Technological Processes and Organisational Change

#Organizations that #adopt #newcommunication #technologies marked by #increase in amount of #communication

Fancy  much?

Technology seems to be always taking bigger anf bigger bites in our everyday lives, but isn't it strange that is replacing people and reducing everyday. What are the negative and the positive sides of it? A restaurant in London is replacing waitresses with iPad's. What happened to the human interaction? Will this restaurant work better with the technology and will the saving of wages justify the loss of human contact and social interaction and a waiter/watress we can ask what something is made of or what the special's of the day are? 

"Valentines who can't stop fiddling with their phone, or swiping their iPad may just be distracted by the touch tables long enough for you to wow them.

While your sweetheart is ordering delicious black cod, or tasty duck California rolls, you can tweek the ambiance, patterns and colours on the table. Project a beach scene, a splash of bright red, or a swirling psychedelic spin of every pattern in the Inamo hard drive.

If your date is a little dull, there's a memory game, a menu of places to go on to (or escape to) and social media is being added soon (Pinterest for food shots would be ideal). When you're ready to leave, it's a matter of hitting the bill button"

The restaurant launched in 2009 - pre iPad era - and as with all tech, there are new and improved versions of touch tables coming onto the market each year.

In my opinion the communication with the consumer/customer has gone too far and although to some it may sound a cool idea in the beggining, with a little time it will definitely not be a favorite for consumers. People like human interaction no matter how much technology savvy they may be. Whilst doing a research on this, menupad.com popped up. 

MENUPAD.COM

WHAT'S MENUPAD?

MenuPad is an interactive menu. Designed specifically for the restaurant and catering industries, MenuPad uses the Apple iPad, in replacement of a paper-based menu. This allows diners to view images of menu items and customise their order in a simple, intuitive way. The menupad is as far as the ipad restaurant service should go, for the purpose of giving the customers the opportunity to be able to look at the meals and also more detailed information in case needed, however, iPads should not cut out the human contact and interaction  - the waiter/waitress.—

Emotion Processes

This week we learned about how emotions can affect the culture, outcomes, performance etc. in a workplace. What I'm going to focus this on week is workplace bullying. To talk about this, I found this article which is quite interesting and it shows us that besides the above mentioned  'damages', bullying cost companies millions of dollars. The worst thing for a company that hires a bully is not the billions of dollars in revenue but the trauma experienced in the company that this bully creates. If bullies are not dealt with appropriately, the company will suffer low productivity, absenteeism and even physical illness. Bullies, unlike bad managers deliberately repeat always-continued behavior, which is designed to make staff feel bad.  These people taint company’s names! Bullying is intentional and harmful, bullying is not cool and who does it, it is a criminal offence. For more click here

B U LL Y I N G     I S    NOT   C O O L

"Altogether 949 municipal employees answered a mailed questionnaire; 10.1% of them felt themselves bullied. Especially some features in the functioning of the work unit, e.g. poor information flow, an authoritative way of settling differences of opinion, lack of mutual conversations about the tasks and goals of the work unit, and insufficient possibilities to influence matters concerning oneself can all promote bullying. Both the victims and the observers of bullying perceived deficiencies in these aspects at their workplace. Gender and age did not explain bullying. The victims of bullying felt that envy, a weak superior, competition for tasks or advancement, and competition for the supervisor's favor and approval were the most common reasons for bullying". 

The sources of bullying - psychological work environment and organizational climate, 2003, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, vol. 5

Leadership Processes

Reactions to Organizational Change

—“Unplanned” Change: Organizational Crisis

Organizational crisis evolves in three stages:

1.—Precrisis
2.—Crisis
3. Postcrisis
4. Communication must deal with external and internal constituencies

Organizational changes can be a harsh crisis and can cause a lot of breakage within internal consituencies and caos with the external if good communication does not cover it. 
The move of the Coca Cola company from Greece to Switzerland, because of the crisis, is one of the examples how efficient communication can keep this media story cool from the overheated media. Mr Imellos, chief financial officer communicated to the media that "Greece should be happy about Coca Cola Hellenic’s move. “We don’t see it as a major blow to Greece. We see it as a day for Greece to be proud. We are a Greek multinational”. This is one of his statements that kept the coca cola company under the impression that this situation was kept under control and everything that was happening had been greatly planned and that it was not a fiasco. "The company’s market capitalisation stood at €5.7bn (£4.6bn) on Tuesday, putting it on course to enter the FTSE 100. Coca-Cola Hellenic, which already has secondary listings in London and New York, will relocate its headquarters from Greece to Switzerland at the same time". 

