Introduction
Organisational development entails a deliberately planned effort that aims at augmenting the effectiveness of the company in the ever-competitive market. Many scholars underscore the fact that the major aim of organisational development is to promote readiness in the company in order to facilitate change. In this regard, it is viewed as a developmental strategy that is expected to alter the beliefs, attitudes, and values of employees towards acceptance of modern technologies and practices, diminishing markets, and absorption of challenges that present themselves in the business environment.
Many people misinterpret organisational development to mean introduction of new training opportunities, facilitating tram development, enhancement of human resources, and learning, but the case is different (Brooks 2004). In reality, organisational development is specifically about change in the company meaning people must be involved in the process always (Brown 2011).
Organisational culture is defined as the behaviour of individuals at work, which determine the successfulness of the organisation. In this paper, the organisational culture of HTC Corporation will be analysed in various aspects. Changing an organisation’s culture has never been an easy task since it entails behaviour transformation. The organisation has to involve each person in the process meaning that it calls for commitment and loyalty from employees, the management, and other stakeholders.
Organisational culture is a complex pattern of assumptions as regards to group’s roles. In this case, it is expected that all values that guide behaviour should be learned, but the process has to follow the established procedure to prevent the emergence of conflicts. On one of the challenges that an organisation is likely to face is adaptation to external change. Members have never wanted to adopt the new ways of doing things, especially the old since they view this as an interruption to the normal work schedule. Another difficulty that an organisation is likely to face is establishing a survival mechanism, which calls for the development and sustenance of an integrated, firm, and internal distinctiveness (Cole 2004).
Review of OD definition
Various theories defined organizational development differently. According to complexity theory, change is something that cannot be managed in complicated systems meaning an organization would first have to redesign its systems and structures before attempting to introduce change. Additionally, the theory suggests that all organizational members must support change in case the desired results are to be achieved. In this regard, a leader has to encourage his or her followers to adopt the new ways of doing things. Brown developed a model that involved six focal areas to explain how planned change could take place in the organization.
Previous scholars, such as Beckhard, suggested that an organization is a system that functions independently meaning each employee has to follow the rules and regulations and ensure that the desired change is achieved. However, a shift from such models to the most current ones that focuses on human capital and open systems approach has been witnessed implying that each individual has something to contribute in the organization. The global market presents varying challenges to organizations and organizational behaviour has to appreciate the dynamics of the business environment by adjusting its view on change.
Organisational behaviour has enjoyed a robust history because the focus on T-groups is has shifted. Under the model, the management believed that formation of groups was the first step towards achieving the best results, but action research was introduced to explore and understand some of the challenges that faced organisations, as far as goal attainment were concerned. Again, the issue of quality assurance came in since it was realized that customers were not given an opportunity to participate in the change process.
This meant that clients had to be given the top most service as one way of improving the image of the organization. The issue of setting up an organizational culture came in and it took time to be adopted since members were requested align their beliefs, values, and principles to those of the organization. Reengineering entailed stimulating members to produce the best results by requesting them to do what they liked most. Through this, it was realized that taking employees through a learning process was critical to their success (Brown 2011). Currently, employee engagement seems to be the new model, as workers are often consulted before introducing new policies.
There has been a significant shift in organizational development right from the time of Beckhard to Brown. Organisational development has six major features that focus on certain aspects. The first is change, which should be planned by the management with an aim of attaining the much-desired goals. For this to happen, collaborative approach has to be adopted and it involves consulting other important stakeholders before introducing change policies.
The third feature is performance orientation, which places much emphasis on the improvement and enhancement of performance. The fourth feature is humanistic orientation whereby the organization is expected to make effective use of human resources to maximize profits. Systems approach means that the organizational leaders develop strong relationships with other elements to facilitate excellence. The last feature is scientific method whereby a problem is approached carefully by establishing its causes, determining the effects, and suggesting solutions (Brown 2011).
The need for change at HTC
HTC Corporation is a company based in Taiwan that specialises in the manufacture of Smartphone and tablets. The company was established in 1997 as an original design manufacture of electronic equipments, particularly mobile phones that operate with windows. In 2008, the organisation expanded its operations to include the manufacture of android devices. In 2010, the organisation reached a different level when it manufactured the windows phone.
In 2011, the company started marketing high quality mobile phones under its name, HTC. However, the organisation received a negative media attention in 2013 when it was claimed that its shares in the company were less than three percent while its profitability had fallen significantly since 2011. The organisation is applauded for contributing in the formation of Open Handset Alliance, which is an organisation that is dedicated towards the growth of android device (George 2011).
Client / Practitioner relation
Studies show that the strength and the effectiveness of any management determine the successfulness of the organisation. Based on this, change should be initiated at the top meaning all senior managers should approve the new ways of doing things before introducing them to the juniors. In this case, the targeted client in the organisation would be the senior management, including the CEO, departmental head, branch managers, and board members. The practitioner will employ an approach that allows the client to participate fully in diagnosing the problem.
