Introduction to Organization Development

Organizations change from time to time. Changes with respect to continuous improvements, diversity, and work process engineering require the organization to move forward through a process called organizational development. Definition of Organization Development: Organization development is a process that addresses system wide change in the organization. Change agent: Change agents are individuals responsible for fostering the change effort and assisting employees in adapting to changes They are may be internal employees, or external consultants. What is change? Organization development efforts support changes that are usually made in four areas: The organization’s systems Technology Processes People Two metaphors clarify the change process. The calm waters metaphor: It describes unfreezing the status quo, change to a new state, and refreezing to ensure that the change is permanent. Kurt Lewin describes the status quo can be considered an equilibrium state. Unfreezing, necessary to move from this equilibrium, is achieved in one of three Continue reading

Cross-cultural preperation in employee training programmes

“Cross-Cultural Preparation is the process of educating employees (and their families) who are given an assignment in a foreign country”. Cross cultural preparation educates employees (expatriates) and their families who are to be sent to a foreign country To successful conduct business in the global marketplace, employees must understand the business practices and the cultural norms of difference countries. Steps in cross-cultural preparation. To prepare employees for cross-cultural assignments, companies need to provide cross-cultural training. Most U.S companies send employees overseas without any preparation. As a result, the number of employees who return home before completing their assignments is higher for u.s. companies than for European and Japanese companies. U.S companies lose more than $2 billion a year as a result of failed overseas assignments. To succeed overseas, expatriates (employees on foreign assignments)need to be. Competent in their areas of expertise. Able to communicate verbally and nonverbally in the host Continue reading

Factors influencing wage and salary structure of an organization

The wage policies of different organization vary some what. Marginal units pay the minimum necessary to attract the required number of kind of labor. Often, these units pay minimum wage rates required by labor legislation, and recruit marginal labor. At the other extreme, some units pay well about going rates in the labor market. They do so to attract and retain the highest caliber of labor force. Some managers believe in the economy of higher wages. They feel that, by paying high wages, they would attract better workers who will produce more than average worker in the industry. This greater production per employee means greater output per man hour. Hence, labor costs may turn those existing in firms using marginal labor. Some units pay high wages because of a combination of a favorable product market demand, higher ability to pay and the bargaining power of trade union. But a large Continue reading

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