I still remember, when it was the first time our OB lecturer, Mr.Gerald has announced that wanted to make blogging as our assignment this trimester, i was so disappointed as i have never wrote blog before and it made me feel like i was having a nightmare since i realized that this is an individual assignment where i have to come out with everything on my own and for your information, i hate writing especially to write a long essay!
Most of my friends have their own blogs and some of them even have more than one blogs! I did pay my visit to their blogs but i seldom do that and it does not really impress me to create my own blog. Actually, i learned the word of "blog" through a newspaper where it was stated that blogging becoming more popular nowadays and we are able to make money through blogging and it spreads all over the world where many of them are familiar with it. Through my own perception, weblog is somewhat similar to diary in certain ways where people tend to write down everything on what and how they feel in their life. But, thing that has made blog slightly different from diary is people will share their feeling and knowledge world widely where everyone can access and read it whereas for diary, it is just like a "secret" notepad where the owner are not willingly to share what they have written and it becomes immoral when someone has read the diary without the permission of the owner and this does not apply in blog.
Before this, i felt that blogging is just kind of activity that tend to waste my time and it was meaningless. Why? This might be caused of every time i read my friends' blog, i noticed that they were just wrote down on the things that happened around them where their lifestyle are not much different from others. For example, they like to share how was the relationship between them and their boyfriend or girlfriend, how they spent their weekend, their feeling everyday, etc. I did not find out that it is meaningful and it did not generate anything to me since i have experienced most of what they have shared over and over again and now they are writing the same thing that has made me feel bored about their blog. After i took blogging as my assignment, my perception has totally changed where i found out that there were a lot of differences in terms of students' minds and thinking when all of us were discussing a same topic but with different kind of perceptions.
As from what i wrote earlier, blogging is actually an individual assignment in my class where we have to come out with everything by ourselves. This form of assignment is totally different from others especially we have comment part in our assignment. From my previous assignments, although every group has received different topics from our lecturers, but the way of doing is same where we need to follow the format of writing a report and, most of the assignments are working in group(collectivism). But for blogging, we are able to create our own way of doing it by using our own imagination and creativity to write what we think is suitable. Furthermore, blogging will let me to finish up the assignment faster and smoothly since we do not have to wait for another members to pass up his/her part where waiting for another is somewhat time consuming. Besides, blogging is the form of assignment which is paperless and peers are able to leave their comments where these will never happened in the normal assignment.
It is very challenging when taking blog as my assignment. As we will receive feedback/comments from our classmates and lecturer, it was actually brought stress to me. If the comments left to me are negative, it makes me upset where i have to correct it by re-posting it again and this is where my stress come from. Sometimes, the assignment i posted are not met the requirements on what the topic wanted and it really made me frustrated where i might lost my marks there. In order for me to overcome this problem, i have set my personal goal which is under self-leadership theory by talking to myself :"I need the marks to achieve well and i must pass with flying color on this subject"! From there, i started to read the blogs that have been written by my classmates and tried to find out what are my mistakes and weaknesses. Through the blog also, i began to realize that different people will have different kinds of thinking and perception but it depends on situation where sometimes we have to agree on what other people have said but sometimes we might not! Feedback is important for me to improve myself in blogging because if we are not receiving any feedback from others, we will never know our weaknesses and therefore, we are not going to find any alternatives that may bring success to us. So, blogging is actually also a platform for us to share our knowledge where we cannot stick only to our own perception and that is why we have came out with knowledge sharing culture here.
Besides, i faced difficulty in doing my reflection part. Mr. Gerald always told me that i was lack of reflection in my blog. A lot of questions came to my head when i was doing the reflection of my blog like "what are the related examples should i put in the topics or in the theories", "do the examples really related to the theories i choose" and etc. I may run out of points and most of the times, i was not sure whether the examples i put are suited to the theories i have written down and if the examples are not relevant, i might again fall into the trouble where in the end, i have to re-do it all over again. But, it will be better to have reflection portion in our blog although it might difficult (maybe for me only) since we are able to understand more on a particular topic. Furthermore, the reflection portion is able to make our blog looks "alive" (said by Pook in my second assignment), and the readers would not feel bored when read through it.
Blogging has encouraged people to share their knowledge. I did share my thinking and experiences with my classmates through blogging. Yes, i learned a lot from blogging where for example, i have learned a new theory from Naemah's blog and also i enjoyed the way she ended up her blog in second assignment.
In my opinion, the relationships between me and my classmates are not much improved because we have only did 3 assignments where it is not enough time for us to get to know each other better. But, i always believe that the more you speak out your thinking and listen to others' opinions respectfully, the more you will understand them and the stronger will be your relationships with others. Blogging is another way for us to improve our communication with other people. The blog's comment is another type of electronic communication that will let us to understand others better. We may critic to the ideas/opinions that we are not agreed but at the same time, we are learning from them and our perception might changed because of the influence of others. Most of the time, people can generate a new idea as a result of the accumulation of differences ideas.
Lastly, i wanted to end up my last post with the feeling in deep from my heart :"I suffered a lot when blogging!!! But luckily, this is my last assignment!!! Yeah!!!" From the blog that i have read, i realized that some of the parents tend to push their children in studying and luckily, this does not happen to me! If not, it will become another stressor for me. Haha! Thanks a lot to my parent as they give me a lot of freedom on doing what i think is right and let me to make my own decision, sounds like empowering me, hehe... Oh, ya, one more thing to add, i did facing stress of the due date of the submission of my post. In my opinion, we can actually do our blog anytime we like and there should not be due date in writing a blog. Therefore, if the mood is coming and there is no fixing of due date for the submission, i am sure we can share even more since we do not have to worry about the due date. For example, we may find out a quality and useful videos or links to share with our readers and as a result, a high quality blog might be produced! Am i right? But i believe that if Mr. Gerald never put the due date, nobody will pass up the assignment, haha. So, i just wanted to release my stress here...
Thanks to Mr. Gerald and all of my friends that helped me a lot in doing this assignment! So, good luck to everyone!!!
Just take a look on these 3 videos:
Office stress
References:
1)McShane, SL & Von Glinow, MA 2008, Organizational Behavior, 4th ed, McGraw-Hill, USA.
2)www.youtube.com
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Ways encouraging people in Knowledge Sharing
Knowledge sharing is one of an essential elements that will effect the growth of an organization. But still there are certain factors causing the unwillingness of people in sharing their knowledge especially the employee's behavior in working place.
There are many ways to encourage team members to share their knowledge based on how they behave in an organization. Here, i am going to discuss two types of theories affecting the knowledge sharing process among the team members.
Theory of Learned Needs:
Psychologist David McClelland popularized the idea of learned needs through his research on 3 learned needs: achievement, power, and affiliation.
Need for achievement (nAch):
People with strong need for achievement (nAch) want to accomplish reasonably challenging goals through their own effort. they prefer working alone rather than in teams, and they choose tasks with a moderate degree of risk.
