Gradcom Ltd Organization Behavior - Research Paper Example

Analysis of organization behavior of Gradcom Company Limited Analysis of Gradcom Ltd Organization Behavior Every company has certain organization’s behaviors that its employees adopt to. Some of the behaviors are influenced positively or negatively by different factors including but not limited to; organization’s culture, nature of authority, areas of emotional quotients and virtual elements of the organization in choice. “Organization behavior is the study of human behavior in an organization’s settings, the interface between human behavior and the organization, and the organization itself’’ (Moorhead & Griffin, 1995). It involves almost all facets of humanity in the organization. Human behavior is influenced by different things which might be originating within the organization, workers themselves, or external environment. Whichever the origin of the influence, the impact on the organization will either be positive or negative. Positive in this case means beneficial to the company while opposite is true for negative influence. Some of the external influences resulting from the management can be manipulated to be benefit the company. It is however the duty of the management to find out how. The better the managers understand their employees, the better the relationship and the better the performance per employee. This analysis is going to be based on the factor stated above in relation to my current company-Gradcom. It is renowned for its mobile phones and computer consultancy services in Kenya and the whole of East Africa. It has been in this business for more than ten years now. It is unique due to the following facts; Type of Culture-(dualism and pluralism/salad bowl) Culture is believed to affect the behavior of individuals in an organization. These cultural dimensions that affect organization include; beliefs, values, rituals and symbols (Edgar, 1992). This is also true to my current company (Gradcom limited). Gradcom operates as a ‘salad bowl’, evidenced by the way it embraces diversification of cultures and equality amongst people of different cultures and countries, a true definition of the phrase “salad bowl’’ according to (Heje, Kautz, & Pries, 1996). It gives equal treatment to its employees in terms of perks, pensions as well as promotions regardless of ethnicity, race or religious affiliations, in fact it is in this company that the gender rule of not more than two thirds is being followed to the letter. This is a rule that was developed by Kenyan Government that directs that no gender should take more than two thirds of the available positions in any organization. Everybody is treated equally to the set out rules and nobody ever feels inferior to anyone due to his relative rank, hierarchical position to others. This has encouraged a culture of equal opportunity for excellence to everyone thereby improving efficiency of every employee and by extension the whole organization. It’s the policy of the company to hire different people with diverse culture. This has ensured the workforce is so diverse hence bringing in different talents and traits. The same is true to the clientele of the company which comes from different ethnicity. There is also positive teamwork spirit among the employees with different departments working together towards a common goal which is encouraging to the organization. Moreover, the decision making process involves all employees making them feel part of the decisions made and hence very well implement them. Even though this culture has more advantages, its negative effect is that it slows the process of decision making as consultation may take relatively longer, and the process of hiring this diverse workforce may also be cumbersome. Nevertheless, benefits of salad bowl outweigh the costs and the employees themselves are satisfied as well as the organization evidenced from low employee turnover and increase in profits from the expanded trade. Modes of communication- (written or verbal) Communication is the key to success of every organization. It is through communication that information is passed from the floor managers to the apex C.E.Os for decision making in bureaucratic organizations. A failure at any level guarantees total failure since decisions will be made based on a distorted information or insufficient data. Communication at Gradcom can be described as a mix of formal and informal with the former being strictly for communications that requires keeping records. Grapevine define the communication among the employees with majority of the information passed on informally from person to person. This culture by the prevailing environment that discourages authoritarian ruling of the juniors and less hierarchical ranks within the organization. Most of the formal communications involve written memos, outgoing and incoming letters as well as any other official documentations where records are a necessity. With more informal communication, the message is transferred faster. This though is quick, has the disadvantage of distorting the original content of the message hence compromising the accuracy of the message. The organization also does find it hard to track the messages and determine whether everybody got the communication. This form of communication enables easy flow of information to the top managers as they can socialize with the lowest persons like interns. By doing this, they get to gather important insights that does help them in strategic management of the organization while on the other hand instilling employee confidence in them. It is a common phenomenon to find the chief executives socializing and a times helping the juniors directly in their works. The shorter chain of command in Gradcom limited has also encouraged verbal communication among employees. Recently, the company started to employ the use of internet to spread information to many people at the click of a button. Examples include the use of emails in conveying information to employees en masse and internal chat where employees do not have to walk to an office located on the other end to give a simple instruction, this is achieved by online chat. Nature of authority-(recognized social ranks) Another factor that has always had influence on the organization behavior at Gradcom, is the nature of authority. Since it has a flat organization structure, there is little authoritative rules from the ranks above. This makes the employees to be part of decisions affecting their part of expertise and hence appear to be masters of their own. This has helped them to feel so attached to their responsibilities and hence earlier conclusions of tasks. This is beneficial to the organization in terms output per time. Supervisors do not walk around ordering, but advising on better ways of doing a particular task in consultation with the employees in such sectors. This sense of