Organizational Culture: Situational Analysis of Shared Leadership in a Self-Managing Team - Research Proposal Example

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE: SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS OF SHARED LEADERSHIP IN A SELF-MANAGING TEAM 297669 Organizational Culture: Situational Analysis of Shared Leadership in a Self-Managing Team INTRODUCTION Background information a) Organizational culture Organizational culture refers to the shared beliefs, assumptions and normal behaviors of an organization. It is a powerful influence that dictates on the manner in which people act and live within the organization. It is an idea in management and organizational studies that explains the experiences, attitudes, psychology, beliefs and values regarding an organization. These norms and values are shared by people as well as groups in the organization and as well influence the manner of interaction with one another and other stakeholders within and outside the group (Carter, 2009). The idea of organizational culture has been seen as an approach of comprehending human systems. Every aspect of organizational culture is believed to be crucial environmental condition influencing the organizational system as well as its subsystems. Study of organizational culture is an important tool for analysis of an organization. Organizational culture is also seen as a way of shared assumptions which the institution understood in solving is challenges of integration (Parker, 2000). The culture controls the organization’s leaders if they don’t become aware of the ones in which they are aligned to. Group members can also be belonging to some sub cultures within the group. There would be a few values that are common to a group system as a whole since the groups share a common historical background. Sub cultures associated with different group members with time poses different experiences hence their understanding creates different sets of common assumptions. Group members understand others’ behavior via their cultural biases. Their sets of beliefs, assumptions or values turns out to be their uncompromised realism thus perceives behaviors that are inconsistent with their own biases as being malevolent or irrational. Interpreting such sort of biases leads to several sets of experiences. Subsystems of behavioral culture studies the assumptions regarding their behavior, appreciate the understanding and experiences associated with this behavior and assumptions. Burman & Evans (2008) claim that, since culture is associated with the history of an organization and its collective experience, changing it demands great investment in both resources and time. Handy (1985) asserts that it is rather advisable to seek support from an agent of change outside the system other wise it would be difficulty for the people within the organization to perceive their own reality as their own product as well as the significance of the things that they usually take for granted. These ideas and beliefs are associated with the nature of objectives that group members should pursue as well as the ideas regarding the appropriate type and standards of behavior they should employ to attain these objectives. Organizational values helps to develop organizational guidelines and expectations which indicates the best behavior that can be adapted by employees in specific circumstances as well as influence the organizational member’s behavior in relation to one another (Deal & Kennedy,1982). Organizational Culture can be seen as being strong or weak. A strong culture is experienced where team members react to stimulus because they are aligned to certain values of the organization. Strong cultures in such situations assist groups to run well. Weak culture on the other hand exists where the members are not aligning or are less aligning to the values of the group or team and there is excessive use of bureaucracy and procedures to exercise control and power b) Share leadership in an Organizational Culture Currently, most organizations are using teams instead of individuals to act as basic organizing unit. Organizations having more than 100 workers are depending on groups and teams to perform their day to day job. Most managers have been found to be utilizing almost 40% of their time to work with these groups or teams. He teams have been found to be more effective in most functions than individual workers since through team work there is combination of expertise, skills and resource which makes the team members to optimize their potential, speed and efficiency to complete obligations (Stephanie, 2008). A team refers to a group that has assigned role functions, controlled life span and dominant interdependency. Different processes of the team helps in keeping the roles and interdependency awareness. Several team processes include cognition, socialization and motivation. Team motivation is a major process in a team without which the team the team can not have the necessary power to do its obligations. Team socialization is a process that creates cohesion in the team to perform its obligations well and work towards achieving its objectives. Team cognition comprises of acquisition, manipulation, and storage and information utilization in the team. All of these processes: Motivations, social and cognitive are effects to the type of leadership style adopted. There have been much attributed merits to team leadership since the leaders influence significantly the development and performance of the team. Problem statement Perceiving leadership in an organization as a share one results to several questions