Excelsior BUS311 Module 2 Discussion Latest 2021 November

BUS311 ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Module 2 Discussion

Understanding the Impact of Culture on Organizational Performance and Decision Making

This course is focused on using organizational behavior concepts to enable better decision making in organizations. The key objective of this discussion question is to enable you to apply concepts from the learning material on organizational culture to a scenario within the organization that you work for. You will wear two hats, an employee and a hiring consultant, to provide business advice that facilitates better decision making. If you are not currently working, you can choose to refer to a former organization that you worked for or any other company that you are able to get sufficient information to frame your discussion posting.

Scenario

As part of your weekly one to one meeting with your supervisor at work, you are asked to briefly discuss some of the topics you are learning in your organizational behavior class. This week, you focus on issues related to organizational culture. This catches your supervisor’s attention because she is the head of a search committee within your organization, tasked with hiring a new vice president for operations. There is a debate among the committee members about whether to focus on recruiting from within the organization or whether to provide opportunities for external candidates to apply for the position.

After listening to your discussion of organizational culture, including hiring practices at Les Schwab Tires (Section 1.2 in your reading) and Google (Section 1.7 in your reading), your supervisor asks you to share some insights to the committee on the topic that is being debated. She would like you to wear two hats. First, that of an employee describing their organization and second as a hiring consultant providing a recommendation.

Scenario Questions

The following questions provide you with a framework to structure your response to the scenario. No doubt there are many variables that will influence this decision, but your task is to primarily focus on using the cultural context of your organization and the external environment in which it operates to frame a brief response to the two questions as part of your initial response post. Also, make sure to read what is expected in the ‘reply’ post so that you are aware that your peers will be using the information you provide to post a response.

Initial Post: From the point of view of an employee, offer the following response to your supervisor’s request.

Provide a very brief overview of your organization. To respect your supervisor’s time and maintain her attention, offer a profile that is 100 words max. Also, to maintain the confidentiality of your own organization. Please do not provide information that would specifically identify it.

Consider the following points:

What does your organization do?

Approximately how many employees work for your organization?

How old is your organization?

What is the approximate yearly budget of your organization?

Explain which cultural profile category your organization (or your department) would fall under based on the various Dimensions of Cultural Profiles (DCP’s) discussed in sections 1.9-1.11 of your reading. If you feel that none of the categories match your organization then you can create a cultural profile that you feel would categorize your organization. You should also provide a brief description of the external environment in which your company operates. (Use about 300 words to explain this to your supervisor.)

Reply Post: From the point of view of a hiring consultant, provide the following advice to two of your peers.

Based on the background provided for their organizations, their cultural profiles, and the external environment in which it operates, discuss whether you would recommend hiring from within the organization or hiring externally.

To ensure the utility of your recommendations, the guidance you offer should be limited to 300 – 400 words maximum.

A well-crafted recommendation would incorporate references to the details provided in the profiles with direct linkages to your advice.To strengthen the credibility of your recommendations, cite evidence to support it.