Assignment 3

||MY FINAL BLOG||

First and foremost,i would like to apologize to Mr Gerald for the late of uploading my blog.But here i am to share my blogging experience to to all of you out there.Lets go to 2 or 3 months back,when we were assigned to do our assignment through blogging for our subject Organizational Behaviour for K-management.My first thought,this must be tough because it would be individual task and i don't have any experience doing a blog!Eventhough i like to read others blog but i don't have any intention to have my own blog but because of this subject i give my best try to finish whatever title is given.
Nowadays, blog is become a trend to many people to communicate with each others. Blog seem popular to share any story that related to politics, sport and entertainment. For me, people who are active and continuously updating their blog can call blogger. Me,myself I can’t say I am blogger because I just doing this blog because of academics purpose.
However, I still can practice some of organizational behavior theories during my blogging period of time. I used four-drive theory to finish my blog.In four drive theory there are four point which is drive to acquire, drive to bond, drive to learn and drive to defend. Why I say I practice four drive theory, because all four theory help me to make my blog success. In drive to acquire I take this assignment as one of my experience. Seem I don’t have any experience doing a blog so this assignment teach me the stages of blog itself.Drive to bond teach me to form a good relationship with me and my classmates.This is because we shared our opinion by comment others blog.Through the comment I can improve my blog.I also have to find any curiosity if I’m not understand in any information that I want to put into my blog.I will do some research to makesure the information is correct.Lastly in four drive theory is drive to defend. In this theory I have to defend myself if there any opposite opinion that my friend has comment to my blog.I have to give excellent answer to defend my opinion and explain to them why I use that information in my blog.
For job satisfaction I admit that I’m not 100% satisfied with my job during this assignment. Why I say that I always doing my blog last minute. This give me problem because there must be some information that I missed to put into my blog.From this blog assignment I can say I’m not good in self leadership.This is because I feel that I’m more suitable to work in team than doing my assignment alone.I need someone to be my leader so that I can finish my work.someone to motivate me because I’m not sure that I can motivate myself.Actually I did set my goals when I get this assignment but during the process to finish the assignment I realized that I need someone that be my leader. I hope one time I will can improve my self-leadership.I think maybe in assignment task I have to have someone to guide me.
The conclusion form the whole assignment I can finish my blog but I have to admit that I have to be more discipline to finish my assignment on the date given.I have to gain more experience so that I can establish my own self leadership in the future.However,this blogging activity help me in many ways.I can communicate more open to my other classmates.WE can share our opinion each other in any topics.I hope I can have my own blog in the future because of my interest not because any assignment purpose.Thank you to Mr Gerald and my other classmate.Its very happy to work with you guys.

Assignment 2

||IMPORTANT OF KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN THE ORGANIZATIONS||

"Implementing knowledge management is difficult in organisations as many employees are afraid of sharing their knowledge."Why this situation happened?This is because lack of idea to understand the true definition of knowledge.Other than the,there's still small amount of people that understand about the important of knowledge management in their organisations.There's still don't know the important of sharing knowledge among them.The solutions for this situation is we can refer to the theories and knowledge that we learn in this subject,Organisational behaviour for K-management.Based on this theory and knowledge we can see how this two subject related to our daily life.

Before i go further,let me tell u what is knowledge management.There is many definiton for knowledge management for each individu.Knowledge management can defined as any structured activity that improves an organization's capacity to acquire,share,and use knowledge for its survival and success..In the area of knowledge management,a large part of knowledge is not explicit but tacit.Following Polanyi's epistemological investigation,tacit knowledge is characterized by the fact that it ispersonal,context specific,and therefore hard to formalize and communicate.Explicit on the other hand,is the knowledge that is transmittable through any systematic language.Polanyi contends that human being acquire knowledge by actively creating their own experiences.Thus,explicit knowledge represents only the tip of the iceberg of the entire body of knowledge.While knowledge sharing is a systematic process for creating,acquiring,synthesizing,learning,sharing and using knowledge and experience to achieve organizational goal.

