Learning Team C’s Weekly Summary Essay

During week 4 there were a bunch of discussions about organizational culture and how it was beneficial as well as how it can be a liability. Organizational culture could benefit an organization in many of ways; one way that it would benefit an organization is that it would allow its employees to be able to voice their opinions. They will not have to feel as if they aren’t apart of the organization. A liability would be that an organization may become institutionalized. Another topic that was discussed during the week was organizational structure and power and politics. Organizational structure is very beneficial to how things get done within an organization. By making sure that everyone has and role and knows what that role is then the organization can run smoothly. This in turn has a huge effect on employee behavior. I think that organizational structure has a huge effect on the morale of the company as well as the way employees are treated and how they do their jobs. Let’s say for example that the entry level employees at a company are doing all the work. They then turn that work into the managers who in turn submit it to the executive board. The board then gives praise to the managers and never acknowledges the employees who really did all the work. This can cause low morale. Not only can this cause low morale but it also overlooks and treats its entry level employees poorly. A way to combat this would be organizational structure. When it is clear from the bottom up who does what in the company then those who do all the leg work get recognized for the hard work that they do. These employees no longer feel as if they are unimportant within the company and they do their jobs better and at the end of the day they are treated with the respect that they deserve and they perform better at the job. Organizational Culture is the collective behavior of people that are part of an organization and includes the meanings of their actions while being part of that organization. this includes the values, visions, norms, working language, systems, symbols, beliefs and habits. It has a large impact on behavior. It could either have a positive impact or negative impact dependent on how the leadership uses culture in a corporation. If the culture is applied equally to the differences of those in the company it could help those of different backgrounds work with positive experiences. If a leader applies a cultural style that they adopted from another company it could work one of two ways. It could be effective and actually cause workers to work more effectively and with positive attitudes or it could bring down the overall morale of the company in how they work together and how they can cooperate with the leadership styles. Overall behavior is dependent on the effectiveness of the application of culture in the workplace. Power and Politics are necessary influences in most organizations today. Power is not a necessary evil and is most often contained within the position of authority. Politics is a little harder to describe. People often see it when an individual is attempting to influence a decision or position within an organization without a formal role or authority. In this paper I will analyze an organizational management and leadership practices that impact organizations. I will also provide a couple real-world examples of the relationships between power and politics and how this relates to management and leadership practices. This week in chapter 13 we learned about the influence of power and politics on behavior in the work place. Power is the capacity to influence behavior in accordance to ones wishes. To have the capacity to control human life you must control what they desire and ofcourse we know what that is, money. It’s the best control method there is. If you don’t listen you and your family will be starving on the street and you will lose your job. Seems like a pretty good control method to me. So basically chapter 13 confirms that money is power. Next it goes over the bases of power for example Formal Power is based on ones position in the actual organization. Coercive Power which is the power destroy threaten inflict pain and ruin peoples lives if the don’t listen to you, it’s a great form of power, probably the best. Reward Power which is the exact opposite Coercive Power because it is actually positive and rewards the employee instead of treating them as if they were a wage slave, it’s seldom used in our economy anymore but granted it’s still out there. Legitimate Power is in my best description just â€Å"raw† power. And Expert Power man if your an expert and you got those special wizard skills your a real expert you have some expert power. So which bases of power are the most effective? Hell well it depends on the group of humans you have available to reign over and control, it’s all about personality. And that is why we like to tap into their minds and find out what makes them tick, what’s important to them so we can use it as leverage etc. In the end it was a very good lesson and chap ter about power and exerting it. Chapter 15 discusses the foundations of organization structure. Organizational structure is how jobs are formally divided or grouped. There are six elements that compose the organizational structure, work specialization, departmentalization, chain of command, centralization and formalization. The three common organizational designs are simple structure, which use a low degree of departmentalization, bureaucracy and matrix structure. A bureaucracy shows distinct characteristics such has routine operating task, formalized rules, tasks are broken-up and grouped by specific departments, centralized command and little control. Unlike the bureaucracy, the matrix structure uses two forms of departmentalization, the functional and the product. They use a dual chain of command and at times this type of command can lead to power struggles. Now-a-days new design options are available and decrease the amount of management that is found in the bureaucracy and the matrix structure. The virtual organization outsources many of the functions therefore one would find more centralization and less departmentalization. The boundaryless organizations want less chain of command and more team decision making. Organizational structures are classified as mechanistic, formalized and departmentalized, or organic, not very formally with high participation in decision making. Employee behavior can be impacted by the way that the organization is structure. For example, while work specialization can result in high productivities it does not necessarily have a high impact on an employee’s satisfaction. During week four chapter 16 was reviewed as well covering several key terms including organizational culture(s), subcultures, core values, organizational climate, institutionalization, socialization, rituals, material symbols, and workplace spirituality. However, as educational as chapter 16 was it did not provide any information that was difficult to understand. Furthermore, organizational culture was the term that made the most sense as it describes the way employees view an organization. This descriptive term is what sets one organization apart from the rest from an employee point of view. As a small business owner I need to be aware of how individuals view the quality of my work, and professionalism of my business. This will help me gain the attractiveness I may one day need if the time comes to hire employees.