Management and Organisations in a Global Environment
1. Choose 3 activities from week 1 to week 5(can only pick 1 activity from the week). Based on the activities, you are required actively to engage with the material by writing a short discussion of how the material that was prescribed relates to the topic(s) of this subject and how it relates to your own personal experience. In the blog, you mention any extra material relevant to the activity that you have researched on the net.
2. Each blog should be in two sections(250-300 words):
Section 1: lists the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed activity.
Section 2: you apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organisation you know and to the topic(s) of this subject.
3. After finished 3 blogs, two blogs selected to complete a report(1000 words)
Report instruction:
1. Executive summary
2. Introduction
3. Main body
4. Conclusion
5. References
Instruction:
In your blog, you should address the following two sections:
(1) Section 1: list the key ideas you have extracted from the prescribed e-learning activity.
(2) Section 2: apply those ideas to your own experience, to an organisation you know and to the topic(s) of this subject.
Visit the following URLs, and use ‘Questions to consider’ to guide your thinking.
Week 1:
Activity 1: Ford and Taylorism
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PdmNbqtDdI
Questions to consider:
1. Would workers in Australia, America or Europe accept the Taylorism in this form today?
2. Consider the design of scripts for use in Call Centres, can you see Taylorism in that? Explain.
3. This ‘clip’ is showing history from 100 years ago. Some would say that ‘the world has moved on’ and these ideas are out of date. However, could there be parts of the world today for which these ideas might be just what they need? Explain.
Activity 2: Fayolism as the Necessary Complement of Taylorism – Pearson, Norman M. (Feb., 1945) The American Political Science Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 , pp. 68-80
URL: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1948832?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21103317946303
Questions to consider:
1. While some would argue that this paper, now 70 years beyond its publication date is ‘out of date’, could there still be value in the ideas expressed here in other parts of the world?
Week 2:
Activity 1: Thomas Friedman on Globalisation; 3 Eras of Globalisation; World is flat
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp4znWHvsjU
Questions to consider:
1. What would be some of the key drawbacks or risks of living in the flat world of Globalisation 3.0 as Friedman describes it?
2. Do you agree with Friedman’s iron rule of the flat world? Explain.
3. Is the level of globalisation uniform across the world? Explain.
Activity 2: Pankaj Ghemawat on Globalisation
URL: http://www.ted.com/talks/pankaj_ghemawat_actually_the_world_isn_t_flat.html
Questions to consider:
1. Has your view on globalisation changed after listening to Professor Ghemawat? Explain.
2. Consider where you have seen the fears that people have about globalisation. Do you think these fears may subside with some data points that may suggest otherwise?
Activity 3: Online tool to explore different countries’ 5 dimensions by Hofstede
URL: http://geert-hofstede.com/countries.html
Questions to consider:
1. How does the Australian culture compare to other world cultures (eg. Your home country or other countries that you have visited)?
2. Do you agree with the survey results for the Australian culture? Why or why not?
Activity 4: ‘The myth of national culture’ – Counter argument to Hofstede’s work by Professor Brendan McSweeney at Royal Holloway, University of London
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_l84Dj2eXY
Questions to consider:
1. Do you agree with Professor McSweeney’s view on national cultures? Why or why not? After viewing the survey result done by Hofstede on your home country, who do you think offers a more compelling argument on national cultures? Can a single culture be used to determine the actions of entire population?
Activity 5: Riding the waves of culture’ – Talk given by Fons Trompenaars at TEDxAmsterdam
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmyfjKjcbm0
Questions to consider:
1. Consider your experience with cultural conflict or culture shock. What were the different viewpoints that you had to reconcile? And how did you overcome the differences?
2. What would be the benefits of connecting different viewpoints as Trompenaar suggests?
Activity 6: Building a cross-cultural web design for a wider audience’ (Christian Arno in Design on 22nd Jun 2010)
URL: http://www.onextrapixel.com/2010/06/22/building-a-cross-cultural-web-design-for-a-wider-audience/
Questions to consider:
1. Can the concept of High and Low Context cultures be applied to other areas of business? – marketing and advertising, PR, customer and supplier relationship management, etc.
Week 3:
Activity 1: Corporate culture and strategy
URL: ‘Culture clash: When corporate culture fights strategy, it can cost you’ http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?aid=31
Questions to consider:
1. Can you think of any examples where you experienced various culture types (Market, Clan, Adhocracy and Hierarchy culture) as a consumer to, or employee of, an organisation?
2. If so, what is your evaluation of the aligment between its corporate culture and strategy?
Activity 2: Definition of culture
URL: What is Organizational Culture? And Why Should We Care? http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/05/what-is-organizational-culture/
Questions to consider:
1. Why do you think people’s definition of culture may vary?
2. Which definition of culture do you agree with most and why?
Activity 3: Corporate culture instilled in HRM practices and customer satisfaction
URLs:
(1) ‘Why Zappos Pays New Employees to Quit–And You Should Too’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQLTQAv5JQA
(2) ‘Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh talks about building a culture-based company’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdKZapHZL4c
Question to consider:
1. What does building a culture-based company entail?
Activity 4: Toyota’s corporate culture and the problem of spreading its culture
URL: ‘MIT’s Steven Spear Discusses Toyota’s Corporate Culture’ (Interview on Bloomberg TV) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCaKFPjfG7s
Question to consider:
1. How would you describe Toyota’s culture using the seven dimensions of organisational culture and/ or the Cultural Web?
Activity 5:Cultural web and its use in practice (call centre)
URL: ‘Using cultural models for changing corporate culture’
http://www.changefactory.com.au/articles/change-management/using-cultural-models-for-changing-corporate-culture/
Questions to consider:
1. Do you agree with the author’s view on the effectiveness of cultural web model in changing corporate culture (compared to other models of corporate culture) as presented in the article? Why or why not?
2. What would be the benefits of using typology type instead?
Week 4:
Activity 1: Structure and strategy
URL: BCG’s Yves Morieux view on Organisation Designx http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm7d1dzOKmw
Questions to consider:
1. Yves Morieux claims that structure follows strategy. Is this always the case?
Activity 2: Holacracy
URL: Zappos just abolished bosses. Inside tech’s latest management craze. http://www.vox.com/2014/7/11/5876235/silicon-valleys-latest-management-craze-holacracy-explained
Questions to consider:
1. What’s your understanding of holacracy? How would you describe it compared to bureaucracy and team-based structure?
2. Discuss how Contingency Factors of Organisational Design are at work in the case of Zappos?
3. In what ways do you think innovative culture is related to (agile) organisational structure?
Week 5:
Activity 1: The Milgram Experiment
URL:
(1) Milgram Experiment – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcvSNg0HZwk
(2) Milgram Experiment replicated in Australia (Psychology study by La Trobe University in the 1970s) – http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2012/s3489852.htm
Questions to consider:
1. To what extent would you be capable of inflicting real pain (physical, mental and/or emotional) on another human being?
Activity 2: Solomon Asch and Group Conformity
URL:
Questions to consider:
1. Does your own personal decision-making always reflect an objective process?
2. Does the desire to be accepted as a part of a group leave one susceptible to conforming to the group’s norms?
3. Identify and discuss situational factors that can enable a group to exert pressure strong enough to change a member’s attitude and behaviour.
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