Portfolio Search Strategy - Essay Example

POTFOLIOS Name Institution Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Portfolio search strategy 4 Portfolio Articles 4 Article 1 4 Summary 5 Critical evaluation 5 Article 2 6 Summary 6 Critical evaluation 7 Article 3 8 Summary 8 Critical Evaluation 9 Article 4 9 Conclusion 11 References 12 Introduction Organizational culture can be defined as the collective behavior of the people working within an organization. It is mainly formed by the organization for the purpose of ensuring that the organization is able to achieve its goals and objectives. It also includes the vision, norms working language of the organization, organization’s beliefs, system and the habits that have been developed within the organization. The organizational culture defines how the employees will relate to each other and to the clients. This will therefore determine the performance of the organization and its public image. Organizational cultures vary from one organization to the other. However it is always common for all organizations to ensure that the new employees have adopted the culture of the organization. In some instance however, the organizational culture will mainly be dependent on the management and the diversity that exists within the organization. However the organizational cultures may be negative or positive depending on how it will be viewed by the employees, clients and the members of the general public. More companies therefore value the organizational cultures a lot and will always want to have positive cultures. This is mainly for the purpose of wining the favors of the clients and hence the success of the organization. It is also evident that the most successful organizations in terms of customer satisfaction always have good organizational behaviors. All companies with poor organizational cultures will always find it difficult to maintain its clients which may result to losses and even collapse of the organization. The paper will therefore discuss four articles that are focused in organizational cultures to show how important this aspect is for any organization. Portfolio search strategy During the search for the articles and information related to the topic of study, the internet was quite useful. Using Google to aces the articles from the internet was the main strategy I used. I began by typing the word culture and organizations on the internet search page. It returned more than a thousand articles on cultures and organizations. Most of the information was not relevant to my study and I therefore entered the words organizational cultures and it returned more than one hundred articles. Most of them were relevant to my study. However since I only required four, I scrutinized fifteen of the most relevant articles. The scrutiny was mainly about how well the article has discussed the concept of culture in an organization. Some were shallow while others were detailed. This leads to the selection of the four most relevant articles for the paper. Portfolio Articles Article 1 Tharp, M. (2009). Diagnosing Organizational Culture. Retrieved on 30 March 2012 from, Summary The article provides the steps and procedures that can be used to diagnose the culture of an organization. This is mainly for the purpose of knowing the performance of the organization and also the employees. The article links organizational cultures to effectiveness of the organization. According to the paper, any organization that is efficient has good organizational culture. The article also discusses the main issues to be investigated when diagnosing the culture of an organization. The various aspects of the cultures of organizations have also been analyzed for the purpose of understanding the organization. Several other concepts that have been discussed in the paper include the importance of knowing the culture of an organization. This is mainly for the purpose of the analysis and diagnosis of the culture of the organization. The article also emphasizes the importance of other aspects of the organizational culture which includes; cultural environment within the organization, the subcultures that exist within the organization and also the existing cultural practices in the organization. The article also highlights the important aspects that should be assessed during the procedure so as to obtain the conclusive diagnosis of the culture. Critical evaluation The article mainly focuses on the importance of organizational culture in the operations of an organization. The article compares the efficiency of an organization with it’s cultures. As a result of this, the paper suggests that it is important to diagnose the culture of an organization so as to make improvements. The paper also suggests that knowing the culture of an organization will be very useful in the design of the workplace practices that will be useful in the organization. However the article also notes that subcultures exists within an organization and may affect the main organizational culture. The subcultures according to the article are as a result of different departments and the diversity of the employees. The paper thus emphasizes that the diagnosis of the existing cultures within the organization will be useful in determining the main culture to be followed by the organization so as to avoid any conflicts. The article also places more emphasis on the concepts that needs to be understood when carrying out the diagnosis. This includes the cultural values beliefs and also the attitudes that exist in the organization. The article also suggests that there is a close relationship between the organizational culture and the environment of the company. This is mainly because the culture will reflect how important some values are, which is directly linked to the environment. Article 2 Wang, L, et al, (2005).Organizational culture: Measuring and developing it within the organization. Retrieved on 30 March 2012 from, Summary The article is mainly discussing the various concepts of the organizational culture and how they are useful to both the employees and the organization. The concept is based on various issues surrounding the organizational cultures. The article notes that the beliefs and assumptions existing in a particular organization will determine how the concepts will be applied. Profiling the concepts has been used in the article to analyze the situation of culture in various organizations. The article also contains reports about the organizational cultures profiles for some of the organizations that were analyzed during a survey to determine the importance of the cultures in the organizations. The article analyses various companies from china from different sectors in the purpose of profiling the information. The organizations ranges from various sectors include the health sector, manufacturing sector and the insurance sector. The survey was done through the use of sixty questioners which were filed by the employees of the selected companies regarding organizational cultures. The report was later use to draw graphs and charts to show the levels of organizational culture and their importance. Critical evaluation The article uses a model called Denison to make an analysis of the organizational cultures. The model relies on some concepts to determine the level of commitment and involvement of the employees towards the organizational culture. These facts are represented in a chart and diagram that tries to analyze the fact. The chart places the organizational beliefs and assumptions at