This type of people prefer working alone and it makes them hardly to carry themselves in team works as well as sharing their knowledge. This is mostly because they prefer to achieve certain tasks on their own rather than share with other people. They are not going to choose a very difficult task which is impossible to complete because of their strong needs for achievement. At the same time, they refuse to choose a very easy task where they may feel that the task is too easy to be completed that might not match their status and the way they are doing things.
In my opinion, goal setting and feedback are important to encourage people with high nAch in knowledge sharing. Firstly, the goal has to be set with full detailed of explanation of what should be done and people with high nAch is going to be the leader in the particular team since they have a very high desire in achievement. When they have been put in a task that required the sharing of knowledge among the team members, they may try to tolerate and communicate with the team members in order to fulfill their needs of achievement.
Once the task is completed, it does not end here because feedback should be given. Let say for example, every team members should received feedback from other members who are from the same team and the leader is going to receive the feedback from the team members who are working under him/her and at the same time, receive the feedback from the supervisor and clients. Positive feedback means the team is performed and it will motivate all of them which is finally increases their self-confidence and encourage them to share their knowledge every time they receive a task.
I still remember, i have a friend who did not like to group with other people and he liked to stand alone when doing thing. He is good in writing and he won a lot of rewards for the writing competition. The teacher in school aware of his talented and suggested him to write to school magazine. He accepted the suggestion and started to write and he received a lot of positive feedback from the students about the magazine. Now, my friend has became a very good leader in publishing school magazine. From this example, it shows that feedback is important for this kind of people to share their knowledge.
Needs for affiliation (nAff):
Need for affiliation (nAff) refers to a desire to seek approval from others, conform to their wishes and expectations, and avoid conflict and confrontation. people with strong nAff try to project a favorable image of themselves. They tend to actively support others and try to smooth out work place conflicts. High nAff employees generally work well in coordinating roles to mediate conflicts, and in sales positions where the main task is cultivating long-term relations.
Money is a need to everyone and monetary reward is suitable for this kind of people. People with hugh nAff are trying to avoid conflicts among the team members and they are trying to reduce themselves from involving directly in an organization's political issues. They are actively supporting other people's decision but it does not means that they are not good enough in decision making process or they are running out of points. Sometimes, they are able to make a better decision among the team members but they prefer to listen to others as they are afraid when their decisions are clashed with other member's decisions and they feel that if this happened, it will definitely end up with conflict.
Here, money is a best way to help this type of people to speak out their mind. When money becomes one of the most essential parts in people's life, people are trying their best to get them and it forces people to come out with a lot of different ideas and knowledge when comes to the decisions making process. Therefore, monetary reward is one of an effective ways in encouraging knowledge sharing especially for people with high nAff since money is an "injection" to push them to share their knowledge.
I would like to share a story with my readers. It happened last year when i was doing my cyberpreneurship. We had a group project whereby we are going to sell thing in "President Square" in my school. There was three group members in my group who always came out with no ideas and agreed with everything we suggested on what would be sell in that three days. The group leader was not happy about it and he advised them to try to come out with some suggestions but still they kept on silence everytime there was a meeting. After 2 weeks, the group leader announced that people who did not give any suggestions in the meeting would not get any of the shares of the profits we earned in that 3 days and after the annoucement, the 3 group members had shown their improvement by sharing their ideas.
Need for power (nPow):
People with a high need for power (nPow) want to exercise control over others and are concerned about maintaining their leadership positions. They frequently rely on persuasive communication, make more suggestions in meeting, and tend to publicly evaluate situations more frequently. McClelland pointed out that there are two types of nPow. Those who enjoy their power for its own sake use it to advance personal interest, and wear their power as a status symbol have personalized power. Others mainly have a high need for socialized power because they desire powers as a mean to help others.
A leader should have strong leadership in leading a team. Besides, he/she should have a high degree of altruism and social responsibility and must be concerned about the consequences of his/her own actions on others. The leader should possess good communication skill in order to build up the trust between him and the team members and also among the team members themselves so that they are respecting to each other.
Once trust is established, knowledge sharing needs to be part of everything in the team's culture.
Go through to this article : http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/2007winter/HartHodson.html
Four-Drive Theory:
Four-drive theory organizes drives into 4 categories: the drive to acquire, bond, learn, and defend.These drives are innate and universal, meaning that they are hardwired in our brains through evolution and are found in everyone. Four-drive theory states that these four drives are a complete set where no other fundamental drives are excluded from the model. Another key features is that three of the four drives are "proactive", meaning that we regularly try to fulfill them. Thus, any notion of fulfilling drives is temporary at best.
Drive to acquire:
This is the drive to seek, take, control, and retain objects, and personal experience. The drive to acquire extends beyond basic foods, and water; it includes the needs for relative status, and recognition in society. Thus, it is the foundation of competition, and the basis of our need for esteem. The theory states that the drive of acquire is insatiable because the purpose of human motivation is to achieve a higher position than others, not just to fulfill our physiological needs.
People with high drive to acquire are lack of motivation in sharing their knowledge. They have a perception of keeping knowledge will maintain their position and power in an organization and even in the society. They are not willingly to share their knowledge as they have a thinking of once the knowledge is known by others, they might lost what they have and what they should get like power and positions that makes them feel unsecured in that particular organization.
In order to overcome this problem, trust is again playing an important role in a team. The team leader should let the team members aware that how important they are in the team and makes them feel that they are part of the team. A good communication skill establishing trust between the team members and an equivalent reward should be divided among them.
Sometimes, people are afraid to share their knowledge because of having a thinking that they will lose their power and position in the group they are belonging to. I got a classmate and i just name him as "A" and he was a top student in my class and even in my form. He was very good in every subjects especially in Additional Mathematics subject. In form four, my teacher had been given us an assignment for the Addtional Mathemetics subject and every groups should have 3 group members. "A" did not want to have a group with any of my classmates and he wanted to complete the task on his own. Thing that has made me so irritate to him was when my group encountered a problem of could not come out with the solution of the question, we asked for his help but once he knows that we have problem in our assignment, he straight away refused to help us by saying :"Don't ask me! I don't know!" and we even did not have a chance to explain our problems!
A week after our submmision, the teacher annouced our marks and as usual, he gets the highest marks in that assignment and this is what he means by "I don't know!". Every one of us has felt that "A" just afraid of other students will replace his position as top student in the class until he will never want to share his knowledge with us.
Drive to bond:
This is the drive to form social relationship and develop mutual caring commitments with others. It also explains why people form social identities by aligning their self-image with various social groups. The drive to bond motivates people to cooperate, and consequently is a fundamental ingredient in the success of organizations, and the development of societies.
Drive to bond is also a fundamental ingredient in knowledge sharing because i focuses on cooperation between the team members.
