International Organisational Behaviour - Essay Example

?Running Head: International Organisational Behaviour International Organisational Behaviour [Institute’s International Organisational Behaviour Introduction It was in 1945, after the Second World War in Japan that a graduate from Waseda University started a small repair shop in Tokyo in a bomb-damaged building. He had no clue that within a couple of decades, the company that he built with a friend Akio Morita, would go on to become one of the biggest conglomerate multinational companies of the world. In 1998, Brown University awarded Mr. Masaru Ibuka, the co-founder of Sony Corporation with Honorary Doctorate Degree in Science (Sony, 2011). Sony has its operations in many countries spread across six continents of the world. It was in 1973 when this Japanese giant entered the Singaporean market and since then it has become one of the leading players of the consumer electronics market. Sony Singapore (Sony, 2011) functions include with its activities of “engineering, information technology, manufacturing, sales and marketing, treasury services, logistics and others”. Sony Singapore (Sony, 2011) employs from than 1900 employees in the country. This paper is an attempt to explore, investigate, and examine various aspects related to the organisational behaviour of Sony Singapore. Systematic study of Organisational Behaviour Systematic study of organisational behaviour refers to the scientific approach used by organisational behaviour to combine various fields of “human psychology, organisational development, management, organisational theory, human resource management, and sociology” (Champoux, pp. 29-44, 2010). The systematic study of organisational behaviour refers to the fact that the “overall purposes of the field are understanding/explanation, prediction, and control” (Knights & Willmott, 79-81, 2006). Furthermore, the definitions provided by the field are operational and precise and the measures are reliable and valid. Psychology is the first and foremost behavioral field, which contributes to the field of organisational behaviour. It seeks to explain the behaviour of people, measure, explain, predict, and control these behaviours. Without any doubts, Sony continuously tries to find way to alter and tame the behaviours and attitudes of its employees in such a way that the organisational productivity (Champoux, pp. 421-428, 2010). Sociology is another behavioral discipline, which has a close link with Organisational behaviour. People do not live and operate in vacuum, in fact, their behaviours are continuously influenced by social factors. The organisation of Sony itself is a social institution and norms, social roles, values, and customs have constant affect on its employees and managers. Shaping Behaviours of Sales Executives Successful organisations and managers are the ones who know how to align their human resources with the organisational objectives. In other words, it is the task of the organisation and its managers to motivate and push its employees towards achieving the goals and objectives assigned to them. Following are the four possible ways in which a sales manager at Sony can shape the behaviour of it sales executives. First, in the light of the operant conditioning theory, behaviours can be shaped by presenting a reward every time the subject engages in the desirable behaviour. For example, if a sales executive is putting in extra effort to take training sessions then acknowledging his effort in front of the whole staff and applauding him could be a reward, which would reinforce that behaviour (Knights & Willmott, 79-81, 2006). Second, other than positive reinforcement of behaviours which has been mentioned above, negative reinforcement is also an option. Like positive reinforcement, it refers to the practice of taking something undesirable in order to reward and reinforce any behaviour. For example, if a sales executive achieves the target of his monthly sales even before the last week; negative reinforcement would be to take back the pay cuts, which were coming due to the bad performance of last month (Wilderom, pp. 139-141, 2000). Third, Punishment is also a strong method for shaping behaviour. Unlike ‘positive and negative reinforcement’ (Champoux, pp. 29-44, 2010), punishment does not reinforce the behaviours but decreases the like hood of the same. Managers use punishment when they want to weaken any behaviour and decrease its frequency of occurrence (DuBrin, pp. 66-68, 2004). For example, sales executive at Sony know that they cannot leave before 5pm in the afternoon without informing their supervisor. However, a specific employee has been doing the same repeatedly. Therefore, the manager may decide to cut his yearly bonus by 25 percent. Therefore, behaviour shaping is possible through taking away any desirable consequence as well (Griffin & Moorhead, pp. 498-502, 2009). Fourth, there are times when managers want to discourage previously reinforced behaviour. For example, now the sales managers does not want the employee to take any more training sessions because it is costly the company and it appears that all employees have received the necessary training. Therefore, he would stop presenting the reward of applauding the employee and acknowledging his effort. This would allow the behaviour to extinct (Boddy, pp. 74-75, 2007). Douglas McGregor on Employee Motivation Without any doubts, Douglas McGregor is on of the gurus of employee motivation. His work on Theory X and Theory Y managers was able to inspire many experts and their