the center of the diagram. The factors which affect the organizational cultures are also grouped into two categories. The external factors include issues to do with the focus on customer satisfaction as well as the organizational image in the public. The internal factors on the other hand are mainly composed of the strategies and the core values of the organization. The model thus uses these considerations for the purpose of carrying out the survey. On the other hand the diagram places the factors that directly affect the organizational culture on the other outer side of the chart. These factors directly affect the organizational culture and it basically touches the areas of the employee involvement. These factors mainly includes; adaptability of the employees, flexibility, consistency and the involvement of the employees towards the process. According to the survey that was done in several organizations, it was clear that no mater the sector, organizational culture is still remains an import aspect of success of any organization. The support of the employees will also determine how successful the concept will be in the organization. Article 3 Abeyta, M. (2006). Organizational change. Retrieved on 3 April 2012, from, Summary The article is about the IBM Company. This company has several branches throughout the world. Its headquarters is however in the United States of America. The company recognizes the importance of organizational culture in its operations. The company however acknowledges that there is no specific culture as the company is operating world wide and as such different branches in different countries have different organizational culture. However, the cultures in al the countries is mainly aimed at making the services of the company good and to create a good public image. The article also insists that although the organizational culture is not uniform in al the branches, its main aim are to encourage innovations. To achieve its goals and objectives, the article has discussed seven organizational cultures that are practiced at the company’s headquarters in the United States of America. The seven practices includes; innovation and risk taking, attention to details during operation, outcome orientation, people orientation, team orientation, aggressiveness and stability. These are the seven organizational culture practices performed by the company. These practices are meant to ensure that the company achieves its goals and objectives. The article also highlights the goals the company has been able to achieve which includes generation of high amount of revenue due to innovations and risk taking. Critical Evaluation According to the article the first culture of the organization is risk taking and innovations. This has greatly contributed to the increased income for the company. For instance, in the year 2005, the company was granted more patents than any other company in the world. This was as a result of the innovation culture. The culture of paying attention to details is also very useful to the company; it requires all the employees to display their expertise and innovations at the work place. This culture has enabled the organization to increase production. According to the article, outcome orientations culture his very important and it has enabled the company to attain its goals and objectives. This is the main pillar of the company in terms of its vision. People orientation and team orientation is also an important culture in the organization. This is mainly because the organization values it employees and teams. Aggressiveness is also a culture of the organization. The employees are encouraged to b very aggressive in their work but not to each other. Working extra time is thus common for the employees of the company. Stability is also an issue that the organizational culture has to deal with. This is mainly due to frequent transfer of staff. Article 4 Skill Resource, (2012) Organizational culture. Retrieved on 5 April 2012 from, Summary The article is about an organization called skill resource. This organization deals with software development. The organization mainly works as a team in order to accomplish its goals and objectives. All the team members are required to observe the organizational culture to ensure that the organization is able to achieve its main core function. The article also describes the importance of organizational change to the organization. The organization also strives to achieve certain goals due to the organizational goals and objectives it has designed. The measures have been placed to ensure that all the employees including the new members of staff are able to achieve the goals and targets. It is also clear from the article that all the employees are required to clearly embrace the cultures of the organization. The article also highlights some of the testimonies by the employees regarding the success of the organizational culture and how it has been successful in the organization. The testimonies in the article are meant to emphasize the importance of organizational culture in the organization. Critical evaluation According to the article, the company values al its employees for the sake of achieving its goals and objectives. The main culture of the organization is ensuring that there is teamwork in the organization. This is mainly for the purpose of achieving the goals and objectives of the company. New members of staff are required to adopt the culture of the organization. This is done through orientation and each member is supposed to respect the others. Respect thus forms part of the organizational culture. Through this practice, some of benefits have been realized. The company has seen the communication process improve and thus the team works together without any difficulties. The cost of operation has also reduced due to organizational culture. The organizational culture has also ensured that the employees put more focus on customer satisfaction which is the core business of the organization. The quality of the services offered by the company has greatly improved due to the training offered to the company as part of the organizational culture. Conclusion In conclusion, organizational cultures are very important in the operations of any organization. This is mainly because the image of the company will depend on its cultures. It is also evident from the four articles that the organizational cultures are a set of collective behavior that needs to be followed by al employees of an organization. The articles also emphasizes that the organizational behavior will be influenced by several values that guides cultures in the workplace. Some issues also need to be considered so that all the workers will adopt the culture with ease. The success of the company will also be determined by the organizational cultures in the company. This may lead to increased profits and good public image of the company. On the other hand, various factors can threaten the organizational culture in an organization leading to changes. This in most cases leads to the erosion of the culture and poor working relations among the employees. References 1. Tharp, M. (2009). Diagnosing Organizational Culture. Retrieved on 30 March 2012 from, 2. Wang, L, et al, (2005).Organizational culture: Measuring and developing it within the organization. Retrieved on 30 March 2012 from, 3. Abeyta, M. (2006). Organizational change. Retrieved on 3 April 2012, from, 4. Skill Resource, (2012) Organizational culture. Retrieved on 5 April 2012 from, Read More