Organizational Culture � PAGE �10�
Reading an Organization's Culture: General Electric (GE)
Introduction
Every business has its own set of values and beliefs that make up an organizational culture that is unique to each specific business. "_Organizational Culture_ is a complex set of basic underlying assumptions and deeply held beliefs shared by all members of the group that operate at a preconscious level and drive in important ways the behavior of individuals in the organizational context" (Strategy Glossary, 2006). GE's organizational culture is considered one of high ethical standard in the corporate world. According to The Age of Ethics (2007) "_GE now has one of the best ethics compliance programs in existence_, says Larry
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Robbins, S. (2005) describes six variables that are routinely evident in customer-responsive cultures like GE.
Type of Employees: "outgoing and friendly"
Low Formalization: "freedom to meet changing customer-service requirements"
Extension of Low Formalization: widespread use of empowerment i.e. decision discretion to do what is necessary to please the customer.
Good Listening Skills: "listen to and understand messages sent by the customer"
Role Clarity: "Service employees act as _boundary spanners_ between the organization and its customers"
Organizational Citizenship Behavior: employees are conscience of customers needs and go above and beyond the call of duty to satisfy a customer's needs
GE has been able to build such a strong and loyal customer base by meeting each of the six variables described by Robbins. Variable one, type of employee, is met through GE's efforts to provide a diverse work environment. In fact, GE was named among the top 40 best companies for diversity by Black Enterprise Magazine (Employees, 2007). Variables two and three, low formalization and extension of low formalization, is met through GE's efforts to provide employees the freedom to become closer to their customers while finding new operational efficiencies and ways to work toward customer service (Leadership, 2007). Variable four, good listening skills, is
To understand the organizational culture of a company, one needs to start by looking at the history. Lakeshore Learning Materials was born from a divorced mother of three named Ethelyn Kaplan, who took a dream and a chance by moving her family to California in 1954 to open a toy store. When she started noticing that teachers were interested in her material, Ethelyn realized that she needed to expand her business into educational materials. 60 years later, Lakeshore Learning Materials has grown into a company with over 2000 employees, 60 retail stores throughout the United States and growing. Lakeshore Learning Materials is currently headed by Ethelyn’s grandsons, Bo and Josh Kaplan. Under the supervision of Bo and Josh, Lakeshore continues to be a leader in the Educational Materials, yet still able to keep the family culture that their grandmother started. Highest quality customer service and hard work are the core values that shape Lakeshore’s Organizational Strategy. These high expectations aren’t hard for employees at Lakeshore because the company is so loved by everyone that works there, that they give nothing less than the best.
This paper will focus on the Customer Service department at North American Bancard. An overview of the company including the author's role will be explicated. Essential issues, events, and actions to help frame the problem will be identified. The problem statement will be well defined and specific enough for each reader to gain a clear idea of the Organizational Behavior topic and the direction of the research. Each reader will be given an encapsulated review of what information the author found most relevant to the research. The problem will be explored, providing an
An organization’s culture is the sum parts of the institutions values, beliefs, mission and vision. It is impossible to assess an organization’s culture without looking at the leadership within the organization. It is the leaders of an organization that actively participate in the goalsetting that perpetuates the organizational culture. The U. S. Public Health system is a complex network of federal, state and local organizations aimed at delivering health care services throughout the United States (Mays, Scutchfield, Bhandari, & Smith, 2010). Local health departments (LHD) service the entire country and in some instances are the only source of health care services in certain communities (Ransom, Schaff, & Kan, 2012). The LHD is the most basic level of the public health care system and impacts communities and outcomes more so than agencies at the state or federal level (Ransom, Schaff, & Kan, 2012). The local community or county health department’s mission is to promote health,
The current organizational culture type of my organization is Clan, based on the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument. Schein’s Three-Layer Organizational Model has three levels: artifacts, adopted behaviors and basic assumptions. Artifacts are made up of things that can be seen and felt. My organization has a relaxed dress code, which is considered a normal value for our organization. The office is in our family home, which provides a warm and welcoming atmosphere. We have several special dinners each year to celebrate our business. Outsiders would easily recognize these artifacts, and therefore these artifacts are a part of the work culture of my organization.
