The company's rapid pace of growth stopped; it was forced to close stores and focus its growth efforts on overseas markets. In addition, the economic downturn and increased competition has caused the company to change its strategies. There were a number of major challenges that this presented. One was economic -- the company simply could not be as profitable as it had been before. Another, however, was cultural. Starbucks had a culture of winning, such that winning came easily. Now in a more competitive, difficult environment, the culture has been forced to change to one where market share is something to be battled for. The company overcame these challenges by scaling back operations and using communication to shift the attitudes of managers. The company began to scale back shareholder expectations. In addition, Starbucks has redoubled its efforts to focus on the strengths that allowed it to grow in the…...

Caring organizations are most commonly represented in the service sector, but many traditional manufacturers are caring organizations as well. In a caring organization, "trust flourishes" among employees (492). Totally caring organizations are considerably rare, but tend to be highly successful and effective companies with high levels of job satisfaction and customer loyalty.
The statement: "the rational model of the organization implies that the corporation is based on consent, while the political model implies that the corporation is based on force, and the caring model implies that the corporation is based on interpersonal relationships" adequately summarizes the differences between these three organizational models. However, no organization embodies only one of these models. All three of these organizational approaches may be present in a single organization, or an organization exhibits two of these styles more strongly than another.

Universities are commonly caring organizations at heart because most professors tend to be dedicated to…...

Organizational Politics and Its Impact on Leadership
Vigoda (2000) defines organizational politics as a behavior that strategically maximizes one's self-interests at the expense of the interests of others, and the needs of the greater organization. This view portrays organizational politics as something negative; something detrimental to the well-being of the organization. Gull and Zaidi (2012), however, hold a slightly different view. They define organizational politics as "an activity that permits people in an organization to accomplish goals without going through proper channels;" however, they also emphasize that whether or not politicking harms an organization depends solely on the degree of alignment between the goals of the individual, and those of the organization (p. 156). The wide array of definitions "suggests that the concept is in transition and under continuous debate" (Drory & Vigoda-Gadot, 2010, p. 195). This text takes on the latter perspective, with the author regarding organizational politics as neither…...

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References

Drory, A. & Vigoda-Gadot, E. (2010). Organizational Politics and Human Resource Management: A Typology and the Israeli Experience. Human Resource Management Review, 20(3), 194-202.

Gull, S. & Zaidi, A.A. (2012). Impact of Organizational Politics on Employees' Job Satisfaction in the Health Sector of Lahore, Pakistan. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business, 4(2), 156-170.

Ogungbamila, B. (2013). Perception of Organizational Politics and Job-Related Negative Emotions as Predictors of Workplace Incivility among Employees of Distressed Banks. European Scientific Journal, 9(5), 125-138.

Sonaike, K. (2013). Revisiting the Good and Bad Sides of Organizational Politics. Journal of Business and Economic Research, 11(4), 197-202.

Sometimes, in terms of salary, influence, skills building, and personal friendships, individual organizational actors have harmonious goals with other actors, and with the organizational collective. But "regardless of the degree to which employees may be committed to the organization's objectives, there can be little doubt that, at least occasionally, personal interests will be incongruent with those of the organization." (Ratzberg, 2000) the potentially negative side of organizational politics arises when people think differently and people want to act differently from one another and/or the organization's overall objective.
Still, one can use influence tactics such as rational persuasion, inspirational appeal, and mutual consultation in a positive fashion of power sharing and power-deployment, as well as more negative tools such as ingratiation and favor-seeking and personal appeals to achieve individual power objectives. Organizational tools such as coalition building, pointing to organizational policies or rules practices and traditions are ways that organizations deploy…...

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Works Cited

Ratzberg, Wilf (16 Feb 2000) "Defining Organizational Politics." OBNotes.HTM. Retrieved 28 Feb at 2005 http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1650/htmlpolitc01.html

Organizational Politics
OGANZIATIONAL POLTICS

Organization politics is not just part of every organization but it is also an important aspect of the business from the view point of CIO (Chief Information Officer). In both the long run and short run, CIO with his authority over the transfer of information will decide the decision making psyche of CFO and CEO.