Ok,let we see how organizational behaviour knowledge and theories can encourage the team members to share their knowledge.We can use social identity theory,that explain self-perception and social perception in terms of our unique characteristics(personal identity)as well as membership in various social groups(social identity).As developed by Tajfel, social identity theory is a diffuse but interrelated group of social psychological theories concerned with when and why individuals identify with, and behave as part of, social groups, adopting shared attitudes to outsiders. It is also concerned with what difference it makes when encounters between individuals are perceived as encounters between group members. Social identity theory is thus concerned both with the psychological and sociological aspects of group behaviour.We identify ourselves with several groups and are motivated to create and present a positive self-image.If we can practise this theory,the sharing knowledge process can happened in any organizations.It is composed of four elements:

• Categorization: We often put others (and ourselves) into categories. Labeling someone a Muslim, a Turk, a Gimp or a soccer player are ways of saying other things about these people.

• Identification: We also associate with certain group (our ingroups), which serves to bolster our self esteem.
• Comparison: We compare our groups with other groups, seeing a favorable bias toward the group to which we belong.

• Psychological Distinctiveness: We desire our identity to be both distinct from and positively compared with other groups.

Communities of Practise(CoPs)is one solution for this problem."Communities of Practice" is a phrase coined by researchers who studied the ways in which people naturally work and play together. In essence, communities of practice are groups of people who share similar goals and interests. In pursuit of these goals and interests, they employ common practices, work with the same tools and express themselves in a common language. Through such common activity, they come to hold similar beliefs and value systems.Communities of practice are the shop floor of human capital, the place where the stuff gets made. Brook Manville, Director of Knowledge Management at McKinsey & Co., defines a community of practice thus: "a group of people who are informally bound to one another by exposure to a common class of problem." Most of us belong to more than one, and not just on the job: the management team; the engineers, some in your company and some not. "The Invisible Key to Success" Fortune Magazine , August 5, 1996
by Thomas A. Stewart.A community of practice is "a diverse group of people engaged in real work over a significant period of time during which they build things, solve problems, learn and invent in short, they evolve a practice that is highly skilled and highly creative.More than a "community of learners," a community of practice is also a "community that learns." Not merely peers exchanging ideas around the water cooler, sharing and benefitting from each other's expertise, but colleagues committed to jointly develop better practices.

Four-drive theory also important in sharing knowledge process.Four-drive theory is a holistic and humanistic theory of motivation by Paul Lawrence and Nitin Nohria. It organises drives into four categories: the drive to acquire, to bond, to learn and to defend. These drives are considered innate and universal, independent of one another and are "proactive", in that the individual regularly tries to fulfil them.
The drive to acquire is the drive to seek, take, control and retain objects and personal experiences. Four-drive theory states that the drive to acquire is insatiable, theorising that the purpose of human motivation is not just for psychological fulfilment but also to achieve a higher position than others. This drive fuels competitive behaviours.
The drive to bond is the social factor, the intention to form relationship with others and develop mutual caring commitments. This component of the theory aligns with social identity theory, explaining why an individual chooses to form their social identity by aligning their self image with that of various social groups. It motivates cooperation.
he drive to learn is the drive to satisfy curiosity and to understand ourselves and the world around us. It occurs when observing something which is unknown or inconsistent with the individual's existing knowledge set, creating a knowledge gap which they will then seek to fill. The result of this drive to learn fulfils the needs of growth and self-actualisation.
The drive to defend is a self-protective drive both physically and socially. It originates from the 'fight-or-flight' response when responding to dangerous situations but also involves defending relationships, acquisitions and belief systems. Unlike the other three drives, which are proactive, the drive to defend is reactive and is triggered by perceived threats.
While the four-drive theory incorporates much solid evidence of the existence of the four innate drives and the interaction of emotions and cognitions, this is still a theory in development. Whilst it accomodates the idea of learned needs, it does not fully explain them.

Beside that positive reinforcement also can encourage team members to share their knowledge.Positive reinforcement is introducing a desirable consequence-increases or maintains future behavior.For example receiving a bonus after successfully completing an important project.

WHY KNOWLEDGE SHARING IS IMPORTANT FOR ME?
as a student,i have many things to learn during my study.so that,sharing knowledge is very important to me to get knowledge that related to my course as mush as i can so i can finish my study and get my degree.during the learning process,we as a student have to share our knowledge with each other.Let me make it more clear.we as a student is one of members of our organisation which is our course of knowledge management.all students in MMU is members for their organisations which is course that they taking.For example KM programme objective is to develop competent knowledge executive who are able to lead and contribute meaningfully to the Malaysian information and knowledge industries.so as a student of this course,we have to create,acquire,learn,share and used knowlege and experience to achieve organisation goals.How we can achieve this goals by contribute in class activity.