To avoid impending crisis managers would need to take a strategic approach. It is important to build a strategy which improves business processes and communication flow across the plants. 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9602593/Greeces-Coca-Cola-Hellenic-called-Athens-Stock-Exchange-into-question.html

Conflict Management Process

Incompatible goals are what cause most conflicts at workplaces. This can be because each person has different views and perspectives and different ways of marching to success. Most conflicts are caused because of the way things are communicated, but there are times that people’s approaches are very different to the others. “Conflict is “the interaction of interdependent people who perceive opposition of goals, aims and values, and who see the other party as potentially interfering with the realisation of these goal. (Putnam & Poole 1987 in Miller p.183)

The levels of organizational conflict are:

Interpersonal level

Intergroup conflict

Interorganizational

A good example of the interorganizational conflict is the “ 4000 Foxonn workers on strike over iPhone5 quality control measures, inadequate training”.

This conflict is a Manifest conflict according to Pondy’s phases of conflict “conflict is enacted through communication, escalating and de-escalating through different strategies. This is where it’s really happening - confrontation occurs, even where there is an attempt at problem solving”

The workers of Foxonn are on strike because of the very high demanding quality standard from apple, without receiving a proper training.

http://www.bgr.com/2012/10/05/iphone-5-foxconn-workers-strike-quality-control-measures-cited/

Socialization process..

The most relevant article I found on the metamorphosis was the “9 things that motivate employees more than money” by Ilya Pozin.

“Don't show 'em the money (even if you have it). Here are nine better ways to boost morale”.

In this article it is explained in detail how to invest on the development of an employee in order for them to absorb the information, use their skills to the max and have them to offer to the company 200% of their best. I find this article very relevant to the third stage of the socialisation process.

Here is the secret of the 9 things that motivate employees

1. 1.    Be generous with praise. Praise every improvement
   2.    Get rid of managers. Allowing people to work together as a team, on an equal level with their co-workers, will often produce better projects faster
   3.    Make your ideas theirs.  Instead of telling people what you want done; ask them in a way that will make them feel like they came up with the idea “Do you think it’s a good idea if we do it this way?”
   4.    Never criticize or correct. Try an indirect approach to get people to improve, learn from their mistakes, and fix them.
   5.    Make everyone a leader. You’ll set the bar high and they’ll be motivated to live up to their reputation as a leader.  
   6.    Take an employee to lunch once a week. It’s an easy way to remind them that you notice and appreciate their work.  
   7.    Give recognition and small rewards. Try things like dinner, trophies, spa services, and plaques. 
   8.    Throw company parties. Don’t just wait until the holidays to do a company activity; organize events throughout the year to remind your staff that you’re all in it together. 
   9.    Share the rewards—and the pain. If you expect high performance, your team deserves to know where the company stands. Be honest and transparent. 

http://www.inc.com/ilya-pozin/9-things-that-motivate-employees-more-than-money.html

Critical Approaches

This week we learnt about the critical approaches but I will focus most on the

ideology and hegemony. That is:

Ideology

Structures our thoughts and controls interpretations of reality

Involves assumptions that are rarely questioned

Can influence our behaviours

Tied to systems of power and domination

Hegemony

Process in which dominant group leads another group to accept subordination as the norm

Manufactured consent

The news media for this week is the one from the Sydney Morning Herald “Facebook killer jailed for 21 years” dated August 31, 2012 from court reporter Louise Hall.

This article talks about a man who created a fake Facebook account to lure a teenage animal lover into bush land before killing her. He was sentenced 21 years of jail on the 31^st of august. Christopher James Dannevig, 22, murdered Nona Belomessof 18, on May 12, 2010. As soon as he learnt that she was an animal lover he created a fake profile and friend requested her telling her he was a team leader at the NSW Wildlife Information Rescue and offered her a job. I chose this story for this week because of the hegemony and ideology relevance. Nona, as other teenagers trusted the guy under NSW Wildlife Information Rescue organisation, because of its hegemony. However, the bottom line of the story is that Facebook’s hegemony is that of a non-trusted source and Nona is not the first teenager to get kidnapped because of a Facebook trap. The hegemony of both these organisation, in particular Facebook, which provides the means, are responsible of Nona’s death.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/facebook-killer-jailed-for-21-years-20120831-254ft.html

Culture in Organizations - How do organizations deal with bullying?

Is bullying an organizational culture?

How do organizations deal with it?

What is an organizational culture?

Organizational culture is not always easy to define or capture because of its diverse nature from one organization into another, however it has been defined as a “force” in an organization.

