Organizational Culture of USPVision Report (Assessment)

USPVision can be considered an organization with poorly developed structure, vision, philosophy, and objectives. Lack of responsibilities, communication, and decision-making techniques prevent the company from developing a meaningful pattern of coordinating people. This is of particular concern to the leadership styles implemented by Bob and Martin, the owners of the organization.

The problem is that the managers are focused on developing the actual business and gaining profits, but not on creating organizational culture and values. Ignorance of long-term organizational objectives does not allow the employees to be more committed to those goals. Lack of responsibilities leads to employees’ discouragement and reluctance to increase their performance.

What is more threatening is that managers are unable to introduce integrity and shared decision making that would guide action and interpretation within the organization, as well as identify a set of rules and principles which should be followed by employees.

The main aspects of the case shed light on the evident problem existing in the company. Specific emphasis should be placed on such aspects as organizational culture development, structural organization, leadership skills and styles, and employees’ motivation. In-depth discussion and evaluation of the identified components will help the company to overcome difficulties, increase their profits, and strengthen their position at the global market.

Indeed, further negligence of company’s values, missions, and perceptions that would increase competitiveness. In addition, USPVision should shape new ethical and moral principles, as well as consider the concept of cultural diversity in an organization, which is of especial importance for the company working in various countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States.

Main Discussion

Overview of Relevant Theories

While considering the framework within which organizational culture is shaped, it is purposeful to understand that it is premised primarily on the interaction between individual and organization leading to specific processes, including maintenance, evaluation, training, R & D, and operational processes.

Thus, organizational culture can be perceived and estimated through these various processes, including personnel ad business evaluations. In addition, the initiated processes also have certain outcomes for organizational culture, which leads to certain changes. Therefore, corporate values should constantly evolve to improve company’s objectives and performance.

According to De Witte (2000), “organizational culture is a socially constructed system of shared beliefs and values” which shape the company’s vision and mission (p. 497). Therefore, it is important for managers to work out specific strategies and visions because it can help the individuals to make the organizational process more attractive, flexible, realistic, and communicable.

However, developing an effective and distinct vision is often a serious challenge for managers because the successful development of organizational culture depends largely on the successful integration of leadership styles. At this point, “organization not only needs leaders at the top, but at all levels” (De Witte 2000, p. 499).

Shifts in leadership styles must be implemented to understand the significance of organizational culture change. At the same time, excessive flexibility and changes do not contribute to establishing stable management team that would guide the organization out of crisis.

Thus, substantial organizational culture should introduce changes to leaderships whereas ongoing changes can be controlled by the present leaders who should develop and demonstrate new competences, as well as distribute appropriate moral and ethical values for the purpose of managing and reducing conflicts.

Organizational culture is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that is reflected through hidden assumptions, human nature, and behavioral patterns. Therefore, it is important for the company’s leaders to understand the role of evaluating organizational culture from various angles, including values, artifacts, and assumptions. The extent to which a corporate culture is overt has a potent impact on how organizational culture can be altered and managed.

Once organizational culture-changing process includes the shifts in behavioral patterns and artifacts, it occurs with a higher level of effectiveness. In order to integrate the change process, specific attention should be given to deeper levels of organizational change, including human nature, values, and ideologies.

Overall assessment of changes reveals, “…evolvement of an organizational culture consistent with the vision and strategy leads to an effective and competitive organization” (De Witte 2000, p. 501). Thus, changes occurred to deeper levels of organizational culture are closely associated with human psychology that influences organizational behavior.

In order to work out effective strategies for motivating employees, it is necessary to analyze perceptions, attitudes, and personality of people. According to Champoux (2010), “perception is a cognitive process that lets a person make sense of stimuli from the environment” (p. 101). The stimuli influence all types of senses, including touch, smell, hearing, taste, and sight; they can derive from various events, people and objects outside the organization.

The perceptual process involves a reaction to stimuli and change processes occurred to an organization. Thus, human perception is a mechanism that allows people to adjust to constantly changing environments. There are several aspects of the perceptual process, including the person, the situation, and the person-s behavior. These impressions are based on physical features, human qualities, and stereotypes.

Therefore, people have different views on how to behave in various situations (Champoux 2010). As people analyze and evaluate behavioral patterns observed in other people, they search for the underpinnings of these behaviors to explain certain phenomena.