Drive to learn:
This is the drive to satisfy our curiosity, to know, and understand ourselves, and the environment around us. When observing something that is inconsistent with or beyond our current knowledge, we experience a tension that motivates us to close that information gap.
When people are frustrated about the new knowledge they are not familiar with, they refuse to apply the culture, here means knowledge sharing culture. Once the culture does not reach to the employees/team members, it will stop the whole knowledge sharing process.
Training is one of the most effective ways to encourage knowledge sharing. For example, suppose a department has just received a new computer program that are curious to the team members to try out, they should be sent for training. Once the training session finished, the team members have possessed the skill on using that computer program and they are able to practice it in their own department. Besides, they are encourage to share their knowledge (computer program) with employees from different department in order to prevent the lack of expertise if there is any retirement or turnover of the employees.
When talking about drive to learn, i remember to my form three computer class. The only thing i can say through the class is we learned nothing there. Until today, i still do not understand why the teacher (he is the one who was teaching us computer) has such that behavior! Everytime he entered our class, he would take only 15 minutes to give his lecture and we as student is not as clever as he was. So, we found that it was hardly to catch up what he tought and we were likely to ask for his explanation for second time. I do not know if we had done something wrong until he scolded all of us for about 20 minutes and he did explain for the second time but it took him only 10 minutes to finish up his lecture. As a result, the whole class failed in his subject and everytime we failed, he would start scolding us in the class. I think the time he spent for scolding is more than the time he was giving his lecture.
We were frustruated with the subject and it caused high absenteesim in our computer class. He did not train us well and as a result, there was no knowledge sharing culture in the class and at the end of the year, nobody understands what he was teaching.
Drive to defend:
This is the drive to protect ourselves physically and socially. The drive to defend goes beyond protecting our physical selves. It includes defending our relationships, our acquisitions, and our belief systems. The drive to defend is always reactive where it is triggered by threats.
For example, if your department has just received a new computer program, your boss says that you are not experienced enough to use the new system yet, which makes you somewhat angry (triggered by your drive to learn against the "inexperience" insult). The curiosity about your anger from the boss's beliefs about your experience demand your attention, and energize you to act.
Training is an effective way to train the team members/employees in learning what they are not familiar with.
References:
1. McShane, SL & Von Glinow, MA 2008, Organizational Behavior, 4th ed, McGraw-Hill, USA.
2. David J. Skyrme (2002). The 3Cs of Knowledge Sharing: Culture, Co-opetition, and Commitment [On-line] Available.
http://www.skyrme.com/updates/u64_f1.htm
3. Liebowitz, J. ed. (1999) Knowledge Management
Handbook. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press.
4. Krogh, G. V. (2003) Knowledge Sharing and the
Communal Resource. In Easterby-Smith, M. and
Lyles, M. A. (eds.) The Blackwell Handbook of
Organizational Learning and Knowledge
Management. Malden, M.A. & Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, pp.372-392.
There are many ways to encourage team members to share their knowledge based on how they behave in an organization. Here, i am going to discuss two types of theories affecting the knowledge sharing process among the team members.
Theory of Learned Needs:
Psychologist David McClelland popularized the idea of learned needs through his research on 3 learned needs: achievement, power, and affiliation.
Need for achievement (nAch):
People with strong need for achievement (nAch) want to accomplish reasonably challenging goals through their own effort. they prefer working alone rather than in teams, and they choose tasks with a moderate degree of risk.
This type of people prefer working alone and it makes them hardly to carry themselves in team works as well as sharing their knowledge. This is mostly because they prefer to achieve certain tasks on their own rather than share with other people. They are not going to choose a very difficult task which is impossible to complete because of their strong needs for achievement. At the same time, they refuse to choose a very easy task where they may feel that the task is too easy to be completed that might not match their status and the way they are doing things.
In my opinion, goal setting and feedback are important to encourage people with high nAch in knowledge sharing. Firstly, the goal has to be set with full detailed of explanation of what should be done and people with high nAch is going to be the leader in the particular team since they have a very high desire in achievement. When they have been put in a task that required the sharing of knowledge among the team members, they may try to tolerate and communicate with the team members in order to fulfill their needs of achievement.
Once the task is completed, it does not end here because feedback should be given. Let say for example, every team members should received feedback from other members who are from the same team and the leader is going to receive the feedback from the team members who are working under him/her and at the same time, receive the feedback from the supervisor and clients. Positive feedback means the team is performed and it will motivate all of them which is finally increases their self-confidence and encourage them to share their knowledge every time they receive a task.
I still remember, i have a friend who did not like to group with other people and he liked to stand alone when doing thing. He is good in writing and he won a lot of rewards for the writing competition. The teacher in school aware of his talented and suggested him to write to school magazine. He accepted the suggestion and started to write and he received a lot of positive feedback from the students about the magazine. Now, my friend has became a very good leader in publishing school magazine. From this example, it shows that feedback is important for this kind of people to share their knowledge.
Needs for affiliation (nAff):
Need for affiliation (nAff) refers to a desire to seek approval from others, conform to their wishes and expectations, and avoid conflict and confrontation. people with strong nAff try to project a favorable image of themselves. They tend to actively support others and try to smooth out work place conflicts. High nAff employees generally work well in coordinating roles to mediate conflicts, and in sales positions where the main task is cultivating long-term relations.
Money is a need to everyone and monetary reward is suitable for this kind of people. People with hugh nAff are trying to avoid conflicts among the team members and they are trying to reduce themselves from involving directly in an organization's political issues. They are actively supporting other people's decision but it does not means that they are not good enough in decision making process or they are running out of points. Sometimes, they are able to make a better decision among the team members but they prefer to listen to others as they are afraid when their decisions are clashed with other member's decisions and they feel that if this happened, it will definitely end up with conflict.
Here, money is a best way to help this type of people to speak out their mind. When money becomes one of the most essential parts in people's life, people are trying their best to get them and it forces people to come out with a lot of different ideas and knowledge when comes to the decisions making process. Therefore, monetary reward is one of an effective ways in encouraging knowledge sharing especially for people with high nAff since money is an "injection" to push them to share their knowledge.
I would like to share a story with my readers. It happened last year when i was doing my cyberpreneurship. We had a group project whereby we are going to sell thing in "President Square" in my school. There was three group members in my group who always came out with no ideas and agreed with everything we suggested on what would be sell in that three days. The group leader was not happy about it and he advised them to try to come out with some suggestions but still they kept on silence everytime there was a meeting. After 2 weeks, the group leader announced that people who did not give any suggestions in the meeting would not get any of the shares of the profits we earned in that 3 days and after the annoucement, the 3 group members had shown their improvement by sharing their ideas.
