University of Bucharest Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures MASTER CLOE IInd year, Ist semester

Organizational Behaviour

Student: Alexandra Nicoleta Burche

Organizational context in postmodern and modern perspectives and values

Defining the organizational context Todays organizational field can be defined as intricate and rapidly changing with the nature of work in a permanent state of flux. It is well known that the organizational context has two important elements at its base which are carefully analyzed: The first consists of the relations occurring between what is known as the internal structure or structures of an organization and the external circumstances, external environment The second one examines the influence that the development technology has on organizations and further more on jobs. A certain amount of external environmental stimuli have a great impact on internal organizational behavior and can create a range of organizational responses. According to Johnson and Scholes 1999 corporate strategy literature, external environmental pressures (such as political, economical, technological, legislative, environmental, social and future scenarios factors) can lead to internal organization responses (in terms of organization structure, strategy, working practices, employment patterns, management style and innovative solutions) The world of today is a world of organizations characterized by a variety of types of such organizations, a visible growth when it comes to large scale business organizations and most importantly a difference implying segregation between ownership and management.

The tip of the iceberg and the social shifting towards innovation

One major phenomenon helped shape the organizational iceberg we deal with today and that was the death of distance, also known as globalization. Globalization means the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa. Meaning geographical, territorial isolation, division falls out of use, no longer applies when it comes to distant countries and individuals. This breaks through any idea of boundary, making exchanges of ideas and information more prompt than ever before. Free trade has helped with the easier movement of money, goods and services around the world, while giving more importance and decision making powers to higher supranational bodies, such as the EU (European Union) or NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) and so on. In this sense, John Kotter, in 1995, argues that four main trends led to a series of organizational adaptation and change: 1. Technological innovation made communication faster and easier than ever, which led to global information networks and quicker transports. 2. International trade meant freer trade and capital flows at global level and less barriers when it came to tariffs. 3. Mature markets brought the threat of imports, a degree of privatization and deregulation and a rate of slower growth in advanced economies. 4. End of Cold War made possible an overwhelming privatization of the state sector, also it made more and more countries embrace the capitalist market system. The main causal chain reaction led to globalization which implied a higher degree of danger, speed and more competition. On the positive side it also involved more opportunities with new markets and fewer barriers to trade and tariffs. This eventually resulted in organizational adaptation and change entailing: reduction in number and significance of traditional working class increased female participation in workforce decline of manufacturing, growth of services growth in number and significance of knowledge workers

increasing cognitive skill demands new structures, virtual organizations, networks and alliances mergers, acquisitions, industry consolidation organizational culture change fast, flat and flexible organization designs

The constant innovation of technology was probably the biggest impact that contributed to todays environmental changes. From ways of education to the extent of providing services, it led to huge changes in various social but also organizational aspects. This also created the term knowledge workers, more so with the progress in the area of communication and computing. This particular term defined the main qualities of an employee as consisting more in what they know than in what they can actually do, thus eliminating the idea of physical force usually used by then. Adapt or survive meant that formally used trends were threatening with the statute of obsolete when it came to knowledge work like computer software design. This demographic trend led to another one called bipolar workforce dividing the educated and skilled professional knowledge workers from the poorly educated, untrained and poorly paid manual and clerical workers. Improvement in arias like communication, transport, also effects due to civil wars helped with the spreading of the global workforce to the point where now ethnic, religious and cultural mix is no longer novelty, but a race between organizations on how to manage the variety of needs, preferences and values that came with such new social aspects. Also other developments consisted in the increased proportion of females in the workforce. Social aspect become more important and ubiquitous, lifestyles change with a great shift in the structure of households, patterns of living and rate of consumption, tendencies in education and leisure or working patterns. Social values are also altered. High levels of ecological concern, which are expressed in punitive fines for organizations which create toxic waste and in wide range of public protests (over the building of new roads and airports, for example) were relatively uncommon before the 1980s. By the end of the 90s working patterns in the EU showed that 17% of European Union workers had a part-time job; nearly one-sixth of EU workers regularly did shift work; one in seven had a night time job, either on occasion or on a regular basis; one in eight worked from home, either on occasion or regularly; and one in four workers had sometimes work on Sundays.