REFERENCES

1.http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/definitions.shtml
2.http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/2543.html
3.http://www.mmu.edu.my/%7Ebm/fbl/
4.http://www.geoconnexions.org/en/newsmedia/articles/id=932

WELCOME

Bienvenue ;)!!

Creating this blog is my assignment for BOS3014-organizational behaviour for k-management subject.The objectives of this blog is to share our ideas and knowledge about what we're learning in this subject and how it relate to our daily life.To Mr Gerald Goh and my fellow classmates enjoy my blog and don't forget to leave your comment in my blog.
;)

Thank You.


regards,
nayma

Assignment 1

||INDIVIDUALISMvsCOLLECTIVISM|| ||POWER DISTANCE|| ||ACHIEVEMENTvsNURTURING||

In our daily life,people and organisations are subscribe to several key values that play a pivotal roles and probably effect the people or organisation when their pratices the values.Some said "the managers have to become capable of working with people from different cultures".This is because differ across cultures,an understanding of these differences should be helpful in explaining and predicting behaviour of employees from different countries.Hofstede's Framework is one of the approaches that mostly use refered for analyzing variations among cultures.It was done in the late 1970s by Geert Hofstede.He found that managers and employees vary on five value dimensions of national culture.So that,in this blog I will discuss three from five values that stated in Hofstede's Framework.

1.INDIVIDUALISM versus COLLECTIVISM

Individualism can define as a national culture attribute describing the degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather than as member of groups.Its also means stands for a society in which the ties between individuals are loose, everyone is expected to look after himself or herself and his or her immediate family only.Individualist characteristics is tend to value personal freedom,self sufficiency,control over themselves,and being appreciated for unique qualities.People in individualistic cultures emphasize their success or achievements in job or private wealth and aiming up to reach more and/or a better job position. Especially in the USA the fight about jobs and trying to climb up in the hierarchy ladder is something very common there. It just counts to get there less caring who will left behind one. In business they try to improve their connections and to gain more value out of them, not for establishing a good relationship but just to be involved in a calculative way. Employees are expected to defend their interests and to promote themselves when ever possible.The United States ranked highest among all countries on individualism.

The video tells us what the definition of individualism and how it works by Professor Alan Macfarlane,the author of The Origins of English Individualism.He believed that individualist came before collectivism can practices.

Collectivism can define as a national culture attribute that describes a tight social framework in which people expect others in groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect them.Collectivism stand for a society in which people from birth onward are integrated into strong cohesive ingroups,throughout people's lifetime continue to protect them in exchange for unquestioning loyalty.The characteristic of collectivist is their tend to identify themselves by group membership,value harmonious relationships with their groups and located within the conversation range of values(security,tradition and conformity).Asian - collectivist cultures like China (Hong Kong 37th rank), view other companies with less collectivist philosophy as cold and not supportive. Collectivists cultures have a great emphasize on groups and think more in terms of "we". Harmony and loyalty within a company is very important and should always be maintained and confrontation should be avoided. In China it is out of question to disagree with someone's opinion in public. You will do that in a more private and personal atmosphere to protect a person from the "loss of face".In collectivist cultures a direct confrontation will be always avoided. Expressions or phrases are used which describe a disagreement or negative statement instead of saying no. Saying no would mean to destroy the harmony in the group. The relationship between employer and employee or business partners is based on trust and harmony and a deep understanding of moral values. The wealth of the company and the groups inside are more important than the individual one's.Most Asian countries were more collectivist than individualistic.

This video is taken from one scene in The Ant Bully movie.It tells us that collectivism is better than individualism.


2. POWER DISTANCE
Power distance means a national culture attribute describing the extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.Ranges from relatively equal(low power distance)to extremely unequal(high power distance).Low power distance expect and accept power relations that are more consultative or democratic. People relate to one another more as equals regardless of formal positions. Subordinates are more comfortable with and demand the right to contribute to and critique the decision making of those in power.The example of the country that has low power distance is Austria,Denmark and New Zealand. In high power distance countries less powerful accept power relations that are more autocratic and paternalistic. Subordinates acknowledge the power of others simply based on where they are situated in certain formal, hierarchical positions.Malaysia is one of the country that pratices high power distance beside Slovakia.In short this cultural dimension looks at how much a culture does or does not value hierarchical relationships and respect for authority.So how doesthis manifrst in a culture or country?
In a high power distance cultures the following may be observed: . Those in authority openly demonstrate their rank.
. Subordinates are not given important work and expect clear guidance from above.
. Subordinates are expected to take the blame for things going wrong.
. The relationship between boss and subordinate is rarely close/personal.
. Politics is prone to totalitarianism.
. Class divisions within society are accepted.
In a low power distance culture:
. Superiors treat subordinates with respect and do not pull rank.
. Subordinates are entrusted with important assignments.
. Blame is either shared or very often accepted by the superior due to it being their responsibility to manage.
. Managers may often socialise with subordinates.
. Liberal democracies are the norm.
. Societies lean more towards egalitarianism.