An organizational culture is made by its members shared values and beliefs, behaviours, decisions, actions, beliefs of an organization. The role of culture in an organization is considered to be a kind of direction for its organization.

The result of the above can have a very strong effect on the company’s/organization’s success.

Schein’s model defines culture in organizations such as:

·         A group phenomena

·         A patern of basic assumptions - this explains some very big failures in very powerful organizations such as schools and other companies (examples to be given below).

·         As an emergent and developmental process

·         Having a socialising role

In this week’s summary, I will focus on the “patern of basic assumptions” from the Schein’s model. I believe this explains clearly the why and how of the “beyond prescriptive culture”, the culture of bullying and the non-pleasant situations that are such a massive issue in many organizations. The below link of YouTube, is the one of Casey Heynes, the Sydney schoolboy that was all over the news last year as a result of bullying exposed on youtube by an amateur video. None of the articles online have claims from their school teacher  or anyone from the school. A few articles from The Daily Telegraph state the same paragraph “The Department of Education is already undergoing a review of its anti-bullying policy and has given all schools until December this year to "ensure anti-bullying plan complies with the updated policy", but there is not one single line from anyone from the school and how this organization dealt with this very big issue. According to an article from Frank Furedi on The Australian on the 7^th of July 2012, bullying is costing Australian businesses over 36 billion (not specified in what) when 70 per cent of employees are being bullied. Why this culture? What needs to be done in order to have effective changes? Maybe the subcultures need to be revisited and also changed with some more responsibilities. There is so much I would love to write about this.

References:

Australian Boy Defends Himself From Bully And Gets Suspended, You Tube, viewed 26 August 2012 <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCBdB8nPk44 >

Furedi, F 2012, ‘Entrenched in a culture of workplace politics, or could it be you’re picking on me again?’, The Australian, viewed 25 August 2012 <http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/entrenched-in-a-culture-of-workplace-politics-or-could-it-be-youre-picking-on-me-again/story-e6frgd0x-1226419327996>

McDougall, B 2011, ‘Victim of School bullying a web hero’ The Daily Telegraph, viewed 26 August 2012 <http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-news/bullied-boy-at-chifley-college-dunheved-campus-suspended-after-fighting-back/story-e6freuzi-1226022076411>

 

System Approaches

Week three lecture and tutorial were about system approaches. I got exposed to the system metaphor and system concepts and the key founder of the movement Ludwig Von Bertalanffy, a theoretical biologist whom was very interested in “living systems”.  Systems, as everything else, have its own components. In an organizational system, the components are the people and the departments that make the organization. There are three key system components in this theory, and they are:

Hierarchical ordering  - hierarchical system, system components are arranged in ways to involve subsystems and supersystems.

Interdependence – this implies that the functioning of the components of the system relies on the other components

Permeability – the one that allows the information and material to flow in and out

I think the article from Eric Jonston about the bank chief executive Ralph Norris, is very much a demonstration of the hierarchical system and also the interdependence and permeability. The story is about the former Commonwealth Bank Chief that received a total package of $9.61 million in his final months at the bank – this is fresh news released Sunday morning. The payments for Mr. Norris who retired last November and received about $63.000 a day for that period, an amount that is higher than full-year salary for most Australians. It is crazy how CEO’s get these crazy amounts of money; I just simply don’t know how they justify it. The system, besides being quite hierarchical for the obvious reasons, it is also very strongly interdependent.

References:

Jonston, E 2012, ‘Ex-CBA chief Norris's pay topped $63,000 a day’, Sydney Morning Herald, viewed 20 August 2012 < http://www.smh.com.au/business/excba-chief-norriss-pay-topped-63000-a-day-20120820-24h8j.html>

Miller, K 2012, Organizational Communication: Approaches and Processes, Wadsworth, Boston MA, USA, pp. 60-64   

Leading by example?

                                       Sir Ralph Norris: Building organisational culture

Hawthorne studies...How do they apply within the SABA company?

Who is SABA? 



SABA has had a powerful influence on the Australian fashion scene since 1965. Starting in Melbourne's Flinders Lane as The Joseph SABA Shirt Shop, the company has remained at the forefront of Australian fashion ever since, and is now seen as a chic, contemporary label for both women and men.

In 1996 SABA took part in the very first Mercedes Australian Fashion Week (MAFW). Front lining the show and showcasing their Spring Summer collection, MAFW defined SABA as the leading Australian fashion label of the time. Also in 1996 the company won the Australian Fashion Menswear Award and was inducted as the Powerhouse Museum's Fashion House of the Year. SABA became a favourite at L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival (LMFF) when they premiered their first solo show at Melbourne's Federation Square in 2005.