This conception is defined as attribution process which “…begins with a quick personal attribution followed by some adjustment based on the characteristics of the situation” (Champoux 2010, p.104). Specifically, the process accumulates specific behavioral patterns, as well as how these patterns could be applied to a specific situation.

Attitudes are of great significance because they link individuals’ perception to their behavior and their world. Therefore, attitudes should be important for managers because employee’s poor work performance is strongly associated with his/her bad attitude to work and responsibilities. In this respect, an attitude is defined as “a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object” (Champoux 2010, p. 106).

Attitudes are strongly connected with behavior and, therefore, managers often affect employees’ attitude to improve their behaviors and direct them at enhancing their performance and improving motivation. In case a manager plans to integrate change process, it is necessary to define reasons for shifting the attitudes, the newly established norms and beliefs within a company, as well as how employees’ moral principles can be adjusted to company’s philosophy.

Organizational culture influences greatly the organizational performance. The concept of performance refers to “the degree of achievement of the mission at workplace that builds up an employee job” (Shahzad et al. 2012, p. 979). Thus, performance denotes the range of assessments of efficiency of input and output operations, as well as transactional operations.

It should be stressed that performance is a long-term process that identifies organization’s capability to reach its objectives in an efficient and effective way. The connection between performance and organizational culture is based on the assumption that the latter plays a vital role in enhancing the organization’s competitive advantage (Shahzad et al. 2012).

Thus, because organizational culture can be regulated at a managerial level, it can control employees’ incentives. Therefore, it is possible to persuade that the goals of employees coincide with those that are established in an organization. In addition, because the concept of organizational culture is directly associated with learning and development, it has much in common with performance because it identifies the degree of employees’ competence and understanding of their roles and responsibilities.

With regard to the above-presented considerations, a strong corporate culture can be regarded as a driven force that enhances the employees’ performance. Moreover, it enhances, employees’ commitment and self-confidence, as well as eliminates job stress and advances ethical behavior. As a result, the organizational environment creates favorable conditions for working and interacting, which, in turn, allows managers to achieve their business goals.

The necessity of introducing effective organizational structure is urgent for each company striving to achieve success and gain a competitive advantage over other companies at the market. In this respect, Fegh-hi (2010) argues, “organizational structure provides the overall framework for strategy implementation, it is not in itself sufficient to ensure successful execution” (p. 11).

Within this context, individuals and groups constitute the mechanism by means of which the effectiveness of organizational action is achieved. Once the company’s strategy and philosophy are formulated, managerial department must start defining the organizational structure because it is among the priorities necessary for implementing a number of short-term and long-term objectives.

Managers should know that engaging the staff into specific actions is ineffective unless a specific kind of organizational structure is established to distribute responsibilities and duties to people and link those to the functions and activities of each department. A company, therefore, should be designed in a strategic way so as to adhere to a specific strategy.

Due to the fact that many challenges occur when companies start expand its business, much greater responsibilities are imposed on managerial staff. As a result, strategic managers fail to control the subordinate relations, which leads to loss of control of all actions at various organizational levels in a company.

Fegh-hi (2010) states, “designing the right mix of structure and control at the business level is a continuation of designing a company’s functional department through integration…and differentiation” (p. 12).

Evidence proves that strategic management, organizational structure, and performance constitute the key aspects of carrying out business and, therefore, if companies do not introduce changes to their structures, they will fail to increase their performance levels. At the organizational level, a company should design the structure system that will allow it to control a set of business tasks, as well as increase the company’s profits.

As it has been mentioned previously, organizational structure has a potent impact on organizational performance. In this respect, successful performance justifies the company’s structure. However, in case certain difficulties are connected with increasing company’s profits, specific attention should be given to company’s structure that can be changed, managed, and generated.

At any time stage, the company’ structure reflects the quality and quantity of human and financial resources that a firm can use. In order to improve organizational performance, the managers should aim to select appropriate performance standards that would assess general corporate performance of a company. The assessment measurement should be associated with organizational activities that are necessary to reach the strategic goals at each level of an organization.

Choosing relevant standards for estimating performance is among the most significant decisions that managers should make because the established standards identity company’s further activities (Fegh-hi 2010). Thus, once the principles and quality standards are established, the managers can continue implementing new training programs that would increase competencies and shed light on employees’ responsibilities.

Organizational structure can contribute greatly to a rational and effective distribution of responsibilities and duties among the personnel. Thus, each department should be directly involved into a set of specific tasks. At the same time, the managers of each department should be able to communicate effectively to achieve organizational objectives.