The usual 40 hour working week, five days a week, Monday to Friday becomes less frequent. The change in this way of living had implications in the services and goods sector, affecting how, when and what we buy, forcing providers to adapt to new practices in order to stay in business. Because of the 24-hour shopping online that the internet now offers, conventional outlets had to adjust and provide similar levels of services and goods. Another adjustment to the increase in work hours are the ever so growing home management industry. This particular industry came into existence since the growing number of women in workforce, directing its services to the needs of the families with two earners where both parts work extended hours. These types of companies have a whole range of services ready to make your everyday tasks easy and fast. They can clean your home, your garden, do the shopping for you, collect your car from service, and even buy adequate birthday gifts for those with no time what so ever. The more the environmental complexity the more the implications of such environmental trends with immediate impact into all levels of society, from organization structure changes to various provisions of particular facilities for different ethnic, religious groups; a more long term competitive strategy that companies seek to implement to the changing of social preferences and values. Today weve entered into the era of disorganized capitalism, truly complex and fast changing , in which the boundaries of large organizations in particular have become blurred, and in which the nature of work itself is in a constant state of flux. Some demographic trends are directly liked and have some relevance to the organizational behaviour, for instance the aging workforce, meaning the proportion of the population who have retired from employment is growing in relation to the proportion of the population still in work. Those organizations that find it normal to discriminate against older possible employees (meaning over 40 or in some cases even over 30 years) will come to realize how hard it is to recruit. Younger generations now have the advantage of globalization and the overseas job opportunities that come with the territory. An aging population has different needs and values which can be met by organizations smart enough to identify and satisfy these needs. The unprecedented aging of the worlds population and the strong correlation between aging and disability challenges many institutions, labor markets, and public pension programs. Not to mention the pressure this has on heath care systems and services. It is no surprise that most

managers today feel overwhelmed by the increasing speed of events, making them lack a sense of direction in the near future ahead. This environmental uncertainty created the need for a appropriate organizational response, due to the rapidly changing, turbulent and unpredictable environments. Environmental uncertainty refers to the degree of unpredictable turbulence and change in the external political, economic, social, technological, legal and ecological context in which an organization operates; the more dimensions of the external context are interrelated, the higher the environmental uncertainty. The different the environment, the different the organizational responses must be, the greater the external turbulence, the higher the degree of required internal flexibility. Post-modern organization Environmental pressures, incentives, such like: globalization, political, economical, social, demographic technological, legislative, environmental factors, discontinuous change, management perceptions and future scenario probabilities lead to change in organizational characteristics like organization strategy, teamwork, style in management and leadership, working practices, empowerment, employment patterns, innovative business solutions, a shift from bureaucracy to network, in a large sense the post-modern organization. The main feature of the post-modern organization is that the classical bureaucratic organizational system is replaced by the more flexible post-modern organization, it ignores rules and the hierarchy. Nonetheless, there are some organizations that still work having a traditional organizational system. Where modernist organization was rigid, post-modern organization is flexible. Where modernist consumption was premised on mass forms, post-modernist consumption is premised on niches. Modernist jobs and organizations were highly demarcated, differentiated, de-skilled, the post-modernist trend imposed a multiskilled, de-demarked and de-differentiated type of employee. This sort of bad old days- good new days frame implies a linear progression from then, from the harsh bureaucracy, macho managers, boring, repetitive and simple jobs to todays now with its empowered, interesting, multiskilled jobs, supportive managers and flexible organizational systems. We went further and further away from the traditional manufacturing

methods and embraced the multiskilled, empowered teamworking. It is no surprise that employment in traditional, almost obsolete industry has declined as the employment in services has increased considerably. All in all, flexibility and adaptability lead to employee empowerment, which is desirable, thus the organization is involved in a constant process of change with the environment, importing staff and resources, exporting goods and services. Employees, on the other hand, represent members of a wider society, whose values and preferences are now inside the organization as well as outside it. To such extent some organizations incorporate different types of customers into their policy making process or so it would seem when they are regarded as being members who have the ability to vote on changes to the company rules, and receive copies of magazines from their companies. Contemporary organizations and their employees must respond to increasing environmental turbulence by becoming more flexible and adaptive. Postmodernism is deemed to represent a challenging perspective, conditioning positive and creative insights into personal identity, social relationships and also into the structures and various processes of organizations. Difference in values, yesterdays parents and todays children Mary Jo Hatch (1997) offers a summary insight into a postmodern future and the way one can prepare for such a possible future: learn to take nothing for granted; deconstruct all claims to truth by exploring the assumptions behind them; keep asking whose point of view is benefited by this way of looking at things; focus on how language is used to construct reality and identity; focus on what is not said, on what is hidden by conventional expressions; avoid the one right answer; dispute the categories into which we place people; forget the belief that everybody should think the same way that you do; be reflexive- challenge your own assumptions; maintain a critical distance between your idea of self, on the one hand, and socially and culturally defined ways of seeing the world, on the other; bring your own socially constructed understanding under conscious control and challenge; imagine alternatives to our taken for granted understanding of organizational life; consider change as a form of thrill, as a state to be sought out as invigorating, as a welcome experience.

