This paper examines the foundational concepts of organizational behavior and their implications for companies pursuing strategic objectives. It explores how organizational culture, workforce diversity, interpersonal and group communication, business ethics, and change management collectively shape the functioning of modern organizations. Using examples from companies such as Microsoft, Walt Disney World, and Apple, the paper illustrates how these elements interact in practice—most notably during complex processes like new product development and introduction. Drawing on scholarship by Schein, Galpin, Zohar, and others, the paper argues that sustainable competitive advantage depends on an organization's ability to align values, embrace diversity, communicate effectively, and manage change proactively.
The ability of any organization to attain its objectives and strategies is directly correlated to its ability to turn organizational behavior into a sustainable competitive advantage. This paper evaluates the foundational elements of organizational behavior, including culture, diversity, communication, business ethics, and change management.
The complexities of organizational behavior resist discrete delineations and instead invite a more cohesive, coordinated approach to studying this area of management. There are many factors that influence organizational behavior, many of which resist quantification yet are essential for the successful functioning of an organization. A subset of these factors is discussed here, including organizational culture, diversity, communication, business ethics, and change management. Taken together, these concepts form the foundation for describing what organizational behavior's implications are for companies pursuing their objectives.
The essence of organizational behavior centers on the study of how the interactions of people—acting individually and within groups—influence the execution of strategies within organizations (Zohar & Tenne-Gazit, 2008). The study of organizational behavior focuses on triangulating the efforts of an organization to achieve human, social, and organizational objectives. One of the most challenging aspects of organizational behavior arises when a corporation begins the new product development and introduction (NPDI) process. Of all the shared processes that corporations contend with, the launch of new products is the most challenging due to the high level of process and role-based synchronization required across many different departments. NPDI serves as a proof point for how effective any given organization is at managing its human resources and creating a culture that embraces change and the need for continual improvement. In addition, NPDI requires a very high level of accountability within organizations, as each department and its team members must contribute to the effort for the overall product launch to be successful. Because of all these factors, NPDI is considered a process that validates or refutes the extent to which human resources, corporate culture, process integration, clarity of communication, and change management are present or absent in any given corporation.
Organizational cultures are undergoing more change than ever before. Culture is defined as a set of values, beliefs, assumptions, principles, myths, legends, and norms that define how people think, decide, perform, and achieve their goals inside companies. Schein (1994) defines culture as "a basic set of assumptions that defines for us what we pay attention to, what things mean, how to react emotionally to what is going on, and what actions to take in various kinds of situations." Culture is considered by many researchers to be the basis of a company's unique personality, expectations, and ability to adapt to or reject change.
Galpin (1996) suggests that because changing the basic assumptions and beliefs of an underlying culture is very difficult, the best approach for influencing specific aspects of a culture—those that need to change for a given initiative or strategy to succeed—should be handled on an exception basis rather than an all-inclusive basis. Strategies for dealing with change must therefore focus on re-aligning values and objectives first, before addressing the initiatives and strategies a company is trying to achieve. At the core of any successful change program, the values of a company must be modified.
In fact, change management and culture are so tightly intertwined that one cannot be considered without the other, with the CEO being crucial to leading effective cultures capable of changing (Berson, Oreg, & Dvir, 2008). An example of this is Microsoft's need to shift from being purely focused on packaged software to concentrating more on the Internet. This was a major cultural shift away from a sole focus on operating systems; it forced the company to move from being the center of the technology universe to being one contributor among many.
Diversity is defined as the cultural value in organizations to embrace multiculturalism and to define and execute practices that do not discriminate against employees based on their education, gender, race, creed, or any other factor that distinguishes them from others. Diversity is enforced by law in the United States through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), yet forward-thinking organizations—including the Walt Disney Company—see diversity as a competitive advantage and actively promote it.
This is especially evident in the World Showcase at Walt Disney World (WDW), where the company actively recruits students from each of the countries represented there. WDW specifically states that it is focused on transforming diversity into an innate competitive advantage. Its many efforts to do so have earned WDW a reputation for ensuring that each guest in the World Showcase has an authentic cultural experience.
"Examines interpersonal and group communication roles"
Taken together, organizational culture, diversity, communication, business ethics, and change management form the foundational elements that determine how effectively any organization can pursue its strategic objectives. These concepts are deeply interconnected: a culture resistant to change undermines communication efforts; poor diversity practices limit an organization's competitive potential; and unclear communication erodes the trust needed to implement ethical and strategic initiatives. Organizations that invest in understanding and improving these elements are best positioned to transform organizational behavior into a lasting competitive advantage.
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