Examining a Sample Workplace Scenario Essays

Examining a Sample Workplace Scenario Essays Examining a Sample Workplace Scenario Essay Examining a Sample Workplace Scenario Essay Organizational culture is regarded as an all-encompassing component of the life of an organization.   It is primarily composed of the varying worldview, attitudes, core values, principles and beliefs shared by the people constituting the organization.   Notwithstanding the cultural differences among the members, the group eventually develops a dominant culture.   Ideally, the dominant one must be able to integrate the minor cultural components.   Taken as a whole, the basic core values and attitudes define the manner the entire organization behaves.   In business settings, it ultimately defines the behavior of an employee towards each other and clients and other people outside the organization (Hill Jones, 2009).Organizational culture is mainly dictated by the prevalent values shared by all members of the group.   These are core values dearly held on to by both the managers and the employees alike.   The values help define how should a fellow employee interact with ano ther employee, a subordinate with the superiors and the organization as a whole with the stakeholders and the general public in general.   Organization culture, far wider in scope, is basically influenced by the consolidated values of the organization.Montana and Charnov (2000) went to the extent of defining organizational culture in the corporate environment.   Corporate culture, therefore, involves the totality of the values, traditions, customs and drives that contribute to the distinct character of the company.   It both defines the behavior of the policy makers and the managers, since the corporate culture is mainly shaped by the visions and stated objectives outlined by the founders and the subsequent decision makers.Varying types and components of organizational cultureMany models of organization culture were developed over time.   Essentially, those models were defined according to specific schools of thought management theorists belong to.   Most basic model defin es organization culture according to the extent of power and influence it exerts to the rest of the organization.   According to the model, subcultures may be defined as strong and weak culture.   Strong culture is the dominant composite values in an organization, where hierarchical structures, communication formats and management-employee behavior are clearly defined (McFarlin, 2002).   An organization with a strong culture seldom experiences major intra-corporate conflicts, since the goals and manner of executing them are precisely defined.   Weak culture, on the other hand, exhibit minimal alignment of the variant values and attitudes, necessitating a strong persona or leadership in the company.Hofstede (1984), in his study involving 100,000 workers employed by IBM in different parts of the world, investigated the varying aspects of culture that wields significant influence on the behavior of the entire multi-national corporation.   The study was able to identify the fi ve major components of corporate culture, namely: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism vs. collectivism, masculinity vs. femininity, and long vs. short term orientation.   Power distance pertains to the expectations of the society on varying levels of power.   Some individuals are inherently expected to discharge greater power than those in the lower echelons of the organization.   Minimal power distance assessment score, therefore, entails that everyone in the group are perceived to have equal rights.   Uncertainty avoidance refers to the established rule defining the extent the group may accept risks and uncertainty involved.   Individualism versus collectivism means the ability of the employees to stand up either for them or for the entire organization.   This concept, however, was rebutted by some thinkers, showing that an organization high in individualism may equally value collectivism at the same time.   The latter two components define the relat ionship between members of two main sex groups and the ability of the organization to accommodate changes visvis the manner people perceived the importance of the future against the past and present.According to Johnson (1988), there are seven basic elements of organizational culture that are helpful in describing and evaluating the same.   Corporate paradigm pertains to the core values and generic mission of the company.   It includes the raison d’à ªtre of the entity and the basic goals it is intended to achieve.   Control systems refer to the identified processes and mechanisms to assess the operations of the company. Control systems are important in evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of the organization.   Organizational structures pertain to the established communication lines, hierarchies and the manner work is executed in the workplace.   Power structures provides for the specific persons who make the decisions of varying significance.   They also explain how power is shared among those who wield it and the basis of the authority in making decisions.   Symbols literally mean the logos and designs of the company.   However, the concept has been expanded to include trivial but equally important things, such as parking spaces and washrooms.   Rituals and routines involve the habitual activities generally observed.   Stories and myths encompass information about people and events, giving one an idea on what are most valued by the people who share them.   