The Importance of Understanding Organizational Culture - Literature review Example

Running head: MANAGEMENT Name Management Course Tutor Date Article 1 Debbie Schachter "The importance of understanding organizational culture". Information Outlook. FindArticles.com. 12 Jan, 2010. Organizational culture Focusing on building and maintaining an organization culture is a way of demonstrating to people that the organization is the most important asset. The organization should focus on work environment, the relationships in the work and regarding how things are carried out within an organization. Still, there are other reasons as to why focusing and building an organizational culture is important. The following are some of the reasons as to why an organization culture is vital. A strong organizational culture attracts talents. This is because the prospective employees look at the culture when assessing an organization. This means that if people view the culture as strong and effective, they will want to be a part in an organization since they yearn being in an environment that is enjoyable and they can succeed in. Moreover, a strong culture retains talents since employees will stay if they love the organization they are in. Organizational culture is thus a key component of employee’s desire to remain. A strong culture also engages employees. Most workers like being engaged in their work and a culture that does not engage its employees is likely to have workers who are negative leading to productivity loss. Efficient organization culture engages people creating more productivity and thus achieving a great impact on profitability. A strong culture also develops energy and momentum among the workers. An organization should build a culture that is vibrant and enables workers to be valued and express themselves which will eventually develop energy among workers. The positive energy permeates the organization developing a new momentum for success. Since energy is contagious, it will build itself and consequently reinforcing the culture and the charisma of an organization. Again, a strong culture changes the view of work. If an organization creates a culture that is attractive, workers’ view of work changes since they will enjoy their work and thus offering an organization the best results. Moreover, a culture that is strong results into greater synergy. A strong culture unites workers since they will have a chance of communicating, knowing each other better and finding new connections. The new connections are likely to result into new ideas and greater productivity as well. This means that an efficient culture creates synergy. Finally, an organization culture that is strong makes everyone more successful. Developing a better organizational culture is not only for the human capital but also results into a successful business. Investing time, talent and focus on organizational culture gives an organization all the above benefits leading to more employees’ commitment and hence increased productivity in an organization. Article 2 Terpstra, D. E. (2005). Theories of motivation: borrowing the best. Personnel Journal, 58. 376. Motivating Employees Motivation refers to the inner force that drives people to achieve personal and organizational goals. Motivated employees assist the organizations in their survival. Managers should therefore understand what motivates according to their responsibility and understand that what motivates the employees change with time. Employees are the key people who determine the success of businesses and thus motivating them is important. Motivated employees perform better in their work and thus increased productivity and satisfying the business customers. Employers should know the employees and determine the motivational tool to their concerned work environment. Thus it is important to identify what motivates the employees since different things motivate different people. Apart from money, many employees work because they like being with other people enjoy the environment or like their work. The fundamental principle of motivating the employees is identifying what they like. Below are some of the common principles when motivating employees. In no circumstance should one demotivate the employees by either by taking way the benefits or by worsening the working conditions. Still, being rude to the employees and treating them insensitively de-motivates them is so is being unfair to them. In order to motivate the employees, it is wise to reward contingent on the culture that one wants. The employees should be awarded regular salary since everyone values security. Also paying for performance can motivate the employees since they would be encouraged to be more committed in order to get a better pay. It is also important to show the employees that their contributions are valued and recognized. Employees get motivated when they feel that their contributions are appreciated. They can be rewarded for a task performed well but even more requesting the employees for their input is very motivating to them. It is very vital to involve the employees when making vital decisions in an organization and this is because the employees will get more motivated when they discover that they are viewed as part of the organization and that their opinions are also valued. Moreover, employees can be motivated by offering them new and motivating challenges since it will keep them stimulated and learning. Again, incase employees make complaints it is important to listen to them and discuss the issues with them. Incase it is workload or long hours it is practical to listen to their views and make the appropriate adjustments. It