Norms That Can Lead to the Creation Productive, Motivated and Harmonious Organization Culture - Coursework Example

Running Header: Organizational Culture Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code & Name: Date of Submission: Introduction Organizational culture refers to a system of shared norms and values that are held by members of an organization and enables one to distinguish one organization from the other. According to Valencia, Jimenez and Valle (2011) organizational culture guides the employees on the way the organization operates and how the employees are expected to undertake their activities in the organization. Organizational culture contains a set of attributes which are perceived by the members of the organization. This attributes influence the employees’ willingness to perform in the organization. Organizational culture develops over a period of time as the organization members find ways of solving the problems faced by the organization from both the external and the internal environments. Therefore, the culture held by an organization plays an important part in determining an organization success. This paper is going to identify and explore the values, behaviors and norms that can lead to the creation productive, motivated and harmonious organization culture. Values Organizational values are used to define the acceptable behavior standards that members of an organization are expected to observe. Values are used to provide guidelines and to govern the behaviors of organizational members. As a manger I would like my organization to have a value of customer centeredness. According to Burns at el (2011) an organization that values is customers focuses on fulfilling and satisfying the needs of its customers hence the organization becomes a customer centered organization. Rust, Zeithaml and Lemon (2007) emphasize that for an organization to be successful it must have a value of customer centeredness in order to build lifetime relationships with its customers and this will enable it to build customer loyalty and at the same time the organization would be able to retain its customers by fulfilling their needs. A customer focused organization requires employees to aim at satisfying the customer needs this motivates them to became productive s in order to fulfill the customer needs. Additionally, the organization is able to create a culture of harmony with its customers because it is able to serve them efficiently. Therefore, my organization would value its customers by becoming customer centered hence this would lead to the creation of a motivated, productive and harmonious organizational culture. According to Jackson (2010) an organization that values ethics and integrity is responsible to its customers and this ensures that it creates a culture of harmony productivity and motivation as it seeks to serves its customers. An organization which observes good ethics is able to build good reputation with its customers as well as with the general public. Thus, an organization that values ethics and integrity is able to add value to itself by gaining a good reputation in the eyes of the public hence this assists it to enhance its operations. For an organization to be ethical it must have well motivated employees who are able portray a good image in relation to the organization. Moreover, by focusing on integrity the organization is able to govern its operating ethics and this ensures that it complies with the set standards and with the legal provisions. Integrity ensures that the organization is accountable to the public and this means that it is able to create an environment that supports ethical behavior. This in turn will enable the organization to maintain harmonious relationships with its customers and the public. The organization would also value empowering its employees. This means that the organization will appreciate and listen to the ideas brought forward by its employees. Rust, Zeithaml and Lemon (2007) notes that through empowerment employees are able to participate in the organization decision making process and this makes them to feel as part of the organization. Moreover, empowerment provides the employees with an opportunity to be consulted before an organization makes key decisions that would significantly affect its operations. Furthermore, empowering employees facilitates the development of good cooperation’s between the management and the employees. Therefore, the organization will be able to create a culture based on motivation productivity and harmony by focusing on empowering its employees. This is because of the fact that empowerment motivates employees to improve their participation in the organization. Additionally, the employees are able to become more productive because their ideas are taken into consideration by the organization hence this creates a culture of harmony between the employees and the management. According to parker (2011) an organization that values teamwork is able to overcome the challenges that it may face in its operating environment more effectively. The organization will be able to put its employees first by trying to look for ways of ensuring that it supports its employees. Parding and Abrahanson (2010) state that working in teams leads to the creation of a learning organization and this in turn acts as a means of motivating the employees to be creative. Moreover, working in teams facilitates the development of harmonious relationships among the employees. In addition, teamwork provides an opportunity for the organizational members to compete with each other hence this makes the organization to be more productive. Therefore, by valuing teamwork the organization will be able to develop a culture of motivation, harmony and productivity. Working in teams will enable the organization to be, more innovative and this will have a positive impact on productivity. Nevertheless, teamwork will enhance the relationship between organizational members hence this will lead to the creation of a culture of harmony. In addition, working in teams will motivate the organizational members to achieve their goals. Behaviors Organization behavior involves considering how groups and individuals in an organization interact toward and within the organization. This in turn creates a culture that that can improve or weaken the ability of an organization to be successful as well as to gain competitive advantage. An organization must differentiate between a negative and a positive behavior in order to ensure that it excels in its operations. Therefore, the behavior of an organization plays an important part in influencing its culture hence this determines its ability to become successful. To create a culture based on motivation, harmony and productivity the organization will have employees with conscientiousness personality. Employees who have conscientiousness personality are organized, dependable, persevering and achievement oriented (Wagner, 2009). Consciousness employees have a high degree of punctuality and are highly organized. A personality of conscientiousness is used to predict how an employee will perform across a variety of jobs and occupations. According to Mucci (2010) employees with conscientiousness personality tend to perform well in the organization and at the same time they are highly motivated and have lower levels of absenteeism as well as lower levels of turnover. Additionally, conscientious employees are detail oriented and this makes sure that they don’t arrive at conclusions in an arbitrary manner. A study conducted by Sutherland, Bruin and Crous (2007) indicated that