theories. According to McGregor, there are two types of managers based on their approach towards employees and ways used to motivate them. There are Theory X managers, which follow the Michigan approach or hard approach of management. They view workers, employees, or subordinates as lazy, lethargic, disliking work, sluggish, inattentive, and apathetic. Since the organisation needs to achieve its goals with the help of these employees, therefore, they must be controlled, used, threatened and exploited just like any another resource available at the disposal of the organisation (DuBrin, pp. 66-68, 2004). Sub ordinates have little potential of imagination and creativity and since they are gullible and unintelligent, therefore, they do not deserve any say in the decision making process of organisation. These managers view people just as tool to achieve their own and organisational objectives. Human resource is merely another variable expense which they organisation needs to pay so all efforts must be made to made to decrease these expenses (Sinha, pp. 16-21, 2009). However, on the other hand, there are Theory X managers believing the exact opposite. These managers consider that people are not inherently lazy or sluggish; in fact, they are focused, creative, and imaginative. The job of the manager is not to control them like animals or passive subjects; in fact, the job of the manager is to provide them with direction, coaching and mentoring, and employees would do the rest themselves. Therefore, it is important to treat employees rightly, provide them with opportunities, empower them to take decisions, allow them to think out of the box, communicate with them freely, have trust in their abilities, in order to motivate them to reach their fullest potential (Harris & Hartman, pp. 96-98, 2001). Factors leading to job satisfaction Building on the theory X on Douglas McGregor, if employees are to perform effectively then it is important to keep them happy and satisfied. Businesses now understand that they have to make serious efforts towards ensuring job satisfaction of its employees. Much research has taken place in this regard. Although, there are many factors, which have an impact on job satisfaction, two of them are the most important. First, job design has a strong link with job satisfaction. Job design refers to overall outlook of the job combined with all different variables. Important here to note is that there are various approaches to job design which may contribute to job satisfaction. They are job enrichment, job engineering, quality of work life (QWL), job characteristics model and social information processing (Champoux, pp. 29-44, 2010). The second factor is of goal setting. Much of the frustration and confusion that employees go through during their jobs is due to poor goal setting. If goals were set keeping in mind the SMART framework of specific, measureable, attainable, realistic, and time-bound goals then much of these employees would not exist in the first place (Champoux, pp. 421-428, 2010). Considering the business of Sony Corporation, employee turnover is an important aspect for the business. There are many reasons for the same. First, Sony is operating in an extremely competitive market where employees cannot be allowed to go after every now and then. It has been an observation that “Recruiting, selecting, orienting, and training each candidate costs the company thousands of dollars” (DuBrin, pp. 20-25, 2004). Second, Sony’s business depends very much on the innovation and creativity that its employees bring to the job. Without the same, the very existence of Sony would be in jeopardy. Innovation is a time consuming and lengthy process (Boddy, pp. 74-75, 2007). However, with high employee turnover, things will never settle down and it is highly unlikely that the company would be able to make any major breakthrough. Layoffs and voluntarily quitting of jobs has recently increased the turnover of the company. At the same time, for the financial year of 2010, the company’s revenue decreased. There is all the possibility that these two might have a strong correlation (Griffin & Moorhead, pp. 498-502, 2009). Five stages of Group Life cycle and Sony’s Sales Teams All groups and teams go through five stages, which are “Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning” (Martin & Fellenz, pp. 25-29, 2010). Forming is the initial stage of group development where great of uncertainty and ambiguity is present regarding the tasks, roles, members, leadership, purpose, goals, and others. Therefore, the job of the manager or the leader here is to attempt to solve this confusion and be directive (Martin & Fellenz, pp. 25-29, 2010). As the name suggests, the second stage is of storming where the group members attempt to solve the confusions and ambiguities. Quite understandably, nothing goes out smooth and planned. Group members engage in heated debates, there are disagreements at each step and at times, it leads to confrontation as well. Many groups either go through this stage every quickly or never get past this stage. The role of the leader is that of a passive facilitator, however, the survival of the group depends on the maturity of the leader and the sensibility of the group members (Tosi & Mero, pp. 374-382, 2003). The next stage of the group development requires the group members to sit down and enter into the phase of cooperation and collaboration. This stage is referred as Norming because here group members develop a feeling of “we”, collective identify group cohesion and take up their