The Organizational Culture and Its Impacts on the Existing Pattern of Teamwork in Coca Cola - Case Study Example

Coca-Cola Introduction The paper focuses on to gaining needed inferences to the organizational culture and its impacts on the existing pattern of teamwork in Coca Cola. It endeavors to gain potential understanding of whether the policies of the company contribute to the sustaining and nurturing of effective team roles and also for the reasons leading to the rise and management of potential conflicts in the concern. Corporate Culture Affecting Individuals and Groups and Organization’s Performance-250 Corporate Culture of a business firm encompasses the manner or the process of conducting business operations and activities. It signifies the different types of behaviors and relationship patterns reflected by the business enterprise in the course of dealing with its internal and external stakeholders and organizational people. The business culture of Coca-Cola encompasses the parameters of integrity, passion, empowerment, commitment and diversity as the key standpoints in motivating the people to work in a spirited fashion. Organizational culture of Coca-Cola endeavors to ignite the passion within individuals to perform in an exalted fashion so as to continually work to promote creativity and innovation in their job pursuits. The people also work as Change Agents in the enterprise domain (“Our people, culture, vision and values”; “Workplace Culture”). To this end the above cultural paradigms of Coca-Cola tend to have an impact on the Job Performance criterion of the people in the concern. Job Performance is defined as the effective value gained from the different behavioral reflections of the employees that in turn tend to have an impact, positive or negative pertaining to the mode of accomplishment of organizational goals. Though these behavioral sets can be effectively controlled by the individual employees yet individual behavioral types like ‘Task Performer’ and ‘Citizenship Behavior’ are related as such that help in the effective goal accomplishments while ‘Counterproductive Behavior’ is taken to negatively impact the goal accomplishment function. ‘Task Performers’ and ‘Citizenship Behaviors’ are those employees that proactively work to transform the resources available with the concern in the form of technology, human and financial capital to produce desired set of goods and services and those that without any need for earning rewards move to form effective interpersonal relationships with other organizational people and also such that tend to defend the concern and boost the motivation levels respectively (Colquitt, LePine and Wesson 37-50). The work culture of Coca Cola encourages people to actively work in an empowered fashion to help accomplish organizational goals effectively. Moreover the business culture of the firm being open motivates the people to work in a coordinated fashion to achieve end goals (“Employment: Our People”). In terms of Applications of Performance Management, the management team at Coca-Cola tends to work on the process of Management by Objectives where the employees mutually coordinate with their managers to perform a given set of objectives within a stipulated time period. Evaluation of the performance of the employees is conducted based on the degree of achievement of the objectives set (Colquitt, LePine and Wesson 55; “Employment: Our People”). Organizational Culture of Coca-Cola as Nurturing and Supportive of Teamwork Three different components are mainly identified with the cultural framework of an organization like firstly ‘Behavior’ that relates to the different types of conducts or events reflected by the company; secondly ‘ingrained values and internal beliefs’ that in turn contribute to the development of objectives for organizational values and mission and finally the third component relates to the Assumptions’ held concerning the company’s mission and visionary values (Lussier and Kimball 160). The organizational culture of Coca-Cola is found to be composed of value sets related to centralization of decision making functions and also focuses on dependability on a formal or hierarchal work system. This fact thereby tends to reduce the parameter of independency or autonomy in the concern to motivate the people to work in a team framework in the concern. Thus, the cultural factors of Coca Cola are found to dissuade the people from operating in a participatory or team environment (Griffin 414). Placing a Premium on Individual Contribution Commitment of employees to the organization generally takes three main types like Affective, Continuance and Normative. Affective commitment relates to the employees such that when they tend to share an emotional bond with the concern. This emotional bond thereby instigates the people to perform in a committed fashion for the concern. Commitment level of the people governed by the Continuance factor relates to the profit gained by the people in terms of their stay and the cost factor adhered to their leaving the concern. Finally the point of Normative Commitment for the organization works on the point that employees tend to reflect a feeling of guilt while deciding to leave the concern. For the above factors the people are found to work in a committed fashion for the concern (Colquitt, LePine and Wesson 68-78). Commitment of the people to the concern is enhanced by the management of Coca-Cola through sustained communication practices thereby developing the potential and willingness to serve of the employees. Effective