Organizational behavior, national and organizational culture

Resource: http://www.agendadereflexion.com.ar/2009/07/31/548-el-ocio-en-la-cultura-humanista-y-la-formulacion-de-un-proyecto-nacional/

With this topics I aim to explain a little bit about the basis around the organizations and cultures spread over the world such Factors that influence decision making, how to understand cultures, international managers and implications of being one etc.

But, what is an organization?

An organization is a structured social system including groups and individuals that works together to meet some objectives, but Human behavior inside organizations is complex and difficult to understand, for that reason some psychologists started to study the individual behavior and group dynamics in organizations in order to get information for the manager to improve, enhance, or implement changes inside the organization to reach the expected goals in this way organizational behavior born as a term.

A complete understanding of organizational behavior requires an understanding of both human behavior and the organizational context where behavior is enacted.

In the human behavior we can find important aspect like culture that Hofstede (1984) define as “…the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another…culture in this sense, include systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture” (p.21.) 

In the organizational hand things like the formal (the official, legitimate and most visible part of the system) and informal (the unofficial and less visible part of the system) organization, organizations as open systems where interacts people, technology, structure and purpose with elements in the organization`s environment and the focus of organizations., the organizational culture is a set of values or beliefs that are unique to any one organization.

National culture is an environmental factor that characterizes the national group and influences the behavior of its individual members. There are 4 types of cultures and are listed below:

·         The clan culture: A very friendly place to work where people share a lot of themselves.

·         The hierarchy culture: A very formalized structured place to work.

·         The adhocracy culture: A dynamic entrepreneurial and creative place to work.

·         The market culture: A results oriented organization whose major concern is whit getting the job done.

Why is managing organizational behavior in changing times challenging?

Based on the decision making model, there are many factors that influences the behavior inside an organization due to the changing course of actions taken by competitors, suppliers, customers, resources scarcity, policies and systems imposed by governments, chief executives etc.

For these reasons manager should get skills analyzing every factor that is affecting the company when it is making international investments and is operating in more than one national environment in order to get success in his operations and reach all of the goals.

References:

• Cameron, K., & Quinn, R., (1999). Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture. New York: Addison-Wesley.
• Mead, Richard. 2004. International Management: Cross-Cultural Dimensions.London: Blackwell Publishing. Chapter 1.
• Nelson, Debra L. and Quick, James Campbell. 2010. Organisational Behavior –Science, the Real World, and You. South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason, USA. Chapter 1 and 2.