Effects of Culture, Power and Politics on the Organisation

Google

Google Inc., American search Engine Company founded in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page that is a subsidiary of the holding company Alphabet Inc. Google, placing it at the heart of most Internet users’ experience, handles more than 70 percept of worldwide online search requests. Its headquarters are in Mountain View

LO1 Analyse the influence of culture, politics and power on the behaviour of others in an organisational context

Influence of culture:

Classifications of culture (power, role, task and person)

Power culture

Handy illustrates typically the power culture being a spider’s web, with the all-important spider sitting in typically the centre ‘… as the crucial to the complete organisation is located in the centre, between ever-widening circles of intimates and influence. The better you are to typically the spider, a lot more influence an individual have. Organisations with this sort of culture can respond swiftly to events, nevertheless they usually are heavily dependent for continued success on the abilities of the people at the centre; succession is a critical issue. They will tend to attract people who are power orientated and politically minded, who take risks and do not rate security highly. Control of resources is the main power base in this culture, with some elements of private power from the centre.

Dimensions are a new problem for power civilizations. They find it challenging to link way too many routines and retain control; they will tend to succeed any time they create new organizations with lots of freedom, although they usually keep key financial control.

This sort of culture relies heavily about individuals as opposed to on committees. In organisations with this specific culture, performance is evaluated on results, and so on organizations tend to be understanding of means. They could appear tough and rough and their successes could be accompanied by reduced morale and high yield as individuals fail or perhaps leave of the aggressive atmosphere. Employed in such organizations requires that employees appropriately anticipate precisely what is expected regarding them from the power holders and perform accordingly. If managers get this culture right, it can lead to a happy, satisfied organisation that in turn can breed very extreme commitment to corporate goals. Anticipating wrongly can result in extreme dissatisfaction and sometimes result in a high labour turnover as well as a general lack of effort and enthusiasm.

Role culture

The role culture can be illustrated as a building supported by columns and beams: each column and beam has a specific role to playing keeping up the building; individuals are role occupants but the role continues even though the individual leaves. This culture shares a number of factors in common with Weber’s description of the ‘ideal-type’ bureaucracy.

GOOGLE is characterised by strong functional or specialised areas coordinated by a narrow band of senior management at the top and a high degree of formalisation and standardisation; the work of the functional areas and the interactions together are manipulated by rules and processes defining the work, the specialist that goes by it, typically the mode of communication in addition to the settlement of differences.

Position is the key strength source in the function culture. People are picked to perform roles satisfactorily; personal power is frowned after and expert strength is tolerated only inside its proper place. Regulations and procedures are typically the chief methods of effect. The efficiency of this specific culture is determined by the rationality of the allocation of and responsibility as opposed to about individual personalities.

Google Inc.  Roles

Task culture

Activity culture is job-or project-oriented, and its accompanying construction may be best represented since a net. Some regarding the strands of typically the net are thicker or perhaps tougher than others, in addition to much of the power and influence is located at the interstices of the net, at the knots. Task cultures are often associated with organisations that adopt matrix or project-based structural designs.

The emphasis is on getting the job done, and the culture seeks to bring together the appropriate resources and the right individuals at the right level in order to assemble the relevant resources for the completion of a particular project. A task culture depends upon the unifying power of the group to improve efficiency and also to help the individual identify with the objectives regarding the organisation. So it will be a new team culture, the location where the result of the team’s job takes precedence over personal objectives and most position and elegance differences. Influence is usually based read more about expert strength than on position or perhaps personal power, and effect is more widely spread than in other civilizations.

Person culture

Person lifestyle is an unusual lifestyle. It is not necessarily found in several organisations, yet many men and women espouse a number of its beliefs. A loose cluster or perhaps a constellation of superstars illustrates this kind of culture. Within this culture the person may be the focal point; in case there is a framework or an organisation, this exists only to function and assist the people within it, to additional their own interests with no overriding objective.

Clearly, not really many organisations can be found with this sort associated with culture, or produce this, since organisations tend in order to have some type of business objective over and over the personal objectives associated with those who comprise all of them. Furthermore, control mechanisms, as well as management hierarchies, are difficult in these cultures other than by mutual consent. A good individual can leave the particular organisation, but the company seldom has the energy to evict an person. Influence is shared plus the power base, in case needed, is generally expert; which is, individuals do what these people are proficient at and are usually listened to for their own expertise.

