Systematic Study Of Organizational Behavior Essay Example

consumer’s demands.When located in a foreign country, managers need to realize that the workforce is likely to have different needs, aspirations, and attitudes from those at home. Even in the manager’s home country, they will be working with individuals who were born and raised in a different culture, so therefore often have different motivators, communication styles, and customs.

In order to effectively manage abroad or to manage a diverse workforce at home, managers eed to understand how to adapt their management style to difference created by individual’s culture, geography, and religion. Because the global marketplace will continue to get more competitive in the next decade, managers should be compelled to make their organizations more agile, productive, innovative, and technologically advanced. (Welch & Welch, 2008). Effective managers need to have ambition, interest, a global mid-set, and be willing to work abroad for several years. In a global environment risk-taking and growth are essential to survival.Marshall (2007) emphasizes that top management support and implement thorough and prudent risk management practices when making the decision to extend the organization’s reach to overseas markets.

Some key factors to managing risk in emerging markets include: understand the individual markets, use local expertise, establish strong local relationships, understand local laws, understand the culture, be cautious and vigilant, maintain open two-way communication, be flexible in response to changing conditions, and think long-term. Marshall). Intuition Management decisions are typically thought of as being rational decisions based upon hard facts and figures used to make logical plans and predictions. Rational, analytical decision making helps managers solve problems based upon knowledge that is explicit and is best suited to highly structured tasks.

Conversely, intuitive decision making is more

effective when decision makers are facing tasks that are poorly structured, have limited available data, or require managers to act quickly. Sadler-Smith & Shefy, 2007). Intuitions are defined be Dane and Pratt (2007, p. 40) as “affectively charged judgments that arise through rapid, nonconscious, and holistic associations”, or are automatic, instantaneous reactions to issues, whether something is good or bad. Intuition is a judgment process that takes place without conscious reasoning or awareness of the knowledge base for the thought.

It is pervasive, automatic, and involuntary, and can be not only important but necessary in certain situations.Managers need to be able to recognize intuition, accept it, and manage it to utilize its potential capabilities, while still being aware of its dangers. (Sadler-Smith & Shefy, 2007). Because intuition is something that occurs spontaneously, developing intuitive awareness is not about making intuition happen, but more about understanding intuition, recognizing it, and creating the conditions to allow it to happen. Some things individuals can do to allow intuition to emerge and expand include: have a sense of perspective, self-confidence, and sensitivity.They need to be aware of their behavior, but also of their thoughts and thinking processes.

Individual experience and social pressures are two items that are believed to influence the emergence of intuitions that are important for managerial decision making. (Sonenshein, 2007). As individuals develop experience, they can relate that experience unconsciously into intuitions. Individuals with little experience tend to follow more rational decision processes, but as they gain experience they rely more upon their intuitions, which capture their past experiences.While basic principles of right or wrong may be acquired during early childhood, research shows that organizations strongly influence how

their members behave and what they believe.

Managers should be able to balance their rational capabilities with an intelligent and informed use of intuition. Effective decision making and creative problem solving may come more readily to managers who understand intuition and are willing to utilize their intuitive process along with rationality. (Dane & Pratt, 2007; Sadler-Smith & Shefy, 2007).Diversity Workforce diversity means that “organizations are becoming a more heterogeneous mix of people in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation”, disability, and religion.

The largest recent change in the U. S. labor force has been the rapid increase in the number of female workers, with an increase from nearly 30 percent of the workforce in 1950 to almost 47 percent in 2003. Women are expected to fill an increasing number of technical, professional, and managerial jobs in the years to come.

Expected changes in the racial and ethnic composition of the workplace include more than double the current percentages of Hispanics (increasing from 11 to 24 percent) and Asians (increasing from 5 to 11 percent) in the U. S. workforce. In 2003 the U. S.

Census Bureau declared Hispanics to have surpassed Blacks as the largest minority group in the United States. (Ash, 2008). A better understanding of how Hispanics intereact with Anglos and members of other minority groups in organizations is increasingly important. (Ash).Because work team satisfaction can be shown to be linked to group composition, understanding the influence of forming employees into groups with members of different demographic characteristics is critical. Managers will have to think creatively about how tasks can be assigned to yield positive results and get team members to actually think and act

as a unified group, regardless of composition.

(Ash, 2008). The aging of the baby boomers generation is expected to increase the 55 and older population from a current level of 13 percent to 20 percent by 2014. Robbins & Judge, 2007). Management needs to be aware of the rights of older employees, including the right to request to work beyond retirement age, and the requirement to give employees at least six months notice about mandatory retirement dates. Managers need to focus on skills, not stereotypical concerns such as physical capabilities or the medical considerations of older workers.

As organizations become more diverse, corporations have spent billions of dollars on diversity training, education, and outreach.Page (2007) says that these efforts not only make good business sense, but organizations with diverse employees often perform best, particularly since the practice of work has become more team focused. Through the construction and analysis of a computer model, found that “diverse groups of problem solvers – groups of people with diverse perspectives and heuristics – consistently outperformed groups composed of the best individual performers. ” His research has led him to the conclusion that diversity matters just as much as individual ability in team performance.

Other business benefits of workforce diversity include: higher staff retention, increased staff motivation, easier recruitment, a greater wealth of experience, improved public image, more satisfied customers, access to a wider customer base, and access to new ideas on process and product improvements – all of which lead to better overall financial performance. In order to capitalize on these benefits, managers need to begin recognizing employee differences and responding to them in ways that ensure retention and greater productivity,

while not discriminating. (Robbins & Judge, 2007).Summary Research confirms that globalization, intuition, and diversity all present significant implications for management, but also offer business opportunities for those organizations that manage them effectively. Increased globalization presents opportunities for businesses to expand by reaching new and emerging markets as well as taking advantage of cost savings provided by global economies of scale.

A manager’s use of intuition can allow him to draw upon past experiences to make quick, yet accurate decisions, particularly when little hard data is available. As the U. S. orkforce becomes more diverse it offers the potential for organizations to improve outcomes and increase the bottom line by introducing more perspectives and interpretations.