Established Methods of Control and the Current Essay

• Length: 6 pages
• Sources: 2
• Subject: Business - Management
• Type: Essay
• Paper: #33533341
• Related Topic: Internal Control, Costing Methods, Resistance To Change

Excerpt from Essay :

established methods of control and the current departmental and organizational cultures.

Organization culture is an element that must exist in every organization. The description of the term 'organization culture' has proven to be too elusive. This is attributed to the fact that the term is defined in terms of both causes and effects. Organizational culture has been defined differently by scholars. Kroeber and Kluckholn (1952) for instance defined organizational culture as consisting of patterns that are both implicit and explicit of the behaviors that is acquired as well as transmitted by various symbols that constitute the rather distinctive nature of achievements of various human groups. The main element of culture is tradition. According to Hofstede (1980), culture is the collective programming of an individual's mind which effectively distinguishes the group members from each other. Symington (1983) on the other hand defined culture as the complex whole that is made up of knowledge, art, beliefs, morals, capabilities, habits as well as morals that are acquired by an individual as a member of a given society. Sinha (2000) on the other hand, presented an Indian perspective to the concept of organizational culture.He pointed out that it is made up of the totality of beliefs, assumptions, social systems, values, people's behavior, social systems as well as institutions that reflects their desire to effectively maintain the continuity and the need to adapt to the external demands. All these descriptions seems to suggests that culture is asset of values that are shared equally by all members of a given group or society. Organizational culture however, describes the interactions that takes place among various organizational factors such as goals, missions, objectives, boundaries, human resources as well as constraints. The organismic factors such as skills, needs, knowledge as well as expectations are also included.

The functions of organizational culture are numerous. It helps in behavioral control, encouragement of stability as well as the provision of a source of identity.

How organizational culture controls behavior

Organizational behavior controls culture in a variety of ways.

Though social norms

Organizational norms are the most obvious of all the cultural control mechanisms. It refers to the behavioral expectations that individuals will act in various ways according to the situation at hand. The norms are enforced by the group members of a given group through the implementation or imposition of social sanctions.

Through shared values

Shared values is a cultural control mechanism.

The main word here is culture in most organizations .Scholes (2000) observes that culture often become the center of attention whenever there is a shift in modes of operation when companies for example merge and/or when growth and other strategic change occurs. This means that the existing culture becomes inappropriate and hinders rather than support progress.

Louis (1980) defines it as a set of understanding or meanings shared by a group of people that are largely tacit among members and are clearly relevant and distinctive to the particular group which are passed on to new members .Trice and Beyer (1984) describe is as any social system arising from a network of shared ideologies consisting of two components; substances -- the networks of meaning with ideologies, norms and values and the forms of practices whereby the meaning are expressed, affirmed, and communicated to members .

Functions of Behavioral culture:

It defines and arrange of behavioral control, as well as encourages stability through the provision of sources of identity.

Culture control:

There are two basic ways in which a culture or more accurately members of a reference group representing a culture, creates high levels of cross individual consistency.

Social Norms

This are the most basic and most obviouss of cultural mechanism it is a behavioral expectation that people will act in certain situations .Norms are not necessary rules enforced by others members of reference group

Shared controls

Shared Values are the conscious affective desires or wants of people that guide their behavior.

Improving culture how to improve an organizational structure and culture;

The structure and culture of an organization have a profound effect on how effective the organization can become in meeting its goals.Even if an organization is full of competent and motivated people, there will be problems if they are working within a faulty or inefficient or culture .Clarify any uncertainty in the minds of employees or management about who is responsible for what, who reports to whom and who sits where within the organizational structure.Find the productive window authorities hierarchy on one hand and ineffective disorganization on the other, and work stay within that window. Develop working structures and subcommittees in which individuals are assigned clear individual goals accomplish. Make top management answerable to mistakes within the organization, Head people need to recognize that they are not just paid handsomely they carry the mantle.

Recommend a restructuring strategy that would improve the culture and empower employees

In order to manage change, the organization can employ the Systems Model of Change. This approach is based on the idea that any change, irrespective of its size possesses a cascading effect throughout the entire organization (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2004). This system has three main components, input, and target element of the change as well as the outputs. The input element is made up of the internal forces like the strengths and weaknesses of the organization as well as the external forces like the organizational opportunities as well as the threats that face the organization as consequence of outside forces like competitors and the customers. The elements to be targeted in the process of organizational change are five in number. They include; a).The organization of various arrangements likes policies, roles, rewards, physical settings as well as procedures).the goals which are made up of the desired and priorities, standards as well as linkages that exists between the organizations). c) The people who comprises of their abilities, knowledge, behavior, attitudes as well as behavior. d) Social factors which include factors like the organizational culture, interpersonal interactions, group processes and e) the methods which is made up of the processes, job design, work flow as well as technology. The outputs in this process can be at the organizational level, group level or individual level as pointed out by Kreitner & Kinicki (2004, p. 680).

Transformational leadership

Organizations may institute or rather adopt transformational leadership techniques in order to institute change within the organization. Transformational leadership is leadership that involves a leader who institutes change by through the changing of the organization's key strategies as well as culture in order to make them better fit with the existing organizational environment as pointed out by McShane & Von Glinow (2005, p. 4). Transformational leaders have been shown to have the ability to formulate a strategic vision as well as communicate it, its model as well as build a lasting commitment to the vision. A review of organizational literature reveals that employees get more satisfaction if the vision of the organization is well pointed out for them. It has been pointed out that two of the main obstacles of change leadership in organizations involves the resistance to change as well as convincing the employees that they changes can have benefits to them. A transformational leader is able to effectively sell this vision to the employees and in turn reduce the level of resistance to organizational change.

Describe which management practices would be most effective and why.

Robbins and Judge (2007) pointed out that the real business world is turbulent and therefore requires a given organization to undergo constant and dynamic changes in order to remain competitive. The adopted change strategy often involves the comprehensive combination of various leadership styles as well as adjustments to the organizational structure. Organizations must consistently respond to the internal as well as external factors in order to improve their performance. An effective leadership…