Organizational learning

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Nowadays organizations should learn every day in order to prosper and get knowledge about the process surrounding in order to gain every day major competitive advantage and by learning investments the companies can develop future capabilities due to the skill of learning new processes and how to implement new ideas to diminish cost and risks of being less competitive in the market. According to Warren Wilhelm “Organizational learning is often used to adapt the organization to changes in its business environment. By cutting learning, we greatly reduce the organization’s ability to quickly respond to its changing environment”.

In this topic there are some theories such the classical one and the social learning theory, the classical one contains the Classical Conditioning by Ivan Pavlov that says “A condition stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus”

And the Operant Conditioning by Burrhus Frederic Skinner that talks about the changes in the behavior through the use of positive or negative consequences

·         Reinforcement

·         Punishment

·         Extinction

The social learning theory Explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences.

KNOW-HOW:

In general terms, know-how is a knowledge obtained by a company or organization over the time on how to get something done or some processes developed that is a little bit difficult to transfer to other person or corporation.

Teece in 1998 said that “the development of any types of new markets has made know-how increasingly salient as differentiation, and therefore as a source of the competitive advantage of firms”. And there should take into account the Importance of property rights, Technological innovation, Organizational structure, Management strategies and Resource allocation.

Why learning organizations?

Primarily, there are at least 15 reasons to implement learning inside an organization and these are:

• Sustaining performance momentum (A pause in learning results in a lack of developed employees in the future)
• Driving employee engagement and commitment in tough times (Learning  is a proven factor in engaging and retaining your best employees)
• Seizing the slowdown as a time to build capability (As the pace of business slows in the downturn, there may be greater opportunity to provide employees with time for learning, without sacrificing productivity.)
• Building the new skills and capabilities needed for success in challenging times. (Unusual economic challenges may require specific training in how to meet them)
• Maintaining knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the face of extraordinary turnover caused by downsizing (Employee turnover without training new employees can result in loss of basic organizational capabilities that risk becoming extinct over time.)
• Sustaining organizational culture (Certain training, for example on boarding, is essential to acculturate employees.)
• Sustaining organizational values (Corporate values are often transmitted through organizational learning)
• Providing essential messages through the downturn. (Without learning, the organization has fewer vehicles for transmitting vital information and communicating desired culture)
• Reinforcing one of the most powerful change resources (Organizational learning is often used to adapt the organization to changes in its business environment)
• Ensuring continued employer attractiveness (A recognized learning organization more easily attracts desired job applicants)
• Shortening time to effectiveness (If we reduce the amount of learning provided, new employees take longer to learn, or never really learn, how to do their jobs)
• Building leaders who can teach leaders. (Many companies use their leaders to teach other employees)
• Ensuring a robust leadership pipeline. (If you cease to develop your leaders internally, you are forced to hire future leaders from outside.)
• Driving alignment. (Learning is a primary way to align your employees, and especially your leaders, around your organizational vision and strategy)
• Encouraging continued innovation and external orientation. (Learning expands your employees’ minds outside the boundaries of their day-to-day jobs, allowing for innovative thinking)

What would be the relationship between cross cultural environments and organizational learning strategies?

The relation between both would be the necessity for the corporations to learn as much as possible the different cultures that are spread over the world in order to be successful in market abroad and prosper in wherever the corporation goes taking into account all the reasons explained earlier in why implement learning inside a corporation.

Bibliography.

• Cooper, Cary L. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management. Blackwell Publishing, .Blackwell Reference Online. Retrieved from13 January 2011:

http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/book?id=g9780631233176_9780631233176

• Learning Theories Knowledgebase (2011, January). Social Learning Theory (Bandura) at Learning-Theories.com. Retrieved from January 12th, 2011:

http://www.learning-theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html

Makridakis, S (1991) What can we learn from organisational failures ?, Long Range Planning, 24(4), 115-126.

• Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. (2010) Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publication, 7th. Ed.
• Nystrom, PC and WH Starbuck, (1984, Spring). To avoid organisational crisis, unlearn,Organisational Dynamic@, 53-64.
• Senge, P. (1998) Sharing Knowledge. At Society For Organizational Learning. Retrieved from January 12th , 2011: http://www.solonline.org/res/kr/shareknow.html
• Shukla, M (1994) CORPORATE FAILURES: Why Organisations Fail To Learn. Productivity, 34(4), 629-639.
• Teece, D. (1998) Capturing value from knowledge assets: The new economy, Markets for know-how, and intangible assets. California Management Review. Vol 40 No 3. Spring 1998. Retrieved from January 2011:

http://apps.business.ualberta.ca/mlounsbury/techcom/readings/teece.pdf

• “sustaining organizational learning” by Warren Wilhelm.

Leadership styles + Management styles: Convergence and differentiation

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There are some differences between being a leadership and being a manager, both disciplines involve a set of characteristics that could complement each other.

Management is associated with the art of leading or conducting task inside a company or an organization as well as tasks in the normal life and this implies to follow some paths or programs in order for the manager to be effective and successful. Leadership is a process in which a person (leader) influences other to achieve goals and objectives in both an organization and in life.

So, in summary we can say that to manage is to bring about, to accomplish, to have charge of or responsibility for, to conduct and to lead is influencing, guiding in direction, course, action and opinion.

Kotter said in 1990 the differences of management and leadership in a short phrase listed below: ““Management is responsible for maintaining order; leadership is responsible for producing change or movement.”  According to the definitions I gave earlier, we can say that management is required when there are present a leadership attitude where Effective leadership produces useful

Changes and Effective management controls complexity giving as results healthy organizations.

In the leadership process there are 4 kinds of leaderships and are:

1.    Leadership (the process of guiding & directing the behavior of people in the work environment)

2.    Formal leadership (officially sanctioned leadership based on the authority of a formal position)

3.    Informal leadership (unofficial leadership accorded to a person by other members of the organization)

4.    Follower leadership (process of being guided & directed by a leader in the work environment).

In the modern organizations there are a layout of the organization such a vision, mission, values but there is a missing factor nowadays that is the purpose that is aimed to solve “why we do what we do?”

In the leadership process are an early Trait Theories of Leadership that Attempted to identify what physical attributes, personality characteristics, and abilities distinguish leaders from other members of a group as well as some evidence that leaders are more intelligent, verbal, cooperative, and have higher level of Scholarship all this by 6 theories explained below:

·         Authoritarian (Manager retains as much power & decision making authority as possible)

·         Consultative (talk to everyone involved in or affected by a task to get their views and ideas)

·         Democratic (Keeps employees informed about things that affect their work and shares decision making and problem solving responsibilities

·         Laissez-faire (It is one in which the manager provides little or no direction and gives employees as much freedom as possible)

·         Ohio State Studies

·         Michigan Studies

new leadership researches has shown that there are 3 personalities that takes place in nowadays acts, this are:

1.    Transformational Leaders (Leaders who inspire followers to transcend their self interests and achieve exceptional performance)

2.    Charismatic Leaders (A leader’s use of personal abilities and talents in order to have profound and extraordinary effects on followers)

3.    Authentic Leader (A leader who is guided by explicit values that emphasize collective interest)

Do you (or would you want to) work in an autocratic, democratic, or consultative work environment? What might be the advantages

And disadvantages of each?

Due to the company I work for, I can say I work in a consultative environment because we discuss every change or take of course we are willing to follow in order to improve the current situation of the company. There are more advantages than disadvantages because by talking with the person in charge or involved in the task, managers can get different point of views and solve the problem or implement the necessary changes.

Democratic		consultative		authoritarian
Advantages	Disavantages	Advantages	Disavantages	Advantages	Disavantages
Participative style	Some person could not participate in the process	everyone involved in the consultive process	They are not included in the decision-making process.	Manager retains as much power & decision making authority as possible	Do not consult staff, nor allowed to give any input
Keeps employees informed	Exists the possibility of corruption	Everyone is in constant communication with the consultative leader			Staff expected to obey orders without receiving any explanations
shared decision making and problem solving responsibilities

Bibliography.