Need for power (nPow):
People with a high need for power (nPow) want to exercise control over others and are concerned about maintaining their leadership positions. They frequently rely on persuasive communication, make more suggestions in meeting, and tend to publicly evaluate situations more frequently. McClelland pointed out that there are two types of nPow. Those who enjoy their power for its own sake use it to advance personal interest, and wear their power as a status symbol have personalized power. Others mainly have a high need for socialized power because they desire powers as a mean to help others.
A leader should have strong leadership in leading a team. Besides, he/she should have a high degree of altruism and social responsibility and must be concerned about the consequences of his/her own actions on others. The leader should possess good communication skill in order to build up the trust between him and the team members and also among the team members themselves so that they are respecting to each other.
Once trust is established, knowledge sharing needs to be part of everything in the team's culture.
Go through to this article : http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/greatergood/2007winter/HartHodson.html
Four-Drive Theory:
Four-drive theory organizes drives into 4 categories: the drive to acquire, bond, learn, and defend.These drives are innate and universal, meaning that they are hardwired in our brains through evolution and are found in everyone. Four-drive theory states that these four drives are a complete set where no other fundamental drives are excluded from the model. Another key features is that three of the four drives are "proactive", meaning that we regularly try to fulfill them. Thus, any notion of fulfilling drives is temporary at best.
Drive to acquire:
This is the drive to seek, take, control, and retain objects, and personal experience. The drive to acquire extends beyond basic foods, and water; it includes the needs for relative status, and recognition in society. Thus, it is the foundation of competition, and the basis of our need for esteem. The theory states that the drive of acquire is insatiable because the purpose of human motivation is to achieve a higher position than others, not just to fulfill our physiological needs.
People with high drive to acquire are lack of motivation in sharing their knowledge. They have a perception of keeping knowledge will maintain their position and power in an organization and even in the society. They are not willingly to share their knowledge as they have a thinking of once the knowledge is known by others, they might lost what they have and what they should get like power and positions that makes them feel unsecured in that particular organization.
In order to overcome this problem, trust is again playing an important role in a team. The team leader should let the team members aware that how important they are in the team and makes them feel that they are part of the team. A good communication skill establishing trust between the team members and an equivalent reward should be divided among them.
Sometimes, people are afraid to share their knowledge because of having a thinking that they will lose their power and position in the group they are belonging to. I got a classmate and i just name him as "A" and he was a top student in my class and even in my form. He was very good in every subjects especially in Additional Mathematics subject. In form four, my teacher had been given us an assignment for the Addtional Mathemetics subject and every groups should have 3 group members. "A" did not want to have a group with any of my classmates and he wanted to complete the task on his own. Thing that has made me so irritate to him was when my group encountered a problem of could not come out with the solution of the question, we asked for his help but once he knows that we have problem in our assignment, he straight away refused to help us by saying :"Don't ask me! I don't know!" and we even did not have a chance to explain our problems!
A week after our submmision, the teacher annouced our marks and as usual, he gets the highest marks in that assignment and this is what he means by "I don't know!". Every one of us has felt that "A" just afraid of other students will replace his position as top student in the class until he will never want to share his knowledge with us.
Drive to bond:
This is the drive to form social relationship and develop mutual caring commitments with others. It also explains why people form social identities by aligning their self-image with various social groups. The drive to bond motivates people to cooperate, and consequently is a fundamental ingredient in the success of organizations, and the development of societies.
Drive to bond is also a fundamental ingredient in knowledge sharing because i focuses on cooperation between the team members.
Drive to learn:
This is the drive to satisfy our curiosity, to know, and understand ourselves, and the environment around us. When observing something that is inconsistent with or beyond our current knowledge, we experience a tension that motivates us to close that information gap.
When people are frustrated about the new knowledge they are not familiar with, they refuse to apply the culture, here means knowledge sharing culture. Once the culture does not reach to the employees/team members, it will stop the whole knowledge sharing process.
Training is one of the most effective ways to encourage knowledge sharing. For example, suppose a department has just received a new computer program that are curious to the team members to try out, they should be sent for training. Once the training session finished, the team members have possessed the skill on using that computer program and they are able to practice it in their own department. Besides, they are encourage to share their knowledge (computer program) with employees from different department in order to prevent the lack of expertise if there is any retirement or turnover of the employees.
When talking about drive to learn, i remember to my form three computer class. The only thing i can say through the class is we learned nothing there. Until today, i still do not understand why the teacher (he is the one who was teaching us computer) has such that behavior! Everytime he entered our class, he would take only 15 minutes to give his lecture and we as student is not as clever as he was. So, we found that it was hardly to catch up what he tought and we were likely to ask for his explanation for second time. I do not know if we had done something wrong until he scolded all of us for about 20 minutes and he did explain for the second time but it took him only 10 minutes to finish up his lecture. As a result, the whole class failed in his subject and everytime we failed, he would start scolding us in the class. I think the time he spent for scolding is more than the time he was giving his lecture.
We were frustruated with the subject and it caused high absenteesim in our computer class. He did not train us well and as a result, there was no knowledge sharing culture in the class and at the end of the year, nobody understands what he was teaching.
Drive to defend:
This is the drive to protect ourselves physically and socially. The drive to defend goes beyond protecting our physical selves. It includes defending our relationships, our acquisitions, and our belief systems. The drive to defend is always reactive where it is triggered by threats.
For example, if your department has just received a new computer program, your boss says that you are not experienced enough to use the new system yet, which makes you somewhat angry (triggered by your drive to learn against the "inexperience" insult). The curiosity about your anger from the boss's beliefs about your experience demand your attention, and energize you to act.
Training is an effective way to train the team members/employees in learning what they are not familiar with.
References:
1. McShane, SL & Von Glinow, MA 2008, Organizational Behavior, 4th ed, McGraw-Hill, USA.
2. David J. Skyrme (2002). The 3Cs of Knowledge Sharing: Culture, Co-opetition, and Commitment [On-line] Available.
http://www.skyrme.com/updates/u64_f1.htm
3. Liebowitz, J. ed. (1999) Knowledge Management
Handbook. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press.
4. Krogh, G. V. (2003) Knowledge Sharing and the
Communal Resource. In Easterby-Smith, M. and
Lyles, M. A. (eds.) The Blackwell Handbook of
Organizational Learning and Knowledge
Management. Malden, M.A. & Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, pp.372-392.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Ways to Encourage Knowledge Sharing.
Knowledge sharing is one of an essential elements that will effect the growth of an organization. But still there are certain factors causing the unwillingness of people in sharing their knowledge especially the employee's behavior in working place.
There are many ways to encourage team members to share their knowledge based on how they behave in an organization. Here, i am going to discuss two types of theories affecting the knowledge sharing process among the team members.
Theory of Learned Needs:
Psychologist David McClelland popularized the idea of learned needs through his research on 3 learned needs: achievement, power, and affiliation.
Need for achievement (nAch):
People with strong need for achievement (nAch) want to accomplish reasonably challenging goals through their own effort. they prefer working alone rather than in teams, and they choose tasks with a moderate degree of risk.