makes the employees feel that they are respected and this is likely to motivate them. Article 3 Prof. Ishmael, C. Evolution and Implementation: A Study of Values, Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Vol. 41/4 2005. Social responsibility and ethics Apparently, good ethics can result into a positive economic impact on the performance of organizations. Statistics show that organizations require ethics, values, reliability and responsibility in a contemporary work place. If good ethics as well as social responsibility are enacted and incorporated within organizational culture and management such an organization is likely to run positively. For any organization, it is important to uphold social responsibility and ethics while running their business. Business ethics evaluates the rules and principles that operate within an organization. Precisely, it refers to different moral and ethical problems that can come by within a business setting. Basically, the ethics is normative discipline where some ethical standards are supported and then applied. Social responsibility is a form of organization self regulation incorporated in a business model. It assists the organizations and businesses in monitoring and ensuring that they hold on to the law, ethical standards and worldwide norms. Organizations should embrace social responsibility for the impact of their actions on the environment, customers, societies and other members within the public sphere. Every organization has different measures that categorize it as socially responsible since every business tries to reach different goals. However, each and every business should be measured on their economic role, quality of life, social investment in addition to problem solving that is trying to be accomplished to find out whether the organization or business meets the cost guidelines that is ready to contribute regardless of the result required. Ethics within an organization make specific judgments regarding what is correct or wrong. The ethics are more concerned with realistic problems and applications, and any precise responsibilities that may be appropriate to business relationships. Social responsibility and business ethics can be evaluated from the following perspectives: employees, the commercial enterprise and society in large. Severally, situations come by where there is conflict between the parties, for instance in serving the interests of a single party that is harmful to the other parties. For example, a certain outcome could be good for the employees but negative for the company, society or the other way round. A good example of an ethical issue is where organizations should follow multiple and a times conflicting legal or cultural standards, may be in multinational organizations that run in nations with different practices. Which are laws that an organization should follow, home or less strict laws in a developing country where the business is? Social responsibility and ethics also deals with issues on the social responsibilities of an organization; business management theory; theories of independence vs. socialism; free will among members in the marketplace; the function of self interest; indistinguishable hand theories; the obligations of social justice; and ordinary rights, in particular property rights, with regard to the organization. Organizational ethics is associated with political economy, which is financial analysis from political and historical viewpoints. Political economy is involved with the distributive costs of economic actions. It inquires who achieves and who loses from economic activity, and is the ensuing distributions fair or just, which are key ethical issues. Article 3 Dr. Snow, Miles, Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Volume 13 Issue 3. Organizational environment Organizations are shaped by the environment. The environment refers to network of people, groups, bodies, and organizations that they interact with. Basically, there are organizational characters, strategies, technologies, configurations and procedures that are suitable for one environment but may result in a failure in another organization. This means that there are connections across these characters that have an influence on the success of an organization. For instance, there are certain structures and procedures that are suitable to a certain technologies and strategies but not suitable to another. Components of an organization environment are leadership style, management practices, how work is organized in an organization, employee independence and control and social support. All these have an effect on employee health results. Incase the organizational environment is viewed by the employees as negative; there is a high likelihood of the employees becoming stressed. The stress of the employees has a very big impact on the health of an employee and productivity as well. Research indicate that employees who are stressed because of “high effort –low return” conditions have higher rates of heart illnesses, depression and particular cancers. Employees who are stressed are also likely to cause accidents thrice when compared to their peers without work stresses. Negative organizational environment is likely to lead to employee absenteeism, higher insurance claims, lost effectiveness and lost productivity. Organizational environment is determined by: one, the leadership style and this is the belief in and dedication to employee welfare and satisfaction and connection between employee welfare and the business objectives of an organization. Management practices also determine organizational environment and this entails the manner in which work is