Diagnostics
Research plays a critical role in establishing the new problem and providing sufficient answers. If any intervention strategy is to be applied successfully, the practitioner will have to engage in some form of research to establish the views of organisational members on the performance of the organisation (Brown 2011). This will play a critical role in establishing the facts before moving on to set up the strategy. In this regard, the form of study to be undertaken would be quantitative in nature since the aim is simply to capture the number of employees who approve the introduction of change (Hogg & Vaughan 2007).
Therefore, questionnaires will serve a great purpose of collecting employee’s views and opinions. In other words, the practitioner will interview members of staff to capture their views in the planned change. The diagnostic model to be employed would be differentiation and integration meaning coordination would be one of the aspects to be considered when issuing an advice to the organization. In other words, HTC would have to assign duties to employees based on their prowess, knowledge, and skills since it would allow improvement.
Action plan and Strategies
The action plan would be based on Brown’s stages, as shown below.
An extensive research on the various aspects of leadership reveals a number of concepts and practices that organisational members have to conceptualise in order to realise the desired goals and objectives. Team leadership model is one of the terms often used to suggest one of the ways through which a manager could lead his or her team in achieving the goals. Based on the model, the leader is simply expected to monitor the performance of the team before taking the most appropriate action to ensure that effectiveness is enhanced (Brown 2011).
While monitoring and evaluation has never been an easy task, the leader has to develop various strategies that will help him or her understand the functionality of the team. Through the model, it is noted that each person has a unique way dealing with an issue meaning giving members of the group an opportunity to contribute their ideas results in enhanced decisions as opposed to coming with unilateral decisions that are insensitive to the beliefs, values, and expectations of the majority (Herzberg 2003).
Action mediation is concept suggesting that group members should employ various courses of action before formulating the final decision. Task leadership function is a practice that entails job supervision, policy formulation, problem solving, adopting changes, making plans, and ensuring that goals are achieved. Additionally, maintenance function is another practice that includes development of positive climate, solving problems at the interpersonal levels, developing strategies that satisfy the needs of all members, and encouraging cohesion.
Boxall and Purcell (2011) presented a leadership model that is of great significance when it comes to diagnosing problems in various groups and designing appropriate courses of actions. First, it is noted that a leader has to possess a stable mind to help in determining whether an action has to be taken or the situation is to be monitored for some time. The theory plays a role in building commitment and loyalty among members of the team, which leads to conflict management. In their analysis, Armstrong (2007) was of the view that enhancing self-determination and developing competence, as well as confidence plays a role in improving the performance of the organization. Therefore, instilling confidence on employees would be the first step towards solving the problem at HTC Corporation.
Evaluation: Self-Renewal, Monitoring, and Stabilizing
If the organization adopts scientific methods of management, it would be said to have changed (Brown 2011). Organisational goals cannot be realised without application of planning techniques, best implementation strategies, and control concepts (Latham 2011).. Research shows that the management is charged with at least five major functions and the first one is planning, which entails generation of the missions, goals, and strategies that will guide the members of the institution in achieving both personal and organisational goals (Adair 2009). In case something is not being done in the proper way, corrective measures must be taken.
Level of communication would the second yardstick to measure whether the organization is improving. Without communication, the manager might not understand the problems affecting the organisation (Brown, 2011). Many managers have never paid attention to several aspects of communication and they end up underperforming because the information they pass is always misinterpreted leading to conflicts and disappointment at personal and professional levels (McGregor 2006). However, effective communication calls for an extra effort since it does not simply rely on exchanging information, but instead it depends on understanding the message (Kreitner & Kinicki 2013).
Conclusion and Recommendation
Each organisational member is expected to identify and communicate a clear vision statement since it plays a critical role towards goal attainment. Therefore, business leaders are required to understand the elements of visioning, as well as the way in which they are to be communicated to teams and other stakeholders. In case members share a common vision, chances are high that an organisation will benefit since it will have a clearly defined value meaning that the behaviour of employees will be easily controlled (Phillips 2012).
Based on this, a vision statement helps in enhancing productivity and efficiency in the organisation. Studies show that visioning is the first step towards strategic planning meaning that setting of common goals is facilitated (Guilmartin 2010). Without a vision statement, an employee would not be motivated to perform his or her expected duty implying that setting a vision helps in empowering workers. In this regard, visions act as guiding principles towards ideal planning.
With visions, people’s work are considered meaningful since they mobile workers to swing into action, as well as helping them to make wise decisions when faced with difficult situations, as they carry out their daily functions (Stredwick 2005). A vision is defined as an idealised picture of the desired future implying that it reflects the aspirations of the organisation. Therefore, it is known to stimulate the need for greatness among team members, teasing them with individual gains, and appealing to their desires to make a difference. Visions have a tendency of grabbing team members and bringing them to the fold meaning that they facilitate cohesion.
- Teams are likely to survive in case they employ a clear form of communication that allows feedback. For instance, each member should be allowed to express his or her view freely while others members are listening patiently. In this regard, teams have to understand the important of listening as an important skill that paves way for conflict resolution (Brown 2010).
- While the structure of the company focuses on what members intend to achieve and who is in charge of what, the process is focused on how the goals and objectives should be realised. Based on this, the company has to come out clearly on how decisions are made, how conflicts are handled, and how information is distributed from one member to the other. To address these issues, five factors have to be analysed and taken into consideration, one being decision-making (Sims 2007).
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