The CIO, CFO and CEO are three legs of tripod and with any of them missing, the tripod is not of much use. But out of these three legs the CIO (Chief Information Officer) has the most importance because the setup that he will put in place or his handling of information will ultimately lead to performance and credibility of CEO and CFO. Without a good flow of information, whose responsibility ultimately lies of the CIO, the organization functions will work on itself, sometimes producing results that are helpful and sometimes will cause a…...

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References

Brunn, S.D. (2006). Wal-Mart world:the world's biggest corporation in the global economy. London: Routeledge: Taylor & Francis Group.

Khalid on ArticlesBase (2010). Organizational Politics:  http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/organizational-politics-3400761.html 

Low, L. (2004). Its Politics, as usual. In Various, CIO (p. 87). New York: www.cio.com.

Madelung, W. (1998). The Succession to Muhammad: A Study of the Early Caliphate. London: Cambridge University Press.

Organizational politics then left unchecked will attempt to squelch, even force to fail any IT plan as seen as too much of a threat to the current hierarchy of status and power within any organization. This is often seen in fact from the standpoint of manufacturing companies who attempt to en masse move their existing production processes to an EP system prior to streamlining the existing processes first. This tends to only automate mediocrity and speed up the inefficiencies the systems were acquired to overcome in the first place.
Overcoming Organizational Politics to Make Progress

eliance on traditional means of gaining consensus through autocratic and ordered compliance fail, as they do nothing to alleviate the fear and lack of trust people have about how any new IT system or decision will impact their jobs and status. What is needed is more of a focus on shared ownership and most important of…...

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References

Ken Karacsony. (2006, January). The Change Challenge. Computerworld, 40(3), 42.

Lui, K., & Chan, K.. (2008). Rescuing Troubled Software Projects by Team Transformation: A Case Study With an ERP Project. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 55(1), 171.

Mintzberg, Henry. (1991). The Effective Organization: Forces and Forms. Sloan Management Review, 32(2), 54.

Andre Spicer. (2005). The political process of inscribing a new technology1. Human Relations, 58(7), 867-890.

Organizational Theory #2
What core competences give an organization competitive advantage? What are examples of an organization's functional-level strategies?

Core competencies are those capabilities that are critical to a business achieving a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Typically, core competencies can be identified by certain common characteristics -- offering a benefit to the customer, difficult to imitate, uniquely identify the organization and easily leveraged to create many products or operate in many markets (Kern, 2010). The organization that is best able to use its resources to create value is in an ideal position to outperform the competition, thus creating advantage (Jones, 2010). Core competencies tend to change in response to changes in the environment. They are flexible, evolve over time and enable the company to enter apparently different markets with a clear and distinctive brand proposition. Examples of core competencies include manufacturing, research and development, new technology or organizational design and change.…...

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References

Jones, G. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Terry, L.D., & Hoefer, R.A. (1995). Making politics and power respectable. Public Administration Review, 55(3), 298.

Organizational Behavior
What influence tactics and power bases are evident in this case? Explain.

In the first place, the owner of the company has all of the power, if she wants it. Of course, she is bounded by her employees and the law to an extent, but when making a change such as this it would seem that she first used legitimate power. She saw a need to radically change the way the company operated because revenues were consistently dropping, so she had to find a way to arrest the free fall. Legitimate power always seems like a fall back point, but her statement regarding the receptionist of "just figure it out" points to the CEO's use threats, no wheedling, just a strong statement because she has the ultimate power in the company. It can also be said that she employed expert power also. The CEO of a company is the chief…...

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References

Alagse. (2010). Leadership and organizational politics. Retrieved from http://www.alagse.com/leadership/l3.php

Bloomberg Businessweek. (2006). Smashing the clock: No schedules. No mandatory meetings. Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace. Bloomberg  http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_50/b4013001.htm 

Kidwell, R., Bennett, N., & Valentine, S. (2010). The limits of effort in understanding performance: What employees 'do' and what might be done about it. Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship, 15 (1), 3-9.

Kreitner, R., & Kinicki, A. (2010). Organizational behavior, (9th Ed.). New York: McGraw- Hill Higher Education.

Therefore, there is a room for future research (Swaminathan & Jawahar, 2013). The results of this study indicated a possibility of other factors that influence job satisfaction. From this fact, it is important to recommend further research for the purpose of revealing the factors and improving job performance through the use of the results (Mohamed & Anisa, 2012). esearchers should perform the investigation by using many and few participants and compare the results in order to devise the best samples. This is because this research relied on a sample of 65 participants. if, a bigger number than the one stated on this research is used, there is a possibility of a considerable difference being evident (Mohamed & Anisa, 2012).
eferences

Swaminathan, S., & Jawahar, P. (2013). job satisfaction as a predictor of organizational citizenship behavior: an empirical study. Global Journal of Business esearch (GJB),

7(1), 71-80.

