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What do you think is the dominant corporate culture in your organization? Describe some of the features of this culture, what shaped them, and comment on their effects (both positive and negative) on organizational performance and staff behavior and motivation. (b) Could some of the negative cultural features be changed or minimized? If yes, describe how you would go about changing them using any change model you like and what resources/support are needed. Suggest the ways of handling resistance or objection from staff or other barriers in the process of change.
Introduction Corporate Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. It is made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols and behaviors (Tot,1989). The organizations culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, this culture within an organization can have a potent effect on a company’s well being and success. Some consider company culture to be the glue that holds everyone together while others compare it to a compass providing direction.
Operating largely outside our awareness, corporate culture creates a moon ground for team work and reduces uncertainty by offering a language for interpreting events and issues. Company culture, effectively provides a sense of order and contributes to a sense of continuity and unity. The writer has been working in a leading private hospital in Hong Kong for more than 10 years which offers a comprehensive range of medical services. In the following sections, the writer would like to discuss the dominant corporate culture this organization.
This article would also discuss what shaped them and comment on their effects (both positive and negative) on organizational performance and staff behavior and motivation. Background of the Organization The hospital is one of the most famous of the Hong Kong hospitals, has established more than eighty years, owned by majority of a family, renowned for its high quality hospital services and comfortable accommodation for patients. All clients can also choose their own doctors and consultation time. The hospital has more than 400 beds and various room types and facilities.
It also has a 24 hours outpatient consultation service. The hospital ensure both quality and integrity being up to our clients’ expectation. The hospital always proud of having pioneered many of the raciest and techniques and have installed some of the most advanced equipment in Hong Kong so that it has been able to attract reputable consultants from public hospitals and professors and senior staff from local and overseas medical schools to use the Hospital services. What shape the existing culture?
As the hospital has established for more than eighty years which already has good brand name and reputation, the “tension” between focusing on the current, lower- risk businesses versus higher-risk new business opportunities is often a critical Doctor In ten creation AT a corporate strategy. It Is ten corporate strategy Tanat identifies how the hospital will allocate and develop its resources to meet both current and future market needs, while keeping the company financially viable. Therefore, it is an important strategic imperative to consider how to balance the needs of today’s business while pursuing the business needs of the future.
Jim Collins and Jerry Operas, in their book Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, write, “Managers at visionary companies simply do not accept the proposition that they must choose between short-term performance or long-term performance. They build first and foremost for the long term while simultaneously holding themselves to highly demanding short-term standards. ” In the last ten years, the director and managers of the hospital has been focused on rapid expansion to ensure short term financial viability and long term development. A few examples are: 1 . Establishment of multiple clinics and centers, 2. Hash 2 and 3 development, 3. Expansion of nursing school, 4. Purchasing large amount of most advance medical equipments. 5. Collaboration with local and oversea universities for teaching and researching 6. Recruit large amount of staff for expansion . Social Accountability through Committees 8. Quality assurance and accreditation 9. More than that, the hospital adopts the “Lean Six Sigma” methodology which is similar to Total Quality management as the major framework for improvement. Lean Six Sigma is defined as a metric and a collection of statistical methodologies for defect measurement and quality improvement.
It provides a clear, evidence-based framework to explore, study, access and rectify any obstruction in an operation process. Dominant corporate culture of the hospital Many classifications of organizational cultures have been proposed. One of the most ideal used organizational culture classification is the one with the categories of power culture, role culture, collaborative culture, and competitive culture; this article will used this classification (Secures, 1999; Regime, 1998; Passkeys, 1993;) to explain the corporate culture in the hospital. Power culture indicates a single source of power encompassing the whole organization.
With authority as the focal element, employees are expected to carry out tasks without asking many questions. Power and authority are considered the most important elements in reaching desired outcomes. Task assignments are done y the manager and an intensively competitive atmosphere exists (Secures, 1999; Regime, 1998; Passkeys, 1993). Roles and Job descriptions in the role culture are deemed more important than are the people performing them. The major problem with this culture is that the perception of change is delayed, and therefore reactions are delayed as well.
