Work Culture and Management: Behavior in Organisation - Term Paper Example

? Behavior in Organization Executive Summary Research has found that the work habits of a given nation or place evolves from the social culture prevalent there. It is popularly referred to as “Culture’s Consequences” (Jacob, 2003, p.3). Other factors that comes into play in determining the work culture are the “skills, knowledge and learned behavior” (Harris, 1998, p.15) of the natives. Over the years, the work culture as well as the management strategies have simultaneously, been in a constant state of flux and have resulted in an emphatic change in the business world as a whole. The report discusses the different aspects of organizational behavior and the changes which they need to adapt to. The change in organizational behavior has been multi-faceted and dynamic and the most defining transformation has taken place in the workplace, pertaining to major components like Globalization, Motivation, Technological developments and Workplace Values and Ethics. These changes have occurred in keeping up with the changing social, political, economic and structural aspect of the society. The paper will now discuss the above stated factors in detail and how they affect behavior of employees. Globalization During the late 1990s, a miracle called Globalization occurred. It led to an “integration of economies and societies through cross border flow of goods, services, capital, ideas, information, technologies and people” (Mcshane, 2008, p.10) and brought in the free market regime. Globalization had led to an increase in the centralization of control over business organizations and a decentralization of the performance of work. At any rate the exploring and capturing new trade routes and maintaining control over the territory from the headquarters of one’s kingdom is a practice that was prevalent in older times as well. Globalization has re-established the same process, more effectively by using latest technological advancements. Three main trends have been observed in the development of organizational behavior. Firstly, the scope of business has been internationalized. Organizations have expanded beyond the geographical boundaries of the home countries and assumed the title of ‘Global Capitalist Corporations’. As the small size of the market was a barrier to trade due to inadequacy of demand, spanning of organizations across the globe has proved to be lucrative. For example, Switzerland’s Nestle and the Netherlands’s Heineken have both entered the global arena. Till the last decade, only big organizations could invade selective foreign markets but by the beginning of this century, globalization has aided even small and medium firms in engage in regular buying and selling in the international market. Secondly, organizations are attempting to apply cost-effective methods of production. Thus, there has been a great emphasis on reducing labor costs. Cheap labor from developing countries of Latin America and Asia are in high demand and the level of outsourcing has risen rapidly. And, finally, exposure to the international markets is making the organizations more competitive as lagging behind in sales and profits are not an option. Chevron and Exxon increased their shares in the international markets to compete with international competitors like BP and Royal Dutch Shell. (Griffin and Moorhead, 2008, 32) All in all the changes brought about by globalization, in organizational behavior has been positive. Technological developments The transformation from industrial to information age has brought about some basic changes in the workplace. There is a need for constant innovation, decentralization of decision making process, dejobbing of the labor force (home based business and both temporary/part time and full time jobs), reducing the size of work units, ‘demassification’ (flexible ways of manufacturing and several options), change from “institutional help to self-help” leading to personality development. A knowledge economy and network based structure has taken the place of bureaucratic framework (Huitt, 1998; Mcshane, 2008). The corporate sector has reaped huge dividends from the advancements in the field of technology in communications and transportations. Telephone and internet connectivity has made interactions in business much easier. The innovation of cellular phones has increased the portability of communication networks, making the communication between the employees of organizations, who are separated by geographical distance, much smoother. Fax machines, electronic mails, text messages, Skype, all these have enabled the managers in business organizations to communicate within seconds and consult one another on key issues like strategy, data on sales and profits, procedure of work, etc. This results in the more efficient running of business organizations. (Griffin and Moorhead, 2008, 31) Another new practice that emerged as a result of upgradation in technology was the transfer of work to employees, located overseas as compared to the pre-globalization regime when the reverse was the case. This was due to the fact that businesses could be monitored and controlled from the headquarters of an organization, via the latest technologies like the global internet, satellite images and other sophisticated software. Motivation The word motivation is derived from the Latin word meaning movement. Motivation in the early 1990s was largely “intrinsic” (Latham, 2007, pp.102-104) in nature, for the working population. This implies that the motivation for work was incident on a genuine desire or interest