Organizational and Operations Management: Organizational Behavior
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Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Introduction PAGEREF _Toc57026923 \h 3Purpose of Organizational Culture PAGEREF _Toc57026924 \h 4Key Critics of Organizational Culture PAGEREF _Toc57026925 \h 6Operations Management PAGEREF _Toc57026926 \h 8Paper analysis and Summary: “Managing global network operations along the engineering value chain” PAGEREF _Toc57026927 \h 8The relevance of the Article's Findings to Google PAGEREF _Toc57026928 \h 9Recommendations for Improving Google’s Global Strategy PAGEREF _Toc57026929 \h 10References PAGEREF _Toc57026930 \h 13
Organizational and Operations Management: Organizational Behavior
One of the core duties of human resource management is the development and orientation of employees towards organizational beliefs and values. Organizational behavior lies under this HR mandate and involves the study, manipulation, and application of knowledge on how humans (individually and in groups) conduct themselves within an organization (iEduNote 2017). Organizational culture is a component of organizational behavior and refers to the symbolic workplace elements like stories, rituals, and myths and is studied through interpreting the values, experiences, and events molded by the symbolism (Edgell and Granter, 2020, p. 131). Some symbolic elements in an organization include rituals, stories, myths, and legends and are professed the use of euphemisms that denote and emphasize the values. Organizational culture is also used to refer to the principles and behavioral patterns distinguishing an organization's operations and motivating its internal stakeholders towards appropriate decision making (Tedla, 2016, P. 15). Edgell and Granter (2020, p. 133) identify different categories of organizational culture including artifacts and creations like uniforms and heroes, adopted beliefs and values as well as the underlying assumptions which cover attitudes and identity within the organization. Organizational culture is used as a management strategy to improve efficiency and enhance organizational productivity through orienting stakeholders to internal cohesion, communication, effective leadership control, and a positive external image. Analyzing its applications and impact on productivity, employee autonomy, and organizational efficiency presents an opportunity for managers and employees to assess the suitability of the corporate culture.
Purpose of Organizational Culture
Corporate culture serves various organizational goals through addressing different operational objectives like employee autonomy, building an external image to customers and other stakeholders, internal and interdepartmental collaboration, and performance efficiency (Tedla, 2016, p. 43). This is because it helps the company align its values and beliefs with business ideals to steer them towards improving productivity. Identifying how the organization influences employee contribution, internal collaboration, external image, and performance efficiency establishes its role and purpose in management.
Influencing employee attitudes, actions, decisions, and effectiveness is of the purposes of instilling a strong organizational culture. Organizational culture helps instill business values to the employees through open communication channels and integrative decision-making which motivates and brings a sense of belonging to the company (Tedla, 2016., pp. 22-4). Establishing a shared culture allows the employees to participate and share information with management as part of their responsibility which encourages engagement and involvement in the organization's affairs. One of the ways corporate culture affects employee initiatives is through giving autonomy to their responsibility enactment which allows innovations and the creation of new operational procedures and methods (Edgell and Granter, 2020, p. 139). It encourages innovation because the employees get the space and confidence to try out new ideas which affect their commitment to the organization as it values their input. Some components of corporate culture like the legends and heroes help create inspiration and commitment to employees towards a unified thought and business ideal (Edgell and Granter, 2020, pp. 131-143). Due to the dynamic nature of culture, organizations have to ensure that employees are engaged in a continuous learning process that encourages participation (Bendak et al, 2020, p. 3). In summarizing the effect of organizational culture in influencing employee attitudes and behaviors, it (corporate culture) serves through encouraging collaboration, engagement, open communication, loyalty, responsibility (Tedla, 2016, p. 35).
