Organizational behavior in International Business Machine (IBM) - Case Study Example

? Organizational behavior in International Business Machine (IBM) Organizational behavior has been an important concept for the business houses over the years. In the era of globalization and the competition, the success of the business not only depend on the strategies incorporated by the organization in order to increase the customer satisfaction so that better profitability can be attained by them, but the overall behavior of the organization is also very crucial in these respect. The organizational behavior provides a guideline or the mainframe through which organizations achieve their goals by the implementation of the policies. The absence of proper organizational behavior policies in an organization does no good to the overall success of it in the market. The overall process of organization behavior deals with the thoughts, feelings and emotions which arise among the employees in the workplace. The study of the human behavior is crucial considering the fact that it is the human beings which drive the organization towards its success and unless their viewpoint is addressed, the organization will never be able to attain the desired goals. If the work related behavior of the individuals in an organization is carried out in a proper way, then the organization is assumed to be in its path to glory. The paper analyzes the organization behavior policies adopted in one of the leading Information Technology organization in the world, IBM. In the study, special focus has been highlighted in certain aspects of organizational behavior like, the process of motivation maintained by the company, the communication flow across various departments, and the organizational culture which exist within the organization. In order to have a better idea about the concepts to be discussed about of the organization behavior, an analysis of the concepts has been done below. Motivation and the hierarchy of needs: Motivation is defined as the desire or the needs which arises within an individual which forces him to undertake some action. The process of motivation can be instrumental in channelizing an individual towards achieving certain goals. The importance of motivation also lies in the fact that the process can be vital in determining the overall level of performance of an individual. In matters of organizational behavior, motivation is a key factor for directing the employees to attain the goals of the organization. With the help of motivation, an employee raises their level of efficiency and performs better. The increased level of motivation provided by the employers also helps in the development of loyalty among the employees. The overall image of the organization also improves if the employees are motivated in a proper fashion. The range of factors which motivates the employees all depends upon the need of the individuals and without the needs the employees or the individuals will not be motivated considerably (Dewhurst, et al, 2009). According to Maslow, the needs of the individuals follow a hierarchy and he segregated the five levels of needs based on their importance. The five levels of needs addressed by him are based on physiological context, the security of an individual, needs based on esteem and self actualizations. The physiological needs of the individual constitute the basic elements which are required by the individual for survival like food, water. From the view point of the organization, physiological needs constitute the adequate salary and working environment, so that the employees can sustain in the organization for a long period of time. The security and the safety needs of the individual involves requirement of a place for living where they can be protected from various environmental hazards and human threats. Security needs in an organization deals with providing the employees a secured career where they can meet their professional goals. The social needs of an individual according to Maslow, relates to the social aspects of human life. It includes needs for the individual to be recognized in the society and to be accepted among their own peers. In organizations, often the employers adopt policies through which the employees feel to be in a team which in turn satisfies their social needs. Esteem needs comprises of the need of an individual to have a positive self image and self respect. Individuals often demand for the recognition and respect from others in order to fulfill their esteem needs. In organizations employees can develop a sense of accomplishment if they can successfully complete the challenging task imposed on them by the employers. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the self actualization needs resides at the top of hierarchy. The self actualization needs varies among individuals and it involves the realization of the potential of the individual towards growth and development. As the nature of the needs varies among individuals, organizations often face difficulty in addressing the needs in a proper fashion. (Sadri & Bowen, 2011, pp.45-47) Communication: Organizational communication is one of the primary requirement for achieving the organizational aims and objectives. Interpersonal communication and communication in the form of direction and feedback are fundamental in carrying out every managerial activity. It is with the help of the communication channel that the organization works with the people and their policies, orders and strategies are transmitted among the employees. Presence of an effective communication system within an organization also prevents the spread of misinformation and rumors which the organization faces difficulty in handling. With the presence of proper communication existing between employees of different departments, the level of understanding among the employees increases and enhances the performance of the group activities. The participation of the employees in the decision making process also improves significantly and ideas and suggestions comes across various section of the organization which in turn strengthens the decision making process. With the presence of effective communication between the employees, the social relation among the workers increases and also helps in the fulfillment of the social needs of the employees (Strategy +business, n. d). Various forms of organizational communication exists which are classified as vertical, upward, downward and transactional communication. Vertical