Organizational Culture

THE ALIBABA GROUP

We started the class with a discussion on the AliBaba Group. AliBaba Groupis a privately owned China-based family of Internet-based eCommerce businesses thatcover business-to-business online marketplaces, retail and payment platforms, shopping search engine and data-centric cloud computing services.

The company was started by Jack Ma based on the simple realizations that he had:

1. I don't have the money.
2. I don't have a plan.
3. If you can't use the internet in this age, you are useless.

What was Jack Ma's objectives with AliBaba?

(a) Empower SMEs through the power of the internet.
(b) At least 80% of these SMEs who are working with AliBaba MUSTgrow unimaginably.
(c) 0.0001% of the shares of AliBaba must be enough to support generations together.

What was the result?
Today AliBaba's consumer-to-consumer portal Taobao (similar to eBay) features nearly a billion products and is one of the 20 most-visited websites globally. Alibaba Group's sites account for over 60% of the parcels delivered in China.

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Organizations, just like individuals, have their own personalities—more typically known as organizational cultures. Understanding how culture is created, communicated, and changed will help you to be a more effective manager. But first, let’s define organizational culture.

Just as water is invisible to the fish swimming in it, yet affects their actions, culture consists of unseen elements such as assumptions and values that affect organizational life.

Organizational Culture encompass the values and behaviours that contribute to the unique social and psychological environment of an organization.

Organizational Culture is also called Corporate Culture. Organizational culture includes an organization's expectations,experiences,philosophy, and values that hold it together. It is expressed in its self-image, inner workings, interactions with the outside world, and future expectations. It is based on shared attitudes, beliefs, customs, and written (sometimes) and unwritten rules that have been developed over time and are considered valid.

There are various types of organizational cultures. We discussed a few of them in class. I am listing them below:

1. Open Culture - One where employees are motivated to voice their values-driven concerns regarding problematic business practices. An open culture helps to counteract any occasional lapse into passivity at the board level or on the part of institutional investors.

2. Safety Culture - One where safety is ALWAYS first no matter what the cost. A safety culture is one were all employees are proactive in ensuring safety at work place. People immediately report any perceived short comings in the work place safety and in the safety of products given to customers or clients.

3. Quality Culture - A culture where utmost importance is given to the quality of the product or service being rendered. Volume takes a back seat. So does cost. Batch recalling of cars/computers when defects are found is a good example of the quality culture. Toyota is a notable example.

4. Performance Culture - We could also call this OUTCOME ORIENTED CULTURE. This is one that emphasize achievement, results, and action as important values. A good example of an outcome-oriented culture may be the electronics retailer Best Buy. Having a culture emphasizing sales performance, Best Buy tallies revenues and other relevant figures daily by department. Employees are trained and mentored to sell company products effectively, and they learn how much money their department made every day.

5. Ethical Culture - A culture where great importance is given to ethical business practices and this importance is seen at all levels in the organization. We see that in such organizations, ethics are given precedence even if being so may lead to a loss of business and profit. The TATA Group is a good example to note.




There are three aspects to organization culture, namely :
(a) It is something that is practised by MOST of the people in an
organization.
(b) It is something that is practised MOST of the time.
(c) It is something that is DEEPLY believed by the employees.

Many thoughts about organizational culture came out in class. I am finding it a little hard to organize them into meaningful sentences and paragraphs. Therefore, I am giving these thoughts in point-wise form without any specific order or precedence. The various point we discussed where:

1. Organizational Culture leads to enhanced performance.
2. Organizational Culture is an important motivating factor.
3. Organizational Culture is depended on the type of structure which the organization follow. Flat Organizations have a different structure from more Hierarchical ones.
4. Organizational Culture is not STATIC. It changes from time to time.
5. Organizational Culture is invisible.
6. Organizational Culture is usually inferred. There is no book from where to read about it.
7. Organizational Culture - usually - is not documented. It is separate from the rule book. In fact, we could argue that if culture were to be written down then it would lose its impact.
8. Organizations can have multiple cultures of sub-cultures.
9. Organizational Culture can be WEAK or STRONG.