WEEK 1: Organizational Behavior and National and Organizational Culture

Organizational Behavior

An organization is a system of   groups and individuals that work in joint to achieve common objectives. There are 4 key elements on every organization, which are entirely correlated to the organizations functions: Structure, Technology, Actors and tasks.  Also, we can identify to stages of the organization, the formal organization which is the most visible part and includes: Goals, objectives, policies, procedures, among others. The informal organization is the less visible part, which includes: Beliefs, attitudes, Values, trust, Group norms, among others.

In order to achieve the goals of the Organization, managers and administrative employees analyze the organizational behavior. This is the study of dynamics of people and groups in the organization.  This analysis allows managers to learn about the relations between people, teams and companies.  Giving the possibility to understand and correct the behavior of the organization in order to achieve common goals.

There are 3 levels of analysis, the individual process, group process and organizational process. Also, we can describe the interdisciplinary influences on organizational behavior: Psychology, anthropology, management, sociology engineering, and medicine.

In these challenging times, is very important to control and manage organizational behavior, in order to develop better managerial skills and becoming more competitive and efficient.

National and Organizational Culture

Culture is a key element on business management, it can affect the status of long term relations, also means different assumptions and impacts on the employees, morals and commitments. If you’re not aware of it, and you don’t keep it in mind you can lose a lot of opportunities.  The national culture defines and influences the individuals depending on certain attitudes and values, according to the gender, the ethnicity, age among others.  Managing culture properly can mean greater opportunities and a great advantage to managers, to get a better market share and also run the business and companies in most effective way. The last one refers to the employees and keeping motivation among them. These previous processes allow companies to adapt to environment or changing the status of it.

Types of cultures:

The clan Culture: The friendliest one, like a family.

Hierarchy Culture: Is most formal, and the task and processes are what drive people.

Adhocracy Culture: Entrepreneurial and more dynamic aptitudes.

Market Culture: Oriented towards goals and very competitive actors.

We can see in this video, how something apparently so simple can sometimes be very important and key in other cultures.

 

Why is managing organizational behavior in changing times challenging?

Because in these changing times, there are a lot of factors affecting the organization, for example: the increasing globalization which means that it would be more territories to operate, and with that more variety of workers with different needs, cultures and values, so each one of it has to be taken into account. Also with the technological advances the demand for better and more skilled employees and managers is increasing, more efficiency and quality are being demanded by the costumers.


Image retreived from:/ http/www.lockehighrollers.com/images/multicultural.jpg
Video retreived from:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of8UgykfUbw&feature=bf_play&playnext=1&list=QL&index=1
Information retreived from: Nelson, D.L & Quick, J.C. 2010. "Organizational Behavior: Science, The real world and you"
Information retreived from: http://interactiva.eafit.edu.co/ei/