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  • From corporate allegiance to project allegiance

    In the last byte, we looked at the shift from top-down firms of the old career paradigm to organizational empowerment to new career paradigm. In today’s byte, we look at the shift from corporate allegiance model (old paradigm) to project allegiance model (new paradigm).

    We could interpret the change between the two in the following table. 

  • From Top Down to Organizational Empowerment

    In the last byte, we looked at the shift from one-employer focus (old paradigm) to occupational excellence (new paradigm). In today’s byte, we look at the shift from top-down firms of the old career paradigm to organizational empowerment to new career paradigm. 

    We could interpret the change between the two in the following table. 

  • From a single employer focus to Occupational Excellence

    In the last byte, we discuss the shift from Mutual Loyalty Contract (Old Paradigm) to Discrete Exchange (New Paradigm). In today’s byte, we look at the shift from one-employer focus (old paradigm) to occupational excellence (new paradigm). 

    We could interpret the change between the two in the following table:

  • From Mutual Loyalty Contract to Discrete Exchanges

    In the last byte, we looked at the broad categories in which the change from old career paradigm to the new one has occured. We discuss this a bit more closely today on the shift from Mutual Loyalty Contract (Old Paradigm) to Discrete Exchange (New Paradigm). 

    We could interpret the change between the two in the following table. 

  • Changing Paradigm of Careers

    In the last byte, we looked at the definition of career and career management and understood why it would be important for a manager to understand career management. In today’ byte we look at the chaging paradigm of career. 

    The concept of life-time employement in a single organization is almost a reality today – and the challenge is to create a constantly learning organisation. We use the reference book table 17.1 to understand the old and new paradims of career in this byte and the next few.

    We do this on 4 broad heads in which we can look at these transitions:
    • The mutual loyalty contract has given way to Discrete exchange
    • The one-employer focus has given way to occupational excellence
    • The top-down firm structure is now one of organizational empowerment
    • Corporate allegiance has given way to project allegiance
    We shall look at these closely in the next byte.

  • Career and Career Management

    In the last byte, we understood the various paths one could take for a cultural change in their organisation. In today’s byte, we initiate our discussion on careers and career management. 

    We define Career as: The pattern of work-related experiences that span the course of a person’s life. Note here that it is beyond the “job” that one does in an organization – it is just related to the job one pick up as part of the role. 

    Career Management is: a life-long process of learning about self, jobs and organizations; setting personal career goals; developing strategies for achieving those gals, and revising the goals based on work and life experience.  

    As managers we could think of three resons to gain an understanding of career management:
    1. If one know what to look forward to in our career, one could take a proactive step towards planning and managing them.
    2. The experience of employees and coulleagues as they pass through the various stages of careers over their life span could be better understood.
    3. It is a good business! Better trained employees keep up with their fieldds so that organization could protect valuable investment in human resource.

  • Changing Organizational Culture 2

    In the last byte, we began our discussion on changing organizational culture. In today’s byte, we continue looking at the same.

    Referring to the diagram shown in the last byte; there are two approaches to changing the existing culture:
    Path  1: helping current members buy into the new set of values
    Path 2: adding newcomers and socializing them into the organizations and removing current members as appropriate
     
    Lets Explore path 1 first:
    The first action is to change behavior in organization. Behavior is an artifact of culture – so individuals may change heir behavior bu not the values that drive it. Managers must use actions to justify the changed behavior. All artifacts should send consistent message about the new values and beliefs.
     
    Lets now look at path 2:
    The organization can look at revising its selection strategies to more accurately reflect the new culture – and let go of people who resist cultural change.

  • Changing Organizational Culture

    In the last byte, we looked at assessing the organizational culture. In today’s byte, we begin looking at how change in organizational culture could be initiated. 

    We could visualize the process of changing the organizational cultural in the following diagram.


  • Assessing Organization Culture

    In the last byte, we looked at socilization as cultural communication. In today’s byte, we begin look at ways to  assess organization culture. 

    There are two widely used quantitative assessment instruments:
    1. Organizational Culture Inventory (OCI)
    2. Kilmann-Saxton Culture-Gap Survey
    OCI focuses on behaviors that help employees fit into the organization and meet the expectations of coworkers. The two underlying dimensions of the OCI are task/people and security/satisfaction. 

    Kilmann-Saxton Culture-Gap Survey focuses on the gap between what actually happens in the organization and the expectations of others in the organization. It has two underlying dimensions – technical/human and time(short/long). 

    While quantitative methods listed above are precise, comparable and objective – the use of qualitative methods like interviews and observations offer a detailed, descriveptive and unique measure of the scenario. Thus, “Traingulation” methods are generally prefered in study of organizational culture.

  • Socialization as Cultural Communication

    In the last byte, we looked at the outcomes of socialization. In today’s byte, we look at Socialization as cultural communication.

    It could be interesting to note that socialization is definitely a powerful cultural communication tool, but it needs to be understood well: The transmission of information about cultural artifacts is relatively easy, the transmission of values is more difficult. But it is the communication of organizational assumption that is most difficult. 

    The source of this problem is possibly that members of the organization themselves may not be consciously aware of the assumptions and therefore difficult to communicate.

    Socialization serves one primary purpose amongst others – the transmission of core values to new members of the organization. Interaction with role-models, training that newcomers receive, behavior with respect to rewards and punishment etc are all means by which the newcomers are exposed to these values. 

    If newcomers are expected to adopt the values of an organization, it is essential that the message reflect the underlying values of the organization. Both the individuals and organizations should ensure that certain actions are taken for the success of socialization processes.