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How diversity impacts organizations
Diversity in organization
Diversity in organization
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Two important perspectives in the organizations literature have been prominent over the past several decades: organizational ecology and the new institutionalism. Ecology is often centered around the demography of organizations e.g. firm creation and mortality, while institutionalism seeks to explain organizational behavior based on the social and cultural construction of legitimacy. Ecology tends to explain the diversity of organizations we observe, institutionalism their resemblances (Lee, 2012). Despite these differences, organizational ecology and new institutionalism have much in common, as they both developed as challenges to rationalist approaches. The integration of these two traditions can be leveraged to develop valuable insights …show more content…
In particular, startups conform to a set of formalized, ritualistic practices in order to obtain venture capital (VC) funding during the “seed” phase. Almost paradoxically, new companies are regarded as a kernel of innovation and invention in the economy and yet they seem to emulate each others’ routines in the pursuit of early investment, decoupled from the actual products or services they plan to sell to the
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2013). Reframing Organizations (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2008). Reframing organizations. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
Meyer , J. W. , and Rowan , B. “ Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth
The case study is about an interview, conducted to four venture capitalists from four of the most prominent VC Silicon Valley firms, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), Menlo Ventures, Trinity Ventures and Alta Partners. These firms invest both in seed as well as in later-stage companies, which operate mostly in the information technology sector. However, each VC has developed different sector portfolio depending on the expertise of the venture capitalists, the partner network and other factors. Professor Mike Roberts and Lauren Barley a senior research associate, both from Harvard Business School, have made a series of seven questions to their interviewees to understand how they evaluate potential venture opportunities and what they look at in order to decide if they will fund them and in which way. The questions were dealing with how VC’s evaluate potential venture opportunities, how they conduct due diligence, what process id followed for the decision making, what financial analyses is performed, the role of risk in the evaluation and how they think of potential exit routes. These questions were asked individually and revealed several similarities as well as differences in the strategy and the criteria that are used for the evaluation.
Thematic analysis is espoused to be the foundational approach to qualitative analysis and methods (Saunders et al., 2016 as stated in Braun and Clarke, 2006: 78) and it is a useful method used to identify and analyse the order and patterns of qualitative data (Attride-Stirling, 2001). Qualitative research method depicts the correlation that exists between data and events, creating the pictorial representation of what one thinks a given data says (Saunders et al., 2016). They also opined that, qualitative data analysis is cogent, interactive and iterative. Also, Joana and Jill (2011) and Saunders et al (2016) postulate that, qualitative research brings meanings from words and images as opposed to numbers. However, despite its robustness and rigour of its application, it is skewed more to the interpretivist ideologies since researchers draw conclusion from participants and the hypothesis being forecasted (Joana and Jill, 2011; Saunders et al., 2016).
As the theme of my essay I have chosen to find out what our contemporary society must not forget in order to be able to make organizational theory evolve well into the 21st century. For this task I have decided to take a look back to Aldous Huxley’s modern dystopia “Brave new world”, that warned against totalitarian regimes that intended to suppress individuality in order to advance the interest of the state in its time. Even as those regimes might not be a direct threat nowadays we can eerily conclude that some aspects of it are quite accurate for the times we live in. According to Phillip Yancey who suggested that “there is a much more subtle enemy inchoate within each of us - a natural tendency for people to trade autonomy for comfort, safety and amusement.” This for the most people does not set off alarms but I will argue that it is the most basic requirement that has to be met in our day and age in order to tackle the wide range of issues that we face at the crossroads leading to the future, whether we talk about humanity or organizational theory itself. I think the novel gives us the perfect opportunity to draw parallels with our contemporary society, and see what must be corrected within post modernity based on how things evolved over the course of history and from prophetical books like Huxley’s even as at his time it was only intended to be satire. In the World State people are controlled by technologies like genetic engineering, sleep-learning and drugs like soma to satisfy needs and gently induce masses to enjoy their servitude. If one were to describe postmodernism in just a word or two, "skepticism" and "relativism" would probably best capture the overall ethos of its adherents. Deep skepticism about...
In environmental science, there are a set of terms that represent different ways one views his/her relationship with the environment. These terms, called value systems, describe a spectrum ranging from ecocentric, or highly valuing the environment, to technocentric, or valuing technological innovation over the natural environment. In the middle of the spectrum, is another perspective known as anthropocentrism, which describes one’s valuing of humans over the environment. As human civilization became the dominant species on earth, the environment became insignificant compared to the needs of civilization. The natural world became nothing more than a means to provide humans
According to Hatch and Cunliffe (2006), there are three major perspectives about the study of organization theory (OT): modern, symbolic interpretive, and postmodern. Each of these perspectives comes with its own assumptions and methodologies. Hatch and Cunliffe provided an introduction text about the concepts and characteristics of the three OT perspectives. Tsoukas and Knudsen also compiled a comprehensive handbook summarizing all facets of the meta-theoretical perspectives. In this post the writer will discuss the basic concepts of three perspectives, present Hatch and Cunliffe’s reasons why a multiple perspectives approach to organization theory is important, and compare Tsoukas and Knudsen’s introduction to the Hatch and Cunliffe introduction in their books.
A strong organisational culture leads to higher organisational performance. Organisational culture can be defined as a total function of common beliefs, values, patterns of behaviour that are held and shared by the members of an organisation. It is also a valuable resource which can improve the competitiveness of a company and is used to distinguish the company (Barney 1986). From the 1970's the study of organisational culture has become an important issue and closely studied in the early 1980s. Since then, organisational culture has turned out to be one of the most important factors which affects the overall performance of a company.
requires a precise mix of intellectual and technical resources. Seed is the first stage of venture capital
Organizations go through different life cycles similar to those of people. For example, people go through infancy, child-hood and early-teenage phases, which are characterized by rapid growth over a short period of time. Similarly, Organizations go through start-up, growth, maturity, decline, renewal and death. Employees in these phases often do whatever it takes to stay employed. (Ciavarella, 2001)
The idea of change is the most constant factor in business today and organisational change therefore plays a crucial role in this highly dynamic environment. It is defined as a company that is going through a transformation and is in a progressive step towards improving their existing capabilities. Organisational change is important as managers need to continue to commit and deliver today but must also think of changes that lie ahead tomorrow. This is a difficult task because management systems are design, and people are rewarded for stability. These two main factors will be discussed with reasons as to why organisational change is necessary for survival, but on the other hand why it is difficult to accomplish.
This essay will set out to define what is organisational culture, examine the main attributes that characterise it and how cultural originate and develop within it. At the same time, this essay will also assess the importance of organisational culture to the financial performance and continued survivability of firms.
Conflicts can occur in different forms and to varying degrees. In organizations, conflicts are mainly because of differences in expectations, values, goals, and personalities. A group pursuing their interests at the expense of others results to a conflict. According to Rahim (2010), there are three ways in which a conflict can occur in an organization; it can be between management and management, management and employees, or employees and employees. Conflicts need to be diagnosed and managed before they can have severe effects to the organization. It is the role of the management to address the conflicts with research showing that an average manager spends 24 percent of their work time
An organization’s competitiveness to the market can be traced from different factors. It could be a high market share, increasing customer satisfaction or increasing profits. What lies behind all these is a concerted effort of employees and management; who, despite their intercultural differences, share one organizational culture. “Organizational culture is an important resource for enhancing organizational competitiveness (Zhang Xiaujuan, 2009, p. 390).” The competitiveness of an organization therefore depends on the existence of a motivated and united