roles and work responsibilities. The leader continues to be facilitator and encourages the communication process (Boddy, pp. 74-75, 2007). Perhaps, the most important stage for the manager would be of “performing” where the employees start achieving the goals that have been agreed in the previous stage. Teams become autonomous, motivated, competent and can handle the decision making process without much supervision (DuBrin, pp. 23-25, 2004). The leader comes becomes a part of the team and starts directly contributing to the goals (Buchanan & Huczynski, pp. 254-256, 2004). In 1977, along with Mary Ann Jensen, Tuckman added the fifth stage, which is of adjourning or also known as mourning. This is the stage where groups break and integrate. This stage is full of mixed emotions of celebration, achievement, and success along with grief, sadness, and pain of leaving the group. Motivations level would decline if the members are unhappy about leaving the group and the job of the manager would be to motivate the employees (Daft & Marcic, pp. 19, 2008). Communication Barriers and Politically correct communication There are some crucial communication barriers between men and women which the managers needs to be understand before taking the charge the communication process. One of the biggest differences in this regard is whenever women are trying to share stuff they are trying to build intimacy and closeness by sharing their problems and listening to the others. However, men mostly use communication to inform and increase their importance. If men listen to the traditional women talk, they try to offer solutions in order to reinforce their intelligence and importance. However, they fail to understand that this is not required. When talking to a woman “listening ability” is required and when talking to man, it is important to understand that the person is predominantly egoistic and has problems solving attitude (McShane, McShane & Glinow, pp. 89-94, 2004). Furthermore, important here to note is that Singapore is an extremely diverse country. In fact, almost half of the population living in Singapore is of foreigners. Therefore, it is important to be “politically correct” when it comes to communication with the people around. In other means, those words, phrases and sentences shall be used which would not make any person feel disvalued, excluded or may find it offensive. For example, there are some common phrases, which shall be avoided. Instead of “policemen”, “chairmen” and “firemen”, it is advisable to use “police officer”, “chairperson,” or “firefighters”. Instead of referring to a group of people as “guys” or using male pronouns for it, one should ne neutral in terms of gender and use “people” or “friends”. Instead of saying “retarded”, “handicapped” and “uneducated”, one should use say “Developmentally challenges”, “Special people”, and “lacking a formal education” respectively. Instead of using “acting like wild Indians”, managers at Sony may use “out of control” so that people from the Indian culture may not feel any insult (Buchanan & Huczynski, pp. 254-256, 2004). Leaders and Managers For the past century or so, only a handful of other topics in management literature have received more attention then the topic of leadership. In its simplest sense, leadership refers to the practice of influencing people towards achievement of common goals and objectives. In short, leadership is all about influence. However, it is important here for the managers of Sony Singapore to distinguish between leaders and managers. Leaders can be managers but not all managers can be leaders (Wood, pp. 14-18, 2004). There are a few important distinctions, which are as follows. Firstly, leaders have followers but managers have sub ordinates. People follow managers due the power that they posses out of the legal or hierarchical authority, however, they follow leaders out of love, admiration, and respect (Tosi & Mero, pp. 374-382, 2003). Second, when managers try to bring stability to work, try to keep things on status quo and achieve results and numbers with a short-term focus, leaders have a long-term vision, thus they are able to initiate change. Akio Morito can come under classification as a leader rather than only a manager. He had a vision in his mind and transformed the company from a little shop to a multinational business dealing in many markets in company. He not changed himself but became a change agent and facilitated the changing of other people as well. Five Sources of Power Concepts of power, politics, and authority cannot be separated from organisations. In fact, they are a part of daily operations of organisations. There are five possible sources of power namely reward power, coercive power, legitimate power, referent power and expert power. First, reward power has its roots in the ability of the person to reward the subjects who are under compliance of his orders. For example, managers at Sony and other companies have power over others because they have the authority to provide with rewards like better work conditions, pay increases, increments, benefits, rewards, bonuses, and others. However, important here is that the target must value these rewards. Every one who is directly higher in the line hierarchy from a person possesses the reward power over that person (Daft & Marcic, pp. 19, 2008). Second, managers possess coercive power because employees are fearful of them. People with coercive power are able to inflict strict outcomes, punishments, and adverse consequences on other people. For example, employees behave in