In the article “How Nordstrom Built The World’s Best Customer Service Machine,” by Toller (2015), states that Nordstrom’s massive success is highly attributed to its single rule: “Use good judgment at all times.” Nordstrom for more than a century now, is one of the most popular fashion-oriented retail companies ever existent in the history of business. Its simple and precise rule is the core reason as to why employees are self-driven to work passionately, each striving to provide the finest of customer service. Thus, today, Nordstrom stands solely as a company that has succeeded in exemplifying the relationship between employee empowerment and excellent customer service. Unlike Target, it has strongly managed to convince Canadians, with its exceptional, high-quality services and exclusive taste of products, stocked in abundance. Therefore, the purpose of this essay is to analyze three business strategies implemented by Nordstrom, to outcompete its rivals. The first concept is, Nordstrom’s ability to incredibly exhibit soaring levels of social responsibility, leading to its astonishing achievement. The second concept is Nordstrom’s immense investment in technology to serve customers better. Lastly, the third concept is the ability for Nordstrom to impressively conduct employee empowerment.
Organizational culture at our place of employment can promote improved patient outcomes. How we feel about ourselves, our personal investment and our relationship to our work environment are additional factors that contribute to patient satisfaction and our sense of professionalism and accomplishment (Manojlovich & Ketefian, 2002). We will look at the role of our organizational structure and its impact and contribution to the issues involving Nurse A.
Culture, climate, and ethical decisions are a significant part of the organizations. The organizational culture refers to the values and the beliefs that exist in an organization for a long time and the beliefs of staff and the foreseen value of their job that will influence their behavior and attitude. The organizational climate is considered as the shared perceptions of and meaning attached to the practices, policies, and the procedures employees experience and behaviors they observe getting the reward, and that are expected and supported. The organizational culture and organizational climate tend to be two alternative aspects for conceptualizing how people experience and describe their work settings. The organizational ethics are considered as the standards and principles in which the business operates. The organizational ethics is normally dependent on organizational culture. Ethical organizational culture does consist of employees and leaders who adhere to the code of ethics.
The author knows that a business will not succeed if the employees do not give the customers a quality customer service. Customers are most likely to come back to a place where they feel welcome, where they feel like they are being well treated.
Improving customer service, offering them the best selection, quality, and value (Company History, n.d.) is at the core of the business. The company is committed to the customer’s experience and tailors the business “through the eyes of our customers” as “listening to the customer has never been more important” (Annual Reports, 2014). Additionally, the company offers a variety of brands and services to serve
Relevancy: Procedural justice also contributes to the determinants of organizational citizenship behaviour, which is one of the objectives of this paper. Thus, it can be taken from this study that increase in perception of
individuals in high management and all those working in the organization. All individuals have their own interpretation of what the rules are and the ethical climate of the organization. This is further explained by the Stages of Moral Development as described in Chapter 2 of the text. For example, an individual in the obedience and punishment orientation will perceive things differently than an individual in the social contract
Organizational Citizenship Behavior and Social Loafing: The Role of Personality, Motives, and Contextual Factors by Tan and Tan (2008) focuses on the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior, OCB, and social loafing. OCB is chosen because it contributes to productivity and effectiveness. Conscientiousness is identified as a predictor of OCB (Tan and Tan, 90). They suggest that a person lacking conscientiousness would be prone to social loafing. The lack of conscientiousness leads to undependable, less motivated behaviors. These are associated with social loafing.
The critical factors in the successful transformation of British Airways were changing the culture of the organization for the employees and the consumers. British Airways embarked on an aggressive media campaign that helped change the “face” of the airline. Their new tag line was “The worlds favourite airline”. Customer service became the number one priority for all employees. Lead by Colin Marshall, “an enabling culture (was put) in place to allow customer service to come out, where rather than people waiting to be told what to do to do things better, it’s an environment where people feel they can actually come out with ideas, that they will be listened to, and feel they are much more a part of the success of the company” Jick (2011)(p.30). A “Putting People First” (PFF) program was instituted for all front line employees. This helped to unify the employees with the new vision of customer service first for the company. During these two day mandatory meetings, all front line staff interacted with all levels of managers and leaders on an even playing
Within this new business environment that GE was facing, customers needs, wants and expectations of what products can offer them is forever changing. Immelt saw and understood this from the amount of time spent with customers, and implemented this idea within GE through the IT
Title: Discuss the four dimensions of customer service in a company. Give examples to illustrate your points.