to work. As, at that time, there were no concepts of incentives, fringe benefits and other types of commissions, the continuance of an individual in a particular profession depended on his actual zeal for work. In contrast to this, is the concept of “extrinsic motivation” (Latham, 2007, p.102) which is the use of external rewards like money, incentives, etc in order to boost production. The motivation for today’s workforce is by large, these monetary rewards, fringe benefits, revenue-sharing contracts, profit-sharing schemes. Thus, what we observe is a complete transformation in the reasons to participate in an organization from respect, prestige and affiliation to monetary and other financial gains. As the world leaned more and more towards monetarism, monetary benefits started appearing more attractive to employees. As a result, compensation schemes had to be altered to increase motivation for work. Competitiveness of organizations as well as employees has increased due to this change in motivation for work. Employees are willing to work for longer hours and relocate as per the needs of the business. Thus, a change in motivation for work had boosted the business prospects of organizations and allowed it to be conducted on a larger scale, owing to the increased flexibility and co-operation of the employees. However, the flipside of this development is that there has been a corrosion of human values and morale. As the productivity of employees has become the sole standard for evaluation, more humane approaches of evaluation are being ignored. This is unfair, from an ethical standpoint. Workplace Values and Ethics Another field that has made its presence felt in the organizational behavior arena is terms of Workplace Values and Ethics. In the 1980s and 1990s, values and ethics were personal views and had nothing to do with professional lives of individuals. At the most, there could be the possibility of a small group within an organization having similar ethics or values. Nowadays, companies are going for their respective ethics and values and abiding by them. For example, “Google has the motto of Don’t be Evil” (Mcshane, 2008, p.12). One reason for this is that with the rejection of the commanding and controlling employer, the next best way of monitoring its employees is by conforming them to a certain set of ethics and values. In fact, “if managed well, values and ethics can extract high-performance from employees, even during the most critical of times.” (Lagan and Moran, 2006, p.vi) Including ethical values in the workplace is a positive change as it helps in the unification of the workforces of organizations, bound by a common belief in particular ethics and values. Professional relations gain human approach as the organizational team evolves as a family. Consequently, they can perform better as a part of a team which ultimately, results in higher productivity and competitiveness for organizations. Conclusion and Recommendations Therefore, it can be concluded that the changes that have occurred in the field of Behavior in Organization have been most radical in nature spanning over a number of components. These changes must be kept in mind at the time of policy formulation by companies as a policy based on a previous concept of work culture will prove to be detrimental for the organization. Keeping this in mind, these changed attributes can be used to attain greater success and growth in business, in a more innovative way. The recommendations based on this study are as follows:- Outsourced works should be accepted but on the terms of a more employee-friendly basis. The government must formulate some policies to protect the interests of people working in KPOs, BPOs and call centers. Training and education for work-related purposes must be such that it creates true interest in work. Listening skills might be improved and anticipating resistance towards a change in the organization might help the managers tackle the situation more efficiently (Chew, Cheng and Petrovic-Lazarevic, 2006). The government must keep up the good work it has done in the inclusion of women and the underprivileged by taking more measures in this respect. More investment should be undertaken in terms of Research and Education so that the logistics and technology are further developed. References 1. Griffin, R.W and Moorhead, G. (2008). Organizational Behavior. USA: South-Western Cengage Learning. 2. Harris, P.R (1998). The New Work Culture. USA: HRD Press. 3. Huitt, W. (1998). The workplace and the transition to the information age: How it impacts and is impacted by women. Paper presented at the Third Annual Women's Studies Conference, Valdosta, Georgia, March 5-7, available at: http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/papers/wmnwork.html (accessed on September 6, 2011) 4. Jacob, N (2003). Intercultural Management. Great Britain and USA: Kogan Page Ltd. 5. Mcshane (2008). Organizational Behavior. New York : TATA McGraw Hill 6. Brockner, J (2009). Business and Economics. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 30, pp. 480, 646-648. 7. Chew, M.M.M., Cheng, J.S.L. & S. Petrovic-Lazarevic (2006) Managers’ Role in Implementing Organizational Change, Journal of Global Business and Technology, Vol. 2, No. 1, available at: http://www.gbata.com/docs/jgbat/v2n1/v2n1p6.pdf (accessed on August 18, 2011) 8. Latham, G.P (2007). Work Motivation. USA and UK: Sage Publications Ltd. 9. Lagan, A and Moran, B (2006). Three Dimensional Ethics: Implementing workplace Values. Australia: National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication. Read More