This type of people prefer working alone and it makes them hardly to carry themselves in team works as well as sharing their knowledge. This is mostly because they prefer to achieve certain tasks on their own rather than share with other people. They are not going to choose a very difficult task which is impossible to complete because of their strong needs for achievement. At the same time, they refuse to choose a very easy task where they may feel that the task is too easy to be completed that might not match their status and the way they are doing things.
In my opinion, goal setting and feedbacks are important to encourage people with high nAch in knowledge sharing. Firstly, the goal has to be set with full detailed of explanation of what should be done and people with high nAch is going to be the leader in the particular team since they have a very high desire in achievement. When they have been put in a task that required the sharing of knowledge among the team members, they may try to tolerate and communicate with the team members in order to fulfill their needs of achievement.
Once the task is completed, it does not end here because feedbacks should be given. Let say for example, every team members should received feedbacks from other members who are from the same team and the leader is going to receive the feedback from the team members who are working under him/her and at the same time, receive the feedbacks from the supervisor and clients. Positive feedback means the team is performed and it will motivate all of them which is finally increases their self-confidence and encourage them to share their knowledge every time they receive a task.
Needs for affiliation (nAff):
Need for affiliation (nAff) refers to a desire to seek approval from others, conform to their wishes and expectations, and avoid conflict and confrontation. people with strong nAff try to project a favorable image of themselves. They tend to actively support others and try to smooth out work place conflicts. High nAff employees generally work well in coordinating roles to mediate conflicts, and in sales positions where the main task is cultivating long-term relations.
Money is a need to everyone and monetary reward is suitable for this kind of people. People with hugh nAff are trying to avoid conflicts among the team members and they are trying to reduce themselves from involving directly in an organization's political issues. They are actively supporting other people's decision but it does not means that they are not good enough in decision making process or they are running out of points. Sometimes, they are able to make a better decision among the team members but they prefer to listen to others as they are afraid when their decisions are clashed with other member's decisions and they feel that if this happened, it will definitely end up with conflict.
Here, money is a best way to help this type of people to speak out their mind. When money becomes one of the most essential parts in people's life, people are trying their best to get them and it forces people to come out with a lot of different ideas and knowledge when comes to the decisions making process. Therefore, monetary reward is one of an effective ways in encouraging knowledge sharing especially for people with high nAff since money is an "injection" to push them to share their knowledge.
Need for power (nPow):
People with a high need for power (nPow) want to exercise control over others and are concerned about maintaining their leadership positions. They frequently rely on persuasive communication, make more suggestions in meeting, and tend to publicly evaluate situations more frequently. McClelland pointed out that there are two types of nPow. Those who enjoy their power for its own sake use it to advance personal interest, and wear their power as a status symbol have personalized power. Others mainly have a high need for socialized power because they desire powers as a mean to help others.
A leader should have strong leadership in leading a team. Besides, he/she should have a high degree of altruism and social responsibility and must be concerned about the consequences of his/her own actions on others. The leader should possess good communication skill in order to build up the trust between him and the team members and also among the team members themselves so that they are respecting to each other.
Once trust is established, knowledge sharing needs to be part of everything in the team's culture.
Four-Drive Theory:
Four-drive theory organizes drives into 4 categories: the drive to acquire, bond, learn, and defend.These drives are innate and universal, meaning that they are hardwired in our brains through evolution and are found in everyone. Four-drive theory states that these four drives are a complete set where no other fundamental drives are excluded from the model. Another key features is that three of the four drives are "proactive", meaning that we regularly try to fulfill them. Thus, any notion of fulfilling drives is temporary at best.
Drive to acquire:
This is the drive to seek, take, control, and retain objects, and personal experience. The drive to acquire extends beyond basic foods, and water; it includes the needs for relative status, and recognition in society. Thus, it is the foundation of competition, and the basis of our need for esteem. The theory states that the drive of acquire is insatiable because the purpose of human motivation is to achieve a higher position than others, not just to fulfill our physiological needs.
People with high drive to acquire are lack of motivation in sharing their knowledge. They have a perception of keeping knowledge will maintain their position and power in an organization and even in the society. They are not willingly to share their knowledge as they have a thinking of once the knowledge is known by others, they might lost what they have and what they should get like power and positions that makes them feel unsecured in that particular organization.
In order to overcome this problem, trust is again playing an important role in a team. The team leader should let the team members aware that how important they are in the team and makes them feel that they are part of the team. A good communication skill establishing trust between the team members and an equivalent reward should be divided among them.
Drive to bond:
This is the drive to form social relationship and develop mutual caring commitments with others. It also explains why people form social identities by aligning their self-image with various social groups. The drive to bond motivates people to cooperate, and consequently is a fundamental ingredient in the success of organizations, and the development of societies.
Drive to bond is also a fundamental ingredient in knowledge sharing because i focuses on cooperation between the team members.
Drive to learn:
This is the drive to satisfy our curiosity, to know, and understand ourselves, and the environment around us. When observing something that is inconsistent with or beyond our current knowledge, we experience a tension that motivates us to close that information gap.
When people are frustrated about the new knowledge they are not familiar with, they refuse to apply the culture, here means knowledge sharing culture. Once the culture does not reach to the employees/team members, it will stop the whole knowledge sharing process.
Training is one of the most effective ways to encourage knowledge sharing. For example, suppose a department has just received a new computer program that are curious to the team members to try out, they should be sent for training. Once the training session finished, the team members have possessed the skill on using that computer program and they are able to practice it in their own department. Besides, they are encourage to share their knowledge (computer program) with employees from different department in order to prevent the lack of expertise if there is any retirement or turnover of the employees.
Drive to defend:
This is the drive to protect ourselves physically and socially. The drive to defend goes beyond protecting our physical selves. It includes defending our relationships, our acquisitions, and our belief systems. The drive to defend is always reactive where it is triggered by threats.
For example, if your department has just received a new computer program, your boss says that you are not experienced enough to use the new system yet, which makes you somewhat angry (triggered by your drive to learn against the "inexperience" insult). The curiosity about your anger from the boss's beliefs about your experience demand your attention, and energize you to act.
Training is an effective way to train the team members/employees in learning what they are not familiar with.
References:
1. McShane, SL & Von Glinow, MA 2008, Organizational Behavior, 4th ed, McGraw-Hill, USA.
2. David J. Skyrme (2002). The 3Cs of Knowledge Sharing: Culture, Co-opetition, and Commitment [On-line] Available.
http://www.skyrme.com/updates/u64_f1.htm
3. Liebowitz, J. ed. (1999) Knowledge Management
Handbook. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press.
4. Krogh, G. V. (2003) Knowledge Sharing and the
Communal Resource. In Easterby-Smith, M. and
Lyles, M. A. (eds.) The Blackwell Handbook of
Organizational Learning and Knowledge
Management. Malden, M.A. & Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, pp.372-392.