A more colloquial transcript of these work related skills complete a more stressful and uncomfortable organizational environment: Don't disagree with the boss Don't rock the boat Look busy even if you aren't Don't smile, let alone laugh too much Be obsessive about getting your numbers right, estimates won't do If a colleague gets into trouble with the boss- dont help; be grateful it's not you Observe the dress code CYB= Cover Your BACK

Todays Romanian society has a different shape and status compared to 20 years ago. It is clearly not as developed as other European countries in the economical area, certainly not in the organizational aspects, but values have changed and with them life styles with all their social and organizational demands. Foreigners tend to label Romanian society as one stuck in the past, to be more exact with a century or two behind the majority of well better developed European countries. Even so, trends in workforce and values are very distinct today from the communist period. The tendency in the communist period was self sufficiency up to the point of obsession, putting all of its resources into a strong industrialization of the country. Workers were unskilled and poorly educated, with a high tendency in manual labor. Education was a luxury and in no way mandatory for employment reasons, a great difference in relation to todays kept in good hart required curriculum vitae. Our parents lived a leveled life, where everybody had a common social trend, pattern with similar, robotic jobs, nothing out of the ordinary, daring or original. In todays world, no insignificant organization or company can know your existence on the labor market without online references, virtual or printed C.Vs to recommend and shape personal value and competences. Words like skills, hobbies, opportunities, symbolism, images, personal interests, and developments, expertise did not exist, instead they had terms like mass production, manual labor, fixed wages, working class, manufacture, poor placement practices, donated labor, work sites, unpaid labor and so on. This was a colorless dimension of a society fixed on mass production limitations in freedom of speech, thoughts, self development and awareness.

Honor boards had the task of supervising and judging workplace conduit in a way that anything deemed unmoral was punishable by exposing the mistake publicly or even dismissing the accused. The political background was rough and inflexible with no tolerance for exterior influences, no western jobs, no purpose for learning any foreign languages, not even English. Lack of freedom consisted in lack of food and public services, obligatory work not only for ones benefit but also for a common nation benefit giving the citizens a sense of stability by a higher level of job security than ever before, equality up to the point of capping of the people. Information and access to it was limited to a few hours a day and even so it was selective information, with no current important updates, unlike todays public information and awareness, twice as complete and worldwide connected. Tight shut borders and boundaries kept outside ideas and investments in Romanian society, openness to the globalization phenomenon was an unheard third dimension. Yesterdays donated labor came to be todays internships, with a completely changed sense of its context and meaning. Our parents were forced to work for free for the benefit of society, in different project, aside from their day to day jobs, with no say or preference in the matter, where today we have a rainbow of choices. We can see how we could fit in a given organizational environment through internship programs, paid or unpaid, meant to prepare us and give a quick insight into a certain companys organizational behaviour. Technology was at a basic level, rugged and unfamiliar to most of the Romanian population, where today a whole range of inventions have eased our daily lives and have become indispensable to our social, organizational existence and survival. Todays online, 24h/7 days a week shopping with a overwhelming range in products, goods and services were a distant and unimaginable terrain compared to the proportioned meals and products (some rare and unachievable even) that existed in the communist period of our parents. If back in our parents days, jobs were handed out to whoever was found without an occupation, todays environment is a more hazardous one characterized by terms like job hunting, abroad employment or job protection and organizational survival.

In the past, when someone asked who are you? we might have answered with the name of our employing organization, or the title of our job. In other words, our sense of identity is defined by our role in relation to production (of goods or services). But from a postmodern perspective, we are defined not by our role in production but by our patterns of consumption. We consume images- we are invited by advertising to consume images- rather than the actual use value of goods and services. Bureaucratic organizations were effective due to the stable and rigid environment unlike todays fluid structures that conditions so well the development of a more effective and turbulent environment. Today, 42 % of the Romanian workforce (approximately 9 million) is in agriculture; 38% in commerce and industry; the remaining workforce is in tourism and other occupations. Its highly literate workforce (98% literacy) and its economic base in agriculture, energy, and tourism conditions great economic potential in the future. The fall of communism, the globalization of business, developments in information technology as well as social and demographic trends made possible the transit to todays workforce environment with changes such as: Increase in the number of graduates in the work place Increase in the number of teleworkers Increase in the proportion of women working Increase in the number of employees with family responsibilities A different nature and scope of skills required in the workplace Move to more informal patterns of communication via e-mail and internet Increase in global business patterns and cross-cultural relationships Increase in pressures to communicate instantly.

Conclusion Present day work environment is completely changed and shaped. Unlike our parents we can find jobs which suit us, our personalities and our skills, we can enjoy and develop creativeness, uniqueness, imaginative thinking and so on. Organizational development has come so far and in order to survive, organizations had to adapt their internal structures, processes and behaviours in order to cope with the intricacy and the pace of external change. The standard, old bureaucratic types of organizations are replaced by the post-modern organizations, more flexible, better responsive to consumers and their immediate and modern needs, with more perception of the environmental uncertainty that helps determine an appropriate management response to it. The more fluid the inside structure is the better it effectively responds and molds to a disorderly, shape-shifting environment. Nonetheless, there still are successful organizations that use traditional organizational patterns and designs.

Bibliography: Organizational Behaviour Lecture notes 2012 http://www.dol.gov/odep/pdf/NTAR_Employer_Strategies_Report.pdf Romania - History Background - Education, Romanian, Schools, and HungarianStateUniversity.com http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1254/RomaniaHISTORY-BACKGROUND.html#ixzz2IkYJ9qwn http://www.slideshare.net/saransuriyan/organisational-behaviour-ppt