This culture might be effective as long as it is applied in a static environment (Regime, 1998). Role culture gives employees the opportunity to work without taking risks and galling expert experience. I nose long tenet work Walton ten standards are aware Authority in this culture is concentrated in the role of manager (Secures, 1999; Regime, 1998). The collaborative culture can be seen in operation in many modern organizations especially in service organizations. In this approach, teamwork and team management are important in reaching the desired goals.
Its most important characteristic is the high commitment to the organization. Forced to think intensely, teams facilitate rapid transition in change processes, thus change requirements in the organizations are apprehended fast, and taking action is stimulated (Regime, A competitive culture is based on achievement motivation. Achievement in the competition culture involves superiority, excellence, and providing different and possessing better technology than other organizations. This culture enables specialization and creativity to reap benefits for the organization (Regime, 1998).
Although no type of culture that best fits the hospital. The writer would say the current setting has been defined, an innovative, creative, problem solving structure that is open to changes. Based on the rapid changes in the hospital and the writer observation, the hospital predominate culture is collaboration culture. Collaborative ultra was prevalent in the hospital could be explained by several factors, including the absence of extremely centralist and bureaucratic management structure, more use of teamwork, emphasis on patient satisfaction, and continuous communication and cooperation among personnel.
Such an organizational structure could be expected to have positive consequences on the attitudes of employees toward change. Positive and Negative comment on collaborative culture Collaborative culture may have lead to a better acceptance of quality improvement in the hospital, with positive effects on organizational culture (Shaw, 2002) Organizational culture is important in any effort to implement and maintain contemporary management methods such as Total Quality Management.
According to the writer’s experience such as performing lean six sigma project or quality improvement project, a team can be form promptly and every team member interact and finish the working effectively. This may contributed by the already existing collaborative culture. Quality improvement constitutes an important part of change processes implemented in hospitals. A cultural change is expected during quality improvement in hospitals. Managers bear important responsibilities in actualization organizational changes and need to be supported by subordinates to be more effective.
Managers in hospital direct their subordinates accordingly to maintain quality and reinforce the process. Initiating communication among hospital personnel, manager or team leader create methods and procedures of application and, at the same time, assume the responsibility of structuring change. Leaders are generally expected to guide personnel about the mission and vision of change, and to improve their own Job descriptions as required by the change in the hospital. Detective restructuring Tort a stressful change can De conclave Dye synchronization AT all personnel for common purposes and setting up open communication.
That individuals and groups in all levels of the organization perceive themselves as a part of the organization would be crucial in eliminating resistance that might occur during the transition process (Knox & Irving, 1997). In the writer’s hospital, the team collaborative culture would enhance many of the staff accepting changes and eager to participating actively in solving problems. As explained before, it can be intriguing by no strong bureaucratic structure and sense of belonging by many of the staff. Also, the hospital provides autonomy, education and support to the team is crucial.
On the other hand, if the transition may be hindered by problems, including the strictness or bureaucracy of organizational cultures, changes can never be made. Negative comments on collaborative culture. The drawback of such cultures is that they may assume all staff to as an active contributor in what they think “personally irrelevant activities”. Especially as the writer mentioned before, in the past few years, the hospital recruit a lot of new staff hat may not adapt to the collaborative culture in the hospital.
People may consider some of these tasks are not very meaningful personally and therefore participate in a very passive role. As hospital is a very complicated environment. For example, the manager like the writer may have different roles such as: 1 . Nurse who needs to take care of patients needs 2. Mentor who needs to educate the subordinate, 3. Subordinate who needs to serve the doctors and senior nurse needs. 4. Researcher who to conduct research, data analysis and even writing report. 5. Hospital web designer team member 6. Lean six sigma improvement team .
Auditing team So, even the writer may feel exhausted to play so many roles in the hospital. A small proportion of Junior staff and even doctors, they may perceive that their primary allegiance is to their subject matter (first), colleagues (second), and workplace (a distant third). Collaborative culture may not like bureaucratic cultural that Job description and responsibility is clear cut. One may not care what the culture of hospital is and they may not willing to learn, practice, less related task and behaved risk avoidance.
