Asian countries have had an important influence on managing studies throughout the last decades, especially the Japanese model which is characterized by the way they:
• Give priority to the market share.
• Always pursue objectives beyond the optimization of the stock value.
• Pay special attention to their relationships with suppliers with whom they always look for long- term associations.
• Consider that blue-collar employees and middle managers have important roles and have the capabilities to provide good feedback to keep improving the processes.
• See consensus and loyalty as means to succeed as an organization.
In turn, Korean management style was shaped from the Japanese one since Korea was a colony since 1910 up to 1945, enough time to receive all the influence of Japan which helped to shape the modern structure of Korean organizations, a structure that has made these companies so competitive and determinant in the current globalized economy.
• Korean government gives financial support to the private companies facilitating access to credits to improve the possibilities of greater investments.
• For employees, lifetime inside organizations is more flexible than under de Japanese management style model.
• The top managers are more authoritarians and strict than in Japan where the decision making is made according to a very flat organizational structure.
• The most important companies in Korea are owned by members of those families that set them up.
In Korea, as well as it happened in Japan with the Zaibatsu, a group of companies merged as something called Chaebol, having several ties with the government in order to promote their growth.
Explain the phenomenon of convergence in terms of management styles. What are the forces or factors pushing for convergence?
Convergence happens when a country’s management model is so effective and show so good results, that this is immediately implemented by other countries. This fact will make that many of them feel some pressure about implementing the model or the style since the standard conditions of the market requires of updated companies if these ones want to survive to those changing conditions.
Explain the phenomenon of differentiation in terms of management styles. What are the forces of factors pushing for differentiation?
Differentiation is a strategy by which companies make a segmentation of the market in order to reach more alternatives and give the organization the chance of not relying only on one or few products but also on several choices that permit to respond and resist to the market dynamics and changes.
Communication could be defined as the way how information is transmitted from one individual to another and the means used for this purpose. The most common and recognized is the interpersonal communication which is the basis for making and maintaining personal relations and it is so unique that cannot even be replaced by technology. This kind of communication has 4 key elements: The communicator, the receiver, the perceptual screens and the message. In order to reach a successful communication, the listening must be reflective; it means that one must listen carefully the counterpart, repeat back the message and make corrections about possible mistakes. Why should it be reflective? Because in reduces the chances for distortions in perceptions, assures that the right message is given and because it considers emotions as vital for an effective message. Responses to reflective listening go from affirming contact, paraphrasing and clarification of the implicit; to the silence and the eye contact.
However, communication varies depending on who gives the message since every manager has a different way to give a message:
Expressive speakers: they express ideas, thoughts, and opinions and so on in a very open way so the employees can know where they really stand.
Empathetic listeners: their main characteristic is their patience and concerning about others, and their willingness to listen.
Persuasive leaders: they prefer to motivate and encourage employees instead of just giving orders.
Sensitive to feelings: they look for enhancing employee’s self-esteem by giving feedback and adopting a critical perspective.
Informative managers: provide the necessary information to employees in order to avoid information distortion and overload.
Also, some barriers are always present in every cross-cultural communication. Some of them are:
Language barriers: different dialects, oral expressions and writing; semantic barriers, poor grammar and punctuation
Physical barriers: such as noise, time, distance, age and gender.
Social psychological barriers: status, attitudes, values, perceptions, inference, abstraction, etc.
It is important to take into account that communication is not limited only to the verbal one, but that there is also a non-verbal language carried out by facial and eye expressions, voice tone and paralanguage.
Virtual teams
According to Zenun et al (2007) a team should fulfill the following conditions: a small number of members, skills that can be complemented, to have a common objective or purpose, be committed to the team and show accountable results. Virtual teams are those whose members are located in different places and even in different time zones, which communicate each other by means of modern technology of communication so they must have a big coordination by the manager or leader.
On the one hand, the benefits of virtual teams are the following ones, among others:
Low costs.
Easiness to take advantage of market opportunities.
Allow its member to be geographically dispersed.
Quick response to changes.
On the other hands, there are also some difficulties when managing and dealing with virtual teams:
Lack of face-to-face contact.
Difficult for the leader to check the performance of every member.
Possibility of mistrust, misunderstandings and conflicts.
Different languages.
Cultural differences.
That is why managers must have a balance and find ways to avoid the disadvantages so the virtual team can work as a real team, not as a group of individuals that work independently.
Communication is a process that allows organizations to send/receive messages within their own boundaries but also to interact with outside entities (customers, suppliers, the media, etc.). Messages are send/received not only through oral and written statements, there are many channels and ways that need to be considered when discussing effective organizational communication. In that sense, the use of sounds has become increasingly important.
Based on the article “If Intercontinental were a sound…what would it be?”*, Please discuss the implications (potential advantages, disadvantages, challenges, etc.) of using sounds to send strategic messages. You need to integrate the use of key concepts relating to the topic of communication to support your answer.