communication is the preferred form of communication which takes place between the mangers and the subordinates and the pattern of this communication process is that, information exchange takes place between the top and the bottom in an organizational hierarchy. The two types of vertical communication which are widely popular are the upward communication and downward communication. Upward communication deals with the information flow from the lower position in the organizational hierarchy to the top position. The general pattern of the information which is being exchanged in this type of communication involves request, suggestion and enquiry of reports by the executives to the managers of the organization. The other form of vertical communication is the downward communication where information is transmitted from the mangers to the executives and generally includes assignment of tasks, direction for carrying out the assignment and also involves the feedback regarding the performance of the employees. Among the different forms of interpersonal communication which takes place in an organization, the most common are verbal and written forms of communication. Though verbal communication is the easiest form of communication, but it accompanies various limitations. Verbal communication does not maintain any formal record so a possibility of the incorrect interpretation of the message transmitted can take place, besides various barriers to the communication can also hamper the transmission of the message. Organizational culture: Organizational culture refers to the set of values which are prevalent within the organization and deals with the nature of the operation maintained in the organization and the factors which it considers important. The culture within an organization determines whether the organization is likely to be aggressive or conservative in the overall decision making process undertaken by them. Organizational culture also determines the behavior of the employees in the organization based on the values incorporated by the organization. It helps in determining the behavior which are acceptable and which are not based on the viewpoint of the organization. In order to develop a clear and strong set of organizational cultures organizations generally require some time for the values to be inculcated among the employees. Proper training is required for the employees so that they can carefully highlight the cultures which are aimed by the organization and act accordingly to give shape to it. Organizations should realize that it depend on the employees to imbibe the culture of the organization, as aimed by them and should provide proper attention towards it. In today’s competitive world, presence of a strong culture within the organization provides them with a competitive edge as customers are much more knowledgeable and also takes into consideration about the culture prevalent within the organization before opting for the products. Presence of a strong culture within the organization also helps in the managerial decision making process as implementation of the decision becomes much easier with a common culture present within the organization. A wide variety of other organizational tasks are also carried out easily with the presence of a rich culture within the organization. Often organizations incorporate variety of changes in the organization culture to increase the operational activity of the organizations (Fong & Kwok, 2009, pp.1348-1356). Organizational Behavior in IBM: Company Profile: International Business Machines (IBM) is one of the major players in the international market of Information Technology. The organization has it’s headquarter in New York. IMB has associated themselves with the selling of computer hardware and software along with various research activities in the field of information technology. The companies were established in 1911 and have continuing delivering the best for more than a century. IBM currently operates in more than 170 countries and has massive employee strength. Over the years it has been a lucrative place for the employees to get associated with this global brand. In view of the success which IBM has generated over the years, a careful study of the organizational behavior followed in the organization is undertaken. Motivational policies incorporated by IBM: In earlier days IBM used to concentrate much more on the pay package in order to motivate the employees to perform better. Performance based incentives were also provided to the employees so that they would be motivated enough to obtain the desired goals set by the management. The pay package provided by IBM was considerable in satisfying the basic needs of the employees and proved considerable in satisfying them. In order to address the security needs of the employees, the retention of the employees in IBM was very high in comparison to the rate of employee retention in other organizations operating in the same field. The employees were also provided with various incentives on completing certain tenure within the organization and the employees were made to feel that their position in the organization is stable, provided that they derive optimum result for the organization. However in the recent years, IBM has started focusing on the training the employees as a process to motivate them. IBM organizes various training program on latest advancement in technology to its employees. The training process undertaken by the employees motivates them as it helps in the overall advancement of the career by adding value to their skills. The employees also feel that they can achieve the professional goals within the organization and thus creates a job satisfaction among them and they start performing better (Winning the Battle for Talent, n. d) IBM also stresses on the various activities among the employees so that their social needs are addressed in a better fashion and even engages the employees in various social activities so that they can feel to a vital part of the society. The tasks imposed on each of the employees are very challenging in nature and the accomplishment of the goals by them creates a sense of satisfaction among them and they feel the urge to deliver more as they are held in respect within the organization irrespective of the nature of task they carry out. The incorporation of these wide rounds of strategies in turn keeps the employees happy and they are motivated to deliver their best for the sake of the organization. Organizational Culture in IBM: The