CHAPTER 15:

CONFLICTS AND NEGOTIATION

Issue 1: Career vs. Family

Women nowadays find juggling work and raising children difficult. In fact, many women
feel they have to choose between their children and their careers. Because both require time and
effort to sustain, the government and the companies themselves try to solve this wide-spread
problem. Numerous companies are getting more and more women resigning to pursue
motherhood. And they aren’t just the ordinary employees; they are the ones excelling in their
field. As a result, many professional women reject motherhood entirely: in Switzerland 40% of
them are childless. Others delay child-bearing for so long that they are forced into the arms of the
booming fertility industry. Innovation has been the contraceptive pill. The spread of the pill has
not only allowed women to get married later. It has also increased incentives to invest time and
effort in acquiring skills, particularly slow-burning skills that are hard to learn and take many
years to pay off.
“Motherhood is the issue: in America, childless women earn almost as much as men, but
mothers earn significantly less”. This is quoted from The Economist. Many children have paid a
price for the rise of two-income household. This is evident not only in America but here in the
Philippines as well. A new trend now is that both the mother and the father are working for the
family. The movie “Anak” starring Vilma Santos and Claudine Barretto clearly depicts this
issue. The mother being the bread winner of the family has to leave for Hong Kong to sustain her
children’s needs. As a solution, more and more companies allow flexible working. Growing
number of firms are learning to divide the working week in new ways like allowing husbands
and wives to share jobs.
Both the men and women feel that if they both work they worry that they spend too little
time with their children. This goes for both well-off and poor parents. Childcare as we know has
the largest proportion of the family budget. Of course this is inarguably true; no parent wants the
second best for his child. He wants the best for his children. With the help of globalization and
improvement of technology, parents are alleviated by the new technology making it easier to
redesign work in all sorts of family-friendly ways. Women, through the help of improved
technology, find the traditional female work such as cleaning and cooking easier and less time
consuming.
In order to resolve this issue, I think that the couple should talk and negotiate how they
would manage their time for their work and their family. It is best if they stand in the other
party’s shoes to avoid destructive arguments and resolve these kinds of issues to gain a win-win
situation.

Issue 2: Men vs. Women

Women are still under-represented at the top of companies. Only 2% of the bosses of
America’s largest companies and 5% of their peers in Britain are women. They are also paid
significantly less than men on average. The late Paul Samuelson once equipped that “women are
just men with less money”. Peninah Thomson and Jacey Graham, the authors of “A Woman’s
Place is in the Boardroom”, assert that women are “better lateral thinkers than men” and “more
idealistic” into the bargain. These supposedly womanly qualities, as the arguments continue, are
becoming ever more valuable in business. Even before the Lehman Brothers financial disaster
struck, the new feminists also claim, the best companies had been abandoning “patriarchal”
hierarchies in favor of “collaboration” and “networking”, skills in which women have an
inherent advantage. There are also numbers that show rivalry between men and women in
school. More and more women get college degrees compared to men.
In order to resolve this issue, I think that they should engage themselves in intergroup
negotiations and whatever they may have talked about; they integrate the points and turn them
into solutions. Talents of both men and women have to be used and developed well not just for
the betterment of the company but for their personal growth as well. I believe that this rivalry
between men and women should be a challenge for the both so that they will all aim to always
improve. This issue should be taken as something constructive rather than look down on the
opposite gender.

Issue 3: Women’s rising aspirations have not been fulfilled.

This issue is just the summary of both issues discussed previously. Because women face
numerous problems like choosing between family and career and their rivalry between men,
women find it hard to reach their goals. Talented women of today, although accepted by many to
work as leaders of the company, may still find it hard to reach their ultimate goal. They can
never seem to be that well-accepted societies to be leaders of today probably because women are
supposedly have different roles in the society. Women are expected to be the ones doing the
menial jobs and all the household chores. They were also the ones who are expected to take care
of the children and all those things. Thanks to the evolving technology, these little things can be
finished in an instant which enables the women to still work outside their homes. Brilliant minds
and talents are only put to waste if women are simply kept at home.
Compromise is probably one of the keys to resolve these issues. Of course you couldn’t
always have a win-win situation even if we do. There are always things that we have to give up
for the betterment of everybody. For example, wives should sometimes be submissive to their
husbands and take care of the children especially if it is badly needed. Men or the husband at the
same level should forget about their pride and allow their wives to work especially when times
are hard. Negotiation is the main solution to this. Both parties should open their minds and speak
their hearts so that all will become well.