There are many ways to encourage team members to share their knowledge based on how they behave in an organization. Here, i am going to discuss two types of theories affecting the knowledge sharing process among the team members.
Theory of Learned Needs:
Psychologist David McClelland popularized the idea of learned needs through his research on 3 learned needs: achievement, power, and affiliation.
Need for achievement (nAch):
People with strong need for achievement (nAch) want to accomplish reasonably challenging goals through their own effort. they prefer working alone rather than in teams, and they choose tasks with a moderate degree of risk.
This type of people prefer working alone and it makes them hardly to carry themselves in team works as well as sharing their knowledge. This is mostly because they prefer to achieve certain tasks on their own rather than share with other people. They are not going to choose a very difficult task which is impossible to complete because of their strong needs for achievement. At the same time, they refuse to choose a very easy task where they may feel that the task is too easy to be completed that might not match their status and the way they are doing things.
In my opinion, goal setting and feedbacks are important to encourage people with high nAch in knowledge sharing. Firstly, the goal has to be set with full detailed of explanation of what should be done and people with high nAch is going to be the leader in the particular team since they have a very high desire in achievement. When they have been put in a task that required the sharing of knowledge among the team members, they may try to tolerate and communicate with the team members in order to fulfill their needs of achievement.
Once the task is completed, it does not end here because feedbacks should be given. Let say for example, every team members should received feedbacks from other members who are from the same team and the leader is going to receive the feedback from the team members who are working under him/her and at the same time, receive the feedbacks from the supervisor and clients. Positive feedback means the team is performed and it will motivate all of them which is finally increases their self-confidence and encourage them to share their knowledge every time they receive a task.
Needs for affiliation (nAff):
Need for affiliation (nAff) refers to a desire to seek approval from others, conform to their wishes and expectations, and avoid conflict and confrontation. people with strong nAff try to project a favorable image of themselves. They tend to actively support others and try to smooth out work place conflicts. High nAff employees generally work well in coordinating roles to mediate conflicts, and in sales positions where the main task is cultivating long-term relations.
Money is a need to everyone and monetary reward is suitable for this kind of people. People with hugh nAff are trying to avoid conflicts among the team members and they are trying to reduce themselves from involving directly in an organization's political issues. They are actively supporting other people's decision but it does not means that they are not good enough in decision making process or they are running out of points. Sometimes, they are able to make a better decision among the team members but they prefer to listen to others as they are afraid when their decisions are clashed with other member's decisions and they feel that if this happened, it will definitely end up with conflict.
Here, money is a best way to help this type of people to speak out their mind. When money becomes one of the most essential parts in people's life, people are trying their best to get them and it forces people to come out with a lot of different ideas and knowledge when comes to the decisions making process. Therefore, monetary reward is one of an effective ways in encouraging knowledge sharing especially for people with high nAff since money is an "injection" to push them to share their knowledge.
Need for power (nPow):
People with a high need for power (nPow) want to exercise control over others and are concerned about maintaining their leadership positions. They frequently rely on persuasive communication, make more suggestions in meeting, and tend to publicly evaluate situations more frequently. McClelland pointed out that there are two types of nPow. Those who enjoy their power for its own sake use it to advance personal interest, and wear their power as a status symbol have personalized power. Others mainly have a high need for socialized power because they desire powers as a mean to help others.
A leader should have strong leadership in leading a team. Besides, he/she should have a high degree of altruism and social responsibility and must be concerned about the consequences of his/her own actions on others. The leader should possess good communication skill in order to build up the trust between him and the team members and also among the team members themselves so that they are respecting to each other.
Once trust is established, knowledge sharing needs to be part of everything in the team's culture.
Four-Drive Theory:
Four-drive theory organizes drives into 4 categories: the drive to acquire, bond, learn, and defend.These drives are innate and universal, meaning that they are hardwired in our brains through evolution and are found in everyone. Four-drive theory states that these four drives are a complete set where no other fundamental drives are excluded from the model. Another key features is that three of the four drives are "proactive", meaning that we regularly try to fulfill them. Thus, any notion of fulfilling drives is temporary at best.
Drive to acquire:
This is the drive to seek, take, control, and retain objects, and personal experience. The drive to acquire extends beyond basic foods, and water; it includes the needs for relative status, and recognition in society. Thus, it is the foundation of competition, and the basis of our need for esteem. The theory states that the drive of acquire is insatiable because the purpose of human motivation is to achieve a higher position than others, not just to fulfill our physiological needs.
People with high drive to acquire are lack of motivation in sharing their knowledge. They have a perception of keeping knowledge will maintain their position and power in an organization and even in the society. They are not willingly to share their knowledge as they have a thinking of once the knowledge is known by others, they might lost what they have and what they should get like power and positions that makes them feel unsecured in that particular organization.
In order to overcome this problem, trust is again playing an important role in a team. The team leader should let the team members aware that how important they are in the team and makes them feel that they are part of the team. A good communication skill establishing trust between the team members and an equivalent reward should be divided among them.
Drive to bond:
This is the drive to form social relationship and develop mutual caring commitments with others. It also explains why people form social identities by aligning their self-image with various social groups. The drive to bond motivates people to cooperate, and consequently is a fundamental ingredient in the success of organizations, and the development of societies.
Drive to bond is also a fundamental ingredient in knowledge sharing because i focuses on cooperation between the team members.
Drive to learn:
This is the drive to satisfy our curiosity, to know, and understand ourselves, and the environment around us. When observing something that is inconsistent with or beyond our current knowledge, we experience a tension that motivates us to close that information gap.
When people are frustrated about the new knowledge they are not familiar with, they refuse to apply the culture, here means knowledge sharing culture. Once the culture does not reach to the employees/team members, it will stop the whole knowledge sharing process.
Training is one of the most effective ways to encourage knowledge sharing. For example, suppose a department has just received a new computer program that are curious to the team members to try out, they should be sent for training. Once the training session finished, the team members have possessed the skill on using that computer program and they are able to practice it in their own department. Besides, they are encourage to share their knowledge (computer program) with employees from different department in order to prevent the lack of expertise if there is any retirement or turnover of the employees.
Drive to defend:
This is the drive to protect ourselves physically and socially. The drive to defend goes beyond protecting our physical selves. It includes defending our relationships, our acquisitions, and our belief systems. The drive to defend is always reactive where it is triggered by threats.
For example, if your department has just received a new computer program, your boss says that you are not experienced enough to use the new system yet, which makes you somewhat angry (triggered by your drive to learn against the "inexperience" insult). The curiosity about your anger from the boss's beliefs about your experience demand your attention, and energize you to act.
Training is an effective way to train the team members/employees in learning what they are not familiar with.
