ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND THE ROLE OF CULTURE IN ORGANIZATIONS

By this summary, I invite you to have an approach to some writers' opinions regarding its knowledge and analysis on topics such as; culture and behavior and its application in national and international organizational environments. Authors like Debra L. Nelson and James Campbell Quick and their book published on February 2008 called ¨Organizational Behavior:Science,The Real World and You¨ and Richard Mead and his book ¨International management:Cross-Cultural Dimensions¨ published on 2004, are some of the writers and texts that I will be referring to.

We as human beings determine our behavior among others by the environment in which we develop ourselves every day, and this behavior is the one that allows us interact within and between the organizations by transmitting our beliefs as individuals and adapting them according to the organizational culture in which we are living in.

The idea of adapting ourselves, is to create proper group dynamics that would let us performed in specific circumstances, which require a balance between the internal and external perspectives that each others have and many times do not share with the immediate person we are interacting with. Factors like thoughts, feelings, experiences and needs are the ones that we must balanced according to the external events and changes in the environment so we can be able to develop ourselves in society.

The performance within a specific group of people is dictated by the formal and informal facts that constitute that group or organization; formal facts like the Policies, the objectives, the mission and vision in the organization and the products or services that are offered within the course of action of a group, need to be in compliance with informal facts like values, beliefs, feelings and attitudes of every member in the system, understanding by system all the groups and organizations involve in the environment that surrounds us where we work in. Once, that compliance is reached, the organizations are able to sized their performance as a group, to see if they were able to acomplish real advantages and influenced over the strategies and business among the industrie and even more important if they had a positive impact over the different forces of the environment.

Some of the challenges that the organizations face during the course of their business depend on the national and international environment they work in every day. Being both of same importance either of them represent the same risks when people do not know how to understand them. If it is truth that globalization involves multiculturalism it does not mean that you need to be in a different country or region to find it. The foreign investments, the multinational corporations, the expatriation assigments and the overseas expiriences are some of the examples that make national environments as international as it could be being in a different country or region from where you are originally from. Diversification is the key element to understand the challenges of the organizations and the people that makes part of them. If we are able to adapt to the changes that comes within a diversify environment we will find it easier to develop ourselves and interact with other human beings.

Image: Human puzzle, took from: http://www.corsonwolff.com/images/organizational_culture.jpg


DEALING WITH CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

CHILE

The following case is based on the studies of Pedro Hidalgo Campos, Enrique Manzur Mobarec, Sergio Olavarrieta Soto and Pablo Farias Nazel, extract out of ¨The national culture and its impact in the business: The Chilean case¨. From Estudios Gerenciales;2007, Vol.23 Issue 105, p57-67, 11p, 1 Chart (1).

As they quote Bianchi and Ostalés' (2004) studies (1.1) , they try to put into perspective why Home Depot, Royal Ahold, Carrefour and JC Penney, four multinational companies were unable to fit in the Chilean market, mostly due to cultural barriers.

The first mistake they made was putting foreign CEO's that did not understand the market, so they had problems understanding the suppliers and consumers needs that lead them to a total failure. Chile has a high level of uncertainty avoidance, which means that people, in this case companies, try to avoid taking risk decisions, and this characteristic makes them reject changes and redesign projects and processes within the organizations. Sometimes they even secretly use old processes, no matter how much the companies have invested in new ones, because they rather use something they know well, that processes that could affect the business because they do not feel familiar with them.

This was one of the main reasons why, this companies were not able to fit its market, because being manage by foreign people with the opposite level of uncertainty avoidance, trying to conquer the Chilean market with the idea of implementing new radical ways of doing business and of course having the 99% of employees from local backgrounds was very difficult for them to accomplish what they wanted to stablished in processes, because all the people involved in the organization (customers, employees, suppliers, banks, among others) were very closed minded to the ideas of these multinationals.

The national environment, in levels such as; the managerial, human resources, and marketing affects all individuals and organizations, for that reason is very important to incorporate all the different factors within a culture in the strategic planning in order to be able to succeed in the establishment of any company or group from an international environment that wants to enter into local markets different from they are originally. Studies are necessary before even consider the idea of entering a new market, mostly their cultural backgrounds that always defined a population.

