Analysis of the Case Oticon Using the Culture Metaphor Essay Sample

1. IntroductionThe metaphors of organisations and direction have been discussed by Gareth Morgan in his book â€Å"Images of Organizations† ( Morgan. 2006 ) . Morgan exposed eight metaphorical images of organisations including machine. being. encephalon. civilization. political system. psychic prison. flux and transmutation. and instrument of domination. Each one of these metaphors creates insight. but besides obscures some corners. They have both pros and cons. They enable seeing. but besides non seeing. No 1 of them is said to be right and right. 2. BackgroundOticon is a Danish company. located in Copenhagen. They used to be one of the best in market for planetary hearing assistance industry. The development and promotion of the other rivals. such as Siemens and Starkey. set Oticon in a critical slippery place in the market. particularly the planetary 1. where Oticon export the bulk of its merchandises to. To rectify the state of affairs. the board brought in Lars Kolind. who had great history of scienceoriented solutions despite his youngness ( 30 old ages old ) . Kolind analyzed the strengths and failings of Oticon and compared it with the rivals. He found out that no strengths Oticon had to vie with. On the other manus. Kolind found out that the inflexibleness and low reactivity the rivals had could be a drawback in comparing with Oticon. Therefore. he decided to put a new program to turn the organisation into larning antiphonal organisation. He sought bettering this advantage to capture larger market portion. particularly globally. and derive higher net income borders. In this study. the instance is analyzed utilizing the civilization metaphor. In other words. it discusses what we could see and reflect when projecting the plane Kolind set and applied on the other rules and attacks of the civilization metaphor. 3. TheoryWhen we talk about civilization we are normally mentioning to the spiel of development reflected in a society’s system of cognition. political orientation. values. Torahs. and daily rite ( Morgan. 1997 ) . Political scientist Robert Presthus has suggested that we now live in an â€Å"organizational society† . This sort of societies has typical facets lay by and large in groups of people build their lives around distinguishable constructs of work and leisure. follow stiff modus operandis five or six yearss a hebdomad. live in one topographic point and work in another. wear uniforms. defer to authorization. and pass so much clip in a individual topographic point executing a individual set of activities ( Presthus. 1978 ) . Organizations could follow different behaviors due their cultural contexts. In other words. some societal behavior could be accepted within a certain cultural context. but possibly unsuitable for other contexts. For case. the Nipponese organisational behavior may non differ from the western organisational one significantly. But Nipponese civilization was more fertile to make much work while maintaining the positive spirit ( Maruyama. 1982 ) . Organizational civilization is the corporate behavior of worlds who are portion of an organisation and the significances that the people attach to their actions ( Smircich. 1983 ) . Corporate civilization is the entire amount of the values. imposts. traditions. and significances that make a company unique. Corporate civilization is frequently called â€Å"the character of an organization† . since it embodies the vision of the company’s laminitiss. The values of a corporate civilization influence the ethical criterions within a corporation. every bit good as managerial behavior ( Montana. 2008 ) . Cultural regulation following could be described as the attachment to societal norms and imposts. while cultural passage emphasises that we must root out apprehension of organisation in the procedures that produce systems of shared significance ( Morgan. 2006 ) . 4. Analysis4. 1. Oticon as Cultural PhenomenonMany European states. every bit good as Denmark. started to turn into organisational states after the industrial revolution during the eighteenth century ( Johansen 2002 ) . Oticon was founded in 1904 by Hans Demant. which means that Oticon. every bit good as other Danish organisations. had been regarded as cultural phenomena that clip. From the instance. there are many contemplations that confirm the similarities between Danish organisational civilization and other European civilizations. That may include working hours. quality criterions. organisational constructions. and other facets of any organisational civilization. 4. 2. Oticon and Cultural ContextAfter come ining Kolind to the organisation. there were many indexs that could pull to which context Oticon had been working in. Kolind proposed a new program with many critical alterations that could travel the company toward decentralised manner. That was accepted by the squad direction. but non heartily welcomed and seen as a new hazardous manner. This indicates that the organisational context in Denmark were by and large hierarchal. Kolind seemed as if he had been influenced by the Nipponese developing manner that clip. He had studied the cultural context in Oticon. and tried to research where some positive facets of the Nipponese manner could be built in. 4. 