References:
1. McShane, SL & Von Glinow, MA 2008, Organizational Behavior, 4th ed, McGraw-Hill, USA.
2. David J. Skyrme (2002). The 3Cs of Knowledge Sharing: Culture, Co-opetition, and Commitment [On-line] Available.
http://www.skyrme.com/updates/u64_f1.htm
3. Liebowitz, J. ed. (1999) Knowledge Management
Handbook. Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press.
4. Krogh, G. V. (2003) Knowledge Sharing and the
Communal Resource. In Easterby-Smith, M. and
Lyles, M. A. (eds.) The Blackwell Handbook of
Organizational Learning and Knowledge
Management. Malden, M.A. & Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing, pp.372-392.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Organizational Behavior (Cross-cultural Values)
Organizational behavior is an essential element in every organization. The organizations in the world are differ according to their culture which means that the values applied in each organization are differ across cultures.
Individualism and collectivism are the two most commonly mentioned cross-cultural value. Individualism can be defined as the extent to which a person values independence and personal uniqueness. Highly individualist people value personal freedom, self sufficiency, control over their own lives, and appreciation of the unique qualities that distinguish them from others. The main characteristics of individualism are 1) identity is based on the individual 2) Tasks prevail over relationships 3) speaking one's mind is a sign of honesty.
Whereas collectivism is the extent to which people value duty to groups to which they belong and to group harmony. Highly collectivist people defined themselves by their group membership and value harmonious relationship within the group. The main characteristics of collectivism are 1) identity is based on the group to which one belongs 2) relationships prevail over tasks 3) direct confrontations should be avoided.
Besides, power distances another type of cross-cultural value. It is different from one country to another especially where there is a huge different between Asia and Western country. Power distance can be defined as the extent to which people accept unequal distribution of power in a society and in an organization. According to Samovar et.al.(1998) people in high distance countries, ...believe that power and authority are facts of life. Both consciously and unconsciously, these cultures teach their members that people are not equal in this world and that everybody has a rightful place, which is clearly marked by countless vertical arrangements. Social hierarchy is prevalent and institutionalises inequality. On the other hand, Hofstede (1991) contends that in lower power distance countries 'there is a preference for consultation' and 'subordinates will quite readily approach and contradict their bosses'.
Achievement and nurturing orientation reflects a competitive versus cooperative view of relations with other people. people with a high achievement orientation value assertiveness, competitiveness, and materialism. They appreciate people who are tough and favor the acquisition of money and material goods. The three characteristics of achievement orientation are 1) material success and progress are dominant 2) stress on equity, competition among colleagues and performance 3) live in order to work.
In contrast, people in nurturing-oriented cultures emphasize relationships and the well being of others. They focus on human interaction and caring rather than competition and personal success. The three main characteristics of nurturing orientation are 1) caring for others and preservation are dominant 2) stress on equality, solidarity and quality of work life 3) work in order to live.
From the definition and the understanding of the three types of cross-cultural values mentioned above, a country is actually can be named as a big organization where every country apply these three cross-cultural values. For example, Malaysia is one of the organization among the others where the role of Malaysia as an organization is much more similar to any other common existing company to which Malaysia is playing a role as profit making organization. Malaysia earns a large amount of income by attracting investors in the world come across to Malaysia. The number of investment is one of the big factors that affect the entire Malaysia's income and economy and a stable economy ensure the continuous growth of Malaysia.
Here, we divide Malaysia's environment into four parts:
1) The owner of the organization (Malaysia) - All Malaysians
2) Management team - The government (Prime Minister, Ministers, State Ministers etc.)
3) Employees - People who work for the government
4) Competitors - All countries excluded Malaysia
So, who are responsible to ensure the continuous growth and the competitiveness of Malaysia? The answer should be the management team and the employees who are taking their responsibility to control the whole working process of Malaysia, to make sure Malaysia is in the right condition and is growing and the most important things are to fulfill the owner's target (reduce the rate of poorer, increase family income and GDP) and to achieve the organization's goal (Mission 2020).
Now, the study of organizational behavior becoming one of the most essential parts to bring along Malaysia from the condition of developed country (developed organization) into a full developed country (full developed organization). First of all, the employee's behavior in Malaysia are react to be more collectivism. They are not too individualistic as they are willingly to work in group. Even though most of the employees are likely to hang up in a group during lunch time or where there is a short break and it increases the opportunity for the workers towards knowledge sharing and increases the cooperation among each other. It is good as it push Malaysia into the line in becoming a learning organization where the people is practices to be more innovate. This will certainly improve the competitiveness of an organization.
Malaysia tends to have high power distance scores. The employees accept and value unequal power, value obedience to authority, and are comfortable receiving commands from their superiors without consultation or debate. Besides, the prefer resolving differences or contradicting their boss indirectly through formal procedures. It is true that the employees should have a letter regarding to the issue discussed and they have to go step by step to get the approval from lower management until to the top management where the entire process is known as bureaucracy. Let's take for another example, the State Minister (as middle or lower management) should get the approval or support from the Prime Minister or Ministers (top management) before a project can be started and we can see that there is a strong hierarchical applied in Malaysia. the example is just similar to a common company where a trainer should get support from the top management of an organization before a training program can be started.
In the context of achievement-nurturing orientation, Malaysia is stand at the middle between achievement orientation and nurturing orientation. The employees, the working process and the results are not really achieving when compared to others like Japan. This might cause from the bureaucracy system which is applied strongly in Malaysia and it slows down the entire working process and reduces the efficiency of workers. The strong bureaucracy system might be one of the big factors that reduces the number of investors and this will directly affect Malaysia's income as a whole.
As a conclusion, Malaysia is still finding her way to improve and so were the other countries (competitors). The great competition among the countries is indirectly improve the life of their own citizens and this will also affect the wealth of a country.
My experiences in applying the three cross-cultural values
Individualism-collectivism
I experienced collectivism concept during 308 election in year 2008. During the 15 days before the election started, i was one of the working committee for party DAP (Democratic Action Party) in my hometown. We have about 60 of us and we were divided into several groups where every groups has their own duty. This is the most important activity that i took part before where we learn a lot from there. Working in a group have let us came out with a lot of ideas in a process of publishing a good magazine, the distribution of magazine, organizing a speech and etc. It is hard to apply individualism concept here where people are tend to miss up some of the important ideas and informations especially in the writing of an article where the article is published to read for all.
Power distance
The experiences of applying the concept took part during the Mandarin debate competition in my school. Our group applied lower power distance as the group leader empowered the group members where all of us brainstormed and have chance to speak out of our ideas about the topic discussed. Good idea which is related to the debate topic is accepted by the group leader and there was not much of procedures carried on in speaking out our ideas.
Achievement- nurturing
When recalled back to my past 20 years, i decided to put "entering into university" is my biggest achievement that i have achieved. Some of them may think this is not a really good achievement, but for me, getting my step into university is the starting point of the change of my life.
References:
McShane, SL & Von Glinow, MA 2008, Organizational Behavior, 4th ed, McGraw-Hill, USA.
