Cultural Barriers for Achieving Excellence

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Literature Review
Discussion
Conclusion
References

Introduction

Organisational culture defines the beliefs, values, experiences, attitudes, and other factors that affect an organisation. Each organisation has goals and in order to achieve them, there are certain standard behaviours that members should have. Some cultural barriers can prevent an organisation from achieving excellence. Negative behaviours portrayed by leaders affect the employees in a negative manner. In order to achieve excellence, organisations keep on changing cultures. The management must come with a system that will ensure that the changes are integrated and the members receive proper training and orientation. Failure to do this will hinder excellence in an organisation. A Self-Assessment process can help improve performance. The concept of total quality management helps reduce errors; increase customer satisfaction; ensure that workers have proper training and help in modernization of equipment. This paper will seek to analyze the cultural barriers that hinder the achievement of excellence in many organisations.

Literature Review

Process Orientation

The way individuals do things in organisations define culture in the organisations. The way that members of an organisation do things is affected by the attitudes, believes, values, and other factors. All organisations have at least one project at any given time. The leaders should always in the forefront to act as examples to the subordinate employees. The project if well carried out ensures that the organisation achieves high levels of excellence. For example, the Human Appeal International (HAI) has managed its projects properly so as to help the poor, needy, elderly, and orphans (Dubai City Guide 2010, par.3). If the management had a culture where no managers were concerned, the level of excellence would be low. Most organisations have some good processes in place that help in achievement high goals. The tendency of members not to follow the processes acts as a barrier to achieving excellence. The process that the management uses to ensure that it is successful ensures success of the project. In connection, failure by the management to come up with a good, scalable management process may act as a cultural barrier to achieving excellence. Organisations that do not create and follow a work plan and at the same time do not use standard procedures to handle change, risk, scope, and other issues do not achieve excellence. Process orientation helps an organisation to carry out its projects effectively.

Governance

For an organisation to achieve excellence, the governance by management must come with a means of enforcing the processes that produce the excellence. The management is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that all members do what they are supposed to do in an organisation. Zayed Foundation ensures that every individual acts responsibly by adhering to the rules (Araboo 2006, par.4). The behaviour of the management to show little or no concern about the undertakings of members may act as a cultural barrier to achieving excellence. Organisations whose management structure shows little or no concern in projects and whose managers do not monitor the processes to ensure that they are followed are less successful that those whose management have a structure that is concerned with projects and whose managers are concerned with the project management process. The ability of an organisation to complete projects depends of the culture in it. The managers together with other members ensure the success of the entire organisation. The managers alone cannot achieve the excellence and the employees alone cannot achieve the excellence. This means that a culture where there is no cooperation for the entire team to work as a team means failure. Project managers who do not work as a team and whose project support is not planned will lead to great failure. Bad governance acts as a barrier to achieving excellence.

Training

The way that an organisation offers training to its project managers and employees affects it especially in its excellence (Mochal 2003, par.6). If the training offered to project managers cannot allow them to perform different projects using this knowledge, it is then a cultural barrier towards achieving excellence. The employees should be trained in a way that any of them can work on a project from the beginning to the end. This way, the absence of one employee may not affect the operations in the organisation a lot. The training should also be frequent to ensure that employees learn new trends that emerge. Failure to do this acts as a barrier for achieving success.

Roles and Responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities of each and every individual in an organisation combine to achieve high levels of excellence (Handy 1985, p.53). Failure by one party to carry out his or her roles and responsibilities may affect the entire organisation. Project sponsors for instance have the responsibility to provide funds that will help in achieving excellence. Similarly, managers and other members have different responsibilities that ensure excellence (Porter and Tanner 1996, p.121). An organisation that has a culture where stakeholders do not carry out their roles and responsibilities cannot achieve excellence.

Cultural Dimensions

The horizontal and vertical dimensions in an organisation can facilitate or act as barriers to achieving excellence. The horizontal dimension defines the relationship between individuals in the organisation and those outside the organisation that are affected by the operations in the organisation (Evans 2008, p.576). The customers, suppliers, communities where an organisation performs its operations may act as cultural barriers. The employees and shareholders on the other may be a barrier if the management does not fulfil its roles and responsibilities in an effective manner. Failure to meet the demands of all these groups of individuals acts as a barrier to achieving excellence. Such a culture will give competitive advantage to other organisations that carry out similar operations reducing chances of success. The system of decision making within an organisation also plays a role in achieving excellence. The management in Sheikh Ahmed Laid Foundations of Charity and Voluntary Work allows individuals to work effectively (Uaeinteract 2010, par.5). Both the managers and the subordinate employees have the right to make decisions at various levels. A culture where the management takes all the responsibilities in making decisions cannot allow excellence. The employees should be allowed to make some decisions on their own as long as they will have a positive effect. An organisation should be flexible to allow easy implementation of new changes when there is need.

Method

To gather the information, different organizations were used. The three organizations from the UAE used are Zayed foundation, Human Appeal International, and Sheikh Ahmed Laid Foundations of Charity and Voluntary Work. The world health organization which is international was also used. The beliefs, values, attitude, and experience of the organizations were used to determine if they facilitate excellence or they act as barriers to achieving excellence. Questionnaires were deigned and individuals in the different organizations filled them. Ten people composed of five men and five women were randomly selected from each organization. Each participant did the questionnaire on his or her own. Participants were informed in advance so that they are not caught unaware.

Results

The results obtained were used to identify the cultural barriers that hinder excellence. To draw conclusions, analysis was done by the analysis of variance (ANOVA) method. Five percent degree of confidence was assumed. Certain cultures can be seen as barriers for achieving excellence.

Discussion

The prediction of the study was that excellence in organizations differs as a result of the cultures in them. The study had some limitations like participants giving false information so as not to tarnish the names of their organizations. Both the internal and external environments were seen to affect the organization in a great manner.

Conclusion

The beliefs, experience, value, attitude in an organization affects the organization depending if they are negative or positive. Many organizations have projects in place at any given time. Failure by individuals to follow the processes as required acts as a barrier to achieving excellence. Bad governance by the managers acts as cultural barrier to achieving excellence. The management should be concerned about the projects taking place within their organizations. The World Health Organization is an international organization and therefore the projects in different places must be well managed (World Health Organization 2010, par.2). Poor training of project managers and other employees also acts as a barrier to achieving excellence. Each individual in an organization has some roles and responsibilities to fulfil. Failure to do this acts as a barrier to excellence. The relationships both internal and external may act as a barrier to achieving excellence.

References

Araboo. 2006. Zayed Foundation. Web.

Dubaicityguide, 2010. Human Appeal International. Web.

Evans, J. R., 2008, Quality and Performance Excellence: Management, Organization, and Strategy, Fifth Edition. New York: Cengage Learning.

Handy, C,. 1985, Understanding Organizations. Penguin Business Books: Harmondsworth.

Mochal, T. 2003. Organizational Culture and Structure Influence Project Management More than You Realize. Web.

Porter, L. J, & Tanner, S. J.,1996, Assessing Business Excellence. A Guide to Selfassessment. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Uaeinteract, 2010. Sheikh Ahmed Laid Foundations of Charity, Voluntary Work: Emirates Volunteers Association. Web.

World Health Organization. 2010. Tackling Urban Health Inequalities Should Be A Priority. Web.

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