line with the expectations of the managers because they know that they could be terminated, fired, demoted or may witness pay cuts if they fail to fulfill they expectations of their managers. Once again, all managers have Sony have this power (Miner, pp. 325-329, 2007). Third, legitimate power comes from the job title, position, or authority. Howard Stringer has power over every employee of Sony because he holds the titles of Chairman, CEO, and President. Senior workers may also enjoy power over other junior employees because of their age (Knights & Willmott, 79-81, 2006). Fourth, expert power has its roots in the knowledge and admiration of the person. A ship captain with 30 years of experience has expert power because of his knowledge, skills, and experience. Along with legitimate power, Howard Stringer also enjoys expert power because he has won nine Emmy Awards for his work at CBS. Last, a person may enjoy referent power based on respect, likeness, and admiration that people give to him due to his personal characteristics. Nobuyuki Idei, former Chairperson, and CEO of Sony Corporation (Sony, 2011) enjoyed great deal of referent power because of high prestige and admiration of him by the employees. Cultural Dimensions of Hofstede Following are the five dimensions of Hofstede’s research in cross-cultural studies. Individualism vs collectivism refers to the degree to which employees put their own needs above that of their family rather than putting the association with the group, collective needs at the top of everything. Employees who are from western cultures are mostly individualistic and they must be motivated with individual work, rewards, and recognition. Power distance refers to the degree to which employees are ready to accept the differences and inequalities between managers and subordinates. Asian and Arab employees rank high on power distance, therefore, they would perform poorly when techniques like employee engagement, decentralization and employee empowerment are used. Uncertainty avoidance refers to the tendency of people to which they are afraid of unknown and uncertain situations. People from Japan and Arab countries, therefore, try to stay away from rollercoaster ride situations and prefer strict and well-defined rules (Sims, pp. 261-267, 2002). Masculinity refers to the tendency to which the society had male values of dominance, lack of concern for others, assertiveness, materialism, tough, ambitious and others. Conversely, femininity refers to the degree to which the society has female values such as modesty, tender, consensus, intuition, comprise, quality of life and others. Japan, Hungary, Austria, Venezuela, and others are highly masculine cultures; however, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, and others have a feminine culture. Long-term orientation refers to the attitudes of people regarding the value of time and persistence. Employees from East Asian cultures are persistence, order relationships by status and do not see time as money. However, western and African cultures think just the opposite (Tosi & Mero, pp. 374-382, 2003). Role in Change agent in Managing Change Consider the example of a change at Sony where the organisation is trying to a participative style of management. At the stage of unfreezing, the change agent would come forward and communicate the need for change. He would compare the status quo and the ideal vision of his thus making other feel the need for change. At the second stage of “movement”, the change agent would lead the change management process and champion it. The change agent would use the organisational resources to communicate the message and roles of each individual in this change management process. At the third stage of refreezing, the change agent would make an actual comparison and would communicate the message that the current system is here to stay (Buchanan & Huczynski, pp. 254-256, 2004). References Boddy, David. 2007. Management: An Introduction. FT Prentice Hall. Buchanan, David A., & Huczynski, Andrzej. 2004. Organizational behaviour: an introductory text. FT/Prentice Hall. Champoux, Joseph. 2010. Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups, and Organizations. Taylor & Francis. Daft, Richard L., & Marcic, Dorothy. 2008. Understanding Management. Cengage Learning. DuBrin, Andrew J. 2004. Fundamentals of Organizational Behavior. Thomson/South-Western. Griffin, Ricky W., & Moorhead, Gregory. 2009. Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. Cengage Learning. Harris, O. Jeff., & Hartman, Sandra J. 2001. Organizational Behavior. Routledge. Knights, David, & Willmott, Hugh. 2006. Introducing organizational behaviour and management. Cengage Learning EMEA. Martin, John, & Fellenz, Martin. 2010. Organizational Behaviour & Management. Cengage Learning EMEA. McShane, Steven Lattimore, McShane, Steven, & Glinow, Mary Ann Von. 2004. Organizational behavior. McGraw-Hill. Miner, John B. 2007. Organizational behavior: From theory to practice. M.E. Sharpe. Sims, Ronald R. 2002. Managing organizational behavior. Greenwood Publishing Group. Sinha, Jai B. P. 2009. Culture and Organizational Behaviour. SAGE Publications Ltd. Sony. 2011. Sony Home & Consumer Electronics. Retrieved on March 13, 2011: www.sony.com.sg Tosi, Henry L., & Mero, Neal P. 2003. The fundamentals of organizational behavior: what managers need to know? Wiley-Blackwell. Wilderom, Celeste. 2000. Handbook of organizational culture & climate. Sage Publications. Wood, Jack Maxwell. 2004. Organisational behaviour: a global perspective. Wiley. Read More