resources. Forces that drive change: The common denominator in today’s business environment is change. The areas in which pressures for change are most powerful are people, technology, information processing and communication, and competition. A. People Some population-related pressures for change include the increasing numbers of senior citizens and people born after 1960. The large number of senior citizens is affecting part-time employment practices, the marketing of everything from hamburgers to packaged tours to the Orient, and service areas such as health care, recreation, and finance. B. Technology. The rate of technological change is increasing. Advances in information technology mean that more information is generated within organizations and...
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...competitive and dynamic. In order to be successful in a work environment, organizations must be knowledgeable of what defines organizational behavior. Organizational behavior can help organizations expand, communicate, learn, and develop for better performance in the competitive, vibrant, and ever changing economy we all live in. It is important for organizations to learn the different behaviors, cultures, diversity, communications, effectiveness, and the learning styles that make up the organization and its environment. This paper will define and explain the terminology and concepts of organization behavior through research and examples used within the military. What is Organizational Behavior? Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of individuals and groups in organizations (Schermerhorn, 2005). The primary concern of OB is with people, what they do and how their behavior affects individual, group and organizational performance. Learning about OB will help you develop a better work-related understanding about yourself and other people (Shermerhorn, 2005). “People are the organization’s most important assets” are the words of Shermerhorn and should be taken seriously in an organization. Organizations must learn to value their employees so that when the time comes, employees will do the same for the organization. The military uses a unique organizational behavior, which is, governed by a set of rules and regulations (ex. Uniform Code of Military Justice). This gives the military...
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...the company as they saw it. The organisational culture statement covered such topics as treatment of customers, relations among work colleagues, preferred style of social communication, the decision-making process, and the nature of the working environment. Peter Richards read over the Falcon values statements shortly after he was hired as a software trainer. After observing managerial and employee behaviours at Falcon for a few weeks, he was struck by the wide discrepancy between the values expressed in the document and what he observed as actual practice within the organization. For example, the Falcon values document contained statements such as this: “Quality: Attention to detail is our trademark; our goal is to do it right the first time. We intend to deliver defect-free products and services to our customers on the date promised”. However, Richards had already seen...
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...Robbins & Judge Organizational Behavior 14th Edition What Is Organizational Behavior? Kelli J. Schutte William Jewell College Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 1-0 Chapter Learning Objectives After studying this chapter you should be able to: – Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace. – Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills. – Define organizational behavior (OB). – Show the value to OB of systematic study. – Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB. – Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB. – Identify the challenges and opportunities managers have in applying OB concepts. – Compare the three levels of analysis in this book’s OB model. Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 1-1 The Importance of Interpersonal Skills Understanding OB helps determine manager effectiveness – Technical and quantitative skills are important – But leadership and communication skills are CRITICAL Organizational benefits of skilled managers – Lower turnover of quality employees – Higher quality applications for recruitment – Better financial performance Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as Prentice Hall 1-2 What Managers Do They get things done through other people. In order to facilitate that process managers: – Make decisions – Allocate resources – Direct activities of others to attain goals ...
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...Organizational Cultures The subject of organizational culture has become a popular subject for academic and practitioners alike (Schein, 1990). The increased popularity of the subject has provided an abundance of literature that is available today. The problem with the subject of organizational culture is the difference of opinions on different aspects of the subject among the different authors. The concept itself is not even well defined as different authors provide a variety of definitions that differ. The concept’s ambiguousness has caused different authors to come up with their own theories as to how culture starts in an organization. There also seems to be a variety of opinion how important culture and its ability to change are to an organization. In order to understand organizational culture the published literature must be studied and analyzed to see if there is consensus among the authors on different areas on the subject. The first aspect of this apparently ambiguous subject that will be investigated and analyzed are the different definitions that authors have used to describe organizational culture. Authors also have a difference of opinion on where the organization’s culture comes from and how it originates. Naturally the ambiguousness in defining and recognizing its origin have created different opinions on how important and useful culture is to an organization. The final section of this paper will also look at the ability for culture to change in an organization;...