CHAPTER 16:
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE AND DEVELOPMENT

ISSUE 1: External Adaptation

External adaptation deals with reaching goals: the tasks to be accomplished, the methods
to be used to achieve those goals, and the methods of coping with success and failure.
Women before were treated as second-class citizens. They were refined to repetitive and
menial jobs such as domestic works. They were subject to casual sexism and they were expected
to abandon their careers when they get married and have children. The women before were such
wasted talents and frustrated citizens.
The issue of external adaptation emphasizes the importance of human resources since it is
mainly focused on creating and implementing methods to achieve the set goals. Women who had
been behind the corporate scene had to come out of their shells and show the world what they are
really made of. They have to share their experiences and common views to guide them as an
individual and as a co-worker in their daily corporate activities. The women before had to
develop acceptable ways of telling outsiders just how good they really are. They need to take up
another notch to prove the society that they are not just second-class citizens.
That gives us our women today. They have more control over their own lives. They are
running some of the organizations that once treated them as second-class citizens. Most
importantly, millions of brains have been put into productive use; there are less wasted talents
and less frustrated citizens.

ISSUE 2: Internal Integration

Internal integration deals with the creation of a collective identity and with ways of
working and living together.
Living means continuing through hardships and adversities, pursuing a positive and
satisfying existence, and supporting oneself. Being in a corporate world, and also being a
woman, they had to create an individual characteristics acting together with men with ways on
how to work with them efficiently and live together. It is considered as living together as
colleagues since spending five work days in the corporate world is part of an individual’s living
and they must be able to establish a unique identity as a collection from individual
characteristics.
The issue of internal integration emphasizes on real progress toward innovation which
can begin when group members collectively believe that they can change important parts of the
world around them, and that what appears to be a threat is actually an opportunity for change.
This particular progress was actually seen when women started to invade the workforce. The
beliefs of men and women were integrated and drove the belief that with men accepting women
in the workforce, which at first was a threat to the male gender in the corporate world, was a very
big opportunity for new corporate systems and ventures for satisfying outcomes.
This collaboration of men and women in the workforce had also infused a larger shared
meanings—or sense of broader purpose—into their corporate tasks. Through interaction with one
another, and as reinforced by the rest of the organizations and the larger society, their work had a
deeper meaning.
 This issue also focuses on the fact organizations need to establish a shared understanding
of who will get rewards. The promotion of women against men is an actual representation of this.
Promoting people on the basis of their gender is illiberal and unfair. Resolving this issue through
shared identity and collective beliefs and commitment may well lead to longer-term stability and
provide a lens for members’ use to make sense of their role in the corporate world. All of these
are for achieving the corporate goals of the organization.

ISSUE 3: Subcultures and Countercultures

Subcultures are groups with unique patterns of values and philosophies that are consistent
with the dominant culture of the larger organization or social system. These are the strong
subcultures. In terms of sexuality, these are men. The men of the corporate world are expected to
be the dominant ones. They have to have brute force and overly productive contributions in the
workforce. They might have the shared same values, beliefs and perspectives and at the early
times, when women are stigmatized in the workforce, they are the bosses of the corporate world.
They pride themselves on risk-taking and bare-knuckle competition which can lead to corporate
disaster. They were advantageous when strength mattered more than brains. They could be
higher authorities or even member, yet they rule the work culture of the world. Men are expected
to do the corporate jobs; make earnings, and create a living for his family.
It is contrasted by the countercultures which are groups where the pattern of values and
philosophies outwardly reject those of the larger organization of social system. In terms of
sexuality, these are women. We have discussed earlier that women today are more productive in
the corporate workforce than in the olden days. Women have made dramatic progress over recent
decades and they are nearly filling up the gaps that most of the men left in the organizations.
Women nowadays are less aggressive, more consensus-seeking, less competitive, more
collaborative, and less power-obsessed and more group-oriented. The demand for female brains
is helping to alleviate most of the societal problems. Womanly qualities are becoming ever more
valuable in business which is definitely contrary to the corporate culture that several years ago
have had.