3. Corporate Culture and Subculture in OticonBefore Kolind’s age. the corporate civilization of Oticon could be characterized by aristocratism. where Demant household had entirely been owned the company for decennaries. But after the company had lost its place in the planetary market. Kolind has been brought in to recover Oticon’s place. while preserve its corporate values and civilization. The board showed Kolind powerful support for his new proposal. which reflects a gradual alteration in corporate civilization. Kolind would hold neer stepped frontward without such support that kept even the direction squad off from kicking him. despite their steady reluctance to the new proposal. Furthermore. what could be seen as a important alteration in corporate civilization is the manner Kolind resorted to for financing the new program. He asked the bank to get 17 % of the company. and some of his co-workers to get 3-4 % . He besides offered the employees portions at a good monetary value under certain standard. That reflects a important alteration in corporate civilization. Kolind has created a great trade when he hired the enthusiastic employee. Helle. to be portion of what he called the inside design squad. This squad had the duty of sentiment leaders. There were six sentiment leaders ; none of them had been busying managerial place. Kolind called the squad with that name so that non to endanger anyone in the direction squad. This reflects how Kolind was well-conscious of dominant civilization. This squad has grown bit by bit and was a karyon that multiplies within the organisation. It is a great back uping power that Kolind planted to cut down the immune potencies of the direction squad. 4. 4. How Could Oticon Change Culture?In our sentiment. the first alteration Oticon did was altering people. This started by engaging Lars Kolind. who disturbed the flow radically. He might be one individual. but really of import 1. In point of fact. Oticon became wholly different after brining in Kolind. It was in world a historical limestone for Oticon. What Kolind has done to use strategic alterations in Oticon’s civilization could be highlighted by some particular and progressive stairss. Logically. he had to understand the procedures within Oticon really good. Then. he diagnosed the strategic alteration demands to look into the extent of alteration and identify barriers. That led him to see alterations in manners of direction. organisational modus operandis. symbolic activities. and political activities ( Mintzberg A ; Quinn. 1996 ) . That all contributed finally in the passage of a shared worlds. Changing topographic points is one of the tactics Kolind has applied. Alte rnatively of detached classical offices. Kolind turned the company into a really large unfastened office for everybody. The employees were free to take their topographic points. By using that. Kolind could alter the traditional frame of working topographic points within the organisation. and likely in Denmark. Furthermore. Kolind needed to alter a set of people’s beliefs and attitudes to accept and follow his program. He could pull off to make that as discussed before by making the interior design squad. converting the board to accept some strategic alterations. and enforcing fait accompli on the squad manage. Kolind tried to make the nucleus thought based of what we can name â€Å"Let?s work together† . This thought helped to develop a corporate civilization that spreads values and rules in all portion of the organisation. Kolind has besides dedicated scientific cognition refering with function theoretical accounts to alter Oticon’s world. Spaghetti theoretical account is a clear grounds for that. He destroyed the departmentalization by affecting different employees in many different undertakings. to execute different functions in each undertaking. There were 100 undertakings. every undertaking was owned by person on the direction squad. But ownership at that place was like being president of the board. The occupation of undertaking proprietor was to back up and unfastened doors. while the undertaking director ran the show. These were non common alterations for any employee to accommodate with. But by developing them to play different functions within their squads. Kolind ad ded a new standard to the hereafter employees. who are willing to work at Oticon. Kolind blew up the departmental construction and reconstruct a new construction. Kolind has besides presented indirect technological alterations to the construction alterations. Kolind enhanced the rule of uninterrupted betterment. and that could be really clear from the manner he dealt with undertaking E36. The universe witnessed so the first to the full automatic hearing assistance named