Organizational Culture and Leadership: Impact on Innovation and Global Operations

The influence, both positive and negative, of culture and values on business organizations

Business organizations have been influenced both negatively and positively by culture and values. Organizational culture and cultural diversity are contexts that dominate the area of leadership, employees’ development, and innovation in most organizations. In most organizational contexts, it is believed that culture affects innovation-related behaviors in many ways. The effect of organizational culture either may directly or indirectly affect organizational improvement about external rivalry, the dimension of the firm, technical variables, and managerial competencies. An organization with well-built cultural ethics such as the Toyota Company may not be stalled since other cultural aspects may help the production performance. For instance, employees could make morals and norms that emphasize openness to newly crafted ideas and innovation thus making the next activities and practices to augment the productive capacity of an individual innovativeness (Mohanty & Rath, 2012). In this company, the efficiency of modernization might be affected by optimistic group value plans that direct and inspire people towards innovation.

Organizational culture normally enables employees to assist and support one another in growing thoughts and accomplishing tasks. Other groups, however, tend to encourage seclusion through demoralizing teamwork and support hence reducing the capacity to innovate. In some groups, culture may stipulate individuals’ involvement in informal education or training programs that would enhance capacity expansion. There are other culturally formed groups in organizations that tend to discourage learning and the ability to generate new ideas. Thus, to increase the level of individuals’ dedication and involvement to innovate, act freely, and come up with fresh ideas, and organizational culture must compel its workforce to participate in the decision-making process.

Do you think multiple cultures working together result in greater cooperation or greater conflict? Why?

Multiple cultures working together might not result in greater cooperation. This is because cultural differences influence corporate culture in different countries. Management functions directed towards maintaining and improving corporate culture become more complex as the firm’s activities expand internationally (Liker & Hoseus, 2008). The coordination of organizational and decision-making issues also becomes much difficult. Managers fight in vain to create a corporate culture that balances the needs of the foreign markets and cultural disparities on important organization issues such as evaluation, innovation, compensation packages, and promotion policies.

Organizational corporate culture becomes especially complicated at the global level since the desires, attitudes, and values of employees differ across countries. Again, the issues of coordinating activities to match the organizational environment become more complicated as firms expand internationally and operate in multiple cultures (Scheffknecht, 2011). Workforce diversity is also a big challenge to managers wishing to change an existing organizational culture. While an organization is legally and socially committed, it must include employees from different environments. Some organizations are not sensitive to diversity issues while others have overemphasized on the issue. The demographic composition of workers has changed considerably meaning that managers must address this cause when fostering or changing organizational. While this is an important consideration to managers, some existing organizational cultures discourage such efforts to the extent of justifying that diversification lowers the quality of management (Bradley & Byrne, 2007). The belief makes it difficult for managers to change the culture, as it requires the commitment of both the manager and employees.

Why and under what conditions are people willing to violate their values at work?

People would be willing to violate their values at work when the organizational culture emphasizes norms and values that are hardly in line with their desires and expectations. In fact, changes in organizational culture that would drive employees out of their comfort zones would prompt them to violate their work values. For instance, if an employee is required to change his roles and designation accompanied by a deduction in salary, such a worker would violate the values at work to remain in the same comfort zone.

Conversely, organizations are increasingly operating in uncertain, decentralized, and networked environments, where the adoption of creative ideas has become essential to organizational change. Indeed, organizational cultures institutionally shape the way firms choose to us