Mohamed, M., & Anisa, H.H. (2012). elationship…...

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References

Swaminathan, S., & Jawahar, P. (2013). job satisfaction as a predictor of organizational citizenship behavior: an empirical study. Global Journal of Business Research (GJBR),

7(1), 71-80.

Mohamed, M., & Anisa, H.H. (2012). Relationship Between Organizational Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior. IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior, 11(3), 7-

22.

Given the fact that the resistance to change is usually a strong one in most companies, intensified efforts are required in order to change corporate culture. Although the company's leader is the main factor that influences this process, change can only be implemented with the support of employees in each company.
The network of power is probably the most important factor that leaders must address when trying to implement organizational change. This means that leaders must identify the power poles in the organization and identify their intentions and motivations. Furthermore, they must analyze the behavior of these power poles and their area of influence. Based on the facts revealed by this analysis, leaders must develop the negotiation process. This is because the individuals holding the power within the company must be persuaded in supporting the organizational change process.

The negotiation process in this case is probably the most important activity that…...

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Reference list:

1. Clement, R. (1994). Culture, Leadership, and Power: The Keys to Organizational Change. Business Horizons. Retrieved March 4, 2011 from  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1038/is_n1_v37/ai_14922916/pg_7/?tag=content;col1 .

2. Ratzburg, W. (2011). Defining Organizational Politics. Retrieved March 4, 2011 from  http://web.archive.org/web/20080216010425/http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1650/htmlpolitc01.html .

Organizational culture theory and the role and impact of both formal and informal groups on the functioning of modern day organizations.
Organizational culture is the way organizations conducts its business transactions. It also refers to the different perspectives that a company sees things. An organization builds its own organizational culture through structure, history and the traditions of the company (Shafritz 2005). Theories of organizational culture suggest that culture gives an organization a sense of identity and defines what the company stands for. It also tells us what the company is. Culture also gives details to the principles of the company. Organizational culture in broader terms is the collective behavior of humans and the meaning of the actions that people do.

It involves the vision, norms, systems, beliefs and the organization values. Organizational culture contains values accepted by the employees of an organization. There are four main categories of organizational culture. Dominance and…...

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Men and women perform different tasks in the society. There are tasks that women cannot do whereas the men are competent. Other tasks are hard for men to perform while the same tasks are easy for the women. The changing world enables women to work in the fields that many people regarded as belonging to the men. Women are now working in construction companies as a form of employment. The tasks affect positively in a bureaucratic performance since women incorporate their skills with that of men to work towards the achievement of an organization's goal. Strong and good working relationships between the employees in a bureau are beneficial (Gormley 2008). The strong relationships ensure that there is competence and effectiveness in performance of the employees.

Political support is crucial for any bureaucracy to thrive. Political stability and support are the main determinant factor that will enable a bureaucracy to thrive in its activities. Political support enables the bureaucracy to work without any hurdles. This ensures that the bureaucracy works with ease. Political support enables the bureaucracy to receive help and assistance from politicians (Gormley 2008). Political interference is the main factor that leads to the collapse of bureaucracy. Negative working relations between a bureau and politicians are a negative factor that will make the bureau not to function accordingly.

Good leadership helps bureaus to work effectively. Good leadership ensures that there are no corruption cases in many bureaus (Gormley 2008). Bad leadership results in the misappropriation of funds and corruption in the bureaus. Good leadership is a motivator to the junior staffs who look up to the leaders and follow the examples set up by the leaders. This enables the employees in the bureau to perform excellently in all sectors. Good governance and leadership by the officials enable the organization to get funding from the government that helps it in carrying outs its tasks.

As governments look to eradicate deficits, it is often organization that fall under discretionary spending categories that bear the brunt of those cuts. Not only does the productive capacity of these organizations suffer but so, too, does morale. ith declining funding, public sector organizations also often have difficult recruiting top talent into their organizations.
Another issue that arises with public organization decline is that there is a lack of motivation and a lack of innovation. Innovation in particular is a challenge. hen considering Sayre's Model it is not hard to see how excessive bureaucracy can stifle the innovative capabilities of public organizations. Pathak (2007) argues that middle management needs to take a lead role in not only keeping up morale, but encouraging high levels of performance in public organizations as a policy to stem decline.

