CHAPTER 1

ORGANIZATION CULTURE Organizational culture is the set of important understandings, such as norms, values, attitudes, and beliefs, shared by organizational members. The essential core of organizational culture is system of shared meaning among members. Organizational climate has strong impact on the performance of the organization. It has basic elements of culture and they are artifacts, espoused values and basic assumptions. It is expressed in terms of norms, values, attitudes and beliefs shared by organizational members. Organizational culture has its key functions and they include sense of identity, enhancement of commitment and reinforcement of behavior. The primary characteristics of an organizational culture are as follows: 1. Innovation and Risk Taking: It can be described as the degree or extent to which employees are encouraged to take innovative steps and calculated risk. 2. Attention to Detail It can be described as degree or extent to which employees are expected to pay attention to details. !. O"t#o$e O%ientation It can be described as the degree or extent to which management focuses outcome rather than on process to achieve outcome. &. Peo'le O%ientation It can be described as the degree or extent to which management gives attention to effect of decisions on people working in the organization and on its shareholders. (. Tea$ O%ientation It can be described as the degree or extent to which works are organized around team rather than individuals. ). Agg%essiveness: It can be described as the degree or extent to which people are aggressive or competitive rather than unconcerned or relaxed. *. +ta,ilit- It can be described as the degree or extent to which maintaining status !uo is emphasized in contrast to growth. .. +t%"#t"%e It can be described as the degree or extent of rules and regulations and the amount of direct supervision that is used to supervise and control behavior. /. +"''o%t: It can be described as the degree or extent of assistance and warmth managers provide for their subordinates. 10. Identit- It can be described as the degree or extent to which members identify with the organization as a whole rather than with their particular work group or field of professional expertise.

11. 1o#"s It can be described as the vision of the goals and ob"ectives of an organization#s operations as communicated by those in control. 12. +tanda%d and 2al"es The levels of performance and behavior considered to be acceptable by both types of criteria $ formal and informal. 1!. Rit"als It can be described as the expressive events that support and reinforce organizational standards and values% 1&. O'enness3 Co$$"ni#ation3 and +"'e%vision It can be described as the amount and type of interchange permitted. The communication flow can be downward, upward, across the organization, and in other directions as spelled out by the culture.

CHAPTER & OPTI4U4 LE2EL O1 CON1LICT

CHAPTER (
E4PLO5EE E4PO6ER4ENT &'mployee empowerment& is a term that is used to express the ways in which non managerial staff members can make decisions without consulting their bosses or managers. These decisions can be small or large, depending upon the degree of power with which the company wishes to invest employees. 'mployee empowerment can begin with training and converting a whole company to an empowerment model. (onversely, it might merely mean giving employees the ability to make some decisions on their own. P%os o7 E$'lo-ee E$'o8e%$ent It leads to greater "ob satisfaction, motivation, increased productivity and reduces the costs. It also leads to creativity and innovation since the employees have the authority to act on their own. There is increased efficiency in employees because of increased ownership in their work. )esser need of supervision and delegation. *ocus on !uality from the level of manufacturing till actual delivery and service of goods. 'mployees when empowered become more entrepreneurial and start taking more risks. +reater the risk, greater are the chances to succeed. Cons o7 E$'lo-ee E$'o8e%$ent ,t the individual level employee empowerment means you are an integral component of the organization. This may sprout egotism or arrogance in the workers. ,part from disadvantages at the organizational level, there are certain challenges that emerge at the individual level. -upervisors often complain disgust from the empowered workers. The following points go against employee empowerment: Egotis$ 9 a%%ogan#e .orker arrogance can create a big trouble for the supervisors and the managers. There can be problems in delegating. 'mployees avoid reporting about their work and feedback can be taken negatively. +e#"%it- -ince information comes and is shared by all, there are apprehensions about leakage of critical data. Risk (reativity and innovation demands a greater risk bearing capacity and there are e!ual chances of success and failure. .orkers often lack the expertise to execute are enterprise, which can cost big.

Ind"st%ial De$o#%a#- )abor unions and workers are empowered and they may misuse the same. -trikes and lock outs become more fre!uent. ,lso, labor unions gain insights into management and their functioning and they leak the same. /articipative management or employee empowerment does not mean relentless transfer of authority. It has to be in a controlled and regulated manner. 'ach aspect has to be carefully studied and levels of participation decided. *or example, the level of participation of knowledge workers is different from that of a floor worker.

