Organizational Behavior Essay Sample

Quality management system

The discussion is in four chapters: Chapter 1 Organizational Behaviour, By the end of this chapter, the reader should be familiar with the term Organizational behaviour, identify the four principles of total quality management, define the term e-business, define management, describe Carroll’s global corporate social responsibility pyramid and identify four of the seven general ethical principles; In Chapter 2 Managing diversity, by end of this chapter, the reader should familiarize themselves with diversity issues in the workplace environment. Chapter 3; the Chapter tackles organizational culture issues; Finally, Chapter 4, deals with culture issues, especially the implications of cross-cultural impacts to the managers from a different cultural background.

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Discussion

According to Foss (2000, p.16), an organization is “a system of deliberately coordinated forces or activities of two or more individuals”. Organizations are a social development with the aim of achieving goals as a group that would otherwise be possible to achieve as an individual. Therefore, OB (Organizational Behaviour) illustrates how people react and act in organizations of various kinds, which range from educational to financial sectors. The OB includes almost all discipline, like management, psychology, economic and so on(Kreitner and Kinicki, 2013, p.7).

According to McGregor,’s Theory Y and X, based on human behavior at work, X assumptions had a negative attitude and pessimistic, this was most managers reflection on the employees. The Y assumptions were generally happy and positive, could help managers uplift the working mood at work by seeing other employees as self-energized, commented, creative and responsible. Unfortunately this the Theory Y has accomplished very little in the American workplace.

According to Kreitner and Kinicki, (2013, p. 12), TQM (Total Quality Management) is the continuous customer-centered and employee-driven improvement. TQM came about as a result of public outcry on the quality of the products. Therefore, its aim is to ensure customer satisfaction through an integrated system, which involves continuous improvement on the organization’s product and service until they attain high quality. The common TQM principles include:

• Do it right at first to eradicate costly rework and product recalls.

• Learn and listen from customers and employees

• Make continuous improvement your everyday goal

• Build teamwork, mutual respect, and trust.

What is e-commerce

The concept of e-commerce has grown tremendously worldwide, by 2010, 2 billion people around the world had access to the worldwide web (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2013, p.12). The concept grew into e-business, which stands for using the internet to enable every feature of running a business. Another crucial shift on the internet was the use the social media platform to create user-generated content. On the other hand, workers who add value to their organization using their brain are called knowledge workers. They are an important part of today’s global growth at personal and organizational level. Human capital is the industrious potential of an individual’s knowledge and actions, while social capital is the industrious potential as a result of strong relationships, trust, and good-will and cooperative effort (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2013, p.15).

Kreitner and Kinicki (2013 pp. 16), posts that, management is the process of working with and through others to achieve organizational goals, ethically and efficiently. The following are characteristics of a good manager:

• The manager should clarify goals and objective to everyone involved.

• Plans for an orderly work flow

• Encourage participation through, suggestion and effective communication

• Should have an administrative and technical expertise to questions related to operations.

• Respond to feedback in an honest and straightforward way

• Should keep the operations running smoothly through relying on schedules, and deadlines

• Take control of details with necessarily being overbearing

• Apply reasonable pressure towards accomplishing the set goals.

• Reward good performance as a way of recognition.

Managing Diversity

Diversity pertains to individual difference and similarities between human races. It deals with the individual difference that makes human beings unique from one another. Diversity can view from internal, external and organizational dimensions, which influences a man’s attitude towards women. Affirmative action seeks to prevent discrimination at work place by focusing on ways to achieving equality of opportunity at a given organization. On the other hand, managing diversity creates an atmosphere where all individuals perform to their optimum. Alice Eagly and Linda Carli, in their book ‘Through the Labyrinth’, believe that women are underrepresented in the leadership position across all sectors of the economy. For instance, by 2010 only 12 female CEOs out of 500 companies, but there has been a great improvement in women carrier as compared to the past statics, although the women have a long way to go (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2013, p.40).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the percentage change in the US population shows that between 2000 and 2050 the Asians and Hispanics will be the fasted growing populations. The minority groups will constitute 55% of the workforce. Moreover, 28% of the working force have graduates (U.S Census Bureau, 2010) there is a mismatch between educational attainment and the knowledge and skills required by employers. It is, therefore, imperative for the organization to choose the best talents from the labor market with the basing on the diversity.

