ÖRGÜT KURAMI VE TASARIMI - Deneme Sınavı - 4

Coercion can be used to deal with resistance to change. Coercion involves the use of direct threats or force against the resisters. Notwithstanding, it may be illegal and may undermine change agent’s credibility.

In general, bottom-up change is easier to implement than top-down change because it provokes less resistance. Organizations that have the time to engage in bottom-up change are generally well-run organizations that pay attention to change, are used to change, and change often. Poorly run organizations, those that rarely change or postpone change until it is too late, are forced to engage in top-down restructuring merely to survive.

The final step in the change process is to evaluate how successful the change effort has been. Using measures such as changes in market share, in profits, or the ability of scientists to innovate new drugs, managers compare how well an organization is performing after the change with how well it was performing before. Managers also can use benchmarking which refers to comparing their performance on specific dimensions with the performance of high-performing organizations to decide how successful a change effort has been.

Programmed decision-making involves the most efficient and easily repeatable routine operations.

In general, this decision-making mechanism includes a set of written rules and standards that enable the organization to operate in the most efficient manner.

Organizations arrange boards, policies and detailed procedures for decisions to be taken in such repetitive situations.

This type of solution eliminates a very time-consuming process of identifying and evaluating alternatives and making new decisions. Managers, thus, have the opportunity to devote their time to solving included in the resolution of problems that these managers deal with.

What bank should we use? Should we sell bonds or stocks? Should we buy back some of our company’s stock? 

This type of questions are the ones about finance managers, not sales managers.

Rational decision-making steps are as follows:

1. Define problem

2. Determine the requirements that the solution to the problem must meet

3. Establish goals that solving the problem should accomplish

4. Identify alternatives that will solve the problem

5. Develop evaluation criteria based on the goals

6. Select a decision-making tool

7. Apply the tool to select a preferred alternative

8. Check the answer to make sure it solves the problem

Thinking outside the box, inviting outsiders to look at the problem and create alternatives, asking team members to abstain from their traditional roles, not underestimating mixed choices, being willing to discuss different views are among the tips that manager can benefit to create alternative solutions to a problem.

The rational approach presents a systematic and analytical point of view for managers to make decisions. However, the rational decision-making approach has been criticized and considered to be non-realistic; thus, it has been argued that this approach should be reviewed and made as practical and realistic as possible because the limited capacity of the manager is insufficient to analyze the complexity of business relations in the modern world and to completely clear up problems. It is also impossible to create a rational model for each decision. Time pressure, internal and external factors affecting decisions, ill-defined problems do not allow a systematic analysis every time. Even if we assume that managers have the cognitive capacity to solve each problem, they cannot evaluate every problem and every alternative.

A manager with limited rationality uses mental methods that simplify the solution and provide shortcuts to make decisions and process information. This is called intuitive decision-making.

Intuitive decision-making features individual experience and judgments more than logic and reasoning. Intuitive decision-making is not as coincidental as is thought. What underlies these decisions is that the manager faces similar problems many times and experiences different solutions. Managers act intuitively especially in decisions that must be immediately made. The more intuitive or rational behavior of the manager is sometimes related to his or her disposition.

There are constraints and trade-off experienced during nonprogrammed decision-making processes. 

Bounded Rationality: Limited time, information, resources to deal with complex, multidimensional issues

Organizational Constraints: Need for agreement, shared perspective, cooperation, support, corporate culture and structure, ethical values

Personal Constraints: Desire for prestige, success; personal decision style; and the need to satisfy emotional needs, cope with pressure, Or maintain self-concept

This model is clearly emphasized to be used in complex organizations where organizational anarchy rules, information flow procedures are uncertain and technology usage is low. Underlying this view, there are assertive behaviors, decisions and practices argued against the rational decision making models. This model, shortly, means “do it before think about it.” Decisions, policies and practices whose results are not searched, traps and disadvantages are not considered are eventually thrown into garbage can.

This model, which tries to combine organizational design and organizational anarchy, states that there is no connection between problems that tried to be solved and solution methods.

