Organizational Culture
Organizational culture is a critical aspect that influences the behavior and conduct of individuals within a group including other variables related to team members such as performance, commitment to tasks, implementing strategies, and group cohesion among others. Virtually, all human resource management aspects revolve around organizational culture. Understanding organizational culture within our team calls for the need to examine the factors that influenced our ideologies, assumptions, attitudes, and norms (Oertig, & Buergi, 2006, p. 23). Many of these factors were influenced by our different nationalities, which happened to subscribe to different beliefs and values. While organizational culture is known to inspire group members to be committed to their tasks and work together towards the realization of the goals and objectives of the team, organizational culture had a detrimental impact on the functional objectives of our group. With the influence on the ideologies of each team member, organizational culture is certain to affect team work.
Effects of Organizational Culture on Team Performance
There is no doubt that success in teamwork activities is dependent upon the common core values shared by group members. As such, collective effort of the team to perform together towards the realization of the goals and objectives of the team is inspired by the organizational culture within the team. Our team consisted of individuals from (Six) 6 f different nationalities (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Iran, Australia, India, and Saudi Arabia), with each of the team member having different individual beliefs and values. However, we also shared some common goals and objectives, and with other unique strategies that helped us to approach situations differently. The vital thing in building a successful and team cohesiveness entailed combining the common values shared by team members and as well, the adoption some of the unique values to help in the realization of the team goals and improved productivity. Arthur, from Hong Kong, played the role of the team leader and was influential in guiding the goals and modalities of the group.
Conflicts within the team
Common for conflicts are certain to arise in situations where individual team members hold divergent views and beliefs leading to contradictions and contractions on matters relating to the goals and vision of the team. Conflicting views were evident throughout our team activities and during such occasions, conflicts and conflicting views brought negative effects to the organizational element of our team. However, understanding the reasons that lead to conflicts can help team members to implement solutions and strategies to transform the conflicts in positive outcomes.
Diversity
As earlier mentioned, our group consisted of individuals from culturally diverse backgrounds. Diversity in the within the team presented the need to understand, value, and acknowledge the differences associated with the culture of each person within the group. During the business trip, much weight was allocated towards the management of diversity issues arising from the divergent cultures of team members because it helped in maximizing the potential of teamwork productivity. It is undeniable that understanding diversity provided an invaluable concept in improving our chances to realize the team goals and objectives.
Decision Making
Differences in culture is subject to affect thinking patterns and decision-making processes among team members thusly affecting the nature of the communication process. Each culture follows its own sequences when arriving at solutions during communication processes. Mixing different cultures means the presence of different decision making and problem solving formats. Eventually, the overall outcome of the team is affected hence different solution sets. It also affected the negotiation process among team members.
Experience:
Experiences acquired from the field trip helped us to understand the importance of organizational culture on various human resource aspects of the team. Other than understanding the complexities associated with organizational culture, we saw the importance of understanding and respecting cultural beliefs and values of other individuals whose culture is different from our own. Equally, these understanding enabled us to become motivated and pursue the goals and objectives of the team irrespective our differences and obstacles that stood before us. There is no doubt that the field trip provided us with the opportunity to experience the actual challenges and diversities faced by individuals in real life situations. The effects of organizational culture in our group played a real scenario of the general issues faced by Human resource departments in many organizations.
Arthur, our team leader, from Hong Kong was forced to keep up with the real organizational challenges experienced by HR managers of many organizations. Other important but memorable experiences from the Field Trip included understanding how to turn conflict into constructive results, analyzing the different decision making patterns and developing an appropriate pattern to enable us find solutions to our problems, and valuing the knowledge and input from every member of the team to enable us work together. It also enhanced the communication process and commitment from every team member.
Literature Review
Buch and Wetzel (2001, p. 42) defines culture as the pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group of people in their attempts to solve problems emanating from external adaptation and internal integration. He further argues that when these processes are designed to alter the nature of an organization, it leads to organizational culture. Lee and Yu (2004, p. 341) try to define culture by citing several studies devoted to defining the nature and application of culture. The authors argue that culture plays a significant role in influencing organizational performance because “culture entails issues to do with people, and unique quality and style of the organization” (p. 341). On the other hand, Lund (2003, p. 220) argues that culture plays an important role in influencing performance from employees and organizations to an extent that it has become requisite for managers to understand the underlying dimensions and related them to issues such as group cohesion, employee performance, and implementation of strategies. Sambasivan and Rahman (2003, p. 162) argue that organizational culture influences the cultural attitudes in organizations.
Organizational culture is also crucial for enabling groups and organizations to enhance the levels of their competitive advantage. This is possible because it enables individuals to develop creative and innovative ideas. It also motivates individuals to develop new solutions to challenges affecting the quest for their goals. Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-Jiménez, and Sanz-Valle, (2011, p. 55) found out that many organizational factors are directly dependent on organizational culture, which in turn supports the innovative orientation of individuals within the organization. Rashid, Sambasivan, and Rahman, (2004, p.161) suggests that organizational managers should pay attention to the effects of organizational culture to realize phenomenal results.
Organizational culture relation to success and failure
Success
Notably, only one task was successfully completed. Despite the fact that the members were facing challenges from all directions, they managed to complete successfully. However, this does not mean that they did not work hard in the other tasks because they did. They even engaged in the bonus tasks to earn more points. The success of this successful task could be linked to leadership tactics engaged in the organizational culture. The most successful methods engaged in this integration of culture were first the contingent reward method (Snopko, 2011, p 48). Even in the real world, organizations use this method to motivate employees. This is because despite the origin, race or gender, promise of reward gives the same results, motivation, and dedication. Often, men most men leaders are characterized by this leadership style.
