Culture and Operations of an Organization - PeopleSoft, Nokia Corporation - Case Study Example

Culture and Operations of an organization Student’s Name: Course Code: Lecture’s Name: Date of Submission: Culture and Operations of an organization Introduction Organizational culture are the beliefs and principles that a particular organization in their day to day running. In other words, organizational culture is a complex issue that essentially encompasses group shared values, beliefs attitudes, assumptions, artifacts and behaviors. These organization principles become part of the company and sometimes its identity. Through years of research scholars have able to establish profuse links between organizational culture and organizational performance. Organizational research scholars suggest that a sturdy culture that aligns staff behavior with institutional objectives should enhance performance. There is increasing understanding of importance of organizational culture. Nowadays it has become too difficult for companies to undertake their mandate with laid down values (Jassawalla and Sashittal, 2002). A strong organizational culture is used by firms for competitive advantage. For instance, by leveraging their culture of innovation toward product as well as internal processes institutions are able to survive despite stiff competition and can enter in to new and profitable markets (Siew and Yu, 2004). Critical analysis of organizational culture An outstanding example of organizational culture is that of PeopleSoft, a California business management software company. It encourages or it’s a norm for employees to engage in nerf ball shootouts and minigolf tournaments in the business premises hallways. In the institution, white collar is a T-shirt and coffee is offered free. Part of the organization’s culture is having fun and the company premise is considered the best place of spending a bad day. Values of egalitarianism are held in high regard, where people are treated with respect. In addition, executives do not have secretaries, flamboyant offices or special benefits. The leadership of PeopleSoft is particularly keen on reminding all the employees about the importance of respect for all, the same respect accorded to the president should be given bagel delivery guy. Further, the organization is technology pro and has flexible customer service. Technology is highly dependable in the job application system where the organization utilizes an automated voice response system to accept their job offer. The usefulness of technology in the company is further shown on an employee first day at work; a notebook computer, backpack and tools for posting personal web pages on the organization intranet are offered. This is considered normality rather than written rule (Miller, 2000). The company has seen tremendous growth compared to SAP and Oracle and currently stands second largest business management software provider after SAP. The organizational culture of PeopleSoft attracts and retains skilled personnel and also selling to customers. PeopleSoft has an outstanding organizational culture, that auger well with the company’s competitiveness. PeopleSoft’s organizational culture has highly contributed to its success. The workers at the company have adopted a particular way of thinking about the challenges the company faces and how to act on them as well as maximizing exploitation of opportunities (Miller, 2000; Stone and Vance, 2009). Another organization with an outstanding culture is the Nokia Corporation, manufacturer of cellular phones. The best description for Nokia Corporation culture is that it is responsive and collegial. In the company, employees do not take credit personally for their success rather emphasizes of collegiality. A famous quote from its CEO Jorma Ollila is “we don’t snap our suspenders.” The culture is founded on the values of respect for individuals, customer satisfaction, achievement and continuous learning. It further stretches to encompass equality of opportunities and employee participation and emphasis of speed and flexibility of decision making (Miller, 2000; Moon et al., 2012). On customer satisfaction, Nokia Corporation runs dedicated sales and marketing, logistics and sourcing functions, concentrate on making products that best suit their customers and randomly responds to the changing customer needs. The corporation is also keen on respect for individuals by offering opportunities for individual growth and responsibility, teamwork and freedom for creativity. The company emphasizes on minimal rules and regulations as a way of promoting creativity. Further, the corporation emphasizes on achievement of its goals by adopting new strategy in response to change in the global market, continuous refocusing of their goals and being at the right place at the right time. As part of its corporate culture Nokia Corporation stresses on continuous learning through strong focus on research and development. This helps to keep the company at par with customer needs as well as the direction of technology (Miller, 2000; Smith et al., 2005). Of importance is to note the limited approach in employee performance recognition whereby they are not allowed to personally take credit. The emphasis of collegiality in the company may not auger well with dynamic and high performing employees. This approach may cause job dissatisfaction by employees of the company leading to turnover. However, on the lighter side the company has enjoyed success and has been a leader in the cellular phone industry due to its outstanding values (Smith et al., 2005). Organizational culture has also had great influence on the operations and performance of Hewlett-Packard (HP). Its organization culture package has been commonly referred to as “The H-P Way”. The founders of HP established a culture where “hire and fire” approach was renounced. The leaders didn’t see the need for hiring many workers for single big order and afterwards discharging them. Instead, HP offered its employees what would be considered as almost perfect job-security. This was particularly visible during the 1974 US crisis and many people from other organizations were dismissed yet HP avoided dismissals by adopting a four day work per week