Thus, communication and shared decision-making are at the core of organizational values. According to Keyton (2011), “the link between organizational culture and communication becomes salient when employees or managers want to change something about the organization” (p. 29).

In fact, employees at various levels state that communication is a serious challenge in their organization. Despite the problem, communication is often neglected in case organizational profits are high and is frequently blamed as soon as organization has difficulties.

Therefore, communication plays an important role in sustaining and improving organizational cultures, as well as shaping an understanding of corporate culture. In addition, values and culture help individuals reach their professional and personal goals (Keyton 2011). At the same time, organizational culture has principles and values that influence communication, which contributes to changing processes within an organization.

Apart from functional aspects, communication serves as a basis for interaction between stakeholders of an organization, including employees, customers, suppliers, and owners. In this respect, different functions and purposes of communication emerge. For instance, organizational communication can seek to socialize with new members and recruit new employees. Some communication strategies are used to structure and control organization.

Some communication techniques are aimed at coordinating and negotiating organizational activities that enhance productivity. Finally, the main function of communication can be dedicated to placing an organization within society and marketplace (Keyton 2011). It is important for managers to distinguish between business communication and organizational communication.

In particular, they should pay attention to business communication, which involves “…the activities of leadership, supervision, decision making, managing conflict, hiring, and firing” Keyton 2011, p. 12). In contrast, organizational communication involves regular interactions among the organization’s personnel, including personal and information stories, conversations and gossips, which also constitute the part of socialization in the corporate environment.

The importance of organizational communication increases as soon as it relates to the task assigned to employees. Formal and informal communication combined, a content of an organizational environment can be understood and interpreted. Managers should realize that one person cannot achieve successful communication and dictate other people to respond to conversations.

Therefore, communication is a social interaction based on mutual consent. It is also “…a complex and continuous process through which organizational members create, maintain, and change the organization” (Keyton 2011, p. 12). The definition implies that communication cannot be regarded as a privilege of senior managers because their subordinates also play an important role in filling their messages with meaning.

Inappropriate organizational communication is the consequence of managers’ inappropriate behavior. In fact, reluctance of owners to introduce a strict distribution of job responsibilities can lead to failure of establishing control of all business operations within a company. From a followership perspective, it is natural that negative managerial behaviors create problematic behaviors among the employees. Similarly, good and supporting managerial behaviors influence positively on the attitudes and perceptions of employees.

In order to understand what exact reaction of employees to improper managerial behaviors, it is purposeful to define the reasons and characteristics of managers’ behavior. In this respect, Hernes and Brænden (2012) have revealed the case of inappropriate managers’ behavior leaving a bad impression on the personnel.

The cases reflect such professional and organizational gaps as managers’ failure to establish standards for employees, modify social engagement, as well as introduce instructions for acting out a case of emergency. In addition, managers’ negligence has a serious impact on employment principles because of low stability and high controllability.

With regard to the analysis of the above-presented assumptions, managerial behavior has a direct influence on organization’s performance and productivity. In this respect, managers striving to improve the employed environment in a company should be able to introduce appropriate measures and solutions, as well as express their concern with the situation.

Specific emphasis should be placed on shaping pro-organizational behavior to encourage better performance and increase employees’ awareness and commitment to their duties and responsibilities. In order to define the strategies according to which managerial behavior could be adjusted to the environment, it is purposeful to address the Myers-Briggs Personality Test that would allow leaders to define the features and functions they should possess to communicate effectively with their employees.

In this respect, Sieff (2009) argues that, due to the existing variety of personality types, leaders should be able to adjust to those types and introduce flexible schemes of managing and settling conflicts. At the same time, the researcher attributes perception to the most common function that all leaders should possess while managing human resources (Sieff 2009).

As per other indicators, including intuition and sensing, as well as thinking and feeling, specific the preferences of functions is given in accordance with the type of managerial position. For instance, line managers should be more concerned with sensing whereas external managers dealing stakeholders should develop sensing functions.

Discussion of the Topic

The analysis of the above-presented theories, concepts, and assumptions open a wider picture on the situation at USPVision, as well as managerial problems that Martin and Bon experience. In particular, the organization fails to adhere to any of the mentioned scheme and, as a result, their company will eventually experience a serious economic and financial crisis.