The usage of jingles and sounds is a very useful tool when looking for giving the desired message to a specific public. Normally, sounds are simple and so easy to remember since they are acquired by means of the echoic memory by which humans remember a sound, which is easier to memorize than an image. That is the reason why it is not strange that we remember dozens of sounds right now, and even more throughout our lives.
The problem is that given the nature of the message, jingles are not easy to design since a very well designed sound does not necessary mean that the communication will be given successfully. For that reason is why InterContinental study intended to create a musical version of the company’s profile, was a very interesting exercise because it allowed the organization to see beyond a simple sound and wonder about whether they understood or not their business.
Generally, we do not think about this, but the sensorial environment has a remarkable impact and influence by stimulating and creating stories that customers will remember after leaving the venue. The importance of this approach relies on the fact that this is a magnificent tool to take advantage of when trying to communicate the desired message. By means of this study, those involved on it, found out that they still had a lot to learn about the organization and stop for a while and redefine its values in order to show and assure the right message.
Motivation is the process by which individuals keep their behavior oriented to reach a specific goal. Someone is motivated when feels like doing something motivated by different elements of emotional and social nature. Based on motivation, several theories have been developed to explain how it explains, predicts and influences individual’s behavior.
On the one hand one approach about motivation suggests that it is explained first, by internal needs. Max Weber said that salvation could be reached only by working hard, a very protestant vision; and Sigmund Freud designed his own theory about the unconscious nature implicit in human’s behavior. On the other hand, we find the external incentives, those which come from external factors such as self-interest and economic gain and the self-interest vs. the enlightened interest.
Some of the main theories about motivation are the following ones:
1.Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: Maslow suggested that individual’s needs can be divided into 5 kinds: physiological needs, needs of security and safety, social needs, needs of self-esteem and needs of self-actualization. According to this theory, a level becomes dominant once the previous rank has been satisfied.
2.Frederick Herzberg’s Two Factors Theory: For Herzberg, satisfaction and dissatisfaction are defined by motivational factors like professional acknowledgement and achievements, and by hygiene factors such as salary and work conditions.
3. Douglas McGregor: His theory is one of the most popular, Theory X and Theory Y. Individuals under the X Theory do not have ambition, do not enjoy their work and their priority is the money. On the contrary, those under the Y Theory consider the effort as important at work; they do not care about responsibilities and are concerned about learning and being motivated.
4.McClelland’s need theory: States that an employee has 3 main needs: achievement whose motivation is the challenge and the feedback; the affiliation which is motivated by the cooperative and harmonious environment; and finally, the power, whose main motivation is the possibility to manage others.
What are the Hawthorne Studies? Explain its importance for studying motivation at the workplace and its influence over diverse motivation theories. (Include key findings and limitations) (max. 500 words)
Hawthorne Studies were researches carried out by researchers from Western Electric and Harvard University in order to examine the influence of the environment and its changes on workers performance in production. Researchers found that little changes in the environment did not affect dramatically the way how employees performed their work, nonetheless they tried to see what would happen giving some incentives expecting to discover a dramatic change, but they found that instead of working harder individually, workers started to focus more on the teamwork and the group.
These studies were important as they gave a new approach different to the previous ones about management since they go beyond tradition theories about motivation and shift from individual analysis to see motivation from the group dynamics and personal relations point of view. From that point on, managers are also part of those dynamics and they must be involved into their groups so they will know the best way to motivate, lead and communicate inside them.
Also, they contributed to the other motivation theories taken the substance of the topic to a most practical and realistic level.
Based on the class activity about "Flight 001: Motivating Employees", please answer the following question:
¿Which motivation theory do you think has the most relevance for understanding the behavior of Amanda Shank and fostering her motivation at work? (Max. 500 words)
The theory that better explains Amanda Shank’s behavior is maybe the X & Y Theory because she experienced both perspectives. On her first job, she lacked of motivation and desire to make a minimum effort to do her job, and the reason is very obvious, if you are told that all employees are just numbers and that nobody is essential for the organization, it is normal that you feel disappointed as it means you and your effort do not have any value, you’re just a tool for the company just to make money, so any employee under those conditions will perform without motivation, just doing the duties looking for the money and without feeling indentified with the organization. In Flight 001 her situation is totally opposed, she is motivated and her suggestions are heard and taken into account for improving processes inside the company. Even, the fact of having regular contact with the co-founder gives and impression that the effort is really worth and that continuous challenges are means to grow personally. To sum up, it means that she is now under the Y Theory.
Also, it might be said that under Maslow’s Theory, she had achieved the first three levels (her physiological, safety and social needs) so she automatically tried to move to the next level (self-esteem needs), a level that was impossible to satisfy in the other company and which right now has been achieved so Amanda will probably stay in the Self-Actualization level, learning constantly and feeling more and more challenged.