schedule. As part of the culture the founders of HP adopted individuals drive as a form of motivation and related with their employees as family members. They also adopted profit sharing approach where the workers involved in the company through stock options and paid additional premiums during good times. This culture of employee performance recognition formed as a motivation package in addition to scholarship package (Miller, 2000; Smith et al., 2005). According to the framework of “The H-P Way,” HP’s employees together with the leaders are expected to follow a maxim “Don’t Be Evil”. This is aimed at making all the company’s operations to be honest especially information coming out of the business. It was for the custodians of information to keep a secret on what they knew and for the entire world to find out. This was the situation that happened to Hewlett-Packard (HP) which resulted in a disaster in the whole world. The company criticizers challenged the organizational claiming that the company was not being honest at all. By the world staying in the dark people considered HP really evil and not good at all (Miller, 2000; Judge and Cable, 2006). In Apple Incorporation, a culture of secrecy has been cultivated whereas maintaining consistency and comprehensiveness across its organizational practices. In furthering this culture, employees involved in particular projects have to go through maze of security doors with high security requirement identifiers. These controlled workspaces are closely monitored by security cameras and it’s mandatory for employees who work in production testing rooms to cover devices with black cloaks. The employees are required to turn on red light when the products are unmasked as a way of making everyone extra careful. In case an employee is suspected of leaking product information is tracked and fired. This was further visible with the former Chief Executive Officer Health secrecy. The effect of this organizational culture may be analyzed in two ways. In one way, Apple has progressively improved its performance and has been a success story. The protection it places on new ideas and projects could be a way of ensuring continuous development of the company. This approach ensures that the company does not lose its ideas to its competitors. On the hand, employees in the long run may develop an attitude of mistrust with the company due to close surveillance of their activities. This may result to job dissatisfaction and eventually high rate of turnover (Stone and Vance, 2009). At Pixar Animation Studios, employees are encouraged to collaborate in their work, for instance the technical and creative teams which have resulted in creative genius. This forms part of organizational culture at Pixar. In addition, the founders have taken leading roles where they participate in innovation, creation and development of software and animated films. For example, Ed Catmull is a co-founder, president and leader of Pixar is in charge of the technology division and has been overseeing development of software product, Luxo. John Lasseter, co-founder and executive vice president is in charge of Pixar’s creative inspiration division and also directs animated films. This an organization culture of leading by example. Further, the company has a culture of employees’ growth and development while tapping and main maintaining talents. This is accelerated by establishment of Pixar University that offers courses that foster creativity, collaboration and preventing burnout. The university raises the level of the best employees, cross training and developing mastery. The organization goes an extra mile by creating a favorable working environment whereby it has a gym, swimming pool, soccer field, volleyball courts, large atrium area with pingpong, table football and billiards. It has also provided a canteen, bar and stage. Concern for employees’ welfare is part of Pixar’s organizational culture. This contributes in reducing stress and burnout. Animators are not allowed to work more than 50 hours a week as a way of retaining the superb mentality shape. This is further boosted by weekly visit by a masseuse and physician at Pixar. The organizational culture of Pixar has contributed to its success. The employees of the company have received 16 Academy Awards and other awards due to their quality work performance through product innovation and development (Moon et al., 2012). In conclusion, it is evident what strong organizational cultures can do. There is a clear link between organizational culture and company performance. As observed by Sorensen (2002) strong cultures lead to consistency in performance by increasing employee consensus and willingness to endorse organizational goals, reducing uncertainty through goal clarity, and increasing motivation. Further, he argued that this social control leads to greater stability and dependability in performance. References Jassawalla, A and Sashittal, H 2002, Cultures that support product innovation processes, Academy of Management Executive, vol.16, no. 1, pp. 42-53. Judge, T and Cable, D 2006, Applicant personality, organizational culture, and organization attraction, Personnel Psychology, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 359-394. Miller, K 2000, Organizational Culture, Viewed on 09th April 2013 http://www.uni-graz.at/iimwww/iimwww/orgculture.pdf Moon, H., Quigley, N. and Marr, J 2012, How interpersonal motives explain the influence of organizational culture on organizational productivity, creativity and adaptation, Organizational Psychology Review, vol.2, no. 2, pp.109-128. Siew, K. and Yu, K 2004, Corporate culture and organizational performance. Journal of Managerial Psychology, vol.19, no.1, pp. 340-359. Smith, K., Collins, C and Clark, K 2005, Existing knowledge, knowledge creation capability, and the rate of new product introduction in high-technology firms, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 48, no. 2, pp.346-357. Sorensen, J 2002, The strength of corporate culture and the reliability of firm performance. Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 47, pp.70-91. Stone, B and Vance, R 2009, Apple’s obsession with secrecy grows stronger, The New York Times, June 22: B1. Read More