In order to prevent the crisis, the managers should be ready to adapt new visions, strategies, and mechanisms in the sphere of organizational culture, employees’ engagement, communication, change management, leadership styles, and managerial behaviors. All these fields should not be considered in isolation. Rather, Bob and Martin should provide an action plan that will involve a multi-dimensional approach to management.

Apart from the interconnected actions and measures integrated into a plan, there should be a sequence of action that would prepare employees and line managers for changes because the plan implies total reconstruction of structure and vision of the company.

Applying Theories in Context

Organizational Culture

USPVision does not have a distinct mission, vision, and philosophy in accordance to which employees introduce their achievements and contributions. Instead, Bob and Martin are focused more on increasing profits, expanding, and regulating the operational process. In order to promote the company at higher organizational level, the owners should introduce a strict vision that would form company’s main objectives and establish a specific course.

For instance, because the company specializes in selling audio-video products, they should place an emphasis on the quality and variety of the outputs they can offer to their customers. Thus, they slogan can sound as follows: “USPVision cares about quality and comfortableness of our customers’ time.

See and listen to the best”. Such a marketing approach will also change the employees’ attitude to their responsibilities. They will receive a strict orientation on producing high-quality audio and video commodities. An accurately shaped vision, therefore, indirectly influences employees’ awareness and commitment to what they are doing.

The next step to improving organizational culture should involve introduction of training programs and performance appraisal schemes for line-managers, supervisors, and their subordinates to make the personnel realize the level of their competencies, experiences, and skills.

Within these perspectives, managers should pay attention to the establishment of appropriate behavioral patterns for employees. In addition, they should also be concerned with establishing favorable and trustful relationship between line managers and their subordinates, which will also ensure effective communication and transparent information exchange.

Structure

The managerial staff of USPVision should be aware of the fact that a lack of structural and organization mechanisms controlling operating and decision-making mechanisms can cause serious problems to organization’s image and competitiveness. Because Bob and Martin have taken the course on expansion, they should also pay close attention to the organizational hierarchy.

Specifically, they should appoint managers in various cities, including London, L.A. and Prague who would report to them about possible changes, tendencies and problems. The managers should also be responsible for minor decisions in their own subsidiaries. In particular, they should be able to control the work of departments and give orders at various levels.

Aside from the information exchange between owners and their chief executive officers, internal structures of subsidiaries should also be considered in more detail. Specifically, the owners should ensure that each filial has all necessary departments responsible for various processes, including maintenance department, human resources department, R & D department, marketing department, advertising department, etc. Departments should interact with each other to achieve the organizational goals effectively.

Leadership

Effective leadership technique is another effective way to change the future of the company for the better. The point is that neither Bob nor Martin have worked out effective leadership approaches to manage organization effectively, to motivate employees, and to introduce new incentives for professional development and growth. In this respect, the best leadership style that should be implemented is transformational.

Managers should also be aware of the fact that learning organization also serves as a medium for shaping a leadership style and increasing financial performance. According to Sahaya (2012), “transformational leaders not only exchange between rewards and the leaders’ requirement but also motivate the followers to transcend their self-interest for the goals” (p. 97).

Moreover, they can also change employees’ behavior, as well as shape their visions on organizational growth, personal achievement, and the overall performance of the company.

In this respect, transformational leadership styles contribute greatly to the new vision of company and its course on radical structural and organizational changes. Shifts in leadership styles requires Bob and Martin think overtraining program that would help them acquire necessary knowledge, skills, and competences to control their employees and handle their company effectively.

As soon as leadership style changes, employees will be forced to change their behaviors and attitudes to adjust to a new organizational environment. In order to overcome the obstacles, employees should be oriented on advancing their behaviors and become more flexible to changes.

Khan et al. (2012) have found, “innovation is organizations is effected by a wide variety of factors; the most influential factor is leadership style in which transformational leadership has found to be significantly correlated with the innovative work behavior in the organizations” (p. 20).

Hence, innovation should develop in congruence with leadership transformation. New visions and constant development and improvement should be at the core of management and leadership.

More importantly, USPVision should also develop transformative leadership style among new chief executive officers that Bob and Martin should appoint to allocate responsibilities and resources in a more efficient and effective way. In general, the company must adjust to the new trends in guiding companies to keep pace of the changes and face the challenges of a competitive global environment.

Employees’ Motivation

Employee motivation largely depends on managers’ incentives and motivation to introduce reorganization of their company. Strong connection between motivation and performance is also evident and, therefore, company’s leader should pay closer attention to reward programs, social schemes, and recruitment culture.

