ORGANIZATIONS: NATIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

National Culture: The union of shared values, understandings, assumptions and goals that are learned from earlier generations and that are imposed by present members of a community.

Organizational Culture: The author Charles Hill says that the organizational culture is composed by all the values and normas that are shared by people and groups in the same organization.

NATIONAL CULTURE vs. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

The organizational culture has a stronger influence in the members of a company or organization. The headquarters take advantage of this situation because it's easier for them to manage all the people of the organization that can belong to cultures different from their partners culture. Also these values can make people feel identified with their work and company and have better results in their objectives.

In the other hand, sometimes national culture can have a strong influence too, normally in people whose cultures are based on a religion or rigid behaviors.

• FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE IN AN ORGANIZATION:

1. Culture is a senses making device.
2. Culture provides sense of identity.
3. Culture reinforce values.
4. Culture helps to control members of an organization.

The following are some solutions that the class suggested for organizational culture problems in a company:

• Creation of a common organizational culture: Taking the best and mixable of each culture!!!
• Break in the meeting for suggestions and conclusions.
• Make different activities (social gatherings!!!)
• Conform an identity: suggestion objectives.
• Take time to know others culture.
• Team building activities.
• Use incentives.
• Give job and assignments based on the culture of each member.
• Awareness of the culture.
• Hire a consultant.

Source: Class Presentation

COMPONENTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Taken from: http://www.adb.org/documents/studies/auditing-lessons-architecture/img/fig5.jpg

QUESTION:

Why is it important to have a "cultural fit" in the organization or company where you work at?

Because, Culture is the environment that surrounds you at work all of the time. Culture is a powerful element that shapes your work enjoyment, your work relationships, and your work processes. But, culture is something that you cannot actually see, except through its physical manifestations in your work place.

In many ways, culture is like personality. In a person, the personality is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, interests, experiences, upbringing, and habits that create a person’s behavior.

Culture is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Culture is the behavior that results when a group arrives at a set of - generally unspoken and unwritten - rules for working together.

An organization’s culture is made up of all of the life experiences each employee brings to the organization. Culture is especially influenced by the organization’s founder, executives, and other managerial staff because of their role in decision making and strategic direction.

Taken from:

http://humanresources.about.com/od/organizationalculture/a/culture.htm

IMPORTANCE OF DATA BASES

When doing any research take into account to do it in British and United States spelling; this will improve your research and will help you find more information. Words like Globalisation / Globalization can make the difference in your research.

EAFIT University gives all the students the opportunity to enter to the Library Data Bases in an easy and very fast way. First of all you'll have to go to www.eafit.edu.co and then click on the "Biblioteca Digital" link that appears on the upper part of the page.

The link will rapidly take you to the home page of the Luis Echavarria Villegas Library and then click on the Biblioteca Digital -- Base de Datos link. Now is just to follow the instructions and travel through the page. It's important to remember taht there are two Data Bases that can be used outside the University campus. For using this service you'll have to send an e-mail to the library's managers and they will give you a user and a password for using the page. This key is just functional for one semester.

There is also one Data Base that can be used in the campus and others that can be used ONLY inside the library. For these ones you'll also need a key that you can get in directly in the library.

Some examples of the Data Bases that you can find on the page are:

• BACEX AND LEGISCOMEX: Data Bases of Foreign Trade (Access only inside the Library)
• EIU VIEWSWIRE: Data Base of stadistics and different country's information (Access only in the University Campus)
• EBSCO HOST: Data Base specialized in the researching of key words (Access inside and outside the University campus)
• JSTOR: History Data Base (Access only inside the University campus)

The good use of these Data Bases will help all the students to make an easier and better job in their assignments, also is very useful tool for our life because it's a very practical way to get information from different authors and different kinds of publications that can be representative in our living.

Taken from: http://www.eafit.edu.co/- Home Page

Taken from: http://www.eafit.edu.co/biblioteca.shtm

QUESTION:

Can we enter to any Data Base from home or any place different to the University Library?

Yes! The Library offers the option to enter using the EAFIT wireless conection from your home or your office. There are two different options to enter: The internal access or the remote access. The first one doesn't ask for any password to enter but the conection has to be necessary configured by the EAFIT "Remote Conection".

The remote access use is only for outside the campus (home, office, different city or country) and with a different service for connection like UNE, Impsat, Geonet, etc.

The remote access needs a password to enter; for obtaining it you can send a mail to gospina@eafit.edu.co - cblando2@eafit.edu.co, with your name and your student or employeer code. Remember that this code is ONLY given to the active people in the University (Students, Teachers and employeers).

Taken from: Frequent Questions link in -http://www.eafit.edu.co/EafitCn/Biblioteca/servicios/usandoLaBiblioteca/preguntasFrecuentes.htm