Discussion 1

Various studies have shown that organizational effectiveness and culture have a high level of correlation. The cultural modeling in an organization defines it from competitors and may actually serve as an advantage. Quite the opposite is also true.

Drawing from your experience as an organizational citizen, share your thoughts on the topic of organizational culture using professional life experience examples. Some things to consider might include:

• If you have tenure in your firm (greater than 10 years) share your insights on cultural transformations you have experienced.
• If you were part of an acquisition (either side of the equation) how was the cultural disconnects addressed?
• For those of you with international experience how do you address cultural differences within yourown organization?
• What does your firm do to insure all international members recognize the requirements set forth by the corporate team?
• Finally do you see a gap in yourpersonal values with your current professional culture? What is your strategy for this gap?

While it is not expected that everyone as experienced all of these, hopefully each of you will have experienced at least one. If not, share what you have experienced related to organizational culture and how this week's readings have provided new insights on those experiences.

Reference:

McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2015). Organizational Behavior (7th ed ). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Discussion Response 2

By D,W

I am lucky enough to have seen some very interesting situations within my career at various companies. While at FTD, I have been lucky enough to see the company be part of a large acquisition. When I came on board to FTD, there was discussions centered around the idea of acquiring a company that is located in San Diego. The company was considered to be one of our competitors and would lead to a greater market share while also allowing FTD to become a luxury brand and allowing the new company to be centered toward the value market. A few months later, the company began that process of acquiring this company. Senior leadership had no past experience with acquisitions and early struggles took place in integrating the two teams. Additionally, because of the lack of experience with major mergers like this, there was no internal discussions or training to prevent employees from feeling that major layoffs were coming. For many in the company, they had been around and seen a major layoff take place years before. Nothing was done to prevent these feelings from returning and people began to worry. Finally, after eight months, the company began having both companies take part in town hall meetings with one group being brought in by web-conferencing. Slowing the teams began working together. From my prospective, I was part of the team that worked with San Diego's finance team. The company also brought in programs like Skype in order to get both companies to talk with each other. Unfortunately, the company hasn't done much more to integrate the two companies. This has been seen by outsiders as a failure of an acquisition as the company had high hopes and has not been able to take advantage of the new market. From an organizational culture standpoint, it is very much the same. The company still has done nothing to give either company the comfort in knowing that they won't be merged together or removing one of the groups of employees. Recently, the finance team from one of our smaller companies has recently been moved from Illinois out to San Diego which again created the fear within the employees that other positions would be moved there too. While the company has a very tall span of control, "the number of people directly reporting to the next level in the hierarchy," (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015, p 374), as well as employs a divisional structure, "organizational structure in which employees are organized around geographic areas, outputs (products or services, or clients" (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015, p 381) it has led to less communication getting to lower level employees in all departments.Talking with different departments you get different pieces of information because information is sent through different vice presidents or directors within the company. Very rarely does a company-wide memo get sent out. Four times a year, we have town hall meetings where general information is given out. At no point are employees given full view of where the company is headed or what the company is planning next.

McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2015). Organizational Behavior (7th ed ). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Discussion 2 By - I will send a follow on MEassge for this one.