There should be a specific code of conduct in accordance with which employees will strive to reach organizational goals and adhere to existing ethical and legal standards. In addition, managers should develop a scheme that would employees’ innovative ideas and creative thinking.

According to Fernandez and Pitts (2011), rewarding should serve as a powerful motivational tool for enhancing employees’ innovative and creative behavior. In order to empower employees, managers should consult with their subordinates and share their views and decisions about a certain problem, they should allow employees to take part in decision making and even encourage them to delegate with the managers. In this respect, empowerment creates a favorable climate for workers to think beyond standards processes and operations.

To influence employees’ motivation and enhance their incentives, managers should shape the concept of an ambidextrous company as a means to promote innovations. In these perspectives, employees are encourage to work out more radical concepts without fear of being disapproved in case their ideas are not appropriate. Such a change is especially appropriate for an organization because it primarily specialization is video and audio technology.

As soon as the course on innovation is taken, managers can move further toward the goal of job satisfaction and transparent information sharing. These goals will be significantly advanced as soon as appropriate development and training schemes are integrated.

According to Fernandez and Pitts (2011), “employees enhance their capability and skills needed to perform their work through training and development, undertaken onsite as well as offsite, and based on learning from theory and practice” (p. 209). Training and development serve as an important way to diffuse innovations whereas employees perform the role of actors who create effective ideas that can be applicable to introduce innovations. At the same time, innovation is also a means of improving employees’ performance.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Evaluation of existing theories, concepts, and frameworks dedicated to leadership, organizational culture, structure, employees’ engagement, and innovation is a valuable contribution to the action plan that should be introduced to USPVision. Indeed, the company is under the threat of failure because inappropriate corporate policies and absence of appropriate managerial hierarchies.

Total reconsideration of company’s policies has provided controversy concerning the strategies and change that it should face to improve the situation. To begin with, the owners should pay specific attention to company’s mission and visions because it deprives employees and their managers of the actual objectives and goals.

Once the mission and purpose are created, Bob and Martin should improve organizational process and reconsider their attitude to human resources management. In particular, they should study the role of changing process in shaping behavioral patterns, perceptions, and attitudes. Further, the USPVision should undergo total restructure to improve managerial hierarchy and distribute responsibilities among the personnel.

Using this direction will help Bob and Martin to expand their organization and promote organizational performance. Finally, executive managers should introduce shifts to leadership style and enhance employees’ motivation and productivity. The latter is possible through integration of innovative thinking and creative ideas to the production process. In general, all these measures should be integrated in a consistent way for a company to handle all the changes effectively.

Reference List

Champoux, J. 2010, Organizational Behavior: Integrating Individuals, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis, US.

De Witte, K. 2000, Organizational Culture, Psychology Press, US.

Fegh-hi, N. 2010, ‘Strategic Structure for Organizational Performance’, International Journal of Management & Innovation, 2, 2, pp. 9-23.

Fernandez, S., & Pitts, D. W. (2011). Understanding Employee Motivation to Innovate: Evidence from Front Line Employees in United States Federal Agencies. Australian Journal Of Public Administration, 70(2), 202-222.

Hernes, H., & Brænden, L. 2012, ‘Employees’ Reactions to Imperfect Managerial Behaviors’, International Journal Of Business & Social Science, 3, 8, pp. 181-189.

Keyton, J. 2011, Communication and Organizational Culture: A Key to Understanding Work Epxeriences, SAGE, US.

Khan, M., Aslam, N., & Riaz, M. (2012). Leadership Styles as Predictors of Innovative Work Behavior. Pakistan Journal Of Social & Clinical Psychology, 9(4), 18-23

Sahaya, N. 2012, ‘A Learning Organization as a Mediator of Leadership Style and Firms’ Financial Performance’, International Journal Of Business & Management, 7, 14, pp. 96-113

Shahzad, F., Luqman, R., Khan, A., & Shabbir, L. 2012, ‘Impact of Organizational Culture on Organizational Performance: An Overview’, Interdisciplinary Journal Of Contemporary Research In Business, 3, 9, pp. 975-985.

Sieff, G. 2009, ‘Personality Type and Leadership Focus: Relationship Between Self And Line-Manager Perceptions’, South African Journal Of Human Resource Management, 7, 1, 63-73.