Organizational culture define

According to Xenikou and Furnham, (2012, p.143), organizational culture is the set of shared, implicit assumptions that a group holds and that has an influence on the perception of the different environment. The organizational culture is passed on to a new employee through socializing. The layers of organizational culture are observable artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions. Espoused values represent the obviously stated values and norms that are preferred by an organization. Enacted value, on the other hand, represent the values and norms that actually are displayed or converted into employee behavior. The four functions of organizational culture are organizational identity, sense-making device, collective commitment and social system stability (Kreitner and Kinicki, 2013, p.67).

Types of organizational culture include:

• Clan culture – its primary focus is internal and appreciates flexibility as opposed to stability and control

• Adhocracy culture – its focus is external and values flexibility. It creates an enabling environment for innovation

• Hierarchy culture – under this culture, control is the driving force. The environment is more formal and structured and value stability and control over flexibility.

• Market cultures – it has a strong inclination towards external focus and values stability and control. Organization with such culture are driven by competition and the need to deliver results and accomplish goals

Organizational culture has a potential of influencing the employee performance, attitudes, and organizational effectiveness.

International OB

According to Javidan and House (2001), culture is a set of values and beliefs about what is required and not required in a community of people, and a set of prescribed and not prescribed practices to support the values. On the other hand, ethnocentrism is the belief that one’s native country, language, culture, and modes of behavior are superior to the rest. Individualistic culture, priotizes on personal freedom and choice. As a result, they stress on personal responsibility for one’s affairs. Collectivist cultures, on the other hand, emphasizes on all-inclusiveness, the well-being of the community is a priority. Monochronic cultures view time as fixed, limited, and schedule driven, while polychronic cultures view time as fluid, flexible and multidimensional. According to (Kreitner and Kinnicki, 2013 pp.104), religion has a great effect on cross-cultural relations. Moreover, it is imperative for the managers to study cross-cultural management to better understand the teaching and behavioral patterns in different cultures.

Personal Experience

In the past, I worked in companies, where the people and corporate culture was different. There is a difference in the behavior of the people depending on whether they work for a multinational or state-owned company or small, medium-sized foreign companies. For instance, in most of the Chinese companies, acting without direct instructions is perceived to be a form disrespect towards supervisors. My experience has proved that such companies tend to be less efficient as employees lose their instinctive ability to take the initiative.

Conclusion

The first four chapters in part one of the book, “Organizational Behavior” By Kreitner, Robert and Kinicki Angelo, outlines some of the managing techniques that could be applied managers to ensure the quality of their products and services while still keeping their customers loyal and satisfied and loyal. Organizational Behaviour, for instance, can help shape the organization’s delivery of quality products and services. On the other hand, managerial diversity is important to any organization as it enables the company to pick the best talents without giving special consideration to discriminating issues like race, gender nationality, etc. Moreover, Organizational culture is important when it comes to team building, better communication and cultivating the company’s way of doing things and being able to positively use that to at the marketplace in a bid to create competitive advantage. International OB is important for the company to breach the cross-cultural barriers that may exist especially in international marketplaces.

My experience has shown that a small percent of Chinese employees are well adapted to the working methods of the foreign organizations. However, most of them are accustomed to letting others make the decision on their behalf, as they do not have much experience to take up some responsibilities. They welcome employees who can make a decision on their own. However, this will depend on whether the supervisor is Chinese.

References

Foss, J. N. (2000). The Theory of the Firm: Critical Perspectives on Business and Management, London: Cambridge University Press.

Javidan, M. and House, R. J. (2001). Cultural Acumen for the global Manager: Lessons from Project GLOBE Organizational dynamics. New York, NY: Springer.

Kreitner, R. and Kinicki, A. (2013). Organizational Behavior: 10th Edition, New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.

U.S census Bureau, Current Population Survey. (2009). Annual Social and Economic Supplement, Available from http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2009/tables.html

Xenikou, A. and Furnham, A. (2012). Group Dynamics and organizational Culture: Effective Work groups and Organizations, New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.