CO4PONENT+ O1 HIGH PER1OR4ANCE 6OR: PRACTICE+

/articipative management or employee empowerment does not mean relentless transfer of authority. It has to be in a controlled and regulated manner. 'ach aspect has to be carefully studied and levels of participation decided. *or example, the level of participation of knowledge workers is different from that of a floor worker. , 0eview of the (omponents of the 1I/O The literature strongly reflects the following five components of 1I/Os. 1; +el7<$anaging 8o%k tea$s9so#io te#=ni#al s-ste$s. The focus and interest on self managing work teams 2-3.Ts4 has grown considerably. Organizations have adopted -3.Ts in greater numbers in a variety of manufacturing and service settings over the last 56 years. 0esearchers have conducted !uality field experiments in studying the impact of -3.Ts on various aspects of organizational performance. The empirical evidence now available suggests strong effects on employee attitudes 2for example, "ob satisfaction, organizational commitment4, more modest effects for performance outcomes 2for example, productivity, !uality, costs4, and mixed results for employee behavior 2for example, turnover, absenteeism4.
74 'mployee involvement8participation8empowerment. .e combined these three literatures into one area because, depending on the level of each one, they can sometimes be viewed interchangeably. *or example, employee involvement 2'I4 can be viewed at three levels9254 parallel suggestion involvement, 274 "ob involvement, and 2:4 high involvement9depending on the exact level of involvement of employees. /articipation could be placed between parallel suggestion involvement and "ob involvement. *or example, employees might be asked to participate in a number of "ob related decisions and processes. 'mpowerment, however, would be synonymous with high involvement 2number : above4. *or example, employees are given a high degree of decision making responsibility beyond simple participation in decision making. The emphasis on all of these levels is that employees are urged to individually play a larger role in their work environments. 0egarding research, participation has the longest history, followed by employee involvement and then by the rather recent surge of interest in empowerment. 0egarding empirical research on participation, many of the studies conducted have found effects for satisfaction and performance while others have found no effect.

:4 Total !uality management. In the ;nited -tates, total !uality management 2T<34 blossomed in the 5=>6s and has continued to be a widespread organizational process into the 5==6s. 1owever, T<3 has not en"oyed an e!uivalent prevalence in the scholarly press. In a special issue of the ,cademy of 3anagement 0eview, a set of articles reviews T<3 and explores some of the reasons why the concept has not been studied more fre!uently. Those reasons include: 254 there has been a lack of theoretical development of T<3 and thus few propositions exist to test% 274 a comprehensive T<3 construct does not exist due to the multitude of !uality programs and principles developed by !uality gurus 2for example, ?uran, @eming, Ishikawa4% 2:4 organizations are implementing a vastly distorted view of T<3 leading to the lack of construct coherence% and 2A4 many other interventions are subsumed under the T<3 banner. Because more attention has not been paid to T<3 in the management literature, empirical studies validating the effects of T<3 on important organizational outcomes are lacking. -everal case studies and more practitioner oriented articles that have reported empirical tests of the effects of A4 Integrated production technologies. Integrated production technologies 2I/T4 is used here as an umbrella term for a host of manufacturing and service tools that seek to enhance flexibility, increase efficiency, or do both. These include but are not limited to advanced manufacturing technology 2,3T4, computer aided design8engineering8manufacturing 2(,@8(,'8(,34, flexible manufacturing systems 2*3-4, "ust in time 2?IT4 inventory management, and, for some authors, total !uality management 2T<3

(; T=e lea%ning o%gani>ation. The notion of what constitutes a learning organization and why an organization should want to become one varies considerably. -ome authors suggest that organizations need to learn in an effort to adapt to their environment 2internally focused first order learning4 while other authors suggest it is to gather information to anticipate environ mental change 2externally focused second order learning4. individuals as learning agents, from Clearning organizations,D which re!uire a collective discourse and can only be done by the organization as learning agent. @espite these apparent differences, several characteristics of a learning organization are common to almost all of these definitions. (ommon characteristics in most definitions of the learning organization are: 254 these organizations tend to learn what they value 2for example, !uality, efficiency, bureaucracy, customers4% 274 a systemic rather than a functional approach to learning is preferred 2that is, learning with strategic intent4% 2:4 a structured methodology or forum for cross functional dialogue that does not crumble to operational8financial pressures to reallocate human capital% 2A4 focusing on understanding parameters and scenarios rather than solution optimization% 2E4 viewing learning as a process 2"ourney4 rather than an outcome 2destination4% 2F4 creating learning forums with explicit goals in mind 2for example,