distributed, manner in which employees are involved and how they contribute in decision making in addition to justice, communication, responses and rewards and supports for work life steadiness. Social support also affects environment in regard to how managers relate and communicate with their employees and also pervading culture which refers to values shared by organizational members; how employees think, behave, feel and what management gives attention to and rewards. An organization can improve the organization environment by decreasing the work related injuries, diseases and disability through tackling ergonomics, air quality and environmental and chemical risks within the work place. Environment can also be enhanced by improving job satisfaction and productivity through change of perceived negative management practices and employee perceptions. Generally, an excellent environment satisfies the employees and consequently influencing productivity. Summary The author suggests that a strong culture in an organization greatly determines the organization’s success. If the culture is appropriate and efficient then this will motivate the employees since everyone loves being comfortable. It will enhance the environment, motivate the employees, and at the same time favor and consider business ethics and hence this will in the long run increase productivity since the more satisfied the employees are, the more likely there are going to be productive. On the other hand, motivation of the employees is necessary within an organization that is bound to succeed since it encourages the employees and thus making them feel appreciated and their efforts recognized. Once the employees get encouraged and appreciated, they will work harder to get the reward and maybe meet the goals of an organization since they feel they are a part of the organization. This also eventually contributes to the success of an organization since it increases employee’s productivity. Still, the social responsibility and ethics contribute to the running of an organization since an organization that upholds social responsibility and follows the necessary ethics will end satisfying the employees as well as the customers and community at large. Since clients and employees are vital components within any business, this goes a long way in gratifying an organization success. The organizational environment is what determines the outcome of organization’s object. This is because the environment consists of the employees, other organizations interacting with, groups, administrative styles which all are important in the success of an organization. If one aspect is not favoring the environment, this can affect other aspects and consequently affecting organization operations. For instance, if the employees view the environment as oppressive because of the leadership style, they are likely they get de-motivated and hence reduced productivity and thus rendering the organization ineffective. Bibliography Dr. Miles, S., Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Volume 13 Issue 3. Schachter, D. "The importance of understanding organizational culture". Information Outlook. FindArticles.com. 12 Jan, 2010. Prof. Ishmael, C. Evolution and Implementation: A Study of Values, Business Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility, Vol. 41/4 2005. Assignment two Motivating Employees Motivation refers to the inner force that drives people to achieve personal and organizational goals. Motivated employees assist the organizations in their survival. Managers should therefore understand what motivates according to their responsibility and understand that what motivates the employees change with time. Employees are the key people who determine the success of businesses and thus motivating them is important. Motivated employees perform better in their work and thus increased productivity and satisfying the business customers. Employers should know the employees and determine the motivational tool to their concerned work environment. Thus it is important to identify what motivates the employees since different things motivate different people. Apart from money, many employees work because they like being with other people enjoy the environment or like their work. The fundamental principle of motivating the employees is identifying what they like. Below are some of the common principles when motivating employees. In no circumstance should one de-motivate the employees by either by taking way the benefits or by worsening the working conditions. Still, being rude to the employees and treating them insensitively de-motivates them is so is being unfair to them (Pepitone, 2000). In order to motivate the employees, it is wise to reward contingent on the culture that one wants. The employees should be awarded regular salary since everyone values security. Also paying for performance can motivate the employees since they would be encouraged to be more committed in order to get a better pay. It is also important to show the employees that their contributions are valued and recognized. Employees get motivated when they feel that their contributions are appreciated. They can be rewarded for a task performed well but even more requesting the employees for their input is very motivating to them. It is very vital to involve the employees when making vital decisions in an organization and this is because the employees will get more motivated when they discover that they are viewed as part of the organization and that their opinions are also valued. Moreover, employees can be motivated by offering them new and motivating challenges since it will keep them stimulated and