THINKING TIME!

What are the impacts of culture in terms of mixed-motive decision making?

“Culture” is defined as the system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors, and artifacts that the members of a society use to cope with their world and with one another, and which is transmitted from generation to generation through learning[1]. And as we know a person’s way of responding in front of a certain situation can be influenced by individual factors and the psychological personality, these factors are based on the values, morals and beliefs that the person has which represent the person’s culture. That’s why the culture impacts in the decision making process, because according to the cultural and social backgrounds that an individual or a member of a decision-making’s group has, it is reflected in the way how he/she react to different circumstances and how he/she reach to the decision. Also, the culture is an important determinative issue that influences the motivation variables in the work performance employees; one of these variables is the organizational commitment. There is evidence that the organizational culture and climate are positively correlated with organizational commitment—that is, a strong belief in and acceptance of the organization’s goals and values; a willingness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization; and a strong desire to maintain membership in the organization (Mowday et al., 1979; and Guzley, 1992). And taking into account that the national culture impact in the organizational behavior, this reflects how the culture can be a very important driver in the decision approach and in the organization as overall.

---

[1] Bates DG, Plog F: Cultural Anthropology. New York, McGraw-Hill, 1990, p 7

Please, DECIDE!

There are two types of decisions, the programmed one that is based on a simple routine matter and the non-programmed one which is based on a new situation that requires creativity. Both decisions have a process to their implementation that involves: Problem recognition, identification of objectives, evaluation of the situation, selection of course of action, implementation, feedback and follow-up. These steps describe the way how a decision is achieve and have to be taking into account to make an effective decision.

In the literature, many academics have created several models of decision-making, but there are three that have been more acceptable in the studies: the Rational model which is based on the behave to optimize the outcome, the Bounded Rational model that explains the limits in the decision making and the Garbage Can model arguing that the decisions are making randomly.

The decision making process includes different factors that determines the success of the choice. One of the most important factors is the risk, this have to be evaluated in the process because it can determine the scope and the consequences of the decision. Other important factor is the participation or the involvement of specific individuals in the making process, taking into account the persons that can be affected by the decision and can help to the success of the decision. In these cases we are talking about group-made decisions and there several issues that have to be aware in this process as the pressure on the group and the cultural diversity, and there techniques that are designed to avoid these issues like the Brainstorming, the Nominal Group Technique and the Devil’s Advocacy.

Talking about decisions making, other important factor to take into account are the ethics, these can determine the individual behavior. In the literature there are different theories that describe how people respond to a certain situations according to the ethics as the Consequential, the Rule-based and the Character theories. The ethical behavior plays an important role in the organizational decisions, because those are influenced by individual factors as the values, beliefs, morals and social responsibility of a person and the can represent a fundamental character in the decision making process.

THINKING TIME!

In this documentary, corporations are defined as “legal entities” and they meet the clinical definition of psychopathic behavior. Do you agree, why, or why not?

I agree, according to the Diccionario Terminológico de Ciencias Médicas, a psychopath is a person who has mental disorder characterized by deficient control of emotions and impulses, impulsivity, lack to adaptation the moral and social standards, association and he/she tends to acting and has an antisocial behavior. There many experts in the psychological field that has describe the behavior of a psychopath, but there is one specific work in which we can be the same as the psychopath behavior with the one of the corporations, that is the Hare’s studies. Hare propose 20 points that describe the psychopath behavior and those can similar to the behavior that a corporation applies to reach its goals, some of the points are[1]:

· Glib and superficial charm: A tendency to be easily soft, recruiters, charming, clever verbally speaking.

· High self-esteem: An extremely high view of their own abilities and their worth, confident, stubborn, conceited, boastful personalities.

· Stimuli’s needs: An excessive need for new, exciting and thrilling stimuli without taking into account any risks.

· Cheating and manipulation: the use of deception to cheat, trick or defraud others for personal gain.

· Lack of remorse or guilt: A lack of feeling or concern for the losses, pain and suffering of victims.

· Impulsivity: recurrent behavior unpremeditated and lack reflection or planning; inability to resist temptation.

· Irresponsible: Repeated failure to perform or comply with obligations and commitments.

· Failure to accept responsibility for their own actions: Failure to accept responsibility for their actions, reflected in a low realizes, in the absence of scruples, in the manipulation, denial of responsibility and in an effort to manipulate others through this denial.