delegated authority and decision making process encourages self-discipline and trust among the employees as well as responsibility among the task executors (Simon, 1947). This culture also encourages leadership among the employees. The less the social rank the faster the execution of task and communication and less the cost of running the organization since the cost of hiring the many mangers is now transferred to other needing and urgent duties. Motivational techniques-(intrinsic or extrinsic) Motivation can be defined as one’s direction to behavior or what causes a person to want to repeat a behavior and vice versa (Elliot & Covington, 2001). Many theories have been developed to try to explain the motivation at the workplace. In this discussion, the major theory is the incentives theory. Under this theory, we have extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Intrinsic is internal self-desire to seek out new things and new challenges to analyze ones capacity to observe and gain knowledge (Ryan & Deci, 2000). This resides within an individual not from any external pressure. It is basically self-interest and believing in oneself that contributes to this form of motivation. Extrinsic motivation on the other hand is the opposite of intrinsic and originates externally, for example from, a reward, threat of punishment for not accomplishing a task (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Gradcom has really excelled in the intrinsic part of the motivation. Most employees are motivated from internally and by the favorable environment that prevails within it for self-responsibility. There is no threat of punishment from failing to perform a certain task or making a mistake. Gradcom company limited recognize mistakes as steps towards efficiency and part of success hence employees are corrected on their mistakes and encouraged to do it better next time. This has resulted in very dedicated and loyal employees. This however does not rule out the part of rewarding the best performing teams. The competition here is very positive and towards a common goal. Areas of Emotional Quotient incorporated Gradcom is aware that emotional quotient is the ability to sense, understand and effectively apply the power and acumen of emotions to facilitate high levels of collaborations and productivity. They are also aware that it is affected by self-awareness, regulation and motivation. That is why the company has always encouraged individual decision making that will make them aware of the risks involved in every decisions they make. The company also encourages the individual employees not to consider their emotional side too much in decision making but also make use of their brain to make sound and educated decisions. This though should not be mistaken to mean employees don’t have a sense of empathy towards one another. In this organization, people live as a family and hence one’s problem is the problem of all. The department of welfare is so keen at these factors that every occurrence is captured in the book and appropriate solution sought and given. Emotional quotient as a culture is important to an organization to ensure no employee should have a personal problem and suffer alone. One employee having a personal problem and ignored may result in poor performance. Since the works of employees are related, one unaccomplished task at one department will affect another department. This continued process will only lead to poor overall organization’s performance, some not desired by any organization. This therefore points to the need for seriousness in this area. Virtual elements of the organization The company has been progressively developing intranets and expanding the ability of its servers to handle more networks. Currently the company has provided the relevant employees with customized laptops with networked accounts to work with even while at home. This allows many people to be employed by the company without regard to the availability of the physical office space. Meetings are now being conducted through video link and the company’s top executives do not have to gather staff or themselves in a boardroom any more to discuss even the pettiest of issues. This has saved the company so much in terms of travelling expenses and hotel reservations. Initially, the company executives used to travel a lot to convene meeting at the Head office. This no longer happens as money is diverted to other uses. It was costly initially to invest in this technology but the cost has been spread throughout the years. A department was recently created to handle incoming and outgoing calls and equipped with the best personnel. This is expected to ease getting in touch with customers round the clock. The virtual offices have increased output per given time as many employees can be engaged on different issues at the same time. This apart from improving efficiency of the organization, has also contributed a lot to the economic development of Kenya by putting to work many formerly unemployed people. The company in an attempt to be self-sufficient is currently developing a software that will see even disabled individuals working at the comfort of their homes without having to undergo the hustles of traffic within the city to report to work. However, they will be allocated a shift during mid-day when traffic in town is not bumper to bumper. Conclusion Gradcom Company may not be ranked even in the top a hundred rich companies in Kenya, but with the recent developments in management style, the limits are set high. It’s also important to note that the factor listed above are not conclusive when it comes to studying factor that may affect the organization’s performance. There are other factors that have very serious effects on the organization’s behavior and hence the performance. For Gradcom limited, so far employees are satisfied with suggestion boxes always yielding no comments every weekend. However the organization continues to be open to any ideas that may even make it better than the way it is currently as it aims to be the best performing company absolutely within the next ten years. References Edgar, S. (1992). Organizational culture and leadership: A dynamic View. San Fransisco: CA Jossey-Bass. Elliot, A. J., & Covington, M. (2001). Approach and avoidance motivation:. Education psychology Review, 12(6). Heje, K., Kautz, & Pries, J. (1996). Diffussion and adorption of information technology. Chapman and Hall. Moorhead, G., & Griffin, R. W. (1995). Organization behavior; Managing people and organization. Boston: Houghton Mifflin,. Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. (2000). Self determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, social development and well being. American Psychologist, 55-78. Simon, H. A. (1947). Administrative Behavior: a study of decision making processes in administrative Organizations. Macmillan. Read More