(1)http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.eafit.edu.co/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid=112&sid=8ed0b2f5-1388-4374-b02aea9a01e5f698%40sessionmgr111&bdata=Jmxhbmc9ZXMmc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#db=bth&AN=31463618
(1.1)Bianchi, C., y Ostalé, E. (2004). Desafíos en la internacionalización de retailing: Errores de empresas internacionales en Chile, Trend Management, 6 (Edición Especial), 2-9.

Image: Chilean flag on a kids face, took from,https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpsNy7MS_Eq-FHh6PSLWs01zOWtBjsp_tw3X8xN0iDnTW5J4p8ZBhlhT9tKQ7VmQPyks-n1FaYTl4EMTXr-2-C2ZJzYwrtcPwvpnm1MznzjsRFa6oKQnqVIue-htHVWR_DtlKRl3-BbhI/s400/boy-chile-flag.gif

PAKISTAN

¨The women in feminine countries have the same modest, caring values as the men; in the masculine countries they are somewhat assertive and competitive, but not as much as the men, so that these countries show a gap between men's values and women's values¨. (1)

"Globally, the number of women in managerial workforce is still a small proportion of the total number of managers. This is true for the developed world as well as the developing world. In Pakistan, although the absolute number of women joining the managerial ranks is rising, the percentage is not high. In 2003-04, the percentage of women in the occupational group—legislators, senior official and managers—was 1.4% of the female occupation statistics¨. (2)

Being Pakistan nearly over 50 points in masculinity, as one of the strongest dimensions of hofstede in this country, and taking into account the previous quotes regarding the role of the women in an organizational environment, we can think on multiple scenarios where we can conclude that in this country would it be very difficult for a women to develop her selves in a corporate environment of high positions such as CEO's, managers or directors of departments.

Imagine no matter if it’s a local women or a foreign one, being in a CEO position in Pakistan, where man represent more than 72% of the labor force and earned 42% more than a woman in the same position, and add to this that the society have been raised with the idea that women are meant to take care of the families and man are the ones that have to bring food to the table. When a population thinks so strong over family in such a traditional way it is very difficult to change the idea in the sense that a women is going to be able to succeed in such environment.

Unfortunately, as long as that thinking remains in their population, companies and organizations should consider very carefully the idea of putting women in such important positions. Obviously being a woman, I would love to see people's faces seeing a woman succeed in such conditions, but those are risks that nobody should take when the wealth of a company is in game along with the rest of the labor force that relied on the organization's incomes.

(1)http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_pakistan.shtml
(2)http://web.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.eafit.edu.co/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=19&hid=112&sid=8ed0b2f5-1388-4374-b02a-ea9a01e5f698%40sessionmgr111
Image: Pakistan Flag on a kids face, took from;http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/6858706/2/istockphoto_6858706-pakistan-flag.jpg

¿DO YOU THINK THERE IS A CORPORATE CULTURE IN EVERY ORGANISATION?

It is impossible for a company to exist without a corporate culture, it is truth that within the organization there is a lot of diversity among the people that makes part of it, aspects such as; the gender, the race, the religion, the educational degree, the socio-economical level and so on. are some of the factors that turned the idea of corporate culture a quiet difficult task, but yet mandatory in order to exist.

People may be part of a company because they share their politics, values and beliefs and others because they have no option, but the certain thing here is, that weather people adapt or share the same culture they end up being developing there selves in a common culture, a culture where the group that makes part of it, needs to be in compliance and work for it.

The corporate culture can be modified but not what defines the organization, it is very important that managers take into consideration the personal ethics of each employee or memeber in the organization. This, with the idea of not compromise the personal beliefs over the corporate goals. If a company wants to have a proper environment, where people is efficient and gives more or at least a 100% in their tasks, it is very important that the foundations of the company are create it in the way every member feels satisfy and care.

The key element for a well defined corporate culture are the CEO's, managers and high positions, because being the leaders of the organizations are the ones that incorporate the ¨styles¨ for putting it in a way, of working in processes. If you analyzed a company and identified the patterns of the members in the organization, you will see how easier is to define the personality and beliefs of the members of high positions. That is why it is so important to know who represents us as organization, being them who permeate with their personal touch the culture as one organization.

(1)Reinforcing Ethical Decision Making through Corporate Culture, Al Y. S. Chen, Roby B. Sawyers and Paul F. Williams Page [855] of 855-865, http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.eafit.edu.co/stable/25072949?&Search=yes&term=corporate&term=culture&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dcorporate%2Bculture%26wc%3Don%26x%3D10 26y 3D9&item=2&ttl=73735&returnArticleService=showFullText