· Criminal versatility: A diversity of types of criminal offenses, regardless of whether the person has been arrested or convicted of his guilt.

These characteristics can be reflected in the behavior that the corporations have in their actions, strategies and planning. And according to the Canadian documentary of 2003, The Corporation, these entities are many times related with terms as: Dominant institution, Public control, big results, bigger damages, Inter-generational tyranny, Bad used power, Machiavellism, Illegal enhancement. So as conclusion the corporations’ actions demonstrate a very detailed psychopath behavior in them.

---

[1] Hare, R. (1991). The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. Toronto: Multi-Health Systems.

Hare, R. (1993) Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths among us. NY: Pocket Books.

Hare, R. (1996) Psychopathy: A clinical construct whose time has come. Criminal Justice and Behavior 23:25-54.

The MNC’s Nativity?

The rise of MNCs in the international dynamics, nowadays, has become a very important issue in the international relations and the world is starting to be aware of the threats that the MNCs’ proliferation has brought.

Traditionally, politically significant contact across national boundaries was conducted by government officials, but nowadays the emergence of private MNCs seemed to challenge this state-centric construct with the propagation of MNCs around the globe that are attempting to the nation-state sovereignty.

The MNCs have a great direct impact on domestic production, employment and other important socioeconomic indicators that can complicate the regulatory execution of a national government’s policy. At the same time, the nation-states are exercising less control under conditions of globalization and the MNCs are taking this role.

But some governments aren’t taking actions against the MNCs growth, because these can be seen as helpers to the nations, specially the less powerful ones. The MNCs offer to national governments more options in pursuing their national interest objectives, and also, they are acting as levers in the host nations, particularly in areas related to human rights, labor relations and environment. Simultaneously, the nations are using the MNCs as instruments in government’s foreign policy and they are bringing direct services to the local communities.

In the other hand, the MNCs have difficulties in attempting to the sovereignty, because although the ability of MNCs to respond flexibly to the speed and magnitude of global economic change has increased, but the changes also made it harder to assign individual MNCs the attributes of a distinct political actor over any reasonable period of time. This increasingly changes and the lack of a stable identity in MNC composition and character alter their potential to challenge national government sovereignty.

As conclusion, despite impressive growth in financial, technological, and other resource capabilities, MNCs do not function effectively as independent, unitary actors that can challenge nation-state sovereignty, and the global community gives no sign of providing legitimizing assent to any formal MNC political authority.

THINKING TIME!

In multicultural organizational contexts what could be a good strategy to keep people motivated towards a common task?

We have to think that the world is divided in two types of work thinking: individualism and collectivism. Individualism stands for a society in which the ties between individuals are loose: everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family only[1]. And Collectivism stands for a society in which people from birth onwards are integrated into strong cohesive in-groups, which throughout people’s lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty[2]. These categories influence the way how people works and how they can be motive to reach a better performance, also are included in the characteristics of a national culture, being this one the origin of these categories’ selection. This is the strategy placed, in which the managers have to see the cultural backgrounds of his/her workforce and determine in which category the workforce fit, according to this, he/she select the best option to motivate the crew, if the people came from an individualistic culture, the best ways to motivate them is the individual recognition and promotions, but if the people came from a collective-based culture, the best motivation techniques to be applied are the creation of teamwork and the affiliation among them.

---

[1] Hofstede, G (1994). Cultures and Organizations – Intercultural Cooperation and its importance for survival (p. 261). McGraw-Hill Companies

[2] Hofstede, G (1994). Cultures and Organizations – Intercultural Cooperation and its importance for survival (p. 260). McGraw-Hill Companies

Theories of Passion?

The motivation is one of the most important factors when we are talking about Organizational Culture. Along the years many academics have develop several theories about the role that motivation has in the business and corporation world. Here we would make a brief review of the most important motivation’s theories in history.

Starting with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in which people’s needs are divided in 5 categories: physiological needs, security needs, social needs, self-esteem needs and needs of self-actualization. This theory exposed that when a person satisfy a rank need, the next level becomes dominant, but when the person arrives to the highest level, he/she never satisfies it, because the man is a perpetually wanting animal.