Cutbacks can be particularly challenging for public organizations. The most important aspect of cutbacks is that…...

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Works Cited:

McCarthy, R. & Aronson, J. (2001). Analyzing the balance between consumer, business and government: The emergent Internet privacy legal framework. IACIS 2001. Retrieved November 19, 2012 from  http://iacis.org/iis/2001/mccarthy275.PDF 

Padhi, N. (2010). The eight elements of TQM. iSixSigma.com. Retrieved November 19, 2012 from  http://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/total-quality-management-tqm/eight-elements-tqm/ 

Pathak, P. (2007). The decline of public sector organizations: Can middle managers play the role of saviour? Indian School of Mines. Retrieved November 19, 2012 from  http://www.ediindia.org/Creed/data/Govind%20Swaroop%20Pathak%20&%20Pallavi%20Pathak.htm 

Sheppard, G. (2009). Public sector reward: More than motivation. Personnel Today. Retrieved November 19, 2012 from  http://www.personneltoday.com/articles/06/07/2009/51319/public-sector-reward-more-than-motivation.htm

Organizational Issues from the Responsibility Project (Liberty Mutual)
The video chosen from the Responsibility Project was "omen in the orld: Erin Ganju." Her story is meaningful for a number of reasons that will be reviewed in this paper. Ganju is the CEO of "Room to Read," an organization that seeks to help educate children (through reading and other skills) in order that today's children can grow up with the power to change the world for the better.

omen in the orld: Erin Ganju -- hat are the Important Issues? Ganju begins her video by explaining how "passionate" her parents were -- when she was just a child -- about sharing information with her regarding different cultures. A sense of "wanderlust" was "instilled" in her, Ganju explains. Importantly, Ganju's parents not only took their daughter to many interesting places, but the family read about each place they visited, encouraging both reading skills and…...

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Works Cited

Deen, Thalif. (2011). UNESCO reveals huge secondary education gap worldwide. One World

South Asia. Retrieved November 12, 2012, from http://southasia.oneworld.net.

Foster, Wayne A., and Miller, Merideth. Development of the Literacy Achievement Gap: A

Longitudinal Study of Kindergarten Through Third Grade. Language, Speech, and Hearing

Organizational behavior refers to the psychological and sociological habits and patterns evident in specific groups of people. It is often defined formally as "the study of individuals and groups in organizations," ("Organizational Behavior Today," p.2). The study of organizational behavior includes elements such as leadership traits and behaviors; the use or abuse of power, and the politics that characterize people's behavior within the organization. Because each organization functions according to different goals and missions, organizational behavior varies widely from sector to sector. Organizations which have as their primary aim to make profit will for instance behave differently than non-profit organizations; the individuals that comprise those organizations will demonstrate certain character traits that make them valuable to the organization as a whole. On the other hand, all organizations will demonstrate certain similar characteristics that are essential for the smooth functioning of any group of people. For example, the leaders in most…...

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Works Cited

Clark, Donald. "Leadership: Organizational Behavior." Big Dog's Leadership Page. .

'Organizational Behavior Today."

Wertheim, Edward G. "Historical Background of Organizational Behavior." .

Organization Decision Making
Within an organization, there have to be many changes taking place at all times, without which the organization may stagnate and start to decline. These changes would have to be organization-wide, rather than small changes like changing the program, adding a new person, and so on. Some examples of organization-wide change are a change in the mission of the company, or a restructuring of operations, or maybe an addition of a new technology, or a merger, etc. In general organizational change is provoked by a need for accomplishing some preconceived goal, or it is caused by some outside force like for example, a need for cutting costs within the organization, or a need to increase declining productivity. Although it is a fact that organization wide change is difficult to accomplish, primarily for the reason that many people are afraid of change of any kind, even though it is…...

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References

Are You a Good Decision Maker? Retrieved From

Accessed on 14 July, 2005http://www.onlinewbc.gov/Docs/manage/decisions.html

Best Corporate Change Resources. Retrieved From

http://cor-ex.com/sites/bestchng/Sites/Change-Consultants.htm