Activity 10: Critical reflections on Hofstede Allow 60 minutes for this activity. You have spent most of this unit working with Hofstede's ideas. He is one of the pioneers of the study of national culture and its impact on organisations, and his work has been very influential. My aim so far has been to help you understand Hofstede's cultural dimensions and to become familiar with how they can be used to analyse one of the main environments within which organisations operate. National culture is also one of the factors
Activity 5: Ways of thinking Allow 60 minutes for this activity. This activity builds on, and reinforces, Activity 4, as it is also designed to illustrate how all of us unconsciously draw from our cultures in order to interpret situations. If we as individuals do this, then organisations will do the same – after all, or
1 Overview This unit begins with some explanations of culture and discussion of how to distinguish between national and organisational culture. Reading what some well-known writers on organisational and national culture have to say will help you recognise some of the main dimensions of culture and reinforces that all of us, including organisations, construct different views of the world as a result of cultural influences. Thus culture plays a key role in the ways in which organisations perceive the envi
3.6.1 Saying thank you and acknowledging current contribution Probably the single most important way of retaining people's support and goodwill is to say thank you promptly and to demonstrate that you have noted and valued whatever it is they have contributed. If you do not have the systems to guarantee that supporters are thanked appropriately, then you cannot seriously expect to move anyone anywhere – be it up a pyramid, into a kite or round a matrix.
3.6 Extending and sustaining involvement Whatever framework you adopt, donor development is still essentially part of the asking business. You are asking people for more resources and support. But there are some specific ingredients to bear in mind.
3.1 Introduction Communication on project work is the glue that holds everything together! (Young 1998) The success of a project is principally determined by its stakeholders, including sponsors and project team, and you can only know how you are doing by keeping channels of communication open. In this section, we examine briefly some of the issues involved in communicating with all people involved with the
2.8 Controlling changes to the project Sometimes an addition or change to the project will be requested. This can be difficult for those who manage the project, because you will want both to maintain good relations with your client and to protect your profit margin and budget for resources. The first step is to assess the extent to which this will cause a need for additional time or resources. Perhaps the change can be accommodated in the project plan within the existing time-scale and budget, for example by altering some of the t
2.7 Tracking progress Gantt charts and critical path diagrams are useful for tracking project activity and for making necessary changes to the project plan. Project-planning software may also be used; the original chart is kept as the standard and any modifications are superimposed. The example of the joint strategy for commissioning training services demonstrates how tracking produced information that led to a change of plan. 2.5 Project meetings schedule You need to decide early on what meetings are essential to the monitoring process. All your stakeholders will expect to receive reports at regular intervals, whether formally or informally. So you need to ask yourself: Who needs to be informed? About what? How often? By what means? Effective communication involves giving information, collecting information and listening to people. To ensure the 1.3 Motivating and preparing staff Motivation is important. In resourcing the project it may be worthwhile to build in a reward system that helps to motivate. This depends on the availability of the resources to make this possible. Even if the material rewards are good, the conditions in which staff work and the relationships between them always affect performance. A project manager is often able to influence conditions and culture. The tasks allocated to staff must be realistic and achievable, and it is helpful to agree these 2.2.2 Mass production In many industries, craft manufacturing began to be replaced by mass production in the 19th century. Mass production involves producing goods in high volume with low variety – the opposite of craft manufacturing. Customers are expected to buy what is supplied, rather than goods made to their own specifications. Producers concentrated on keeping costs, and hence prices, down by minimising the variety of both components and products and setting up large production runs. They developed aggress 2.8 Network analysis One of the weaknesses of simple charts for planning and control is that they do not show how tasks are dependent on each other. Network analysis (or critical path analysis) seeks to overcome that drawback, particularly where large or specialist projects are concerned. The critical path is found as a result of the analysis of the network. There are many computer software packages which can help a manager to carry out a network analysis. 2.6.1 Compendium Compendium is a knowledge map software tool for visual thinking. It can be used
for personal reflection as you study or work on a problem, and you can share your maps
with others – your summary of a topic or a learning path through, say, an OpenLearn
unit. Follow the link to find out more about Author(s): 2.3 Influence diagrams An influence diagram shows the influences, from within the organisation or from outside it, which bear on a person or unit. 2.2.2 A second diagram This first representation can be developed in the way shown in Figure 11. 2.2.1 A first diagram For example, think about the inputs to the running of a commuter rail operation and the outputs from it. The diagram might look like the one in Figure 10. 1.6.2 Using the matrix The results of the evaluation reflect the scores that are awarded to each option and the weightings that are attached to the different criteria. A change in one or the other (or in both) will lead to a change in the results. Accordingly, when you construct a matrix of this kind be sure to think hard about the scores and weightings. A matrix like this can be used in many ways, for example, when interviewing applicants as part of a selection process. 1.6.1 The example Suppose that a couple who have children are thinking about the next family holiday. They list five options, including staying at home. They also list four criteria and they give each an importance weighting on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 is the most important and 1 is the least important. The evaluation matrix would look like Author(s): 1.1.3 The intercept When a line cuts an axis, the line is said ‘to intercept the axis at’ [the particular point]. In this example, the line cuts the vertical (y) axis at £10, so ‘the line intercepts the y axis at £10’. It can also be said that ‘the intercept with the y axis is £10’. 1.1.2 The origin The origin is the point on the graph where the x axis value (the output) and the y axis value (the total costs) are both zero.