employees who reported high levels of conscientiousness had high performance rating and they were highly motivated. Moreover, the study found out that employees who had low levels of conscientiousness did not display desirable behavior hence they did not certify harmonious working relationships. Therefore, as a manager I would focus on employees with a conscientiousness personality behavior in order to create a productive, motivated and harmonious organizational culture. Employees with emotionally intelligence behavior have the ability both verbally and non-verbally, to express, recognize, evaluate and understand their emotions as well as the emotions of others so as to successfully cope with social pressures and demands. Employees with high emotional intelligence have the skill to identify the distinct emotions in themselves and the emotions in other people and use this so as to provide guidance in their actions and thinking (Wagner, 2009). This characteristic makes the emotional intelligence employees to have a predictive value hence this motivates them to excel in their tasks. Moreover, emotionally intelligent employees recognize the need to adopt interpersonal interactions and this enhances harmony in an organization. Studies conducted by Hayward (2010) indicated that there is a linear relationship between employees’ emotional intelligence and their performance. High emotional intelligence motivated the employees to be vastly productive and this improved their overall performance. Therefore, the organization would focus on obtaining employees with emotional intelligence behavior in order to enable the organization to create a culture based on productivity, motivation and harmony. Emotional intelligent employees are highly motivated and this enables them to increase organizational productivity. In addition, employees who are emotionally intelligent ensure harmony in the organization by consulting with other employees. The organization would adopt an organizational structure that would ensure employee satisfaction, motivation and stress reduction. According to Rust, Zeithaml and Lemon (2007) a good organizational structure ensures effective coordination of the organization activities. Moreover, the organization would adopt a decentralized organization structure in order to allow each unit in the organization to have some autonomy in decision making. Allowing the units to be autonomous motivates them to improve their productivity in order to match or to perform better as compared to other units in the organization. Furthermore, the unit members are able to maintain harmonious relationships as they work together towards achieving the unit goals. This in turn will lead to the creation of harmonious, productive and motivational organization culture. Norms According to Nicole and Wagner (2011) organizational norms are set with an aim of containing the behavior of organizational members in the framework of business activities. Norms refer to the generalization of behavior and are based on what is done in an organization. They are behaviors and altitudes which are common to members of a particular organization and they pertain to what they believe as normal. As a manager, my organization would have a norm of paying attention and concentrating on what the customers say. Concentrating and paying attention on the customers will enable the organization to achieve high performance in relation to customers’ satisfaction. To achieve this, an organization must offer quality services and maintain close attention to the desires and needs of its customers (Kramer, 2010). This means that an organization must have highly motivated and productive employees in order to satisfy the needs and desires of the customers and at the same time maintain harmonious relationships with them. Therefore, having a norm of paying attention and concentrating on what customers say will enable the organization to create a culture of motivation, productivity and harmony. Norms of appearance are important in defining the realistic nature of an organization (Parker, 2011). The appearance of an employee enables a customer to create an illusion about the organization. As a manager, my organization would have a norm of appearance which would require all the employees to be smartly and well groomed. The employees would be expected to wear red colors which indicate high organizational values. This would in turn make them to be highly motivated and productive in order to match their image. Therefore, setting norms of appearance will enable the organization to create a culture of productivity and motivation. The organization will also be able to create a culture of harmony with its environment because of the fact that its employee will be able to match their social image. The organization would have a norm of caring for the community and the society through social responsibility programs. According to Wagner (2009) corporate social responsibility programs motivate the employees to serve the community. Moreover, an organization that undertakes corporate social responsibility programs serves the employee’s community and this in turn acts as a motivating factor that encourages the employees to work more for the organization hence this improves the overall organizational productivity. Furthermore, corporate social responsibility programs enable the organization to build harmonious relationships with the community that surrounds it. Therefore, the organization will be able to create a culture of motivation, productivity and harmony by having a norm of care for the community. Conclusion In conclusion, to build a productive, motivated and harmonious organizational culture an organization should focus on valuing its employees by empowering them and at the same time the organization must value teamwork and integrity as well as ethics in its operations. The organization must also recruit employees with conscientiousness personality trait and emotionally intelligence behavior. Focusing on a decentralized organizational structure can also assist in creating a culture based on motivation productivity and harmony. The organization should also focus on norms of concentrating on what customers say and caring for the community and norms of appearance so as to create a motivated, productive and harmonious organizational culture. References Burns, L., Bradley, E., Weiner, B., & Shortel, S.(2011). Organizational Behavior. Mason: Cengage Learning. Hayward, B.(2010). Relationship between Employee Performance and Emotional Intelligence. Business and Management, 2(1), 1-30. Jackson, K.(2010). Management by Values. Journal of Management Development, 29(9), 795- 806. Kramer, M.(201o). Organizational Socialization. Cambridge: Polity Press. Mucci, R. (2010). Principles of Management. Oxon: John Wiley & Sons. Nicole, O., & Wagner, G.(2011). Towards Simulation of Organizational Norms, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 3(1) , 1-12. Parding, K., & Abrahamsson, L.(2010). Learning Gaps in Learning Organizations. Journal of Workplace Learning, 221(5), 292-305. Parker, C.(2011). Organizational Behavior .Mason: Cengage Learning. Rust, R., Zeithaml, V., & Lemon, K.(2007). Customer Centered Organizations. Havard Business Review, 1(1), 1-11. Southerland, R., Bruin, G., & Crous, F. (2007). The Relation between Conscientiousness, Empowerment and Performance. Journal of Human Resource Management, 5(2), 60-67. Valencia, J., Jimenez, D., & Valle, R.(2011).The Role of Organizational Culture. Management Decision, 49(1), 55-72. Wagner, J.(2009). Organizational Behavior. London: Taylor & Francis. Read More