3.ACHIEVEMENT versus NURTURING

The definition of achievement is a national culture attribute describing the extent to which societal values are characterized by assertiveness,the acquisition of money and materialism and competition prevail.For example,achievement-striving people were more likely to escalate their commitment.Generally,achievement-oriented people hate to fail,so they escalate their commitment hoping to forestall failure.Beside that achievement-striving individuals appear to be more susceptible to the hindsight bias,perhaps because they have a greater need to justify the appropriateness of their actions.They have a desire to do something better or more efficiently than it has been done before.The assertiveness is the extent to which a society encourages people to be tough,confrontational,assertive and competitive versus modest and tender which is equivalent to Hofstede's achievement dimension.

above picture is Shigeru Miyamoto,Japanese video game designer.He already achieve many awards from many organisations over the world because of his exciting video game.

Nurturing can be define as national culture attribute that emphasizes relationships and concern for others.One dimension that closely approximates Hofstede's nurturing dimension is human orientation.This is defined as the degree to which a society encourages and rewards individuals for being fair,altruistic,generous,caring and kind to others.The nurture-cultures people were more likely to concern to their environment.They also easy to help people that needs helps.Their mostly spend their time to help others.This dimension usually happened in collectivicm culture.This is because they have been worked as one team so the attention to each other was very important.

The editorial cartoon above is taken from CSL cartoonstock website.The cartoon showed us how a small company concern to their employees welfare such as their employees health insurance.This company practices nurturing dimension in their organization.

MY EXPERIENCES FROM PRACTICING THE VALUES.
In everyday routine,we are actually practising the key values that we discussed in this blog which is,individualism vs collectivism,power distance and achievement vs nurturing.As myself personally,i practise this value on purpose or without purpose.For example for this assignment,i was practised individualism culture to finish it.I was searching the information about this topic with my ownself.It give me advantage to use my own creativity to make this blog better and can find the suitable information that i think is perfect for the topic.However there must be disadvantages by practising this value.One of the disadvantages is I maybe missed some important information that i should write in my blog.That's why the collectivism sometimes give good result if we contribute in it.For me,every class that i attend,the teaching and learning process from my lecturer to the students is one of the example of collectivism practising.The lecturer teach us new things in every lecture and we as a student will collect the information that were given by him/her as our reference.Sometimes,we shared new information when discussing about the topic in the class.Everyone has a different opinion and story that can be shared.Even tough I think collectivism is better than individualism but there's still have the disadvantage of practising collectivism.For me myself,I've been in a situation when I was assigned one tasks where we were 6 persons in the group.Unfortunately,my leader and i has an argument.It was because me and her has misunderstanding with each other.It's also because miscommunication happened in giving instructions to the group members.Sometimes,we have different opinion that can bring to the best result or became worse.For power distance value,I have been experienced by practicing the value.I've been a leader for my group for one of my assignment.I practised low power distance when I was a group leader.I gave my group members space to give their personal opinion and speak out if they don't agree with some information that has been collected.We also held a meeting and do our task together.My highest achievement during my time in this university,for my acedamic record I manage to finish my diploma level in Information Technology.For outdoor activities,I've been in touch rugby tournament represent MMU and became the first runner-up team in that tournament.The latest achievement of mine is I succeed to finish this assignment.

REFERENCES

1.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede
2.http://www.kwin.essential.co.uk/intercultural/power-distance-index.html
3.http://www.via-web.de
4.http://www.cartoonstock.com
5.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ShigeruMiyamoto
6.http://www.youtube.com
7.Organizational Behavior,11th Edition,by Stephan p.robbins
8.Organisational behaviour,5th Edition,by Robbins,Judge,Millett,Water-Marsh
9.Chapter 2 from lecture notes