MultiFocus and ranked by the company as the most advanced hearing assistance that had of all time been made. The merchandise was a device offered a echt advanced to the user with much more comfy sound delivered by a to the full automatic system. In order to be a client service oriented company. Oticon’s scheme had been based on holding its ain distributers in order to be in direct contact with their clients so that to supply them with original cognition measure and quality. Kolind besides encouraged all employees to hold their ain computing machines by offering really low monetary values for them. Besides. he imposed the addition of unwritten and e-based communicating alternatively of paper communicating. That was really helpful for employees to unify within the organisation and understand the new manner rapidly. For case. if any employee inquires about a affair. s/he would happen it really simp le to inquire anyone around. which means a more productive flow of work. Finally. and as discussed earlier. the corporate image of Oticon has been wholly changed in Kolind’s age. He could add a positive societal value by increasing the public portion in the company significantly. 4. 5. Strengths of the Culture MetaphorUndoubtedly. the civilization metaphor has several strengths. among these strengths is that it directs attending to the symbolic significance of about every facet of organisational life ( Morgan et al. 1983 ) . That can be seen in Oticon’s instance when there was a focal point on each elaborate facet that makes the working flow of the organisation apprehensible through the constructions. regulations. modus operandis. and hierarchies what are necessary for its day-to-day based functionality. Changing corporate civilization is non ever easy due the opposition against alteration. because in most instances organisations are really structured hierarchically and power oriented ( Morgan et al. 1983 ) . In Oticon the direction squad were highly negative. Kolind was clear when idea that section should work in more incorporate manner. by making a multifunctional organisation. where everyone does more than one thing. Therefore. the construct of a caput section didn’t make sense any longer. As a consequence. Kolind did his best to present the thought that the times have changed. and the traditional manner directors had used to work with became disused. The 3rd strength of the civilization metaphor is that it supports the relation between the organisation and its environment ( Morgan. 2006 ) . Reflecting this on Oticon. we have noticed that Kolind has based his determination doing scheme by taking advantages over other competitor’s failings due to their heavy reaction and departmentalized constructions. Furthermore. the manner to understand the organisational alteration can be besides strength. Besides altering engineerings. constructions. and employees motive ; alteration should besides cover the images and values that frame this alteration ( Morgan. 2006 ) . Even though there was kind of opposition for the alteration within Oticon. Kolind has managed to setup a clump of values to modulate the new manner of how to accomplish ends and marks. No affair which method to follow. it had to be characterized by values such as equity and transparence. 5. CONCLUSIONSThe civilization metaphor provides a radical manner of believing about organisations. In order to make a new organisational construction. the biggest challenge would be cultural alteration. When Oticon faced troubles. there was a demand to respond to accommodate with the planetary environment. The first measure taken by the board was to alter the world of the company being ruled by a household. engaging a new leader from outside ( Kolind ) . Even though it was non a existent cultural alteration. but what corporate civilization wanted him to make. Kolind accelerated the debut of several cultural alterations in the organisation. He introduced a new civilization of thought ( believing the unthinkable ) based on his analysis consequences. He managed to make a new construction of the organisation and developed a new roadmap based on the company future visions and ends. Besides. Kolind introduced new stockholders to the company capital. switching Oticon toward public corporat ion. He besides moved the direction and determination devising manner of Oticon from being centralized to be more decentralised. he besides managed to make a shared systems of significance that are accepted. acted and approachable at all degrees of the organisation. since this metaphor is meant to be built around people instead than techniques. However. the failure on such undertakings can endanger any effort to present a cultural alteration. 6. Reference Johansen. Hans Chr. ( 2002 ) . Danish Population History. 1600-1939. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark. Presthus. R. ( 1978 ) . The Organizational Society. New York: St. Martin’s. Maruyama. M. ( 1982 ) . â€Å"Mindscapes. Management. 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