Penny Bassett (2004). Chinese and Australian Students' Cultural Perceptions: A Comparative Study [On-line] Available
http://eprints.vu.edu.au/archive/00000383/01/wp9_2004_bassett.pdf.
Virtual Language Technologies, LLC (2001). Comparing Cultures, ALTA Language Services, Inc
Individualism and collectivism are the two most commonly mentioned cross-cultural value. Individualism can be defined as the extent to which a person values independence and personal uniqueness. Highly individualist people value personal freedom, self sufficiency, control over their own lives, and appreciation of the unique qualities that distinguish them from others. The main characteristics of individualism are 1) identity is based on the individual 2) Tasks prevail over relationships 3) speaking one's mind is a sign of honesty.
Whereas collectivism is the extent to which people value duty to groups to which they belong and to group harmony. Highly collectivist people defined themselves by their group membership and value harmonious relationship within the group. The main characteristics of collectivism are 1) identity is based on the group to which one belongs 2) relationships prevail over tasks 3) direct confrontations should be avoided.
Besides, power distances another type of cross-cultural value. It is different from one country to another especially where there is a huge different between Asia and Western country. Power distance can be defined as the extent to which people accept unequal distribution of power in a society and in an organization. According to Samovar et.al.(1998) people in high distance countries, ...believe that power and authority are facts of life. Both consciously and unconsciously, these cultures teach their members that people are not equal in this world and that everybody has a rightful place, which is clearly marked by countless vertical arrangements. Social hierarchy is prevalent and institutionalises inequality. On the other hand, Hofstede (1991) contends that in lower power distance countries 'there is a preference for consultation' and 'subordinates will quite readily approach and contradict their bosses'.
Achievement and nurturing orientation reflects a competitive versus cooperative view of relations with other people. people with a high achievement orientation value assertiveness, competitiveness, and materialism. They appreciate people who are tough and favor the acquisition of money and material goods. The three characteristics of achievement orientation are 1) material success and progress are dominant 2) stress on equity, competition among colleagues and performance 3) live in order to work.
In contrast, people in nurturing-oriented cultures emphasize relationships and the well being of others. They focus on human interaction and caring rather than competition and personal success. The three main characteristics of nurturing orientation are 1) caring for others and preservation are dominant 2) stress on equality, solidarity and quality of work life 3) work in order to live.
From the definition and the understanding of the three types of cross-cultural values mentioned above, a country is actually can be named as a big organization where every country apply these three cross-cultural values. For example, Malaysia is one of the organization among the others where the role of Malaysia as an organization is much more similar to any other common existing company to which Malaysia is playing a role as profit making organization. Malaysia earns a large amount of income by attracting investors in the world come across to Malaysia. The number of investment is one of the big factors that affect the entire Malaysia's income and economy and a stable economy ensure the continuous growth of Malaysia.
Here, we divide Malaysia's environment into four parts:
1) The owner of the organization (Malaysia) - All Malaysians
2) Management team - The government (Prime Minister, Ministers, State Ministers etc.)
3) Employees - People who work for the government
4) Competitors - All countries excluded Malaysia
So, who are responsible to ensure the continuous growth and the competitiveness of Malaysia? The answer should be the management team and the employees who are taking their responsibility to control the whole working process of Malaysia, to make sure Malaysia is in the right condition and is growing and the most important things are to fulfill the owner's target (reduce the rate of poorer, increase family income and GDP) and to achieve the organization's goal (Mission 2020).
Now, the study of organizational behavior becoming one of the most essential parts to bring along Malaysia from the condition of developed country (developed organization) into a full developed country (full developed organization). First of all, the employee's behavior in Malaysia are react to be more collectivism. They are not too individualistic as they are willingly to work in group. Even though most of the employees are likely to hang up in a group during lunch time or where there is a short break and it increases the opportunity for the workers towards knowledge sharing and increases the cooperation among each other. It is good as it push Malaysia into the line in becoming a learning organization where the people is practices to be more innovate. This will certainly improve the competitiveness of an organization.
Malaysia tends to have high power distance scores. The employees accept and value unequal power, value obedience to authority, and are comfortable receiving commands from their superiors without consultation or debate. Besides, the prefer resolving differences or contradicting their boss indirectly through formal procedures. It is true that the employees should have a letter regarding to the issue discussed and they have to go step by step to get the approval from lower management until to the top management where the entire process is known as bureaucracy. Let's take for another example, the State Minister (as middle or lower management) should get the approval or support from the Prime Minister or Ministers (top management) before a project can be started and we can see that there is a strong hierarchical applied in Malaysia. the example is just similar to a common company where a trainer should get support from the top management of an organization before a training program can be started.
In the context of achievement-nurturing orientation, Malaysia is stand at the middle between achievement orientation and nurturing orientation. The employees, the working process and the results are not really achieving when compared to others like Japan. This might cause from the bureaucracy system which is applied strongly in Malaysia and it slows down the entire working process and reduces the efficiency of workers. The strong bureaucracy system might be one of the big factors that reduces the number of investors and this will directly affect Malaysia's income as a whole.
As a conclusion, Malaysia is still finding her way to improve and so were the other countries (competitors). The great competition among the countries is indirectly improve the life of their own citizens and this will also affect the wealth of a country.
My experiences in applying the three cross-cultural values
Individualism-collectivism
I experienced collectivism concept during 308 election in year 2008. During the 15 days before the election started, i was one of the working committee for party DAP (Democratic Action Party) in my hometown. We have about 60 of us and we were divided into several groups where every groups has their own duty. This is the most important activity that i took part before where we learn a lot from there. Working in a group have let us came out with a lot of ideas in a process of publishing a good magazine, the distribution of magazine, organizing a speech and etc. It is hard to apply individualism concept here where people are tend to miss up some of the important ideas and informations especially in the writing of an article where the article is published to read for all.
Power distance
The experiences of applying the concept took part during the Mandarin debate competition in my school. Our group applied lower power distance as the group leader empowered the group members where all of us brainstormed and have chance to speak out of our ideas about the topic discussed. Good idea which is related to the debate topic is accepted by the group leader and there was not much of procedures carried on in speaking out our ideas.
Achievement- nurturing
When recalled back to my past 20 years, i decided to put "entering into university" is my biggest achievement that i have achieved. Some of them may think this is not a really good achievement, but for me, getting my step into university is the starting point of the change of my life.
References:
McShane, SL & Von Glinow, MA 2008, Organizational Behavior, 4th ed, McGraw-Hill, USA.
Penny Bassett (2004). Chinese and Australian Students' Cultural Perceptions: A Comparative Study [On-line] Available
http://eprints.vu.edu.au/archive/00000383/01/wp9_2004_bassett.pdf.
Virtual Language Technologies, LLC (2001). Comparing Cultures, ALTA Language Services, Inc
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