Consultants – each within organisations and freelancer employees – and architects’ partnerships often have this particular person-orientation. So do some educational institutions. A cooperative may try for the person lifestyle in organisational form, but since it develops it usually becomes, at best, a new task culture, or usually a power or function culture.

The importance of cultural-difference awareness 

With typically the globalization of business, elevated diversity in the office and multicultural emphasis inside society, cultural awareness provides become certainly one of the main enterprise tools in about any industry. Comprehending the cultures of the people about you will enhance connection, productivity and unity at work. Formal cross-cultural awareness teaching is very helpful regarding problem solving on modern business teams, 

Cultural Stories: Each culture provides underlying themes. Values in addition to attributes such as frugality, trust and endurance may possibly be viewed differently inside other countries. In several cases, these themes may possibly translate into varying anticipations for business partnerships in addition to negotiations.

Communication: In several cultures, communication, including non-verbal, can be subtle and refined, as opposed to the direct method often associated with typically the United States. Learn just how men and women in your fresh market use words in addition to phrases, hand gestures, body gestures and other cues in order to communicate. Find out which usually non-verbal gestures used within the United States are usually acceptable and which are usually not to prevent offending or even embarrassing a brand new business companion. Other strategies may also be integrated in order to relieve communication, including using visible references as much because possible, and permitting pauses or silence during delivering presentations.

Decision Making: How perform individuals make decisions? Separately or as part associated with a big group? In certain nations, it may take weeks to issue a team decision on the contract. Somewhere else, unilateral decision-making may become the accepted norm.

Time Perception: How do your own potential overseas partners understand some deadlines? While punctuality might be expected in 1 culture, in other countries a conference time may be considered a lot more of a suggestion compared to a hard-and-fast schedule. Likewise, some cultures may location greater emphasis on long-term preparing and overall company wellness, viewing success not via the lens of quarterly fiscal reports but rather from a perspective of five-year blueprints.

Hofstede’s dimensions of culture theory and application

Hofstede’s work serves as the base for other researches in cross-cultural psychology, inviting a number of researchers to study different aspects of international business and communication. These dimensions founded by Hofstede illustrate the deeply embedded values of diverse cultures. These values impact not only how people with different cultural backgrounds behave, but also the manner in which they will potentially behave when placed in a work-associated context.

  1. Power Distance: This dimension explains the extent to which members who are less powerful in a society accept and also expect that the distribution of power take place unequally.
  2. Uncertainty Avoidance: It is a dimension that describes the extent to which people in society are not at ease with ambiguity and uncertainty.
  3. Individualism vs. Collectivism: The focus of this dimension is on the question regarding whether people have a preference for being left alone to look after them or want to remain in a closely knitted network.
  4. Masculinity vs. Femininity: Masculinity implies a society’s preference for assertiveness, heroism, achievement and material reward for attaining success. On the contrary, femininity represents a preference for modesty, cooperation, quality of life and caring for the weak.
  5. Long-Term vs. Short-Term Orientation: Long-term orientation describes the inclination of a society toward searching for virtue. Short-term orientation pertains to those societies that are strongly inclined toward the establishment of the absolute truth.

The rise of globalisation and digital technology and how they have influenced and shaped organisational culture in the 21st century 

Globalisation can be defined as the process of change, increasing interconnectedness and interdependence among countries and economies, bringing the world closer through better world-wide communication, transport and trade links. This particular process is changing the particular world considerably and rapidly, affecting economic, social, politics and cultural aspects associated with life and bringing each opportunities and challenges.

Technical developments are conceived because the primary facilitator and traveling force of nearly all of the particular globalization processes. Before evolving on the consequences associated with several technological developments, all of us must go through the particular definition of technology because a sociological term, to ensure that we can further discover the social and politics role of technology within the globalization process.

Technologies can be defined because the socialized knowledge associated with creating services and goods. We may describe the term technologies with five important components: production, knowledge, instruments, ownership and change. Our description of technology as the socialized knowledge could be much better conceived with these components. Now we shall quickly look over them:

Production (of goods and services) all of us need technology to create something either goods (ex: clothes, TV set, vehicles etc.) or support (ex: banking, security, teaching etc. ) Technology improves our capacity to produce.

Knowledge. Technology is a result of intellectual activities. Therefore technology is type of intellectual property. Today technology is developed through research and development institutions as integral parts of the universities.