Cognitive bias means a tendency to make irrational decisions about other people and situations. Cognitive biases are really common since they are produced by human nature. Habits, educational background, experience, business culture and similar components reflect cognitive bias of decision-maker in organizational decisions. Knowledge level and automatic behaviors of managers and routines are examples of cognitive biases in strategic decisions. Shortly, especially intuitional decisions made by managers are influenced by these biases. Many patterns for bias have been defined in the current literature. The most frequently encountered types of bias in organizational decisions are as follows.

Thanks to certain symptoms, it is possible to understand that a group is closed to different views and away from alternative decisions because of excessive harmony.

• If group members suppose that their decisions are perfect and insist on it,

• If managers are not informed about the arguments supporting the opposing view,

• If group members give more importance to the data supporting their own views and ignore the others,

• If no one tries to consider alternative options,

• If members that do not share the majority’s opinion are excluded,

If symptoms above are to be seen in decision mechanisms of an organization, we can argue that decisions are not made in a healthy way.

Corporate-level strategy is formulated for the overall organization and often deals with the selection of which business domain or markets the firm is to compete in.

Culture is an integrative pattern of the meaningmaking process which people subconsciously use to understand the world surrounding them via the shared set of values and beliefs, language, symbols, and physical artifacts.

What was the reason behind the rise of organizational culture as a concept for understanding organizations? Of course, it was not coincidental. Many social, field and individual-level developments triggered the increase of awareness in the 90s. These factors are explained below:5 • Individualism and alienation: By the end of 1970s modern societies witnessed widespread diffusion of individualism that alienated people from the society. Lonely people searching for an identity celebrated organizational culture as a haven. Organizational culture allowed people to answer aching questions for raison d’etre! “Who am I, what is my reason for being in this world? what this organization stands for?” are all examples of questions asked and generally found an explanation within the concept of organizational culture. • Technically advanced production and the rise ofservice industry: Production process was upgraded to an advanced level in which automation became widespread. Moreover, the volume of service industry gradually surpassed goods production in many developed countries.Thus,employees had to be more customer-focused and technically qualified. Consequently, skillful and welltrained employees preferred independent working conditions. Organizational culture, as a way of controlling employee behavior, allows members to use their judgment, and act morefreely within defined organizational norms. Once members of the organizations cultivated with organizational values, close supervision will be redundant.
Machine bureaucracy gradually became less useful in managing people: Scientific management was the paradigm relevant to 1960s and 1970s. During 1980s validity of scientific management as the only paradigm for managing people started to be scrutinized. The effectiveness of objective and mathematical management techniques like time-and-motion studies was challenged. This movement led scholars focusing on the human aspect of management, or in other words, “soft” aspects of organizations. • Innovative production techniques: Mass production techniques increase the level of efficiency. But these techniques usually decrease the overall flexibility of the organization. To balance the level of efficiency with the degree of flexibility, organizations should employ people who have a sense of active belonging and commitment. Organizational culture is providing a cognitiveschemethroughwhich members can agree upon collective values, and thus elevates the level of organizational commitment. • Japanese miracle: After the devastation experienced by Japan following the 2nd World War, Japan’s reborn as an economic power found to be related to the Japanese management style. Globalization which is generally equated with getting rid of economic, political, cultural, and technological barriers led to an increase in awareness and curiosity in the global west for the east. It was self-evident that Japanese miracle was mostly related to the Japanese cultural value system and its reflections within Japanese organizations. Other countries also tried to understand and encapsulate these reflections for themselves, and hence the interest in the cultural aspect of organizations tend to strengthen.

Organizational culture is shared social knowledge among organizational members shaping organizational members’ attitudes and behaviors based on mutually accepted rules, norms, and values.

Subculture is defined as groups sharing overall cultural values of the society but diverges from these groups by holding different values brought by their lifestyles, values, and norms.

Advantages of Having Strong Organizational Culture are:

Organizational culture has three levels, namely basic assumptions, espoused values, and artifacts.