The second was management by exception active. In some cultures, a leader is trained to exercise his supervision and leadership skills by engaging in this kind of leadership while some resent it. However, if it gives the desired results, the task manager or supervisor should be left to exercise his skills on the allocated task. This was very effective since the tasks were quite difficult and the only option was dealing with them practically (Snopko, 2011, p 50).
Third is the management by exception passive. As earlier mentioned leaders are trained differently. In fact with the culture diversity, matters indeed went smoothly this was among the reason behind it. This are the individuals prefer to supervise and offer help only when needed. This way, they are able to supervise all projects taking place and offering their expertise and advice when necessary. They are able to create accountability to all personnel and are involved in their work. This is a very good leadership skill in an organizational culture considering all the diverse cultures and their diverse thinking methodology (Shopko, 2011, p 50).
The other factor that promoted success in this successful task was the transformational leadership style. The transformational leader communicated to all races, cultures, and genders therefore making them forget about their differences. He incites passion in the task members therefore recharging each individual. This can only bare good results at worst if followed properly. In most occasions, women portray this kind of leadership.
Failure
If one were not careful enough, conclusions would be made that this field trip was a failure. However, it could not be blamed on the leadership but on other factors that arise in a situation of cultural diversity. Organizational culture offers many benefits but also presents its disadvantages. They may include jealousy, disrespect, petty misunderstanding, and many more. However, in this case, the task members worked hard to work above these situations but the owners did not make it any easy for them. In the situation where there were two owners, giving very different instructions might have demotivated the task members and caused conflict as well. However, the team purged ahead, maximizing on their expertise in the different fields but this was not enough (Su, Yang, & Yang, 2012 p 5318).
Conclusion and recommendation
Organizational culture holds it benefits and disadvantages but so do other organizational structure. In specifically this case, the task force used their diversity to work for the group instead of against it. It is therefore a bonus to work in such an environment. This is because in most cases the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. The cultural, age, and religious diversity of the group or organization even makes the experience fun and educative. For example, when one of the women offers incentives as points, the other members are sure to use the action as an education point and most definitely will use it in the future (Su, Yang, & Yang, 2012, p 5322).
It is therefore more advantageous to work in such an environment since it offers the real picture as presented in the real world. This is because most organizations in today’s market have this kind of environment. Global market and global organizations present the same situations since their employees originate from all over the world presenting many different cultures (Su, Yang, & Yang, 2012 p 5320).
The recommendations that I would give regarding this field trip is that the management should have been more organized. When one person comes and says one thing and then when the project is almost halfway another with equal authority shows up and instruct the members to start all over again, it could create problems that would not have appeared had the done the project just once. There is no need to add strain to an already fragile group. My recommendation is that management should have been more organized. In the scenario where the task member were instructed to create a boat that doesn’t touch the floor then advised later on that didn’t matter, it kind of threw the task members off. In addition, they should have been allocated enough more time to complete the tasks. The task organizers were somehow disorganized and did not let the task members realize their full potential.
In conclusion, the paper explores the challenges faced by the group as well as the opportunities that presented to them when they venture into trip. It brings out the attributes, organizational culture, communication, and leadership tactics and their impact on a multicultural team (Oertig, & Buergi, 2006, p. 24). The group manages to deal with this event and this shows their potential if they had similar challenges presented to them in their work places. It gave a realistic feeling of what happens in the real world. Despite their diverse, demographic they manage to put all their differences behind. They manage to do an impressive job given the challenges. In addition, members of a diverse organization culture should be ready to deal with any hurdle thrown toward them at any given opportunity. They should exercise flexibility and efficiency in such situations. They should get over their differences and exercise patience towards each other in order to give positive results. They should also focus on their strengths other than their weaknesses and this will enable success in projects taken upon (Su, Yang, & Yang, 2012 p 5328).
Reference List
Buch, K., and Wetzel, D., K. 2001. "Analyzing and realigning organizational culture",
Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22(1)), pp. 40 – 44
Lee, S. K. and Yu, K. 2004,"Corporate culture and organizational performance",
Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19(4), pp. 340 – 359
Lund, D. B. 2003. "Organizational culture and job satisfaction", Journal of Business &
Industrial Marketing, 18(3), pp. 219 – 236
Naranjo-Valencia, J. C. Jiménez-Jiménez, D. and Sanz-Valle, R. 2011. "Innovation
or imitation? The role of organizational culture", Management Decision, 49(1),
pp. 55 – 72
Oertig, M. & Buergi, T. 2006. The challenges of managing cross-cultural virtual
project teams. Team Performance Management, 12(1), pp. 23 – 30
Rashid, M. A., Sambasivan, M., and Rahman, A., A. 2004. "The influence of
organizational culture on attitudes toward organizational change", Leadership
& Organization Development Journal, 25(2), pp. 161 – 179
Snopko, J. 2011. Organizational Culture of Municipal Offices in Poland in the Light of
Empirical Research Culture-related Conditions for Organizational Changes:
Contemporary Management Quarterly, 3, pp. 48-58.
Su, Z., Yang, D., & Yang, J. 2012. The match between efficiency/flexibility strategy
and organizational culture: International Journal of Production Research,
50(19), pp. 5317-5329.