As everyone in the working place may have different goal, the doctors ay want to make more money, staff may only want to give a little but get stable income. Although the above may only comprise of a little proportion in our hospital, some staff may have a lot of things to be responsible while some may not but they get more or less amount of salary or rewards. This may hinder the development of the hospital. Ways to minimize negative effects during changes Quality improvement may not easy to achieve. Evidence suggests that attempts to Implement It Is oaten unsuccessful (Erickson, AY; Hucksters, AY; Douglas anon Judge, 2001).
Hubris and O’Donnell (1996) when have asserted that approximately wow-thirds of companies in USA have either failed or stalled in their attempts to implement improvement like TTS. Barriers may included lack of planning and long- term policies, lack of mechanisms for strategy formulating, non-clarity of objectives, inflexibility of organization toward environment.. The writer thinks that a successful implementation of change needs long-term strategic planning and emphasize the importance of strategic planning process.
To successfully manage organizational change, managers should concentrate their efforts on identifying the culture of their organizations, followed by beliefs, values, and norms of the culture. Failure to pursue these steps before initiating quality initiatives complicates the path to success. The roles of low-level managers and top managers are important in the process of change, open and direct communication with employees, providing information on the reasons for change and the methods to realize it, and a powerful managers supporting and meriting the opinions of employees are factors strongly influence the success of change.
Moreover, those employees would contribute to the process of change to the extent that they feel themselves as a part of the institution. This can be achieved by individuals that felt directly involved in quality circles, commission studies, and project teams were reported to have more positive attitudes than did those who felt alienated from such studies. Initiatives for creating a quality culture were more feasible if the employees were encouraged to take part in and contribute to the system.
Most important, the writer recommends the manager should attempt to enlist the cooperation of staff and help them to feel that decisions which are taken are in their own interests. This calls for a high level of consultation and encouragement for staff to participate in the decision-making process. If staff are committed personally to particular objectives they are more likely to direct themselves and to exercise self-control over their level of performance. Staff should understand, and accept, the purpose and nature of changing systems.
This should help to make for better employee relations. Motivation is an important aspect in the operation during change. Lack of positive motivation can lead to frustrated behavior resulting in lack of commitment to the aims of the organization and poor Job performance. This may lead to increased resistance. People are influenced by the expected results of their actions. Motivation is a function of the relationship between effort expended and perceived level of performance, and the expectation that reward will be related to performance.
People want to know how well they are performing. This places emphasis on the need for reporting of information and feedback, and the comparison of actual performance against planned targets. Recognition given for a satisfactory level of attainment coupled with a suitable award system, as integral parts of changing process, can do much to motivate staff and encourage improved reference. This also favors the changing process and reduces resistance.
Resistance is the forces against change in work organizations which may caused by ignoring the needs and expectations of members; when members have insufficient information about the nature of the change; or if they do not perceive the need for change. Fears may be expressed over such matters as employment levels and Job security, De-killing of work, loss of Job satisfaction, wage rate differentials, changes to social structures Ana working contraltos, loss AT Uninominal control over work, Ana getter management control. The writer suggests the following way to handle change: 1 .
Create a sense of urgency among relevant people, 2. Build a guiding team with the credibility, skills, connections, reputations and formal authority to provide change leadership. 3. Create visions which are sensible, clear and uplifting, and sets of strategies. 4. Communicate the vision and strategy in order to induce understanding and commitment. 5. Empower action and remove obstacles that stop people acting on the vision. 6. Produce short-term wins that help to provide credibility, resources and momentum to the overall effort. 7.
Don’t let up UT maintain the momentum, consolidate early changes and create wave after wave of change. 8. Make change stick by nurturing a new culture, and developing group norms of behavior and shared values Conclusion The successful implementation of new work methods and practices is dependent upon the willing and effective co-operation of staff, managerial colleagues and unions. People are the key factor in the successful management of change. To improve quality of health care services, change in the culture is required. Quality improvement requires a transformation in organizational culture, processes, and levels.
Cultural change can be used to bring about changes in systems, implement corrective and preventive actions or influence management for business improvement. Cultural change cannot easily be generated from the top down by simple exhortation. Successful strategies need to take into account the needs, expectations, and motivations of employees at all levels. Furthermore, any attempt to influence key cultural dimensions needs to be part of a much wider assemblage of mutually reinforcing improvement activities. References Secures, E. (1999). Organizational culture and cultural change problems in business enterprises Jakarta University.