learning. Again, incase employees make complaints it is important to listen to them and discuss the issues with them. Incase it is workload or long hours it is practical to listen to their views and make the appropriate adjustments. It makes the employees feel that they are respected and this is likely to motivate them (Macy, 2005). Motivational theories and their use motivating employees In the past, motivation of the employees was not concern among the managers but with time, “Hawthorne Experiment” a research which was carried out by Elton Mayo transformed the manner of thinking in regard to the employees. The research indicated that money does not sufficiently motivate the employee to make use of their full potential but conversely it is the attitude of the employees that maintains them and this is connected with the behavior. Consequently, this lead into development of Human Relations approach to management which puts the key focus on the employees’ needs and seeks of possible ways of motivating the employees. Even though mangers started focusing on motivation of the employees afterwards, this was a difficult task more so in understanding and motivation of the employees since it entails careful consideration. If the employees are motivated wrongly, time, resources and money spent on motivation would go to waste. Therefore, to comprehend motivation concept and assist managers in accomplishing efficient employee motivation, it is appropriate to understand motivation theories which were developed after Hawthorne Experiment. The motivational theories focused on comprehending what employees needed in order to be motivated and how they got motivated. For that reason, in this paper, different motivational theories which elaborate what motivates the employees will be analyzed in order to comprehend the best possible methods of motivating employees. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs The theory was developed by Abraham Maslow, a humanistic psychologist and the theory is very important in motivating the employees. The basis of this theory is that individuals try to achieve upper class abilities like creativity and uppermost height of consciousness. According to this theory, human beings possess five requirements and incase one requirement is satisfied they go after the subsequent requirement and in this case they are motivated by the unmet needs that are in the other stages. In an employee motivational viewpoint, in the application of this theory, managers should identify the employees’ needs that are unmet in order to motivate them. The five human needs are physiological needs like food, water, shelter, clothing and many others. These are the most significant needs because incase an individual is denied all these needs; the psychological needs come first when looking for satisfaction (Beck, 2005). If an individual’s psychological needs are gratified, the needs of safety then become active. When the psychological needs of an individual are satisfied, this stops affecting the thoughts and behavior of such person and when the human’s needs for safety and psychological needs are met and satisfied, an individual moves form the subsequent need of love, affection and sense of belonging somewhere. After the first three needs of an individual are satisfied, the person then moves to the subsequent level of needs for self esteem for instance, resolutely founded high point self respect and also needs respect from the other people. If these needs are met, a human becomes basically self confident and feels valued. Still, after the earlier four needs are met, an individual the shifts to the highest need of self actualization. This highest need is the need to perform and fulfill what ever the individual is born to accomplish. An example is that for a person who is at the lowest height of the hierarchy in an organization, he or she can only get motivated if he/she getting a good payment that is adequate to afford his/her basic needs and not the safety of his employment or the stableness of his/her occupation. Consequently, the hierarchy of needs theory of needs draws attention to the fact that employed are different from each other and incase they are to be motivated it is very important to evaluate the needs that come first and them design the suitable motivational techniques efficiently (Beck, 2005). In a nut shell, Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs in regard to employee motivation is to determine the employees’ satisfied needs and offer opportunities to meet the needs that have not been satisfied to motivate the employees. However, the key weakness with the need theory is that it does not recognize the variation among individuals and also it ignores other factors. For instance, the work itself can be a motivating factor among the employees. Theory X and Theory Y Theory X and Theory Y are also about the Human nature just like the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The theory X presumes that in average people do not like working and in many cases human evade responsibilities and ought to be controlled, supervised and threatened to work hard. Additionally, the theory presumes that individuals who avoid responsibilities yearn for security more than anything else. Such people must always be guided and directed in order for them to work towards achieving organizational goals (Terpstra, 1979). These are very common in many organizations and that is the reason why many organizations practices tight control and punishment or they opt for harmony while working and do not pay any attention to higher order needs as stipulated in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This