ISSUE 4: Underlying Assumptions of Organizational Development

 The issue on the individual level organizational behavior focuses on the principles that
reflect an underlying respect for people and their capabilities. Judging people as individuals
rather than representatives of groups is both morally right and good for the business. It assumes
individual needs for growth and development are most likely to be satisfied in a supportive and
challenging work environment. It also assumes that most people are capable of taking
responsibility for their own actions and of making positive contributions to organizational
performance.
Women have different ways of achieving results, and leadership qualities that are
becoming more important as our organizations become less hierarchical and more loosely
organized around matrix structures. Women have to be given importance since they have begun
to largely march into the workforce. They are to be respected as an important role player in the
society just as how important men are.

CHAPTER 17
ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS AND STRUCTURES

ISSUE 1: Women’s economic empowerment is arguably the biggest social change of our
times. Today they are running some of the organizations that once treated them as second-
class citizens. Millions of women have been given more control over their own lives.

This issue relates to Chapter 17 in terms of organizational structures. As what is said,

women today are running some of the organizations that once treated them as second-class
citizens. It means that some organizations in terms of hierarchal structures changed it from
patriarchal to a more equal structure that doesn’t discriminate a person in terms of their sex. It
means that more women are now capable of having positions, not just low position but can also
control the organization in the corporate world. Women can also do what men can in terms of
controlling an organization. Women can also control the people under them regardless of their
gender.
ISSUE 2: Women have certainly performed better over the past decade than men.

This might have been an issue because men usually do the work and women stays at
home. Today, since the corporate world is now accepting more and more women to control and
work for the organization, this is possibly right. Women may have different kind of approach in
the different types of fulfilling goals of an organization compared to men and their kind of
approach is the better way to be successful. Women may be more focused on the mission and
vision of an organization. Women may also have more control as one of their feature in running
the organization as well as the people under them.

ISSUE 3: Women have different ways of achieving results, and leadership qualities that are
becoming more important as our organization becomes less hierarchical and more loosely
organized around matrix structures.

Women today may now have a different point of view when in terms to controlling and
running an organization. They may be more focused and motivated in achieving good results.
Women considered as mothers may also have different qualities when it comes to leadership.
They may control and run the people under them with the help of the characteristics of a mother.
In this way, women can make people follow them without offending them and by touching
people’s hearts. These characteristics of women today may be an influence of an organic type of
structure of an organization which emphasizes the horizontal specialization, extensive use of
personal coordination and loose rules, policies and procedures that is now helping in an
organization’s success.

ISSUE 4: Women are now outperforming men markedly in schools and universities.

As students, women are now outperforming men because they may be more focused than
men when it comes to their studies. Women nowadays strive hard in studying now that they
know that they have a big space in the corporate world and can have success. Women today are
more likely to have dreams of becoming a successful woman by having and running their own
businesses and being in the top of their career than being a plain house-wife that women usually
do after marrying. Now that most organizations have change in their hierarchal structures and are
now more likely to be organic which have loose rules, procedures and policies, women can now
do what a man can and can even outperform them without being criticized. Maybe they want the
outlook of others of women being weak to be changed by doing things that are unusual to the
traditions before and to prove to the people that women can bring success and light not only in
their family but in the corporate world as well.

CHAPTER 18:
STRATEGY, INNOVATION, AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING

Issue No. 1: As women get more intellectual, they get tougher and stronger. Therefore,
women should be educated.

People look at women before as weaker gender compared to men. It is because they are
not educated and knowledgeable. Men forbid women to work and instead just stay at home and
full-time housewife. The men of the older centuries believed that women should stay illiterate so
that they will not revolutionized against them, and will follow their command with no complains.
Women of the 21st century are not the same way anymore.
More and more women are smarter than men. According to the article, women will
outperform men and will take the majority of the population of the labor force. Also, it was
stated that there is increased in demand for female brains in the corporate world.
Schools and different organizations developed types of organizational design and
strategic capabilities that would enable the women to join the rigorous corporate world. More
corporations are now favoring the more educated sex and the growing flexibility of the
workplace. Even new technologies that are acquired by the companies are making it easier for
women to juggle family and career.
Women have evolved. There might be things that the man can do but women cannot, as
time passes by women have become more educated and more experience. The women of today
can match up and even outplay the men in the society. As the American government says
Women can do it, we can do it!
Resource:

Hunt, J., Osborn, R. & Schermerhorn, J. (2008). Organizational Behavior. Philippines: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.
What Happens when Women are Over Half the
Workforce

Human Behavior and Ethics in Organization

Submitted to:
Professor Saracin

Submitted by:
Padillo, Angeli
Rondares, Patricia
Santos, Jerica

2H1- International Business

Date Submitted:
March 12, 2010