SABA's appeal stems from styling that is both sophisticated and contemporary. Part of SABA's uniqueness lies in its ability to integrate elegant silhouettes with beautiful fabrics. The design philosophy is coupled with a passion for quality - every design must also be enduring, comfortable and versatile. For SABA these are the hallmarks of great design.

Saba was acquired by the Apparel Group in July 2005 and moved its Head Office to Sydney shortly after. A leader in the Australian fashion industry, Apparel Group designs and manages its brands in Australia with strong manufacturing relationships in Asia.

 How does SABA head office communicate to staff all over the country and how clear and effective is the communication?

• How does SABA operate as an organisation?
• How does SABA train staff?
• Is online training effective? What is staff's reaction to it?
• How was it communicated?  
• Was it completed? How?
• Did it have any outcomes? 
• What is staff’s behaviour at work? What was it before training and after?
• Can Hawthorne studies apply somehow here to help us get a result?

I will be focusing on this in the coming weeks and will be updating with findings.



If you want to know more about SABA fashion designs  Click here

                                                 
                                                Below there are some pictures of the SABA online training for staff.

SABA online training

SABA online training

SABA online training

Summary week 2.

The highlighted learning for this week was the Hawthorne studies and the Maslow theory.
During the early part of the century, Frederic Taylor, developed a school of thought for Scientific Management in which, he explained he use of time and motion studies on how workers should break down the tasks and the best way how to execute them.

The Western Electric Company carried out the Hawthorne studies in the 1920's at their Hawthorne plant. Initially, the study focused on lighting. From the beginning of the studies, the experimenter effect and the social effect emerged out.
To observe the workers, they put them in a special room – this was the bank wiring room, which was designed to study the social effects. It took a few weeks to the workers to act ‘normal’ in front of the observer.  Medibank Private did some similar study the “Stand up Australia, Sedentary behaviors in workers” where they assessed their workers behavior at work and had an understanding of their behavior after work as a consequence of the behavior at work.

Maslow hierarchy of needs explains human beings motivation by using a hierarchy of needs. This hierarchy of needs is made of 5 essential ladders to the top:


1.     Psychological needs
2.     Safety needs
3.     Social Needs
4.     Esteem needs
5.     Self- Actualization
Maslow explains that while a person is motivated to fulfill these basal desires, they continue to move toward growth. Once they overcome one level they look to grow on the next one.



References:
Abraham Maslow 2012, Maslow Hierarchy of Needs: Father of Modern Management & Leadership by Employee Motivation, viewed 3 August 2012 <http://www.abraham-maslow.com/m_motivation/Hierarchy_of_Needs.asp

Analytic technologies, 2012, Hawthorne studies, Lexington USA, viewed 9 August 2012 < http://www.analytictech.com/mb021/handouts/bank_wiring.htm>
Medibank for better health, 2009, Stand up Australia, Sedentary behaviors, viewed 9 August 2012
< http://www.medibank.com.au/Client/Documents/Pdfs/Stand_Up_Australia.pdf>

Learning new stuff.

Weekly Summary

Week 1.

This week’s tutorial and lecture were quite informative considering it was only the first one. I really enjoyed the tutorial and the engagement tutor-student and student-student. The tutor created a fun class culture, which is the best way to inspire learning.

This introduction lecture and tutorial brought a broader perspective of what an organisation is. Being the manager of a business and also having been exposed to a lot of information about the organization makes it a lot easier for me to understand the lecture and the tutorial. It is interesting to learn about organizational and individual goals, its structure, the embedding of the organization in environment.

There are many types of organizations that did not exist in the past and now they were not considered in the past. Some organizations belong to the government, some are social, non-profit, virtual etc. We also learned about the organizations and the global warming and the effect that organizations can/have to reduce or eliminate their contribution.  Factors effecting organizational communication are: globalization, technology, climate change, changing demographics, and global security issues. 

Principles of management and organizational structure are also a very interesting topic, but I found the most interesting the Fayol’s Theory of classical management; which is basically how most organizations are run in the country. Command – managers set tasks. Coordination – activities harmonized into single whole. Control –comparison between goals and activities. 

Webber’s Theory of Bureaucracy is quite interesting too. This form of leading is organizational and non-individual and as we discussed in class, bureaucracy derives from the French word bureau, which means desk.

Dictionary definitions for bureaucracy:

·  A system of carrying on the business of government by means of departments or bureaus, each under the control of a chief, in contradiction to a system in which the officers of government have an associated authority and responsibility; also, government conducted on this system.

  Government officials, collectively.

·