Instruments. The instruments are the extensions of the human body, whenever an instrument is used there is technology involved. The instruments indicate the usage of technology by human beings. Instruments are mostly physical such as computers, vacuum cleaners or pencils, but sometimes there are immaterial instruments too, such as databases or algorithms in computer programming.

Possession Those people who possess technology also control it. Controlling technology has usually something in order to do with economics plus politics. Therefore we are able to talk of technologically rich plus poor countries and the particular struggle among them generally in the kinds of us patents, transfers and protection associated with intellectual rights.  

Change. . Along with technology, the world is promoting drastically. Most of the particular innovations from your technological improvements have extremely important effects upon the lives of individuals of the world, which usually has witnessed radical modifications especially after 1960’s cycles on the microelectronics systems. Even there are a few folks who argue that will the history is created by technology as a result of their highly criticized techno-determinist view. 

Principles of Network theory and Systems theory as frameworks to understand organisations

 

Organisational psychology

Is a field of psychology that is applicable the fundamental scientific concepts of psychology to the workplace environment to make work more enjoyable and more productive. Think about the jobs that you have held. What were the things that made you love going to work each day. What things at the workplace made you want to call in sick.

 

Influence of politics:

Organisational politics and differentiation between personal, decisional, structural and organisational change

Organizational politics are casual, unofficial, and frequently behind-the-scenes attempts to sell ideas, impact an organization, increase energy, or achieve other focused objectives (Brandon & Seldman, 2004; Hochwarter, Witt, & Kacmar, 2000). Politics has existed for millennia. Aristotle published that politics stems from a diversity of passions, and the ones competing interests must be resolved in some way. “Rational” decision making by you might not work when passions are fundamentally incongruent, so political behaviours and impact tactics arise. 

LO2 Evaluate how to motivate individuals and teams to achieve a goal

Motivational theories:

Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation 

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION: Internal desires to perform a particular job, people do certain activities because it gives them pleasure, develop a particular skill, or It’s morally the right thing to do. 

EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION: Aspects external to the person and unrelated to the task they may be performing. Good examples include money, good marks, and other Rewards. 

Motivational theorists and theories: content theories (Maslow, Herzberg and Alderfer) and process theories (Vroom, Adams, Latham and Locke)

 

Content Theories of Motivation

Shortly after Fritz Roethlisberger published his 1941 book Management and Well-being, outlining in detail the Hawthorn studies, Abraham Maslow published “A Theory of Human Motivation” in 1943. Maslow is considered the father of needs dependent motivation theory great concept is “one of the best-known and most broadly cited works on motivation” (Denhardt et al., 2008, p. 148).

Maslow (Maslow, 1946) proposed a 5 level hierarchy of needs which he outlined as necessary for the accomplishment of a completely satisfied person; or in his conditions, a self-actualized being. All those needs are: physiological, security, love, esteem, and self-actualization.

Physiological needs can be described as the standard of human needs; those needed for human survival. Such as breathing, water, food, and shelter. Safety needs are needs, which create stableness and predictability in our lives: personal and financial security, health and well being, and employment and access to resources. belonging needs are cantered around social interactions and sociable relationships: friendship, family, and intimacy. Esteem needs indicate our desires for value, self-esteem and the need to belong.

Finally, self-actualization is the state that this individual achieves when all the other needs have been meet. Maslow identifies fifteen features that self-actualized individuals experience, and so the exact explanation of being “self-actualized” is difficult to summarize. Several of the characteristics include: the acceptance of do it yourself, others and nature; impulse; autonomy independent of culture and environment; and the mystic experience. 

Hersberg (1968), influenced by both Maslow and McGregor, posited his own theory of determination called the motivation-hygiene principle. In this, he identifies two dimensions of conditions: motivators and hygiene factors. Motivators, akin to Maslow’s higher-level needs, are what lead to job satisfaction and are associated with the nature of the work itself: achievement, reputation, responsibility and growth. Motivators are intrinsic factors, which lead to job satisfaction. On the other palm, hygiene factors, associated with Maslow’s lower-level needs, do not lead necessarily to motivation or satisfaction, but rather are extrinsic and merely reduce job dissatisfaction. Types of hygiene factors include: company policy and administration, direction, relationships with supervisors, and work conditions.