is meant to make the employees to behave as per Theory X expectations. Theory X should be used with much care in the contemporary organizational environment since the theory can be counterproductive and consequently may decrease the employee’s motivation. Converse to Theory X, Theory Y presumes that humans make use of mental and effort while working just as natural as play. Theory Y presumes that individuals people are in a position to control and direct themselves if they are dedicated toward achieving organizational goals. Under suitable circumstances, an average individual does not only accept a responsibility but also looks for a responsibility. Moreover, Theory Y presumes imagination, creativity; resourcefulness can be utilized when finding solutions in work problems by a good number of employees. Theory Y also presumes that in the contemporary business life, intellectual capacity of a typical man is partly utilized. In regard to the motivation of an employee, incase the subordinate or normal employees are not agreeing with the manager concerning the results that are required, then the only means of the manager is to use his/her authority to ensure that the work is carried out by using Theory X. Nevertheless, incase the employees are psychologically mature and concurs with the desired outcomes, work is adequately accountable and flexible and the employee can perceive his position in the organizational hierarchy, then in these circumstances participative method to problem solving yields much better results applying the Theory Y (Terpstra, 1979). Still, in circumstances where the employees concur and commit toward achieving the organizational goals, then explanation of the issue wholly to the employees, the reason for the action and giving them a chance to self direct them, the employees could end up using better procedures and perform better as compared to when they take orders from the managers. Theory Y is more suitable in this circumstance. Hertszberg’s Motivation and Hygiene Theory According to this theory, there are only two sets of the needs. These needs are namely; basic needs and motivational needs. The basic needs include working conditions, the organizational policy, administration, payments and interpersonal relationship. If these needs are not satisfied, the employees are likely to be dissatisfied instead of being motivated. For example, incase the manager wants to prevent the employees from carrying out something; the employees in such a situation ought to reflect on hygiene needs. On the other hand, if the employees want someone to perform something, they the employees should consider motivational needs. In this theory, motivational needs are accomplishment and acknowledgment, work variety, accountability and development are the hygiene factors and that these factors are greatly influence dissatisfaction among employees and hence affects work performance greatly. However, the mere presence of these factors does not greatly motivate the employees but they are essential if the organization aims at motivating the factors which are the motivating factors. These factors are the ones that bring out career satisfaction within the employees which finally results into motivation of the employees. This theory elaborates that managers should understand how the employees can be motivated and motivating the employees is not possible with in the absence of intrinsic factors (Bruce, 2008). Expectancy and Contingency Theories From the expectancy theory, how employees behave at work and their objectives are not easy. The performance of an employee at work is influenced by personal factors like expertise, individuality, awareness, experience and potentials. The theory proposes that even if people have different set of objectives, they can be motivated if they have faith that their efforts result into performance and performance leads into desirable reward. On top, the reward satisfies a vital need, and consequently the desire to gratify the need is strong enough to make the efforts to capitalize on benefits and lessen pain. In this perspective, the managers should identify what a person’s personal value is. For instance, cash, promotion, leave, or satisfaction benefits. They are known as valence. Employees have varying expectations and confidence regarding what they are able to accomplish. In this view, managers should identify the resources, training and administration that each employee requires. These are known as expectancy. Furthermore, employees can view as if they will get what they yearn for. In this respect, management should make sure that the rewards that were promised to the employees are offered and that the employees know about the rewards. The employee awareness of the reward is known as instrumentality. This way, a manager can use expectancy theory during employee motivation (Mine, 2006). Contingency theories during motivation of the employees acknowledge leadership and its significance in various organizational circumstances and in the perspective of the profile of employees and kind of jobs they do and match the leadership to circumstances or change condition to leadership approach to manage employees and motivate them. Additionally, contingency theories also acknowledge the organizational structural matters, for example centralization in contrast to decentralization, period of control, designation, heights of management, decision -making procedure, which fits the external and internal environment and the fixed and self-motivated character of the internal and external environment (Pophal, 2004). Finally, contingency theory makes consideration of subjects like, organizational culture, personal