presence of IBM in more than 170 countries of the world makes it a difficult task for the organization to adopt a single culture because of the variability of cultural factor existing in different countries. However in devising the organization culture for each of the location the basic policies of culture has been aimed at keeping the same. One of the common characteristic of the organizational culture found across the organization is the importance provided to innovation and risk taking mentality of the management. Though the innovation process involves high amount of cost and other associated risks, but innovation has contributed to the success of IBM over the years. IBM tends to follow a culture of paying minute attention to every detail and the employees are instructed to provide more precision and carry out their work with a focus on every minute detail. Though the policy of providing particular attention to every detail involves a high amount of cost and time but over the years IBM has adhered to this policy as a part of their work culture. Special attention is provided by the employees in matter of reaching the outcome of individual process undertaken by them. Employees have a clear focus towards the outcome and plan their outcome accordingly. The other elements of culture which are followed in IBM are proper orientation towards the people and the team. The commitment of the management towards the employees is very high and special attention is provided to address the needs of individual employees. As a result of the high commitment displayed by the management, the employees also feels free to discuss about their work related issues in a better way. Much focus is also given towards the building of effective teams within the organization and the presence of cross functional teams is in abundance within the organization. Aggressiveness is also one of the important attributes of the culture followed within the organization. The employees of IBM are generally aggressive in the process of fulfillment of their tasks and it helps in providing a substantial competition to the other rival organizations in the market. All these elements of culture within the organization help in the creation of a pleasant environment for the employees to work on. The adherence of such culture also has a direct implication on the employees and they tend to behave in a professional manner which helps in their empowerment (Abyeta, 2006). Communication within IBM IBM also provides much importance to the overall communication process within the organization. IBM maintains an integrated communication process within the organization which helps in the empowerment of the employees. The integration process helps the dispersed workforce to communicate and collaborate effectively and also helps in reducing the costs effectively. The real time communication between employees, majority of which are located in remote places, has been made possible by the help of the integrated communication system. The productivity of the employees also has increased considerably because of the enhanced process of communication (Integrated business communications, n. d). In matters of communication within respective units IBM follows a mixed approach of the two way communication in which information is transmitted from mangers to the executive and vice versa. The enhanced communication system followed by the organization helps in the eradication of any ambiguity regarding the information transmitted. IBM also follows both forms of communication which are verbal and written. Written communications is mostly used by the organization which requires validation and are held as important by the management. The evidence of use of oral communication is less for official work and is particularly used during the training and the feedback process of the employees. The effective communication process followed by the organization also helps to create harmony among the employees and they exchange their ideas and suggestions with the top level of the organization on a regular basis which in turn fosters the overall growth of IBM. Recommendations: The policies of organizational behavior maintained by IBM are very much flexible and are well suited to address their business but there is always a scope for improvement. In matters of motivation, the organization can seek suggestion from the employees and also investigate the needs and demands of the employees, which if fulfilled by the organization would motivate them to perform better. The needs and demands of the employees vary from each other and highlighting their needs and working accordingly will yield substantial benefit for IBM. In the context of organizational culture, more importance should be given by the organization in team building and celebrating each other’s success in the organization so that unity exists among the employees that may be crucial in times of any harsh situation which the organization has to face. Effective communication may be maintained by IBM by reducing the communication barriers which the organization faces and should be held as a matter of huge importance by the organization. Conclusion: The study of the paper highlights the importance of Organizational Behavior and the various elements associated with it. A careful analysis of the policies of the organization behavior by IBM also has been done which revealed that IBM maintains a flexible policy towards motivating their employees, maintaining an effective communication structure and a strong and rich organizational culture. Though the policies discussed may vary among the various units of IBM maintained worldwide, but the framework of the policies are identical in nature. In matters of motivation IBM tries to motivate the employees based on the hierarchy of needs and the policies have gained substantial results over the past. But it has been recommended to identify the needs of individual employees and incorporate steps accordingly for gaining better results. A strong work culture is also maintained by the organization but much more stress is to be provided by the organization in effective team building. IBM also understands the importance of communication process within the organization and takes the help of integrated communication technology for coordinating between various units located in diverse locations. Steps should be implemented to reduce the barriers of the communication so that the efficiency of the process increases. 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