training programs are held from time to time both on-the-job and off-the-job to enhance the operational potential of the people relating to changes in the external environment. Similarly effective reward programs, financial or otherwise are created to boost up the performances level of the people in the concern. The contributions rendered by the people are evaluated and recognized at team meets by the managers to encourage the people to work in a proactive fashion to fulfill organizational goals. Further several benefits are also tied to the individual employees in terms of medical and retirement plans to contribute to the enhancement of financial security paradigm for the organizational people. Finally the organizational culture of Coca-Cola rightly renders importance to the inclusion of diversity such that an equal opportunity environment is generated for the different classes and categories of people to perform and earn rewards. Managers in Coca-Cola focus on eliminating the emergence of bias based on diversity while tending to evaluate and reward the performances of the employees in the concern (“Employment: Our People”). Organizational Teams in Coca-Cola: Conflicts and Collaboration In Coca-Cola the employees are divided along the different operational teams related to sales, marketing, accounting, production and operations and the like. In the different teams the people are required by the concern to work to fulfill the values of the concern in terms of focusing on the parameters of innovation and creativity. People in the different teams are encouraged by their managers to work in an empowered fashion thereby taking decisions on their own to fulfill the goals set. This parameter thus contributes in making the employees feel valued in the concern. Different types of meetings are held by the management of Coca-Cola pertaining to monthly or weekly meets and also in terms of calling the team members to render weekly briefings or to evaluate their job performances. This fact rendered reflects how the management of the company works in nurturing the effectiveness of potential communication within the organizational setting. The above communication practices in place rightly integrate the employees with the organizational managers thereby effectively collaborating to meet the goals of the concern in a holistic and integrated fashion. Effective collaboration between the managers and the people relating to the different functional teams are rendered true significance to help achieve the objectives of the concern. The employees and the managers along with being collaborative also operate in an innovative fashion to help in meeting the different needs of the diversified consumer pool. Meetings are called in by the managers to not only develop the level of collaboration and effectiveness of the teams but also in appraising the team’s performance based on the amount of collaboration and innovation involved (Boone and Kurtz 281). Functioning of the Teams Teams in Coca Cola operate based on a matter of consensus rather than working to elect leaders or supervisors. The notion of self-direction rightly relates to these people in the teams for they need to act and decide on a number of different issues that were generally taken care of by the people in the supervisory roles. To gain the above objective the individual people pertaining to the different teams in the company are rendered potential training on four different tasks thereby contribution to the generation and sustenance of flexibility. Similarly training is also provided to the people to enhance their interpersonal skills thereby contributing in the development of their potency to listen, influence and motivate and thereby to become effective negotiators in the long run. Finally these people for performing in a self-directed environment are also required to take potential managerial decisions on their own concerning the convening of meetings, delegation of team roles and also in gaining potential to render effective solutions to the emerging problems (Snell and Bohlander 326). Decision Making Process in the Teams To facilitate the decision making process in the different functional teams of the company spread across international borders the management body of Coca Cola focused on enhancing the process of decentralization. The process of decentralization helped the different people involved in the teams to get duly empowered in taking decisions on their own thereby contributing in the meeting of the objectives of the concern segmented across different departments. Apart from rendering decentralization in the decision making process of the teams the company also focuses on development of management development courses for both the general and management staffs of the concern. The management development courses are constructed built on the case study method to help integrate the learning of the participants with real world scenarios. Case Study based management development courses at Coca Cola are developed by eminent researchers thereby working to enhance the decision making ability of the people (Pendergrast 277). Decisions making activity in the different teams are generally influenced by the factors of changes in the external consumer environment like alterations in the demand and buying behavior of the consumers or also a change in the group’s activity. The management culture of the company though renders considerable importance on the aspect of centralization the process of decentralization along with the parameter of flexibility is rightly enhanced