differences, conflict height and the acknowledgement of importance of these variables when motivating the employees. This means that motivation of the employees should vary from one organization to another and this is dependant on the character of activities, profile of individual potential, character, ability, comprehension, experience, organizational culture, technology, and nature of external and internal environment, scheduling horizons, and personality variations, composition of organization, group behavior and dynamics (Mine, 2006). Adam's Equity Theory This is a motivational theory that recommends that the managers ought to look for reasonable balance between the inputs of the employees which are: efforts, devotion, handwork, sacrifice and many others as well as employee’s outputs which include acknowledgement, level, salary etc for the motivation of employees to be achieved. It is very important to make the employee feel that he is getting fair and good treatments for the managers to get constructive results and motivate the employees successfully. But if the employees feel that they are being treated unfairly which means that they feel that their inputs are far much greater than the outputs, the employees will definitely get de-motivated. Consequently, this will result into inputs reduction, which means that the employees’ effort and handwork is likely to reduce (Miner, 1998). Conclusion The role of the managers when it comes to motivation of the employees is not that simple. This is due to the fact that each and every employee has their specific needs that motivate them and are different from the other employees. However, managers normally possess some expertise that assists them in understanding their employees well and thus enabling them to be able to define practical ways of motivating their employees. In such instances, motivational theories are very necessary. It is the motivational theories that offer an explanation regarding the best ways of motivating the employees the base being what motivates each and every employee. The Hierarchy of needs theory as well as Hertzberg's two factor theory sheds light on how the employees should be motivated through identifying their needs. Alternatively, Adams theory also assists the managers in understanding that a fair equilibrium between inputs and outputs of employees is very significant. Again, the Expectancy theory demonstrates that rewards are very essential in motivation of employees since they tend to motivate them. Nonetheless, all the motivation theories recognize that acknowledgement and rewarding of the employee are very vital when motivating the employee since rewards act as the foundation of motivating the employees (Terpstra, 1979). References Beck, R. (2005). Motivation: Theories and Principles. New York: Prentice Hall. The author provides an elaboration of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs motivational theory. He explains that according to the theory, human have five needs and whenever the proceeding need is fulfilled the get motivated to have the next need being satisfied. Therefore, managers should identify the unsatisfied need and attempt to fulfill them in order to motivate them. Robert C. Beck (Author)› Visit Amazon's Robert C. Beck PageFind all the books, read about the author, and more. Bruce, A. (2008). Mighty Managers Series. New York: McGraw-Hill Professional. The author explains how Hertszberg’s Motivation and Hygiene Theory works. He suggests that for the managers to be able to motivate the employees, they should first identify the needs of different employees. Macy, T. (2005). How to Motivate Every Employee: 24 Proven Tactics to Spark Productivity in the Workplace. London: Macmillan. The author explains that for the managers should include the employees in organization’s decision making as this will make them feel valued and appreciated and consequently motivate them. Miner, J. (1998). Role Motivation Theories (People and Organizations), Sydney: Rutledge. The author talks about Adam's Equity Theory whereby he gives an insight that in order to motivate the employees it is necessary to reward them as per inputs. He further elaborates that employees get motivated when their inputs is equivalent to their outputs. Mine, B. (2006). See search results for this author Are you an author? Learn about Author Central Organizational Behavior I: Essential Theories of Motivation and Leadership. Carlifonia: M.E. Sharpe. The author explains that contingency theory makes consideration of subjects like, organizational culture, personal differences, conflict height and the acknowledgement of importance of these variables when motivating the employees. Terpstra, E. (1979). Theories of motivation: borrowing the best. Personnel Journal, 58/ 376. The author gives an insight of Theory X and Theory Y. He explains the basis of the theory which is the fact that humans dislike working and being given responsibilities and therefore they should be supervised and controlled. Pepitone, S. (2000). Motivating Employees: New Jersey: McGraw-Hill. The author suggests that in order to avoid de-motivating the employees the manager should avoid mistreating the employees or being unfair and rude as well. Pophal, L. (2004). Motivating Today’s Employees. London: Jaico Publishing House. The author elaborates Contingency theories. He explains that the theories recognize leadership and its significance in various organizational circumstances and in the perspective of the profile of employees and kind of jobs they do and match the leadership to circumstances or change condition to leadership approach to manage employees and motivate them Read More