related to how the different types of leadership affect the team dynamics (Brave net, 2008). Lack of understanding and Inefficient communication between the organizational teams lead to less or no understanding of the way in which shared leadership is affected by team characteristics such size, ability maturity and cohesion between team members (Bligh, 2006). Justification Leadership has become an enduring human situation with several theories pertaining it developed over the years. Most of the theories however have been based on individual leaders(Burman & Evans, 2008). This research would like to include the discussion on exploring the possibilities of shared leadership analysis at a level of groups. It also lies to give suggestions of movement in direction of multi-level theory based on leadership in an organizational culture. Research objectives Main Objective This research has been driven by the need to address the rising demand for able leadership in relation to different team processes and approaches related with organizational challenges as the organization grows diversifies with ever increasing complex problems (People organizations theory models concepts@onepine, 2008). Specific Objectives i. to find out how Team processes; cognitive, social and motivational processes are affected by the mode of leadership process in the self-managed teams. ii. The research also seeks to explore two kinds of leadership styles: shared leadership and single leadership and find out which leadership style posses more cognitive and motivational merits over the other (Bligh, 2006). Scope and limitation One of the major boundary condition for this research is that it assumes organizational team or shared leadership incentives to be more likely to result to team building and facilitation more than self leadership. Other limitations to carry out effective research would include limited financial resources and time allocated in addition to getting the chance to interview organizational leaders. Literature Review According to Stephanie (2008), several theories have been developed regarding leadership styles as well as processes in self-managed teams. In 1998, Faraj and Sproull developed the transactive memory in trial to examine the extent in which members of a team group believes that they have the idea of every individual knowledge in the team. They also tried to find out the way team members’ responses were analyzed to achieve the overall score for the team (Hofstede, 1980). They produced a procedure that would find out the interrater agreement for every team member to get average individual responses to the level of the team. The researchers also employed Role charts where every team group gave information on every role fulfilled as well as the individual responsible (Cummings & Worley, 2005). In this approach every member had a role which he or she had to give account of as well as account of the other members’ roles (Handy, 1985). Leadership behavior reports were then examined with use of content analysis. A team with at least 50% of the members found to be having several people being leaders was perceived to have shared leadership while teams that had one leader was considered as nonshared leadership group (Symphony Orchestra Institute, 2005). Jay & Steven (2001) claim that leadership is a major process in a team without which the team members would not be able to find out the teams objectives. More leadership is demanded by self-managed teams than conventional teams in issues that are task-related as well as team development issues (Deal & Kennedy, 1982). If there is no leadership necessity in such teams that have no designated leader, then self-managed teams comes up accompanied by one leader assuming a conspicuous position or the team assumes a sense of leadership with a collective responsibility in which the leadership roles are taken up by the members of the team (Parker, 2000).This research tries to find out how cognitive, social and motivational processes are affected by the mode of leadership process in the self-managed teams and to examine team processes in self-managed teams that results to several leadership styles ( McNamara, 2009). Research Methodology The research seeks to investigate the link between shared leadership and self or individual leadership in respect to team operations that comprise of cognition, socialization and motivation coupled with trust, commitment and potency which might result to several leadership styles as well as more interactive creation of knowledge in a certain organizational culture (Hagberg Consulting Group, 2009). Significant research questions developed for the questionnaires would lead to comprehending the interrelationships in shared leadership in dynamic complex organizational culture settings (Montana, & Charnov, 2008). As per Edgar (2008), by analyzing Different team operations with respect to their member perception of the team in terms of motivation, socialization and cognition through a questionnaire, the writer would be able to determine the how certain team operations lead to a certain leadership style; either self or individual leadership or shared leadership as well as the most effective one. The questionnaire will then be sent to different companies. As per National Defense University (2008), the response of the company will determine how the operation team if any, results to or influences a certain leadership style. Specifically this would be through collecting the company information regarding the leadership, management style and members relationship with each other and the team management (Gareth, 1997). Research Questionnaire Questionnaire Q1) What type of organizational structure does the organization use? Name of the organization …………………………………………………………………... Position of the officer in the organization………………………………………………….. Type of organization structure used…..