These elements are not entirely independent of each other.   Most corporate entities display the overlapping and merging of the different elements.The Case of ABB Electromechanical MetersBurton, Obel, Hunter, Sà ¸ndergaard Dà ¸jbak (1998) conducted a study involving the ABB Electromechanical Meters.   ABBEM belongs to a larger multinational corporation, i.e. ABB.   The other division is the electronic meters.   Although both divisions basically belongs to th e same industry, the study conducted is illustrative of the sub-organization culture of the electromechanical that defines the division’s attitude and behavior towards the other division and within the mother corporation itself.Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) initially started as the Westinghouse Meter Plant, established in 1953 in Raleigh, North Carolina, US.   The plant, subject of this review, periodically churns out metering equipment.   With clearly defined goals, the plant workers had been minimally relying on outside resources, except the raw materials and components not produced by the company.   The varying sections are fully integrated into one production system.Sometime in February 1989, ABB executed a joint venture agreement with Westinghouse, resulting to the eventual acquisition of the meter operation in December of the same year.   Prior to the said acquisition, ABB management adhered to the core value emphasizing self-reliance and autonomy of its divisions.   The same philosophy was transferred to the workers of the plant upon acquisition.   The meter plant was composed of the electromechanical and electronic divisions.Before the entire meter plant was acquired, the two basic divisions had been relying substantially to one another.   Although all specific job functions were grouped into three smaller sections with their respective heads reporting to the over-all plant manager, most workers in general rely heavily to the different sub-groupings.   Electronics division, for example, normally purchased certain components from the electromechanical division because the latter has no production capacity to produce the same.   Besides, it was deemed practical and beneficial to purchase from the other division within the same production line than having the same outsourced from other companies.   In the same manner, the electromechanical division depended largely on the electronic division for the designs and assembly of certain com ponents.   This heavy dependence inherently provided the convenience of sourcing sub-component materials from within the same plant.The introduction of what the meter plant perceived as an alien philosophy from ABB contributed to significant changes in the organizational structure that potentially threatened the productivity and efficiency of the entire plant.   The component divisions had to establish and provide for their own material needs and services because of the imposition of the new paradigm in the company.Evaluation and RecommendationsAt the onset, ABB top management was desirous of increasing productivity and efficiency in the production line through greater independence and autonomy.   The top policy makers were aware of the potential adverse impacts of too much reliance among the component divisions in the company.   The managers put too much importance on the said policy on self-reliance.   Necessarily, when the meter plant was acquired from Westinghouse, the same policy was imposed on the workers and section heads who had originally valued the exact opposite.Sims (2002) believes that the currently existing organization culture may result to varying degree of dysfunction and initial adverse reaction, especially when a mother company merges with or acquires an albeit smaller company.   In the case of ABB’s acquisition of the meter plant resulted to the seemingly radical overhaul of the different elements of organizational culture discussed earlier.   Organizational and power structures were hugely altered, as the new owners will ultimately be making all major policies.   They had the authority to define how the company as a whole must be able to function to produce the desired results, including even the manner one component division interact with another within the same mother company.Definitely, the contrasting sub-cultures of the mother company and the meter plant could not remain separated.   The acquiring company has the prerogative in defining a comprehensive set of policies covering all aspects of the workplace.   Separation of cultures in the cited case would not work out, especially because the component divisions have identical and shared functions.   What could have been done was either the assimilation or integration of the two sub-organizational cultures.As explained at the beginning of the paper, fuller understanding of the varying components and elements of the entire organization culture is critical in the formulation of an effective and realistic set of company policies.   Intra-organizational conflicts may be avoided when there is a reasonable accommodation of specific values long observed by the entity being acquired by the mother company.   Disintegrated and variant sub-cultures have the potential to create a weak organizational culture.   A weak culture is one of the contributing factors of inefficiency and reduced productivity in the workplace.   A strong leadership, expressed through memoranda and issuances may augment the situation but it will take longer before the plant workers may be able to change the way they look at the things in the same workplace with new policy makers.