Essentially, each organization applies human resources as a workforce in a bid to achieve its utmost objectives. In essence, it must incorporate people to provide particulate services or carry out stipulated duties. Modern society is applying strategies not only to define the daily operations of a real organization but also to profile it as a business involving systems being carried out among others. In this light, the modern organizational theories argue that they are systems adaptable to environmental variations.
Society bases its approach on the fact that interaction is the foundation of knowledge on information sharing. While putting this into perspective, the development perceived from information technology where communication is deemed perfect or efficient is reliable. One common attribute of these systems is that they all aim at fulfilling one goal. In order to review this pertinent idea in management, this essay will evaluate the incorporation of the systems theory in Safaricom Limited, which is a network providing company located in Kenya.
The Systems Theory and Individual Processes
The modern approach points out that an organization is a complement of large systems of operations, which comprise other small schemes. Safaricom Limited is designed in a social state where people interact at various working standards. The systems theory argues that each minor unit of organization is dependent and reliable to another. For instance, the defect of a minor system can result in a broad manipulation of the overall organization. If one section of the organization fails, an entire company is affected by the problem in a direct or indirect way. This attribute implies that each complement of an organisation is not only paramount to the overall performance but also crucial for successful processes. While evaluating the systems theory in relation to individuals, it is vital to review three approaches of individual processes namely motivation, personality and role.
Individual Processes
The behaviours of individuals working as employees to an organization are influenced by motivation. The elements of motivation are not constant for each person. It varies between individuals and time differences where the needs are evaluated as well as the outcomes (Okada, 2010). Furthermore, the productivity of the individual must be accounted for and attributed to the determinations they portray when working.
In fact, the solid association between an employee and an organization is rooted in the mutual gains of both parties. An individual gets a salary whereas the organization benefits from the workforce provided. In some instances, motivation can be established from the personal target set by an employee or the targets dictated by the company such as Safaricom Limited. Motivational theory indicates that changing the behaviour of people must be based on understanding their mental perspectives. In this light, the organization can determine its suitable employees or initiate strategies to boost motivation and encourage them on improving their efforts to become productive.
Each small system seeks to satisfy the targeted objectives. For instance, the customer support section of Safaricom Limited has the mandate to provide information to customers as well as to solve other problems experienced by the customers using their network. On the other hand, the sales department has the role of selling and distributing products from the company to the customers. The individuals working in these categories have different duties to attend to.
These roles shape the characters of employees behave while working in the company. There are various factors that can affect how behaviours change in relation to the duties of an individual. First, role ambiguity is one such attribute that prevents employees to determine their exact roles (Hoffman, 2004). This confusion influences people to define their own roles by taking the suitable ones and leaving those that might be deemed tough. Essentially, this ambiguity introduces role conflicts where there is an intersection of two roles that hinder the carrying out of 1 or 2 duties. Finally, two or more duties might not be compatible while being operated by a single individual.
The last process theory is termed the personality theory. It argues that there are two kinds of personalities that affect the operations of an organization (Ock, Lee, & Pia, 2009). The first group comprises individuals who are fast, competitive and efficient but not patient. On the other hand, the second group has people who are too patient, slow, uncompetitive, and emotionally stable. The first group can act on swift and risky projects operated within a short time. Unlike the second group, they have a high tendency of taking high executive positions due to their patience. Safaricom Limited holds workshops and seminars to teach their employees about the required working skills.
Organizational behaviour (OB) is a discipline that addresses human characters within a given organization and tries to comprehend, explicate, and improve the personal behaviours including its organization. In the OB, there are two possible outcomes common to most organizations which are the performance of the employee in his or her work and the organizational commitment (Sheth 2006). The results imply that the individual employee will have to perform in the job or else be relieved of his or her duties in the company. The two models are influenced by the individual’s job satisfaction, the motivation he or she gets from the colleagues, the decision-making process, stress in the job, job ethics, and the trust and justice among the employees (Welsch 2012).
Application
The application of these theories to Safaricom Limited can have productive outcomes if applied wisely and properly. The company would acknowledge the presence of all arms directing it and appreciate that each person plays a pertinent role in the delivery of services to customers. This can lead to a continued mutual benefit between the organization and the employees where workers do not shift to other job opportunities. The competitive nature where Safaricom Limited tries to motivate and encourage the employees to remains as its workers have a huge advantage in retaining company confidentiality and skills. Otherwise, exposure of such information to the competitors can lead to the establishment of other businesses that have unveiled the secrets of the subject organization.
In most organizations, employees are faced with such situations as evident in Safaricom Limited. The resolution of such differences requires the intervention of the overall management. However, junior employees should be careful when incorporating their services into the organization’s system. Therefore, it would be wise for Safaricom to understand its employees and diversify to overcome the present challenges in the business.
Combination of Theory and Behavior
In essence, the individual learning activities and organizational dynamics should be combined in a manner that helps to foster innovations. Safaricom Limited has put various strategies in order to harmonize the two aspects as a way of steering innovation. In regard to supporting individual learning, the organization has helped their employees to adopt and understand how to use Social Business Software. This has been steered by developing guides on how employees can integrate this software into their businesses. Further, they have developed organizational dynamics that facilitate the harmonization of individual learning in various ways.
First, Safaricom Limited advocates for dynamics that aims at deepening the relationship between employees and the organization. In this case, Safaricom Limited has noted that customers have changed their behaviour on how they interact with brands due to learning new technological skills. It follows that the employees must communicate and connect with the customers if they have to become successful and tap their skills to develop innovations.
In fact, most CEOs who took part in the 2010 Safaricom Limited convention expressed the opinion that the creation of a close relationship with customers is the most significant strategy of developing innovation. It was evident that connecting to customers enables the organization to capture the knowledge of clients and supports their learning activities in order to create new ideas and strategies. In addition, it helps the management to understand the change in knowledge and to identify how they should meet their strategies when involving those individuals.
In light of creating social business, Safaricom Limited advocated for driving efficiencies of operation to integrate individual learning with the company’s dynamics. In this regard, diverse ideas are brought together such that the knowledge of various individuals is combined when making and implementing decisions. This becomes a critical undertaking since the knowledge of one person cannot be holistic. Pooling various learning experiences brings diverse ideas together in a manner that allows interaction of opinions. After opinions have interacted, the management is capable of identifying new propositions that can establish corporate innovation.
References
Hoffman, A. (2004). Reconsidering the Role of the Practical Theorist: On (Re)connecting Theory to Practice in Organization Theory. Strategic Organization, 2(2), 213-222.
Ock, J., Lee, J., & Pia, J. (2009). The study on the Consumer’s Motivation of Charity Impulse in Non-profit Organization-Based on Self-Determination Theory. The Journal of the Korea Contents Association, 9(11), 348-362.
Okada, R. (2010). Relations among Motivations in Self-Determination Theory: A Meta-Analysis. The Japanese Journal of Personality, 18(2), 152-160.
Sheth, J. N. (2006). Organisational Buying Behaviour: A Retrospective. Journal of Customer Behaviour, 5(2), 107-120.
Welsch, H. (2012). Inter-Relationships between Organizational Commitment and Job Characteristics, Job Satisfaction, Professional Behaviour, and Organizational Climate. Human Relations, 34(12) 1079-1089.