Clayton Alderfer (1972), influenced by Gordon Allport (1960, 1964) was an American psychologist who simplified Maslow’s hierarch of needs into three categories: existence, which included Maslow’s physiological and safety needs; relatedness, including love and esteem; and growth, which included self-actualization. Abbreviated simply as ERG, Alderfer found his three categories more as a continuum somewhat than a strict pecking order (Alderfer, 1969). The ERG theory allows for different people to pursue their needs in a very subjective order and possibly at the same time.

 

Process Theories of Motivation

While content theories focused on the needs that all individuals share, process theories focus on the cognitive differences between individuals. 

Vroom’s theory of cognitive making decisions and behavior outlines three features of motivation: valence, instrumentality, and expectancy. Valence is just the strength of want for the perceived result; the want of the reward, if you will. Instrumentality is the fact that by completing certain steps, the specified outcome will be achieved. Expectancy is the idea that you can actually achieve the desired final results. Taking all three measures into account results in the amount of inspiration a person may experience.

John S. Adams (1963) and is an expansion of Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory and also seems to rely on the concept of the looking glass self (Cooley, 1983). Equity theory is dependent on the notion that individuals are most satisfied in associations, both personal and professional (Mowday, 1991), when the “give and take” are equal. In conditions of work, this can imply that a person judges collateral by measuring their insight to outcome ratio against that of other employees. Adams suggested that we gain our sense of equity through the process of socialization.

Lock’s primary principle in his goal-setting theory states that by setting moderately difficult, self-assigned, and specific goals, individuals are challenged to increase performance towards those goals. Setting goals also allows employees to judge their own performance against that needed to reach the goal. Goal setting is also an important attribute for teams. Specific and measurable performance goals in groups can solidify cohesion, increase performance, and reaffirm objective (Katzenbach & Smith, 2003).

The implications of motivational theory on management and leadership within organisations

  • Motivating employees is a primary responsibility of management, as motivational management enables higher outputs and job satisfaction from employees.
  • While there is a great deal of research on motivation from the perspective of both management and psychology; a few specific psychological theories can be applied specifically to employee motivation.
  • According to psychological theories of motivation, management is in the difficult position of identifying and fulfilling needs for different employees who will, in turn, require distinct motivational assistance.
  • Managers may rely on a few tools to steer the direction of motivation. These include positive and negative reinforcements and positive and negative punishment.

Behavioural psychology:

Definition of emotional intelligence and the importance of soft skills for managers and teams 

Emotional intelligence is the ability to identify and manage your own emotions and the emotions of others. It is generally said to include three skills: emotional awareness; the ability to harness emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking and problem solving; and the ability to manage emotions, which includes regulating your own emotions and cheering up or calming down other people.

Soft skills, often called individuals skills or emotional intelligence, refer to the ability to interact amicably with others. Soft skills are personal attributes that could affect relationships, communication, in addition to interaction with others. Gentle skills can include, or perhaps relate to, the next:

  • Negotiating
  • Customer service
  • Networking
  • Presentation
  • Conflict resolution
  • Communication performance
  • Teamwork
  • Problem fixing
  • Working under pressure

Soft expertise are an essential portion of procuring and holding onto clients. Highly developed display skills, networking abilities, in addition to etiquette awareness can aid you win new consumers and gain more job from present clients. Sharpening your talents to handle conflicts, fix problems, in addition to provide excellent customer care could bring about tougher relationships together with colleagues, vendors, as well as other specialist contacts. Ultimately, strong gentle skills can help an individual gain confidence—an invaluable feature in the commercial world.

Task vs relationship leadership and psychodynamic approach to behaviour

Task-Oriented Leadership Theory

Task-oriented leadership principle describes a leader of which is motivated by completing tasks and concerned with all the delineating roles and certain tasks for employees. Typically the task-oriented leader creates plans and procedures, informs subordinates of such procedures and builds up standards for evaluating prosperous employee performance. Task-oriented market leaders may organize their moment in regards to schedule of activities that needs to be completed for each and every daytime.

Relationship-Oriented Leadership Theory

Relationship-oriented leadership theory describes the leader that is mainly inspired by and anxious with the woman interactions with people. Relationship-oriented leaders often act since mentors to their subordinates. They schedule time to be able to talk with employees in addition to incorporate their feedback directly into decisions. They also usually try to make job experience enjoyable and make an effort to foster a positive job environment or group active.

Psychodynamics approach, also identified as dynamic psychology, in the broadest sense, is a great method to psychology that focuses on systematic study of typically the psychological forces that underlie human behavior, feelings, in addition to thoughts and just how they may possibly relate to early knowledge.