Then we have the Frederick Herzberg’s Two Factors Theory that explains, based on the sources of professional satisfaction and dissatisfaction, that good periods are related to content elements of the professional activity and the frustration periods are associated with the work’s context. Also we have the Theory X and Theory Y created by Douglas McGregor that divides the workforce in two types of employees: the X employees which have lack of ambition, avoid the job and are negligent and the Y employees which work voluntary and bring all their physical and intellectual efforts to the work. The first ones are motivated by punishment and permanently control and the second ones are motivated by rewards.

Another theory is the Expectancy Theory arguing that the motivation is possible only when there I a clear relation between the work performance and its results and these results are means to satisfy a certain need. As well there is the Goal Setting Theory that states that the level of motivation and performance is higher when he individual has specific objectives established and when these objectives, even with a high level of difficulty, are accepted and are offered a performance feedback.

Finally, we have the Fifty-Fifty Rule Theory which says that a substantial part of motivation lies within a person while a substantial par lies outside and beyond its control, giving a 50% of our motivation lying without us.

Like these theories there are so many more that explains and see the motivation from different point of views which means that the managers have to be aware o the motivation because it can drive the work performance to the success or the failure.

Be careful: What you have is a TREASURE!

Based on the resource-based view (RBV) we would make a development of the resources and capabilities assessment to take advantage of the strategic value that these have to the company.

In literature, the company’s resources have a very interesting topic and many academics have reached to the conclusion that the resources are one of the most import ant factors that determines the success of failure in the organization activities. But, also other factor that plays an important role in the organizational performance, this factor is intangible, collective, complex and dynamic, different from the resources which are tangibles, independent, simples and static. These intangible factors are the capabilities that a company has. In order to take a real advantage of these factors, resources and capabilities, they have to fill a certain of characteristics that make them strategic, these are: Inimitability, Value, Apropriability, Durability, Insubstitutability and Non-transferability.

Taking into account the capabilities, one of the most useful intangible factors is the intellectual capital which as Teece said the economic wealth comes from knowledge assets and its useful application, and that’s why the intellectual capital is important. To avoid problem s involved in its identification, measurement and strategic assessment, we have that this type of capital is divided in human, technological, organizational, business and social capital, and is the organizational one that is more involved in the company’s performance. This capital include the combination of organization culture, structure and organizational learning, and these characteristics determine the well execution of the organizational capital when they are difficult to imitate and transfer, which bring competitive advantage to the company.

THINKING TIME!

To what do you attribute the success of JICA?

The success of JICA is found in the excellent characteristics of its work environment that describe it as a well-structured and harmonized workplace. As Frederick Herzberg express in his Two Factors Theory, the good periods are mostly related to content elements of the professional activity, elements from the individual; and the frustration times are frequently related to the context of the work, that what JICA explodes a good work surroundings make the workforce performance more efficient.

Other important fact in the JICA’s success is the outstanding cross-cultural management which the company counts. JICA is an international independent agency that coordinates the Japanese international public assistance and is oriented to help to the economic and social growth in developing countries and promote the international cooperation. As JICA is a global agency, they deal with multicultural environment in their scope of action as in their workplaces and with the experience, they have reached to manage the cultural diversity taking advantages from it and getting a more complex and open-minded view of the organizational behavior. And as the publishing International Management: Cross-Cultural Dimensions written by Richard Mead, the company’s ability to attract, retain and motivate people from different cultures can give it competitive advantage in cost structures, physical structures, creativity, problem solving and adapting to change.

Finally, JICA creates happy relationship between workers and as is shown in the analysis Beyond Pygmalion Effect: The role of Managerial Perception by Inamori Takao & Analoui Farhad, harmonized human relationships work positively towards enhancing organizational performance.

Everything is NOT what it seems!

Based on an analysis of the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the managers’ perception on the employees’ performance is studied.

Starting with a brief review of the literature and theories involved in the role of perception in the business world as the “Pygmalion Effect Theory” which attempt to explain how the perceiver’s positive expectation may enhance the target’s performance, the “Theory XY” that offers two sets of managerial assumptions based on negative or positive beliefs that affect the followers’ performance, the “Implicit Perception Theory” which explains that certain personality traits, behavior attitude and values tend to associate with certain types of individuals, the “Attribution Theory” that explain behavior in two attributions: internal as personal factors and external as environmental factors; all these theories among others that serves as background in the building of this analysis.

