INTERNAL MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management (HRM) went through the process of transformation over the past decades, which transformed it from supportive administrative function into a strategic element of the companies. This process was majorly determined by the changing and increasingly complex external business landscape, where the competitive advantage of the companies, based on price and product availability could no longer sustain and guarantee long-term profitability and effectiveness (Boxhall and Purcell, 2011; Pravin, 2010). With that in mind, more and more organizations started to realize the role of human capital as a core strategic asset and resource of the organizations. This realization brought into the picture the role of HRM in developing human policies and management strategies that can guarantee internal development, higher retention rates and productivity. The reality, today, shows that operational productivity and effectiveness of the company as a whole to a great extent depends on the motivation and satisfaction levels of employees with their personal and professional growth potential, working environment and social element at work (Millmore, 2007; Arthur, 2001). With that in mind, motivation becomes critical in the portfolio of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) set for HRM departments.
When the motivation comes to play, it is essential to understand the elements that build on individual preferences and satisfaction in the working environment. It is difficult to argue that financial compensation is the prominent part of employment relationships. It is, at the same time, important to recognize that this aspect of remuneration is no longer a competitive advantage of the company on the employment market, but the “need” of the clients – employees that must be satisfied as a primary element of organizational relationships (Armstrong and Baron, 2002; Sims, 2007). Contemporary concept of motivation is built from several constructs. Nohria, Groysberg and Lee (2008) argue that there are four critical elements that summarize our individual motivational profile and that the organization can and should consider to influence human behavior: drive to bond, drive to comprehend, drive to acquire and drive to depend. These constructs come side by side with competitive financial package and can either destroy motivation or build on sustainable and strong organizational structure. Indeed, each of the individuals is part of a given social context of an organization. Drive to bond is natural for humans and with that working environment and social environment should be part of comprehensible organizational culture to which employee is proud to belong (Anderson, Carter, Lowe, 2009). Employees are driven by the need to acquire new knowledge and experience. While this need is different, depending on the personality traits of employees, the company should be able to able to provide an opportunity for personal growth that build on the drive to acquire. Comprehension is a critical element of motivation. First of all, it builds on the effective operation and transparency in the working process within the organization. Secondly, it creates a “comfort zone” that each employee requires feeling secure and comfortable with his job. With that in mind, drive to comprehend as part of motivation concept is subject to transparent and open communication strategy in the company. Finally, the drive to defend is a natural instinct of individual to have their freedom and space for opinion and responsibility in the decision-making process and by choosing the type of leadership, such as transformational or transitional, companies can control and influence this motivational element.
Culture
Organization is a social occurrence, where the complexity of individual beliefs, values and thinking come to play and build on the ways in which communication and interpersonal relationships develop within the company as well as with the external stakeholders. The social umbrella, under which these relationships develop, can be characterized as organizational structure. Such elements of structure as organizational hierarchy, operational practices and departmental roles build on the complex set of elements that should be considered by organizational culture (Anyim, 2012). It is evident that the interpersonal communication is a difficult process that often involves conflict and clashes of interest and inability to bring structure and unity into the organization will result in inevitable failure. Organizational culture is a unique and authentic personality of an organization in a competitive environment and strong bonds between employees and organization under this organizational element help to create loyalty from internal, as well as customer perspective. One of the impressive examples of how organizational culture can influence organizational effectiveness is Starbucks Coffee Company. The organization managed to bring through its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) standards and Code of Ethics top down and horizontally, by creating shared values with internal stakeholders, suppliers and customers under the motto “One person, one cup and one neighborhood.” (Starbucks, 2012; Pieper, 1990).
The question of creating organizational culture is even more controversial, given the progressive nature of diversity and international mobility within the modern companies. Handy´s Model of types of culture outlines four distinct models: role culture, power culture, task culture and person culture. All of these models can be equally effective in the company, depending on the individual profiles, objectives and business models that these companies operate (Bush, 2003). A lot of corporations find it increasingly difficult to manage organizational effectiveness through geographically and culturally disperse business environment (Gray, 2014; Peng, 2014). Cultural awareness in this situation is becoming more and more important as leadership and management asset. Companies continuously invest in training and development of these cross-cultural management skills to be able to maintain strong organizational culture in international business environment. McDonald´s is one of the examples, where shared values and common thinking culture were built across the globe with over 30,000 stores and more than 200,00 employees internationally (McDonald´s, 2012).
It is interesting to observe the impact of organizational culture on meeting corporate strategic goals in the situations, where companies grow inorganically, such as Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), especially common for the large international players from Silicon Valley. Looking at the challenges that some companies, like Yahoo and Facebook, face in terms of bringing in talent to support their growth “hungry” strategic market positioning ambitions, one can see the role of emphasis on maintaining and revitalizing organizational culture (Sallivan, 2013). The reality of acqui-hiring, when reaches the scale of Yahoo or IBM, for this matter, makes cultural and emotional intelligence of the management team a key to successful M&A strategy (Sallivan, 2012). Yahoo is one of the most successful companies in terms of employment relationships and employee motivation and retention level in spite of the above described challenges, and this success is attributed to the ability to adjust and absorb new companies without losing organizational identity and culture. The above examples allow arguing that internationalization of the businesses and increasing role of diversity in reaching competitive advantage will continue to place emphasis on the cross-cultural wisdom and geographically transmittable organizational culture (Gray, 2014).
Online Reflection
Learning through practical application and Understanding by Design (UbD) is critical for building confidence in the subject and understanding the real life application of the models and concepts from the course. During the course, we have completed a number of individual as well as group tasks, where participation in online tasks made a significant contribution to my personal and professional development. Human Resource Management is the process that involves qualities, essential for leadership and management and, thus, understanding the nature of motivation and structure of human relationships is critical for my future academic and career growth. Reflecting on my personal learning curve from the online assignments that we have undertaken allow me structuring the learning within the scope of three constructs: self-discovery and personal learning, technical skills and tools acquisition and teamwork and interpersonal relationships. Practical exercises, first of all, were a way to understand the strengths and weakness that I possess as individual and that I will have to focus on in the near future to enhance my learning. That said, I believe that one of the major take aways from the online tasks is the fact that I would like further develop my leadership capabilities and understanding of human behavior. This comes along with the need of continuous self-discovery that, I believe, will help me to better relate and contribute towards the relationship within the team I intend to be part of in academic, as well as future business environment. From a technical perspective, it is essential to test the understanding of the concepts, covered during the course and often, personal reading and interpretation prevents us from effective transformation of theoretical base into practice. The amount of information, frameworks and models, which we discuss during the lectures, is tremendous and only through online tasks we can “translate” this information into a personal tool. Among the skills gained during the practical element of online learning, it is important to highlight the role that these tasks played in developing confidence and “fluency” in application of the learned theories, especially when it comes to the organizational culture and the ways effective HRM can affect human behavior and, consequently, organizational effectiveness. Finally, working in groups and virtual environment, is a challenging task, and practical application of the theoretical knowledge comes at a cost of effectiveness and relationships issues, which we experience in our interpersonal communication and working process. One of the learnings that I will take for the future is the role of cultural diversity in the effectiveness of team work and human behavior management. The reality is that working environment can be much more effective with radically different learning, personality and leadership profiles, once it is managed and approached with right skills and knowledge.
References
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