First class notes.

How will knowledge of organizational behaviour make a difference for you?.

R= just about technology make the difference in a company trying to keep the right info, and manage it well. We also study organizational behavior because to learn about yourself and how to deal with others, for example I can eat fruits at the breakfast and mi brother would rather eat bread. It also provides a set of tools that allows: people to understand, analyse and describe behavior in organization.

There are some levels: individual process, group process and organizational process.

*The context:

Opportunities: ( favorable times or changes for progress and advancement).

Change: ( the transformation or modification of an organization and/or its shareholders).

Challenge: ( the call to competition, contest, or battle).

*Understanding human behavior.

*Internal perspective ( considers factors inside the person to understand behavior), for example if you are in China you will act different.

*External perspective ( focuses on factors ouside the person to understand behavior).

*The challenge of change: the crisis, complaining staff, new competitors, decreasing profits and sales, demanding customs, merger of recognization

*How do you view change?

Threat( decreasing), opportunity ( increasing).

*International competition in business:

Driving forces creating and shaping change at work: globalization, diversity, ethics, technology.

Success will recquiere:

. positive response to the competition in the international marketplace.

. responsiveness to ethnic, religious, and gender diversity in the workforce

*Costumer focused for high quality:

A potential means for giving organization in viable industries a competitive edge in international competition ( what customers wants and what they are expecting).

*Quality: cannot be optimized ( always in changing), is not a fad ( shor time), is not an end in itself.

Questions in evaluating quality-improvement ideas:

. does the idea improve customers responde?

. does the idea accelerate results?

. does the idea raise the effectiveness of resources?

*TQM: total quality management

The total dedication to continous improvement and to customers so that the customers needs are met their expectation exceed, ( development and maintainance of the system).

*Sig sigma: a high performance system to execute business strategy that is customer driven enphasis quantitative decisions making and places apriority on saving money.

Each student must accept responsibility for his/her own behavior.

Source: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/savaskan/opnsquality/mot_six_sigma.pdf: according to this source I think is very important to take into account the six sigma versus the total quality management inn wich is very good described and presented.

Six sigma	Total Quality Management
Executive ownership	Self-directed work teams
Business strategy execution system	Quality initiative
Truly cross-functional	Largely within a single function
Focused training with verifiable	No mass training in statistics and quality
Return on investment	Return on investment
Business results oriented	Quality oriented

Challenges to Managing Organizational Behavior.

Increasing globalization of organizations’ operating territory

2. Increasing diversity of organizational workforces

3. Continuing technological innovation with its companion need for skill enhancement

4. Continuing demand for higher levels of moral & ethical behavior at work

Source: Gregorio Martin-Castro, Jose Emilio Navas-Lopez, Pedro Lopez-Saez and Elsa Alama-Salazar. Departamento de organización de empresas, Universidad complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. “ Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm”:

I think the best description of organizational culture is presented in this document in wich is explained that organizational culture is defined as a complez set of values, belifs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in wich a firm drive its business.

Source: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/

What are the practical applications for Geert Hofstede's research on cultural differences?

For those who work in international business, it is sometimes amazing how different people in other cultures behave. And I think is true because always We tend to have a human instinct that 'deep inside' all people are the same - but they are not. Therefore, if we go into another country and make decisions based on how we operate in our own home country - the chances are we'll make some very bad decisions. Consequently before going international we have to learn more about that country´s culture in order to be more effective when interacting with that sort of people.

 Hofstede (1984) defines culture as:

… the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another… Culture, in this sense, includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture (p.21).
Source: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/180/decision-making-factors-that-influence-decision-making-heuristics-used-and-decision-outcomes
Every single day people have decisions, even if those are big or small and we have to be aware oh those decision making. Most of the time decisions are very complex and we have to be quite carefull about those decisions before to implement them. Here, are some of the main decisions we take evry day and has to be presented in order to let people understand the different ones that exist and be aware that before to approach them we have to be patient and think before make the final decision:

Decisions made by competitors; suppliers; customers

Labor markets, Technology, The national, regional, and world economies, Financial markets, Local, national, regional, and international politics, Law and regulations, Infrastructure factors (transport, power, etc), Trade unions, Consumer groups, Ethical and religious systems, Factors in the green environment, INDUSTRY INTERESTS, NATIONAL CULTURE.