Term Paper

on
Organizational
Culture

Submitted By: Sushant Bhattarai

MBA Evening, Trimester IV, Section A

Descriptive Submitted To: Mr. Madan Pradhan

Course Instructor
Presentation
Organizational Behavior and Learning
1. Using Hofstede’s cross-cultural dimension framework, how would you describe the
culture of your present organization? Explain.
Answer:

Geert Hofstede is Dutch social psychologist who explained that the organizational culture is a set
of unwritten rules that define the actions and interactions of an individual or a specific group and
explains why they behave the way they do. Hofstede presents five cultural dimensions which can
be applied to an organizational context for understanding the specific culture that exists in the
organization. At present, I am working in accounting firm, and in the following ways I believe
that Hofstede’s cultural dimension can be applied to identify the culture in our organization.

Power Distance:
Hofstede defines power distance to be measurement of layers that exists in between an employee
and the highest level management in the organization. In the organization that I work in, we have
power distance dimension of three. If I have an issue or document that needed to be approved,
first it is presented to my immediate supervisor who was third in hierarchical power and My
immediate supervisor ask for approval to general manager (charter accountant) and finally to the
chief executive officer (CEO). This shows the important issues, idea and plan needed to go
through three layers and if any one of the layers doesn’t approve then entire idea will have to be
dropped or issues might be resolve through any one layer. It is time consuming to find any
immediate solution for issue and also at times message; ideas are not convey as intended my
employee to the higher authority. Due to this, as explained by Hofsted, at times I feel that
contribution matters less to the company.

Individualism:
Individualism is a dimension which measures the extent to which an individual maintains their
unique attributes and at the same time also is able to become integrated into the collective group.
In the organization, I as an individual have been able to progress and establish my position along
with gaining experience from past 2.5 years. My personal attributes help me to create value and
appreciation in the organization. At the same time I do not feel that the other employees in the
organization are just 8 hour colleagues, but more like units of a family. There is mutual
understanding and respect between the colleagues and me not only inside the organizational
boundary but also outside the organizational setting. I support the members of the organization
when we work and I also expect to receive the same level of support and cooperation from the
organizational members. Hence, in Hofsted’s terms, I consider myself to be a collectivist
employee.

Masculinity:
The department I work was supervise and led by female, he departmental members are quite
preserved and patient when it comes to dealing with the other members of the organization.
However, the organization itself operates on a masculine culture. As the organization is dealing
with financial work so low error, accurate and timely completions are imbedded in the workplace.
Strong and firm decisions are taken on the basis of performance and there is intolerance for lower
performance. The organizational members are rather competitive and are cultured to compete to
establish their place in the organization. Also there exists a stereotype that females could be less
productive than the males based on many cases seen and observed in the organization.

Uncertainty Avoidance:
According to Hofstede, uncertainty avoidance refers to the comfort of the employees with the
unstructured environment. The organization that I work has well structured system that promotes
efficiency and effectiveness. Due to this structure system there is lower uncertainty avoidance as
there are formal written codes of conduct and panning for different scenario that can occur in the
organization. This structure system helps to identifie and take control measure in extreme
situations. Also, when unexpected situations have risen, some certain conflict and confusion
seems to arise.

Long Term Orientation:

The organization I work in shows the trends of Long Term Orientation. As explained by
Hofstede, organization that show a long term orientation have a respect for hierarchy and also do
not expect any favor or gifts from others. The organization I work in, i.e. a commercial bank has a
respect for the existing hierarchy, i.e. everything that is happening or is expected to happen in the
organization is communicated to the head of the organization through a well defined hierarchy.
Also, it is against the ethics of the organization to accept or expect any form of gifts or favors
from the customers, clients or any other stakeholders in the organization. The leader of the
organization i.e. the CEO is highly respected and sought for when it comes to looking forward for
direction or advice in the organization.
2. How is your OBL Instructor contributing to the making of OBL classroom culture and
how is he being impacted from it?
Answer:

Organizational Behavior is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups
and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge
toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.

Organization Behavior and Learning before the experience with our present instructor it used to
be a completely book and slides dependent theoretical classes. In past learning phase the
instructor would read out the points from the book or slides and we were asked to read the
contents of the book without any understanding of the subject matter. However, at present OBL
has provided us an engaging environment for more of a learning experience rather than a one way
lecture experience. On a regular basis, along with the course materials, practical and meaningful
classroom based observations are made by the instructor which providing us with real life new
experience and also a knowledgeable for the students in learning organizational behavior, human
behavior to be precise. OBL shows us the importance of various skills i.e. Soft skills and hard
skill which are needed in an organizational setting. Human behavior is enticed by incentives or an
exchange, which is presented by when our instructor using some classic practical examples in the
class. Such as offering internal grade points for being attentive in the class, taking surprise class
tests or grading exercises when the class attendance is not dense. While these exercises seem fun
and a refresher to the human mind, they hold a deep meaning, i.e. we offer our alertness and
attention only when we are offered something in exchange that becomes a factor of an advantage
to all of us in the class.

The course instructor explain the subject matter to the students with simple yet ignored real life
behavior as examples to convey to us the real meaning of human behavior and information
processing. Due to this while listening and applying the knowledge in our behavior we realized
that every one of us posses attributes which are unique to an individual separating us from one
another. A good example of this would be the perception exercise done through story telling
within the online lecture, where for the same given scenario every single person had interpreted a
different meaning. This shows the cognitive functioning of each individual is different because of
which the same scenario is imagined and re-imagined in a different manner as per the personal
experience and understanding, which explains that perception is merely a process of selective
cognition. The instructor expects the classroom culture to foster as a two way information
exchange session which is very much difficult as well as essential in an online setting for proper
understanding, which has been successful at times, however, at times the students do not respond,
which is also another efficient means of measuring human behavior, i.e. people are concerned
about what others would think of the if they spit out an answer that is not at all expected.

The culture of classroom acts as a demonstration of human behavior, exchange oriented learning
and learning through experience and interaction has been established in the classroom. The course
also shows the students have been affected by the culture of Organization Behavior and Learning
established in the classroom, the impact of the knowledge gather through the course has also been
experienced by the instructor. The results that are obtained from the classroom are pretty much as
expected by the course instructor, however, through the established classroom culture; the course
instructor has been able to identify at least one of the several traits of every individual within the
classroom. The ones that are able to interact and shared valuable experience have been well
recognized by the instructor and through the interaction he has been successful in understanding
most of us thinking process to help us enhance our strengths and work on our weaker aspects to
convert them to added advantage as well as personal growth. The instructor recognized most
individual traits and behavior in the class, as per the understanding he has provided us with
several learning exercise and examples to develop our knowledge for the real world.

The acceptance of the teaching and learning methodology introduced by the instructor has been
positively accepted by the students, which in turn has supported and motivated the instructor to
carry out better and experience enhancing learning sessions. The things we learn in the OBL
classes can be used in our personal and most importantly professional life. The course is based
upon real life scenario and theories that are clearly seen being used in organizational setting.
Overall, the class has had a positive impact to the instructor and there have been no instances of
abnormal or unexpected incidents that have ever disturbed the organized flow of the classroom
culture. The effort of instructor can be easily seen through his in depth knowledge as well as
proper technique and tool used for grabbing attention as well as providing adequate information
that can be understood by the students