The course called organizational behavioral - Essay Example

Every organization has its own culture that acts a code of conduct and shapes the behavior of all the people that are part of the organization. All the attitudes including office etiquette, social life, interaction with bosses and colleagues including the way of greeting comes under organizational culture. Organizational culture is different not only in different organizations but also in different geographical locations. Hence this sometimes causes employees to alter their behavior considering the different organizational culture in order to fit into the new culture and thereby avoiding any action that is considered inappropriate.

A form of greeting in most workplaces is a common gesture used in communications that are occurring face to face and it varies from culture to culture. It is a common business communication behavior in the United States to shake hands while people first meet which is used as a form of greeting. This goes for all business situations as well as some social situations and is regardless of the gender of both hand shakers. However, in countries like Saudi Arabia, it is prohibited for male employees to shake hands with female employees or vice versa due to religious reasons.

Hand shake or for that matter, any act involving physical touching between men and women is considered a taboo and therefore is prohibited. Having been employed in an organization in the United States, where interaction between male and female coworkers is very common, and then later moving on to an organization in Saudi Arabia, there is the need to change behavior in order to ‘adapt’ in to the new organization. Since hand shake is common in the US and prohibited in Saudi Arabia, the personal comfort zone is quite different from the zone of appropriateness in the new workplace.

This situation results in no or minimal overlap between the personal comfort zone and the Saudi Arabian zone of appropriateness leading to authenticity challenges regarding being comfortable with the new setting and environment. There is difficulty in connecting with other coworkers along with feelings of low self promotion. Of course this gap between the two zones can be overcome thereby creating a zone of optimal performance (Molinsky ch. 4, para. 11). One way this might be done is to try to customize your own behavior by adopting the new culture by taking on its code of behavior.

Having an experience in working at particular Saudi Arabian workplaces could have also helped in adapting to the new environment. Another similar situation involving negotiation styles is considered where there are different negotiation approaches in different cultures even though negotiation styles may vary within cultures as well. Every person may negotiate differently even though they belong to the same culture depending upon the sector, time, setting and so on. Hence there might be generalizations while considering cross cultural negotiation styles.

Cultural negotiation styles take into account the time orientation, space orientation, non verbal communication, hierachical structure, and so on (LeBaron "Culture-Based Negotiation Styles"). For an effective negotiation, it is important to understand the negotiation approach of the other party and adjust accordingly for mutual benefit. Negotiators in the United States have a greater sense of independence as they see themselves as self governing, that is, they use the individualist approach of communication.

They do consult others but they