Assessing Employee Perception on the Imperativeness for Sustainable Development in Organizations

Assessing Employee Perception on the Imperativeness for Sustainable Development in Organizations Background of Corporate Sustainability: During earlier times, the main objective of organizations was efficient utilization of resources and to capitalize on the fact that how efficient an organization is to convert its capital into profits (Jensen and Meckling 1976). The main role of the government is to make suitable structure which ensures that a leverage is built between this comportment of organizations in always achieving optimum amount of profits with overarching societal goals (Friedman 1970). A lot of management associates and researchers have confronted this imperativeness of organizations on profit maximization. Their outlook says that organizations have broader accountabilities and not only achieving maximum return on capital. Hence, in this context this thought of corporate sustainability gained importance (Hanley 2000). The concept of sustainability development has emerged from the macroeconomics level. It is primarily based on three factors – environmental reliability, economic wealth and social justi ce. They are also popularly known as three supports of sustainability (Elliott 2005). Since organizations have full access to the productive resources of the economy so, without organizational support sustainable development will not be so much effective (Bansal 2002). Background of Employee Perception: Fabricating an understanding of the societal behaviour from the information one generates from senses is known as perception. On the other hand, we can also say that perception is the method by which one can form opinions about other person’s qualities and characters. (Myers, 2004). Many debates have occurred stating that perception is the single most important determinant of human behaviour. In addition to that there can be no behaviour without perception. However concentrating on managers in an organization, OB theorists argue that, since there cannot be one specific strategy for analysing the perception of other people. So, ultimately it will depend on managers own ingenuity, creative skill set and contemplative abilities to handle perception (Rao and Narayan 1998). Employee perception and sustainable development in organizations. Unfortunately, this relation of employee perception and corporate sustainability has not been explored fully. Fewer empirical research has been done in this area which justifies or even mediates the relation between employees and sustainability. Neither in relation to employee perception of their organizations sustainable development or how corporate sustainability effect their everyday work outlook and behaviour (Aguilera et al. 2007) Lately, OB researchers have comprehended normative theory in the framework of sustainable development. Specially, researchers have argued, if employees’ perception is that organization has followed the path of profit generation by imbedding sustainable development into their organizational procedures, this will have positive effect of employees perception (Rupp et al. 2006) Hypothesis: Employee perception is positively related to sustainable development in an organization. Many studies have associated sustainable development with perceptive, responsive and behavioural employee reactions (Becker-Olsen et al. 2006).

Establishing a New Business Venture in a Foreign Country Essay

Establishing a New Business Venture in a Foreign Country - Essay Example Social, economic as well as legal forces obtaining in developed countries often impact on foreign companies especially from emerging markets that need to establish their businesses in developed countries. As such, this paper seeks to critically analyse the factors that may affect companies from emerging markets in their quest to establish business in developed countries. The paper will also outline some of the measures that can be implemented by the managers in order to overcome these challenges. The main challenge that is likely to be faced by a company from an emerging market when it seeks to establish business in a developed country is related to cultural differences that may affect its ability to effectively manage the people in the host country. According to Ivancervich, Konopaske & Matteson (2011), society is composed of people with their own culture and these people share the same beliefs, norms, values, religion, language education as well as legal systems. Culture is a learn ed dispensation since it does not simply appear from nowhere. A nation’s culture affects how organizational transactions are conducted such as hiring practices, marketing, reward programs as well as supervisor-employee interaction (Ivancervich, Konopaske & Matteson, 2011).... differs and these include the following: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and masculinity (Ivancervich, Konopaske & Matteson, 2011). Power distance relates to the level of acceptance by society of unequal power distribution in an organization. For instance, emerging countries like Malaysia have high power distance where authority is centralised (Ivancervich, Konopaske & Matteson, 2011). On the other hand, the concept of uncertainty avoidance relates to the situation where people feel threatened by unambiguous situations. For instance, emerging countries have high uncertainty avoidance and they follow a specific set of rules while countries like Britain have lower levels of uncertainty avoidance where risk taking is common (Ivancervich, Konopaske & Matteson, 2011). On the other hand, it can be seen that countries like the US have high individualism where people believe in hard work and individual prosperity while emerging countries believe in socialist ideologies w hich state that they must share what they have. Masculinity is another cultural dimension that is practised in other countries like Austria. As illustrated above, it can be seen that a new company from an emerging market can find it difficult to establish business in a developed country by virtue of culture differences. If a new company has its own cultural values that are not compatible with the host nation, then it can face an uphill task in as far as its quest to operate effectively in the host country is concerned. It is important for a foreign company penetrating a developed market to make sure that they understand the culture of the people in the host country. Failure to do so may negatively impact on its operations since it may be difficult for the managers to manage people in the

Kotter's 8 Step Approach for an Organization Term Paper

Kotter's 8 Step Approach for an Organization - Term Paper Example   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Company Overview FedEx Corporation is among the best international companies operating in distribution industry, in providing reliable, timely, and rapid express delivery to over 200 states and destinations. The company is able to link international markets that cover beyond three quarters of world’s GDP within a period of four working days. What makes FedEx a world leader is its highly developed information technology infrastructure, competent air path officials, together with well-established mode of transport. The company delivers about 3 million cargos every day in Europe, Africa, India, and the Middle East and currently operates in almost all the cities and territories with its reliable inter states and continental distribution services. United States has one of the biggest offices for FedEx express and is currently expanding its wings to cover more areas around the region through rational and well-planned investments. FedEx story is not all positive since it has been facing various challenges and problems, especially in the current economic meltdown (Gutierrez, 2008). Diagnosis FedEx as an international company that has operated for over three decades has become too complex especially at management level. In addition, competition in the modern world is growing tougher and rapid in the modern economy and this requires FedEx to keep on updating and reinventing themselves. Over the years FedEx image has been tarnished due to numerous complaints from customers, for instance in their packaging methods. Some of the styles and organization practices being used in FedEx have been outdated hence the need to revisit and rebrand the company. The major problem is that FedEx has been unable to adapt effectively to the current economic situations (Gutierrez, 2008).   Ã‚  Kotter’s Change Approach Step 1: Creation of urgency Change can only happen in a company if at all every person or stakeholders in the company desire the change. Develop ing a sense of urgency in an organization starts with identifying and accepting the existing weaknesses in the company because the thought of the company falling or losing their investments arouses managers need to act, and similarly spreads the aspect of urgency to other stakeholders. Financial problems or loss of workforce mostly sparks people to act or make a decision in most companies. Human nature requires a touchable or a foreseeable aspect of failure in order to come out of their comfort zones. For change to occur successfully and effectively in any organization, managers or executives of the company must facilitate a coordinate a discussion where actual problems and threats are mentioned and analyzed (Shaffer & Thompson, 2008). In most scenarios, external consultation has proved to be the most effective, as it brings out the overall weaknesses of the entire company and eliminates biasness. According to Kotter, the degree of urgency is huge enough when about two thirds of the organization’s executives becomes understands the fact that the existing organizational culture and practices are out of line and need to change. Change in most cases starts with an individual or a few people and then others realizes it significance with time. FedEx as a company can take the following steps to initiate change: 1. Documentation of potential threats and forecast in the future in order to predict situations