Organizational Culture and Structure Discussion Paper.

Organizational Culture and Structure Discussion Paper.

Within the Discussion Board area, write 400-600 words that respond to the following questions with your thoughts, ideas, and comments. This will be the foundation for future discussions by your classmates. Be substantive and clear, and use examples to reinforce your ideas.Organizational Culture and Structure Discussion Paper.

Reflect on the organization you discussed in Individual Project 4. Identify an area of change that would improve employee and business performance. There are a variety of reasons that drive organizational change, such as improving employee performance or adapting to a competitive threat. For example, an organization may decide to convert from a functional department structure to a product/service based one. Or, they may decide to add/eliminate a product or service. Another change may be moving from a hierarchical structure to more of a team-based one.

Apply one model (Lewin’s, Kotter’s, or one you use in your workplace) for managing organization change. Explain how you would use the change model to structure and manage the change. Discuss possible employee resistance to the change and how you can overcome that resistance to create a vision of change.

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Organization culture is the embodiment of the values, beliefs and norms that guide the manner in which employees think, behave and act. Organizational behavior and employee performance are influenced by the organizational culture which contributes general performance of the organization. Organizations should set goals and values systems that are realistic and actionable when developing a code of ethics that outlines the expectation of the organization from the employees. It is the organizational culture that knits together employees and management because all should be aligned to the vision and of the mission. Therefore, in defining organizational culture at the Exxon, principles, values, code of ethics, vision and mission statement is evaluated to provide a clear picture of what is expected of the employees and the commitment of the management and employees to live in compliance with predetermined organizational culture.Organizational Culture and Structure Discussion Paper.

Organization culture of the Exxon is grounded on the following principles; it is committed developing of safe, innovative and secure product to the customers, hires exceptional and quality employees and offers training to develop employees, committed to promoting diversity and inclusion and also maintains high ethical standards (ExxonMobil, 2018).

Exxon code of ethics explains rules and ethical standards which employees and directors are required to follow. There are five elements which are listed in the Code. First, it is the ethics policy which requires all transactions are accurately recorded, standards of the integrity are applied by all employees and full disclosure in the preparation of the financial statement (ExxonMobil, n.d). Second, it is the conflict of the interests which demands all employees and directs to avoid actual or apparent conflicting personal interest with that of the corporation (ExxonMobil, n.d).  In view of this, employees and directors are barred from taking decision or action which personally inclined and not in the interest of the corporation and therefore, it may end up negatively impacting employee performance.

The third element is corporate asset policy which requires all the employees in the company to protect and use the assets of the company responsibly and efficiently. Assets of the company include both tangible and intangible assets of the company such information systems. The fourth element of the code is directorships policy which provided that any employees or officer can serve as the director of an affiliated company as part of normal working assignments. Finally, it the open communication which states that employees have the right to ask questions, voice concerns and report any form of the violation. Privacy of the employees is guaranteed where they can report any form of the violation without revealing their identity (ExxonMobil, n.d).

The principles and code of ethics provide values, beliefs and norms that gives an overview of the organization culture of ExxonMobil. Cancialosi (2015) argues that organizational culture will make a difference when goal and values are transformed from the writings on the paper and walls to actions. In other words, to examine the effectiveness, influence and alignment of the employees to organization culture, the evaluation must be carried out to examine frameworks for the implementation of the organization culture. This requires the commitment of the management to live by the set values and act as ethical role models to other employees.

In the annual of the Exxon released 2020 providing financial overview and performance of the company, 5 areas of the competitive advantage were outlined by the company and one of them is people.  The people represent the workforce of the company and is used to establish strategies that have been in place by the company in the quest to align employees to the organization culture. Some of the strategies include for human resource management include recruitment of the competent and talented employees, promoting diversity and inclusion by employing the employees from over 160 nationals, offering training and career development programs at a budget of over $100 million annually, cross-functional development by assigning employees to various tasks across business lines of the company and in different regions (ExxonMobil, 2020).  These strategies are aligned to the organization of the culture and empower to perform their duties as expected by the company, increases the satisfaction of employees and enables management to provide support to the employees which increase employees’ retention rate. In particular, 96% of the employees in the Exxon work for an average of 30 years.

Finally, ExxonMobil organization culture has played a key role in determining organization behavior. Employees work extremely hard applying the high level of the competency towards the development of safe and premium petroleum products. Additionally, management is committed to providing safe working employees, offering employees with competitive remuneration packages and promoting employee engagement and teamwork among employees. This measures promote job satisfaction, increase the morale of employees and also promote employees performance. Therefore, a strong and supportive organization culture is the function of the steady financial performance that ExxonMobil has reported over the years.

Effects of Organizational Culture on People and Organization

 Organizations that have a strong organizational culture upon which employees are knitted together by common shared values and strategy is bound to succeed. However, the organization which promotes disintegration of the employees and seeks to evaluate personal interest above the goals and vision of the organization is doomed to fail. This is because the organization cultures promote lack of goal congruence. Therefore, a strong organizational culture that is functional and capable of the positively influencing employees should strongly support shared value system of the beliefs, aspirations and goals of the employees which must be aligned to the goal and strategy of the company (SHRM, n.d).

Functional organization culture contains three elements-employees know what is expected of them by the top management, employees know what is expected of them is proper and employees know there is a reward when they act according to organization culture (SHRM, n.d). Human resource department in determining the manner in which employees have a clear understanding of shared values and beliefs of the organization. Organizational Culture and Structure Discussion Paper.This is because they hire and recruit, orient new employees to values and expectation of organization, develop training programs to keep employees posted and conduct performance management systems that establish the employees to be rewards and training needs to be addressed to create stronger organization culture (SHRM, n.d).

ExxonMobil has string organization culture which has been a reason for success of the organization. Employees are aware of what is expected of them and with the guidance of the principles and code of ethics, employees know expectation know what expected of them is proper and ethical is. Finally, human resource management has been a key pillar in creating stronger organization by employing skilled, talented and competent, implementing training and career development programs and also cross-functional programs (ExxonMobil, 2020). These human resource management controls and programs have played a key role in cementing and building a strong and supportive organization culture at Exxon.

 

 

 

Impact of Formal & Informal Organizational Structures on Employees Performance

ExxonMobil successfully integrates formal and informal organizational structures that have enhanced employees’ performance. Principles and code of ethics influence the attitudes of the employees and also causes them to remain conscious of what is expected of them. Cross-functional assignments have helped the company to create a pool of the workforce that is versed with operational of the company across all the business lines. Finally, long-term vision and goals of the company is well outlined and in order to live on its vision, training programs are implemented for skill and career development which helps to keep employees aligned to the vision, mission and strategy of the company thus improving employee performance.

 

References

Cancialosi, C. (2015). Two Ways To Ensure Your Corporate Culture And Values Align. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriscancialosi/2015/07/20/2-ways-to-ensure-your-corporate-culture-and-values-align/#5ea5b8606e31

ExxonMobil. (2018, September 4). Our guiding principles. Retrieved from https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Company/Who-we-are/Our-guiding-principles

ExxonMobil. (2020). Summary of 2019 Annual Report. Retrieved from https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/-/media/Global/Files/investor-relations/annual-meeting-materials/annual-report-summaries/2019-Summary-Annual-Report.pdf

ExxonMobil. (n.d). Code of ethics. Retrieved from https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/Company/Who-we-are/Corporate-governance/Code-of-ethics#Overview

SHRM. (n.d). Understanding and Developing Organizational Culture. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/understandinganddevelopingorganizationalculture.aspx

Organizational Culture and Structure Discussion Paper.