 

LO3 Demonstrate an understanding of how to cooperate effectively with others

Different types of organisational teams:

Including functional, problem-solving, project teams

A cross-functional team will be a group of individuals with various functional expertises working towards a common goal. This may include individuals through finance, marketing, operations, plus human resources departments. Usually, it includes employees through all levels of a good organization.

Problem-solving

A team of individuals assembled to operate on a project that will involves resolving one or even more issues which have currently arisen or to offer effectively with issues because they arise. In the business context, an issue resolving team will typically become formed for a restricted time frame incorporating personnel from different organizational amounts with various relevant skill units. 

Project teams

A team of individuals assembled in order to perform activities that lead towards attaining a typical task related goal. Numerous business operators will place together a project team containing of skilled employees through the same or various function areas to function on an essential project.

The impact of technology on organisational teams: the role of virtual team development and networking

A staff is a assortment of those who are interdependent inside their duties, who share responsibility regarding outcomes, who see by themselves and who are noticed by others as a great intact social entity inserted in a or more greater social systems, and who else manage their relationship around organizational boundaries. ” (Cohen et al., 1997).

Online teams are groups regarding geographically, organizationally and/or moment dispersed personnel brought collectively by information and telecommunication technologies to accomplish more than one organizational tasks. The international team draws members of which work and live in several countries and therefore are culturally different. (Powell et al., 2004).

In a virtual team, members play three types of roles:

•Task-oriented or Functional Functions are the ones, which allow a team to achieve its project goals, the reason why it was formed in first place. This really is generally related to their expertise in a field such as a product design professional, business analyst, project supervisor etc.

•Socio-emotional roles are the ones which help the team to build trust, collaborate and work effectively towards it common goal. Members informally owing to their preferences and personas generally take these upward. For example some users are able to encourage others, resolve conflicts or help release tension.

•Individual roles are the ones that are related to the private needs of a team member such as desire for acknowledgement or control. These are considered to have undesirable effects on trust and collaboration.

Global virtual groups rely on ICT tools for any form of interactions among its users. The members can use various ICT tools for three levels of communication.

•Impersonal communication involves minimum level of interactions and is worried about pre-determined jobs or actions, which each member has to perform. This is usually done through pre-established official action plans and procedures. 

Global virtual teams rely on ICT tools for any form of interactions among its members. The members can use various ICT tools for three levels of communication.

•Impersonal communication involves minimum level of interactions and is worried about pre-determined jobs or actions, which each member has to perform. This is usually done through pre-established official action plans and procedures.

•Personal communication involves one-on-one conversation between two members of the team. This really is achieved using vertical and horizontally communication channels.

•Group communication involves interactions among all the members of the team. This particular makes use of the team meetings using webinars, videoconferencing etc. 

Team dynamics and teamwork:

Definitions of the terms group and team, and the differences

 

Work Groups and Work Teams

In the business world, we have work groups and work clubs. A work team has members who work interdependently on a specific, common goal to produce an ending result for their business. A piece group is two or more those who are interdependent in their accomplishments and may or might not exactly work in the same department. Once again, the dissimilarities are refined, but the key thread is a team works collectively and shares in the outcome, while a party is far more independent of each other.

The is that a team’s strength or focus is determined by the commonality of their purpose and just how the individuals are attached to each other. On the other hand, a group can come from having a sizable number of folks or a cohesive willingness to bring out a focused action – political reform,

Additional aspects of work groups and teams are: 

Work Team  Work Group
The leader acts as a facilitator.  The leader dominates and controls the group.
The members have active participation in the discussions and eventual outcome.  The leader is apparent and will conduct the meeting.
The team members decide on the disbursements of work assignments.  The leader usually assigns work to the members.

Tuckman’s Team Development model and the impact of development stages on individual development

Virtually any team that stays collectively over the time frame will change and develop. Tuckman mentioned that there are 3 issues, which determine how well teams perform:

  • content
  • process
  • emotions

In short, content relates to the actual team does, process relates to how the team works towards its objectives and feelings applies to how team members relate to one another. Tuckman’s research suggests that most teams concentrate almost exclusively on content, to the detriment of process and feelings, which explains why teams, which are strong on paper, can under-perform.

Tuckman suggested that the life cycle of a team involves four stages. At each stage, the dynamics of the team change dramatically from periods of inefficiency and uneasiness through to a period of high performance.

These changes are summarized in the following table.

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