……………………………………………………... Officer remarks about the company organization structure ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Q2) What type of leadership is employed by the organization? i) Type of leadership style, Tick appropriately a) Individual leadership b) Shared Leadership ii) Officer remarks about the company leadership style ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Q3 How the organizational teams operate a) Name of the department/ team/group ………………………………………………………………... b) How do you run the affairs of the team, is there a boss or do you have a collective responsibility………………………………… c)How do you relate/coordinate with other in the team……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Q4 If yes in Q3b0 above, how do the team members perceive the leaders? a) Do you like the management team? Comments ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… b) How do you feel being associated with the team/group? Comments ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… c) How do you relate with the others in your group? Do you feel motivated by other team members, do you socialize well with each other in the group, do you feel recognized in the group. Comments on each part………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… d) Does the team act upon your opinion(s) and recommendation(s) Comments ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Expected results It is expected that the kind of leadership style in every group would be influenced by certain operations of the team or group in the organization (Stephanie, 2008). Work Plan One Two Three Four Five Six Seven eight Material preparation Writing of research Questionnaires Carrying out administration of the questionnaires Analyzing the results Report writing Proposed Budget ITEM QUANTITY PRICE / ONE QUANTITY TOTAL AMOUNT Writing Materials Internet resources Traveling expenses Consultancy cost Miscellaneous expenses Total Conclusion The developed propositions would discuss the link between individual and shared leadership in an organizational culture and provide conclusions to the theoretical implication of leadership mode in the organization (Susan, 2009). References Bligh, C. M. (2006). The importance of self- and shared leadership in team base knowledge. A meso-level model of leadership dynamics. (Online). Available at http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do;jsessionid=6B924B583034B1CB340AD82228D427A9?contentType=Article&hdAction=lnkhtml&contentId=1554368 (Accessed 15 May 2009). Brave net, (2008). Organizational Culture. (On line). Available at http://www.learnmanagement2.com/culture.htm . (Accessed 6 May 2009) Burman, R. & Evans, A.J. (2008). Target Zero: A Culture of safety, Defense. Aviation Safety Centre Journal 2008, 22-27. (On line). Available at http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/849892B2-D6D2-4DFD-B5BD-9A4F288A9B18/0/DASCJournal2008.pdf (Accessed 6 may 2009). Carter, M. (2009). Organizational Culture. Available at http://www.mapnp.org/library/org_thry/culture/culture.htm (Accessed May 2009). Cummings, T. G. & Worley, C. G. (2005), Organization Development and Change. Thomson South-Western: New York. Deal T. E. & Kennedy, A. A. (1982) Corporate Cultures: The Rites and Rituals of Corporate Life. Hammondsport: Penguin Books. Edgar S. (2008). Organizational Culture. (On line). Available at http://www.tnellen.com/ted/tc/schein.html (Accessed 6 May 2009) Gareth, M. (1997). Images of Organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. . Handy, C.B. (1985) Understanding Organizations. Hammondsport: Penguin Books Hagberg Consulting Group, (2009). Understanding culture. Available at http://www.hcgnet.com/html/articles/understanding-Culture.html (Accessed 6 May 2009). Hofstede, G. (1980) Cultures Consequences: International Differences in Work Related Values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications. Jay, S. and Steven, J. O. (2001). Organizational Culture and Leadership: In Classics of Organization Theory. Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers. Parker, M. (2000) Organizational Culture and Identity. London: Sage Symphony Orchestra Institute, (2005). Organizational Culture. (On line). Available at. http://www.soi.org/reading/change/culture.shtml (Accessed 6 May 2009). People organizations theory models concepts@onepine: Organizational Culture-theories, articles, links, (2008). Available at http://www.onepine.info/mcult.htm . (Accessed 6 May 2009). McNamara, C. (2009). Organizational Culture. (On line). Available at http://managementhelp.org/org_thry/culture/culture.htm (Accessed 6 May 2009). Montana, P., & Charnov, B. (2008). Management. Hauppauge: NY Barrons Educational Series. National Defense University, (2008). Strategic Leadership and Decision making: Organizational Culture. (On line). Available at. http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/strat-ldr-dm/pt4ch16.html (Accessed 6 may 2009). Stephanie, S. (2008). Leadership style and team processes in self-managed teams (Online). Available at http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/179660457_3.html (Accessed 15 May 2009) Susan, M. H. (2009). How to Change Your Culture: Organizational Culture Change. Available at http://humanresources.about.com/od/organizationalculture/a/culture_change.htm (Accessed May 2009) Read More