Cultural Change - Essay Example

Cultural Change Introduction to OB Organizational behavior deals with the study of the human elements working in an organization. It takes a deepinsight in to the psychological aspects and takes their emotional responses in consideration. The employee behavior, decisions and their impact on the external environment is closely studied. In a workplace it is necessary to work in harmony and in tandem with the co-workers. The success of any organization depends on the performance of the team. OB helps to provide guidelines for effective team management. The motivation among team actually results in delivery of better work in organization and OB helps to focus on the issue (Mcshane & VonVonGlinow, 2010, p.1) 1A. Benefits of OB: The problems of Bull information can be solved by the help of OB. In the case of Bull information, the new director arriving in the company had to deal with critical problems of the organization. The organization was facing problem in proper human resource management. The most important thing the new director noticed that there was no effective communication among the employees. Most of them were hardly had any commercial awareness regarding the working of the business (Allen and Thatcher, 1995). The top managers were only involved in the decision making process and many crucial decisions were unnecessarily delayed and fudged. The management was extremely task oriented and isolationist and there was the need for development both in the middle and upper level of management. The managers did not deploy any proper risk taking skills and absence of flexibility was evident in the overall working of the business. Proper knowledge of Organizational Behavior is helpful in managing such situations confronted by the company. The field of OB stresses on coordination, collaboration and proper communication between employees for attainment of the objectives specified by the company. The problem with the management team can be dealt by inculcating the ideas and values of leadership. Collective sense of purpose needs to be built among the team leaders, managers and executives to achieve the organizational goals. B. Systematic Research. The importance of systematic research is noteworthy in the process of decision making. The process of systematic research involves framing of research questions and collection of data and analyzing the data to reach a conclusive decision. The process of research instigates a confidence in the decision making and provides meaningful results (Mcshane & VonVon Glinow, 2010, p.24). During the change management of Bull information the, stress was provided on building up of an effective team. In order to find out the deficiency of the present working team in the organization and to prescribe the necessary remedial measures, an overall feedback from the rest of the organization was collected in the form of a questionnaire and was followed by a detail probing of the answers through personal interview (Allen and Thatcher, 1995). The general questions which were asked in the feedback included the understanding of the role play of the management team. The transparency in the responsibilities and authorities of the management team were questioned. General idea regarding the functioning of the group as a team was also considered and views of employees relating to the strength and weakness were also derived from the questionnaire. General recommendation for enhancing the performance of the team was also taken from the employees in the interview process. The result derived from the survey reflected on the fact that there was no presence of unity among the groups and the group members carried on with conflicts against each other. From the result derived it became evident that plans and strategies need to be developed regarding building up relationship within the team and event was organized to inculcate values and setting up basic rules for the team to work in future. C Knowledge management Practice of efficient knowledge management skills is necessary for the growth and inculcation of further values in the organization. The intellectual capital within the organization should be handled properly for the spread of knowledge and growth of ideas (Mcshane & VonVonGlinow, 2010, p.12). Persons with good quality of knowledge should be effectively used to derive the maximum benefit out of him. In order to transfer knowledge or ideas among the employees and to have a learning friendly environment necessary step should be taken by the management. Events like forum and participation of intellects in general events should be promoted .and employee participation should be encouraged. The proper distribution of knowledge is required to increase the standard of work culture. 2. Values culture and results The importance of values is not only related in the workplace but it is mandatory to possess a quality set of personal values which guides our thoughts and actions. The value developed by an individual depends mainly on the socialization process he has gone through. The value shared by a group of people constitutes the organizational value. Various categorizations of the values have been done and proved to be detrimental in analyzing the nature of persons based on values. A. Results The organizational values are given high priority in any business organization. Organizational values deals with wholly accepted beliefs regarding the working in the organization. It specifies the guidelines to follow in the workplace. The values of the organization are determined by the individual values of the employees and would determine the culture in the workplace .Organizations with rich value culture tends to work in an ethical manner and makes the environment conducive for the employees to deliver their best. The analogy between the organizational and individual value is held in high regard and the person-organization value congruence helps in better decision making and also increases the job satisfaction of the employees. (Mcshane & VonVonGlinow, 2010, p.49) The cultural change process is required in the Bull information to overcome the shortcomings and the ineffective management policy which was evident from the close study. The inculcation of the values was necessary among the members to foster growth and harmony among the team members. Earlier it was noted that the team members had no communication between them and an era of mistrust prevailed among them (Allen and Thatcher, 1995). However this sort of emotions and attitude is harmful for the business to prosper. Employees possessing such values would spread it within the organization and would cause massive harm. Individual goal seeking attitude provided no benefit for the company and the culture change should adopt for partnership view of the companies and initiate group members to work with respect for each other. Negative attitudes and thoughts needs to be discouraged and the employees’ needs to be innovative in their approach towards idea making. The employees should be given proper importance as this attitude from the employers motivates them to work better. B. National Culture: Bull Information system has been working as a British subsidiary of French company. The cross cultural change between the two countries will give to rise to some issues in the evaluation of the British way of management by the French executives. The British