Organizational culture also serves to establish both internal and external collaboration and response to all the company's organizations. The sense of belonging established by being a member of culture encourages teamwork and collaboration between members especially in organizations with multiple departments (Tedla, 2016, p. 43). Cultural orientations also develop a collective decision-making module instigated by cultural processes and networks (Kumar, 2016, P. 17). Implementing organizational culture is also meant to allow free flow of information across the networks promoting better professional relations across departments and levels (Gochhayat, et al., 2017, p. 699). Such open communication networks help break structural hierarchies which promote collaborations; not only among individual employees but also between departments or branches. Organizations also develop cultures as a way to ensure sensitivity to the external environment by establishing a positive image to customers, investors, and the community. Organizational cultures contain an adaptability principle that enhances managers' sensitivity to external changes and making the necessary adjustments to suit the development (Tedla, 2016, pp 32-3). Internally, a culture helps accustom new employees with the inherent social values and beliefs fostering continuity and integration of change within the system (Ng and Kee,2013).
An organization's efficiency and performance are enhanced through the orientation of the beliefs, values, and governance ideals with the corporate culture which helps align performance with the overall mission (Tedla, 2016, p. 34). Organizational culture helps performance by ensuring saturation of information concerning potential problems, risks, and trends by increasing awareness and compatibility with all the stakeholders (Ahmed and Shafiq, 2014, p. 24). This awareness is the basis of the integration of the organization's resources and processes towards the needs of its stakeholders. An established corporate culture helps in enforcing the rules and regulations and observing discipline as required by the vision, mission, and goals of the organization (Gochhayat et al., 2017, p. 694). This means that corporate culture ensures consistency in adhering to the values, beliefs, and ideals that govern the organization thus steering it towards its objectives. In conclusion, corporate culture serves various purposes in an organization including influencing employee attitudes, internal and external integration, as well as upholding the organizational objectives.
Key Critics of Organizational Culture
Despite the numerous advantages of organizational culture, its implementation and acceptance and/or rejection can also lead to counterproductivity. Some of the critical views of organizational culture are based on the rigidity and bureaucracy that focuses on the organization's interests above that of employees, victimization of employees needs by the management in aspects like pay, lack of commitment from management, and fear of uncertainty (Ng and Kee, 2013). Meek (2016, p. 455) justifies this rigidity to organizational processes by linking it to the fact that corporate culture is built around structural functionalism. Critics of organizational culture usually argue along with the imbalance of the policy between employee and firm needs.
Edgell and Granter (2020, p. 141-2) analyzing Willmott's critique of the theory note that the elements of organizational culture; vision, symbolic decisions, and performance management, and an appraisal are a control mechanism deliberately used by managers to manipulate employee perceptions. The streamlining of employee thoughts to subscribe to one unified concept is likened to colonization since the main aim of establishing the culture is to achieve the organization's objectives bringing the employees as mere tools in the organizational process. Describing organizational culture (Ahmed and Shafiq, 2014, p. 24) term it as a control mechanism drafted by management to produce the expected behaviors and conduct Edgell and Granter (2020, p. 142) studied Edward's methods of enacting control and identified three way i.e. simple, technical, and bureaucratic control mechanisms. These control methods show how the position of employees is manipulated by management to suit the organizational goals regardless of their aspirations. Corporate culture is a creation of the leadership component in an organization as a way to control the other members towards organizational needs (Meek, 2016, p. 459). Ng and Kee (2013) note that the main determinants of corporate culture are market forces, resources, and competitive advantage rather than inherent beliefs and values which are its components.
The other major critique of organizational culture is based on its campaign to increase employee efficiency and effectiveness without a corresponding increase in rewards (Edgell and Granter, 2020, p. 144). This notion is the reason for the stern action against unionization and strikes as companies fail to match expected output with rewards. Organizational defensiveness to adhere to employee needs in favor of structural commitment produces victimizes employees as they are hesitant to adopt any policy that strains its resources with a similar output (Ng and Kee, 2013). Edgell and Granter (2020, pp. 144-5) cite McDonald's and Walmart as some examples that are indicative of this organizational culture. These companies, despite adopting value additions like the language used in referring to their employees as 'associates' which shows the existence of a communal and inclusive culture still struggle with delivering the minimum wage in their employee wages. Open Textbooks (2016) also note that the overreliance on symbols and values misrepresent an organization's efforts on embracing professed change whi...