Then the analysis is made based in four hypotheses which are:

-Japanese aid workers tend to have a negative perception of the local staff.

-Japanese aid workers tend to have a negative perception of the work environment.

-Japanese aid worker’s positive perception of the local staff causes Japanese aid worker’s positive behavior towards the local staff.

-Japanese aid worker’s positive behavior towards local staff contributes to the enhancement of organizational performance.

These hypotheses were evaluated based on 8 critical factors, those are: Understanding, Work, Environment, Expectation, Stress, Encouragement, Relatedness and Performance. At the end, studying the results the hypotheses 1 and 2 were rejected, the number 3 was contradicted and the hypothesis 4 was partly supported. These results adequately explain how the perception and expectations of the Japanese aid workers largely influences their behavior toward the local staff and the performance of the organization as the whole.

Finally the majority of the respondents generally showed positive perceptions, showing that maintain positive perception is imperative for successful management of people and operations which is the case of JICA, and harmonized human relationships work positively towards enhancing organizational performance.

Extremes are bad: Be culturally neutral!

The relevance of cultures in the performance of the organizations has been always an discussion topic towards the academics, and position of whether or not the company has to take into account the importance of this factor has been a headache in several managers and CEOs.

The decision making process in managers has been influenced by internal factors as resources, manager’s personality, strategy, and external factors as markets, technology and CULTURE. But the division between these two is porous and makes the influence more complex.

Taking into account the culture, it gives to the manager invaluable instruments in his/her work of interpreting and predicting the behavior of the workforce, and this is why this issue is so important to study it. The culture involves three main statements:

-Culture is one group.

-Culture is learned.

-Culture includes values, beliefs and religion

These statements show why the culture influences in how the workforce responds to the structures and systems planned and implemented by management. This management is called Cross-cultural management and is important in the international management because the knowledge about cultures can prevent failures and bring harmony to the international company’s work environment. And, in order to have a successful Cross-cultural management, the skills, diversity and creative have to be fundamental factors to be aware.

THINKING TIME!

Why is managing organizational behavior in changing times challenging?

To answer this question we have to take into account the capabilities that a company has, taking as most important the adaptability. The adaptability determines how companies and managers can pass through the change without seeing many bad consequences, and the capability of seeing this change as opportunity whether as a risk. Nowadays with the globalization as a global movement that has increased the flow of goods, services, people, real capital, technology and money across national borders in order to create a more integrated and independent world economy[1], the companies are facing several changes in short periods of time and these changes can challenge the employees work performance and the organizational execution, because produce new variables in the work environment that can cause resistant in the workforce bringing chaos and bad levels of effectiveness, that’s what has to be avoided. So, the organizational behavior is affected by the changes that arrive to the company, but also these changes are the one that build the behavior inside the business, force the company to create a competitive advantage toward the adaptability and demonstrates the well-execution of the managers’ decisions.

---

[1] Vallejo-Mejia, P & Zwerg-Villegas, A. M. (2008). International Business: The Pocket Guide. Fondo Editorial Universidad EAFIT.

First Step: Decide; are you Clockwork or Snake pit?

The organizational behavior is the individual behavior and the group dynamics in organizations that involves different organizational variables that affect the development of the organizational culture and is influenced by many disciplines as psychology, sociology, engineering, anthropology, management and medicine, these have created how is seen and known the organizational behavior in the academic world.

The organizational behavior can affect negatively of positively the company’s performance and is essential to take advantage of this issue to understand how the organization works and why the change is a very important critical success factor. The organization have to be seen as an open systems in which tasks, people, technology and structure are involved in the process of transforming an input into an output. The importance of the change belongs to the understanding that the change can bring risk or opportunities and based on the organizational environment, the globalization, workforce diversity, ethics and the quality, are the facts that managers have to take into account while they are facing the change.

Finally, to learn about the organizational behavior and be able to apply it in our cases, we have to explore the science of the OB following a scheme in which the research and scientific activities (Objective knowledge), the understanding of your abilities (Skill knowledge) and the implementation in the real world, are the steps to get a clear image of the organizational behavior’s importance.

Welcome to Culturize Yourself!

This blog is an academic exercise part of the Organizations & Cultures’ course at the International Business Department at Universidad EAFIT, in which would be exposed and discussed many issues around the literature involving the Organizational culture and its critical success factors that can influence in the company’s performance.