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...2009 Group 4 Organizational Culture Introduction Basically, organizational culture is the personality of the organization. Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artifacts) of organization’s members and their behaviors. Members of an organization soon come to sense the particular culture of an organization. Culture is one of those terms that are difficult to express distinctly, but everyone knows it when they sense it. For example, the culture of a large, profit corporation is quite different than that of a hospital which is quite different than that of a university. You can tell the culture of an organization by looking at the arrangement of furniture, what they brag about, what members wear, etc. -- similar to what you can use to get a feeling about someone's personality. Corporate culture can be looked at as a system. Inputs include feedback from, e.g., society, professions, laws, stories, heroes, values on competition or service, etc. The process is based on our assumptions, values and norms, e.g., our values on money, time, facilities, space and people. Outputs or effects of our culture are, e.g., organizational behaviors, technologies, strategies, image, products, services, appearance, etc. The concept of culture is particularly important when attempting to manage organization-wide change. Practitioners are coming to realize that, despite the best-laid plans, organizational change must include not only changing structures and processes...
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...IIBM Institute of Business Management Examination Paper Human Resource Management Subject Code-B102 Section A: Objective Type & Short Questions Part One Multiple Choices: 1. It is a cultural attitude marked by the tendency to regard one’s own culture as superior to others a. Geocentrism b. Polycentrism c. Ethnocentrism d. Egocentrism 2. It is the systemic study of job requirements & those factors that influence the performance of those job requirements a. Job analysis b. Job rotation c. Job circulation d. Job description 3. This Act provides an assistance for minimum statutory wages for scheduled employment a. Payment of Wages Act, 1936 b. Minimum Wages Act, 1948 c. Factories Act, 1948 d. Payment of Gratuity act, 1972 4. __________ is the actual posting of an employee to a specific job a. Induction b. Placement c. Attrition d. None 5. Broadening an individual’s knowledge, skills & abilities for future responsibilities is known as a. Training b. Development c. Education d. Mentoring 6. Change that is designed and implemented in an orderly and timely fashion in anticipation of future events a. Planned change b. Technology change c. Structural change d. None 7. It is a process for setting goals and monitoring progress towards achieving those goals a. Performance appraisal b. Performance gap c. Performance factor d. Performance...
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...I will be conducting a critique of the assigned reading articles in Module Five. I will begin by explaining the relationship between organizational behavior and human behaviors. I will then analyze how specific organizational designs can elicit predictable attitudes and motivations. Lastly, I will propose an answer to whether it is possible to generalize and say that a certain structure is better than others. Defining the Issue An organization’s structure plays a large role in how things will get accomplished by employees within the structure. “The process of design must be complementary with the objectives. This means the design and implementation process is critical.” (Smith, n.d.) If you want flexibility, responsibility, etc. then these elements must be involved in the design of the organization’s structure. “We do not get participative highly effective organizations by fiat.” (Smith, n.d.) There are many positive and negative effects that a structure can have depending on how it is implemented in an organization. “Task and organization design has to be oriented toward improving both the technical and the human components of the organization. The process of design must address the need for variation and meaning in work. It has to take into account the needs for continuous learning, involvement in decision-making, help and support between colleagues, and meaningful relationship between work and outside society, a desirable future.” (Smith, n.d.) The key to any...
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...TOPIC 1: INTRODUCTION TO ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR * Definition of organizational behavior * The primary principles contributing to Organizational Behavior * The three main goals of Organizational Behavior * ------------------------------------------------- How does the application of Organizational Behavior help organizations 1.0 What is “Organizational Behavior”? In business and management, research and studies are often started due to one simple reason; there are questions which need to be answered, and only through careful analysis and testing we will be able to present the proper methods to answer the questions. For Organizational Behavior, it is the same. The study of Organizational Behavior started because of one simple fact; most managers in the world face the same problems and questions. Common problems managers face include communication, employee’s lack of motivation, conflicts and arguments, resistant to change and many others more. All of these lead to the same conclusion, which is every organization face people problems. Most business studies focus on technical knowledge, such as account, marketing, finance, economic and others, but organizational behavior is a study field which focuses purely on the “people” aspect. In today’s business world, managers cannot succeed with technical skills alone, and they would also need to have good “people” skills. In academic terms, Organizational Behavior is defined as: “The systematic study of the actions...
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