·      Bennis, W. G. (1989). On becoming a leader. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

·         Brilhart, J. K., and Galanes, G. J. (1989). Effective Group Decisions.

·         Dubuque, IA: William C Brown Publishers. p. 201-203.

·         Kotter, J. P. (1990). What leaders really do. Harvard Business Review, May-June, p. 103-11.

·         Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. (2010) Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publication, 7th. Ed.

·         Northouse, P. G. (2001). Leadership: theory and practice. Thousand Oaks,CA: Sage.

·     http://www.leadership501.com/definition-of-management/21/

Decision making + Ethical behavior in international business.

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This is a very important topic inside a company because people is constantly facing decision-making situation and this situations can be divided in two branches such: programmed decisions and Non-programmed decisions.

·         Programmed decisions: A simple, routine matter for which a manager has an established decision rule.

·         Non-Programmed decisions: A new, complex decision that requires a creative solution.

There are 8 steps that lead to a successful decision making and are:

1.    Recognize the problem.

2.    Identify the objective of the decision.

3.    Gather and evaluate data and diagnose the situation.

4.    List and evaluate alternatives.

5.    Select the best course of action.

6.    Implement the decision.

7.    Gather feedback.

8.    Follow up.

And the models of the decision making are:

1.    Rational model: Describes how individuals should behave in order to optimize some outcome.

2.    Bounded rationality model: a theory that suggests that there are limits upon how rational a decision maker can actually be. It was proposed by Herbert Simon.

3.    Garbage can model: a theory that contends that decisions in

Organizations are random and unsystematic.

Decisions are taken base on the type of risk managers are willing to take, they are categorized in 2 ways:

1.    Risk aversion: the tendency to choose options that entail fewer risks and less uncertainty.

2.    Risk takers: accept greater potential for loss; tolerate greater uncertainty, more likely to make risky decisions.

When managers took a decision, there is certain probability to get into an escalation of commitment situation in which they tend to continue to

Commit resources to a failing course of action.

Participative decision making:

Decision making in which individuals who are affected by decisions influence the making of those decisions.

Groupthink: this theory by Irving Janis states that there are some deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgment resulting from pressures within the group which its consequences are: Incomplete survey of alternatives, Failure to evaluate the risks of the preferred course of action, Biased information processing, failure to work out contingency plans and The overall result of groupthink is defective decision making.

Techniques for group thinking:

1.    Brainstorming.

2.    Nominal group technique.

3.    Delphi technique.

4.    Devil`s advocacy.

5.    Dialectical inquiry.

And for finish, I will define some important term of the ethics and theories.

·         Morals: the values and principles that distinguish right from wrong

·         Ethics: behavioral norms and rules. Do the right thing.

·         Social responsibility: obligation of an organization to behave in ethical way in the social environment in which it operates

Ethical Theories

·         Consequential Theory–an ethical theory that emphasizes the consequences or results of behavior.

·         Rule-based Theory–an ethical theory that emphasizes the character of the act itself rather than its effects.

·         Character Theory–an ethical theory that emphasizes the character, personal virtues, and integrity of the individual.

As a summary we can say that manager should take an ethical Behavior (Acting in ways consistent with one’s personal values and the commonly held values of the organization and society.) in order to lead the company in a right direction being respectful with all laws and policies that regulates the good living in society.

How can organizations effectively manage both risk taking and escalation of commitment in the decision-making behavior of employees?

Organizations should encourage the participative decision-making inside the company in order to motivate employees to make their job well done and make them feel there are important assets of the company, but organizations have to limit the responsibility and control employees have implementing those ideas in order to avoid the escalation of commitment due that the ultimate decisions should be made by the managers.

References:

• Mintzberg, H. & Westley, F. (2001, Spring). Decision making: It’s not what you think. MIT Sloan Management Review, 42(3), 89 –93.
• Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. (2010) OrganizationalBehavior: Science, TheReal Worldand You. South-Western CollegePublication, 7th. Ed.
• Wong, K. F. E., & Kwong, J. Y. Y. (2007). The role of anticipated regret in escalation of commitment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 545–554.