Reconciliation Of Personal, Cultural, Organizational And Ethical Values Essay

The values and ethics people carry in their personal and professional life are important determinants of their growth and development. The eventual success of a person is realized through self understanding and actualization and not through relentless manipulation of material resources. Successful reconciliation of personal, organizational, and cultural values and ethics require a number of strategies, some of which are discussed below Communication: Communication is requires towards establishment of rapport with each diverse group. People within a large organization differ not only from their cultural, religious, and social orientations, but also from their professional orientation and interests. These differences widen when many different functional units of an organization, with their philosophies and approach towards work, are required to undergo technology amalgamation (Harris, 1993). These differences often lead to conflicts in the personal and cultural value system, which lead to conflict at workplace, distress in personal and professional life and issues in integration with the organizational setup (ibid). Communication is the key to resolve this deadlock, without causing any antagonistic and negative feelings. People should be aware that organizations are dependent on successful coordination among number of teams and people. Hence they should try to initiate measures that would avoid projecting any conflict or confrontation in interests within the organization. They should be sensitive to each other’s ethnic, social, religious and individual backgrounds and understand their views as sum of their personal growth Sometimes people resent opinions of others, involve their ego and stop to cooperate, coordinate or understand the need to assimilate their juniors and seniors to achieve organizational goals (Swanson, 2005). A successful communication strategy shall effectively address these problems at their inception point and ensure that they do not emerge as any significant stumbling block in ideological merging of various cultural groups (Rahim, 2001). Ensuring Interconnectedness Understanding the collective responsibility and appreciation of team work and group interaction is necessary in embedding the value culture that helps in the reconciliation approach. This would help people to come out of their individual shells and get integrated with their colleagues (Harris, 1993; Rahim, 2001). Understanding inherent organizational contradictions It is important to teach people about recognizing and respecting that contradiction occurs in other people, their experience and circumstances, their view points, their ideological background and their value based system. Understanding the role of crises A timely recognition that crises and conflicts are inbuilt of component of life and progress is achieved by incorporating them in the philosophy towards life should be able to show people that above all the things, they require harmony, and cooperation for things to successfully work (Rahim, 2001) Kinship with others The communication expert should specifically stress on building associations and help in realizing that every one is important and deserves equal respect from others. It is the first requirement of building strong and lasting bonds within any organization. When people are organized in teams, they share similar goals and they work towards joint growth and development (Harris, 1993; Rahim, 2001). Respecting the opposition. It teaches about taking opposition as constructive contradiction, instead of viewing it in negative perspective. A constructive opposition always helps in finding out mistakes in one’s own approach, rectify them and move ahead successfully. Negotiation: An important aspect of communication management is negotiation which has become important within organizational and social setups. As. Negotiation, requires interested parties to trade proposals for settlement. Generally the process of negotiation proceeds through motives that are competitive, integrative, cooperative and composite (Levy, 1999) . The approach of communication in the entire process of negotiation is concerned with the messages that are transferred among negotiators and the concerned parties. Reconciliation of Ethics Business and ethics are always considered opposite to each other. The general conception of business is that it is a commercial activity with aims to earn maximum income and maximize profit where levels of deceit, subterfuge, and conceit are much higher than socially seen or found (Swanson, 2005). However, this concept of business is archaic and medieval. Today, most of the businesses have developed their own philosophies, which although not exactly philanthropic, but contains a broad social and human vision, and attempts to see business activities as integral part of comprehensive human functions. Modern business is as much based on cardinal principle of profit maximization as on the neo-thoughts of values, morals and ethics. The foundation of business world is on ethics of honesty and commitment where contacts are honored, promises are maintained, and rights of property are observed. Observing ethical values and practices indeed brings positive results as ethical companies face less problems, less litigation and less regulations (Guy, 1990). Corporate Values and corporate culture Ethics are not stand-alone concepts or abstract morals that are hung on wall for ocular delights. They are values and best practices that should be embedded in the working culture that corporations, in their attempts to promote business ethics and best practices, should ensure that their employees are well aware of the values and principles that the corporation aims to pursue. The concept of organizational culture has emerged as most enduring and successful business concept in the ethical dimensions (Bjerke,1999). Business managers, academicians, and corporate leaders all agree that organizational culture as a part of business strategy is crucialfor a firm to maintain and sustain the high standards of operation, decision making and future planning while ensuring expansion, innovation, and entrepreneurship (Oden, 1997). The role of organizational culture, in promoting ethical behavior and establishing organization wide accepted norms and working principles is paramount and it is recognized in the corporate quarters, that evolving a healthy organizational culture is probably the best method to create ethical, value based, principled and visionary business practices (Swanson, 2005). Modifying Organizational behavior An organization is a product of the values and ethics its employees carry in and employ to attain the organization’s goal. The eventual success of an organization is realized not through manipulation of material resources, but on the ability of the organization to understand the human factor involved with it. This led to the concept of the organizational behavior (OB) that studies the human behavior in the organizations to help employees develop a better work related understanding of their surrounding, their co-workers and eventually about themselves. Today organizational behavior is seen as an powerful tool that is necessary for one’s career development and success in a complex and dynamic organizational process. The essence of organizational behavior is people. It attempts to understand their aspirations, hopes, personal and professional ambitions, desire for accomplishments, all set in the dynamic context of globalization, modernity, diversity, pressure of managing home and work, electronic and communication revolutions and continuously changing aspects of business and industry that raise new and unpredictable challenges and responsibilities to the management and consequently to the workers (Harris, 1993). Organizational Culture. While the employees’ individual values and ethics define their personal approach to work and workplace, there are some shared values and modalities of behavior that each of them reflects when working together. This shared notion of values and ethics that endemic to an organization is called as the Organization’s culture. Basically organizational culture is defined as system of shared values, beliefs, actions and best practices that evolve within an organization and determine the behavior of each of its member. While organizational behavior may remain same across multiple organizations, organization’s culture is typically particular to the organization and no two organizations may share the exactly same organizational culture Managing Diversity An organization that doesn’t understands or values diversity, doesn’t understand its employees. Diversity is an inherent part of human society. It becomes more important when globalization has made organizational employees lineup multi-cultural, with people from different religious beliefs, ethnic backgrounds and culture working together towards same goals and missions. Therefore it is vital that the organization values their diversity while integrating them as part of its own culture. Conclusion There is little disagreement on the challenges and difficulties in bringing about a complete reconciliation of all the elements discussed in this essay and some difference is bound to exist. However, the increasingly multi-cultured and multi-valued landscape of the world has its own coping strategies and requirements. Globalization has narrowed down the divides that formerly allowed separated existence. Today’s world is culturally congested and value crowded, where every person must create a harmony to maintain a secular balance and growth. References Bjerke, B. 1999. Business Leadership and Culture: National Management Styles in the Global Economy. Publisher: Edward Elgar. Cheltenham, England. Guy, M. E. 1990. Ethical Decision Making in Everyday Work Situations. Publisher: Quorum Books. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Harris, T. A. 1993. Applied Organizational Communication: Perspectives, Principles, and Pragmatics. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Hillsdale, NJ. Levy, G. M. 1999. Resolving real estate disputes. Real Estate Issues; Chicago; Oden, H. W. 1997. Managing Corporate Culture, Innovation and Intrapreneurship. Quorum Books. Westport, CT. Rahim, M. A (2001), Managing Conflict in Organizations. Contributors: M. Afzalur: Quorum Books. Westport, CT Swanson, D. L. 2005. Business Ethics Education at Bay: Addressing a Crisis of Legitimacy. Journal Title: Issues in Accounting Education. Volume: 20. Issue: 3. Page Number: 247+.