relating to the functioning of the different departments to help the people gain the right amount of potential in taking the right decisions to fulfill the objectives of the concern (Williams and Curtis 24). Emergence of Conflicts Employee teams in Coca Cola are generally of the Self-Directed nature owing to the fact that the rise in the process of decentralization has enabled them to take key decisions on their own. Thus the people now in the different functional teams work on the basis of effective decision making potential in rendering solutions to queries of consumers and operational matters. However the different self-directed teams in the company are composed of a diverse workforce that can be considered as a potential contributor to the rise of the conflicts. Teams composed of people with varying degree of experience and age leads to the emergence of ego problems amongst the different team members and also with the managers in the process of rendering key decisions or potential solutions to business problems. May at times it would be observed that expertise reflected by the new members to the team in gaining an effective solution is opposed by other old members in the same group thereby leading to conflicts and problems in right decision making. Again the same factor of inclusion of diverse workforce in the different self directed groups leads to the rise in a conflicting attitude pertaining to the gaining of effective access to potential organizational resources in generating better performance. This fact thus also leads to the rise of potential conflicts and negative competition among the different team members in the groups. Another reason for the emergence of conflicts among the people involved in the self-directed teams owes to the problem concerning the rise of role ambiguity between the employees. Lack of proper communication and division of tasks or roles between the people involved in the different self-directed groups leads to the emergence of frustration in the minds of the employees and their supervisors. This feeling thereby amounts to the rise of potential ego conflicts in the organization at large causing disruption in the activities to achieve end goals (Appelbaum, Abdallah and Shapiro 60-61, 63-66). Mechanism of Conflict Resolution in Coca-Cola The conflict resolution process of Coca Cola depends on the existence of an Ombudsman that works as an arbitrator facilitating to meet the needs of the claimants. Ombudsman office relating to Coca Cola was aptly created by the concern to contribute to the settlement of conflicts at their very inception between employees working in teams or between the different functional or group teams with the management body. People pertaining to the Ombudsman Office of the company are trained to act in a neutral and unbiased fashion in effectively hearing the reason for the emergence of the conflicts and then understanding in whether and how to provide the right amount of consultancy or action required to settle the dispute that has risen. The mechanism of conflict resolution in the company focuses more on enhancing the potential of the employees in effectively confronting with the managers to resolve the conflicts on their own. Solutions to the problems resulting from the rise of potential conflicts are also sought in a timely fashion that in turn reduces the chances of delay while also focusing to retain the information gained in the process with due confidentiality (“Corporate Governance”). Conclusion The paper tends to draw theoretical insights pertaining to the analysis of the corporate culture of Coca Cola and its support to the inclusion and effective performance of the different teams in the concern. It is learnt that parameters related to the process of decentralization generated in the new management era of Coca Cola coupled with fostering of due creativity and innovation contribute to the formation of self-directed teams. Focus is also rendered on the reasons for which conflict is generated between the people involved in such teams and how the management of Coca Cola works to manage and reduce such. Works Cited “Our people, culture, vision and values”. The Coca-Cola Company. 2009. Web. November 23, 2012. “Employment: Our People”. The Coca-Cola Company. 2010. Web. November 23, 2012. Colquitt, Jason A., LePine, Jeffery A., and Wesson, Michael J. Organizational Behavior. New York: Tata McGraw-Hill Education, 2011. Griffin, Ricky W. Fundamentals of Management. United States: Cengage Learning, 11-Oct-2007. Boone, Louis E., and Kurtz, David L. Contemporary Business. United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons, 26-Jul-2011. Lussier, Robert, N., and Kimball, David Charles. Applied Sports Management Skills [With Access Code]. United States: Human Kinetics, 30-Jan-2009. Pendergrast, Mark. For God, Country, and Coca Cola: The Definitive History of the Great American Soft Drink and the Company That Makes It. United States: Basic Books, 16-Mar-2000. “Corporate Governance”. Coca Cola Enterprises. 2012. Web. November 23, 2012. Appelbaum, Steven H., Abdallah, Chahrazad and Shapiro, Barbara T. The self- directed team: A conflict resolution analysis. Team Performance Management 5.2 (1999): 60-77. Web. November 23, 2012. Snell, Scotyt A., and Bohlander, George W. Managing Human Resources. United States: Cengage Learning, 01-Jan-2012. Williams, John and Curtis, Tony. CIM Coursebook 06/07 Marketing Management in Practice. New York: Routledge, 14-Jun-2012. “Workplace Culture”. The Coca-Cola Company. 2012. Web. November 23, 2012. Read More