value system is based on high individualism which signifies that the values are based on personal uniqueness, freedom, self belief and control. Another distinguishable fact regarding the British values is maintenance of low power distance and they prefer equal power sharing and believe in the relationship of interdependence among each other. The effective team building guideline reflects upon the application of such beliefs. The French values are opposite to that of the British. The cultural change incorporated among the organization will tend to have equal distribution of power as the decision making process will involve all the level of employees. The change undertaken will provide the employees the opportunity to innovate on their work and would provide them the freedom to express their views on the system of workings. The French executives may oppose the particular policies mentioned above as it would be conflicting with their own value system. C. Changing and Strengthening Culture: In order to implement the value change in the Bull information, a proposed PROFIT model was devised which was expected to settle things in a proper way in the organization. The PROFIT model focused on partnership, respect, ownership, fun, innovation and trust to motivate the employee and to establish proper managerial efficiency in the organization. In order to put the model into practice some measures are suggested which are mentioned below. Partnership: Partnership building should be the primary focus of any organizational teams for their optimum performance. In order to attain quality partnership among the co-workers they should first set up common goals and have transparent idea behind the workings of their group. The leaders should arrange for regular team meetings in order to access the performance and clear disputes if any. The group member should help each other in attainment of their target specified and the rules of the leader need to be flexible. Respect: In order to build respect among the employees proper code of conduct needs to be strategized. If the employees disagree among themselves their views should be expressed in a polite manner. The organization should be strict with employees in the maintenance of time and the employees should value the time of the customers. Ownership: The employees should be motivated to make recommendation for changes which they find not being maintained under the organizational values. The work environment should promote the views of the employees being turned into course of action. Fun: The work culture should have refreshing sessions in between to reduce the stress and monotony of work. The employees should be allowed to mingle with them and share their views. Innovation: New ideas need to be generated from employees regarding any constraint in the work environment. The employees should be welcoming any change out of the innovations and should not blindly oppose it. Trust: Effective communication is vital to develop trust. The employees should also maintain confidentially about important matters when required. Clear and prompt information flow must be maintained within the organization. 3. Types of individual behavior: Individual behavior is influenced by four basic variables which are motivation, ability, role perception, and situational factors. The change of values associated with the organization will have definite implications on the employee behaviors. The present value system will encourage motivation among the employees as extra responsibilities have been assigned to them. The present work culture among the employees enable them to identify their strengths and work accordingly by inter departments transfer and it would allow them to work full fledged based on their ability which will be reflected by their behavior. The proper identification of desired line of work will also enable them to have satisfactory results in their role perceptions. (Mcshane & VonVonGlinow, 2010, p.34) 3A. Work behavior: strategic intervention was done in the change process to be affected. Several reviews were carried out regarding the performance of the people against their values shown in the workplace. Feedback was taken from the employs regarding the necessity of the inclusions of so many values in the organizational system. Much focus was there on the performance of the top level of, management as the standard set by them would followed by others. The individual progress and the team progress were constantly reviewed. The leadership of PROFIT program gained popularity among the employees in order to equip them with the value change in the organization. The performance of the employees increased significantly and almost 80 percent of each individual’s action plan was completed. The change in behavior among the people was also quite noteworthy as employees started helping each other and was sharing information among them. The leadership of profit program provided immense help to the employees in providing considerable knowledge about the value change. The incorporation of fresh ideas will also benefit the employees to work in a favorable work culture and increase their helping hands towards each other promoting behaviors of organizational citizenship. Counterproductive work behavior which was present significantly will be reduced as values of respect, partnership, and trust are being introduced in the organization. B. Personality and Individual Behavior: Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, Neuroticism, openness to experience and extroversion are the basic classification of the dimensions of personality. Conscientious refers to the careful, dependable and self disciplined individuals who have a high sense of responsibility and good judgmental skills. The dimension of agreeableness covers people who posse’s friendly nature and are co-operative and courteous in their approach. The personality of neuroticism encompasses people who are hostile in nature and accompanied depression and high level of anxiety. Those people lack self confidence and motivation in the work they perform. The characters of flamboyant and sociable persons are classified under the dimension of extroversion. Whereas the creative, and people with the attitude of learning are classified under the openness to experience. Another important attribute of personality deals with Locus of Control which determines the amount of control a person has over him and influences the consequence of his life (Mcshane & VonVonGlinow, 2010, p.40). For Bull Corporation the director should posses’ proper tactical skill and he should be trustworthy and dependable for the other level of managers to approach him and discuss about critical issues. A high level of discipline is also expected out of a director as the standards set by him will be followed throughout the organization .The person should have proper sense of self evaluation and should hold himself in high esteem. The Conscientious character will best suit for a person in the role of director. Bibliography Allen, R., and Thatcher, J. (1995) "Achieving cultural change: A practical case study." Leadership & Organization Development Journal 16(8), Retrieved on February 21, 2008 from http://find.galegroup.com Mcshane, S.L, VonVonGlinow, M (2010), Organizational Behavior, Emerging Knowledge and Practice for the real world (5ed) New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin Read More