Download Team 6- Memo

MEMORANDUM
DATE:
May 31, 2013
TO:
Prof. Rajiv Krishnan Kozhikode
FROM:
Team 6 - BUS 374 D100
Nicole Bralic
Nicky Cheung
Yifan Lin
Yikai Yao
Yi Zheng
SUBJECT:
Identities, Genres, and Organizational Forms
Introduction
There has been increasing interest in the use of organizational identity to categorize the diverse
organizational forms. In “Identities, Genres, and Organizational Forms”, Hsu and Hannan (2005)
argue that the organizational identity perspective is more meaningful than the population based
perspective through explaining the idea and application of organizational identity. We further
examine the key assumptions that Hsu and Hannan (2005) propose: Organizational identity
creates social codes that bilaterally interacts with agents of the organization, the different
dimensional forms (i.e. Simplicity, specificity, sharpness, resonance and authenticity) depends
on identities, and properties of identities can, and do change, over time (Hsu & Hannan, 2005).
Subsequently, we apply the key assumptions to current world organizational phenomenon and
provide novel theoretical insights applicable to this topic.
Evaluations of Key Assumptions
Social codes dynamically affect agents within the organization (i.e. employees, managers) as
well as agents who are externally involved (i.e. investors, government, interest groups, etc.) and
vice versa. Agents may develop new attitudes toward the social code and social codes may
change the agents’ view towards the organization. We believe that the interaction between agents
and social codes, rapidly and simultaneously, affects them both in various ways. The degree to
which the interaction differs will depend on the agents’ personal and professional experience in
their interaction with the organization based on their individual roles. At times, the collective
attitudes of one or different groups of agents towards the firm may change the actual social code
of the organization; with or without reflecting the change on the written social code. Other times,
social codes may shape the agents’ view into compliance. These create a challenge for anyone to
track the interaction of the two.
Using simplicity, specificity, sharpness, resonance and authenticity, as dimensional tools, help us
to create and assess organizational form. While these dimensions may help us, we also need to
consider internal factors of the organization (i.e. goals, beliefs and culture) as well as external
factors (i.e. industry, politics, economics, and environment) before using these dimensions. The
result is that organizational membership depends on what form it takes. The form thus frames the
interaction between social codes and agents. The challenge here is if the dimensions presented by
Hsu and Hannan are sufficient to account for the diverse types of organizational forms out there.
It is expected for an organization’s identity to change over time, across social, technological and
economic structures, the organization’s ecology changes through interacting with internal and
external factors. This could lead to the progressive evolution of an organization’s identity, or its
fatality. When organizations go through change, tradeoffs between the levels of dimensions is
inevitable. The challenge here, is finding the best balance of dimension for the given ecology in
that time.
We acknowledge that organizations need to learn how to adapt to changes in the market. With
technological innovations and the global economy affecting the market, organizations can only
survive if they can compete effectively with their competitors. Although change within
organizations may be needed to compete, change may also increase the likelihood of the failure
of an organization (Hsu & Hannan, 2005). Specifically, an organization’s identity may result in
failure through “core changes, CEO succession, location shifts, changes in legal forms, product
addition and changes, and technological innovations,” as well as a lack of uniformity within the
population (Hsu & Hannan, 2005). In approaching change, organizations should take an
incremental or phased approach when making changes to avoid the risk of failure.
Current real world organizational phenomenon
Identity, form and social code are important for any organization to function efficiently in
society, and this can be seen by Tesco, an international and grocery and general merchandise
retailer. According to “We’ve learnt how to be local” (Coe & Lee, 2012), when Tesco came to
South Korea, it chose to cooperate with Samsung. Since then, Tesco has become one of South
Korea’s most successful retailers. The main element of this strategy was to create identities and
forms that satisfied their South Korean customers through localization; Tesco’s success depends
on their customers’ satisfaction. Tesco primarily employs local workers and managers to run the
business and organizes their goods according to customers’ preferences. This process
progressively generates feelings that Tesco is a more convenient and comfortable place for
customers to shop in. Instead of continuing to hold the typical image of a corporation by their
audiences, Tesco decided to achieve a customer-oriented approach that proved to their
advantage. To support this, Tesco abides by three central values: “No one tries harder for
customers”, “We treat everyone how we like to be treated” and “We use our scale for
good”(TESCOPLC). This type of convenient and comfortable atmosphere, as well as the act of
holding quality and care as an importance, contributes to Tesco’s identity, and eventually brings
success to the organization.
This phenomenon also provides us insights into how an organization should change to deal with
different environments. Since Tesco is an international grocery company and has subsidiaries all
over the world, each subsidiary has its own identity to satisfy their local customers,
(TESCOPLC). In order to achieve certain goals, organizations create and develop their social
codes and specific images for themselves, and these images are then later processed by audiences
to create identities. With a process such as this, it demonstrates that the idea of identities can
range from simplistic to complex, all depending on the type of environment the organization is
situated in.
New Development
From this real world phenomenon, there should be more research on how to train and/or structure
integration to influence the adaptability of social codes. Perhaps having an intensive program
that goes through the organization’s goals, current position in the market, the impact of their
responsibilities, the flexibility and autonomy of their agents, the norms of the company, and
finally, the simulation programs, will give a firsthand experience of the organization’s likely
work place.
In addition, there should be more research on how these organizations interact with other
populations, and how these interactions influence other aspects of society. As the environment
changes, organizations need to ensure that their forms are able to function alongside these
external factors, As well, for an organization to operate successfully, it needs to keep in mind
that changes of other organizations may have an influence on the organization’s goals, ranging
from minor to major, depending on the dynamics. Coe and Lee (2012) argue that properties of
identities can, and do, change over time, and that form identity can exert a powerful influence on
competitive dynamics by constraining the type of competitive strategy that organizations can
legitimately pursue. Additionally, we can further extend that the properties of identities of an
organization should change according to social trends and technology innovations. For example,
concerning a current social trend, environmental-friendly consumerism, grocery companies such
as Tesco should ensure the process of distribution being energy-efficient and material
decentralizing. In addition, Tesco should continue to be innovative with technology in order to
keep up with competition. The social identity perspective is beneficial through providing an
applicable framework to categorize organizations, guidelines to track identity changes, as well as
a way to manage change that is needed to compete within an industry. Theories in the article can
be developed more through influencing the adaptability of social codes and applying the change
of organizations according to social trends and technology innovations.
References
Coe, N. M. & Lee, Y.-S. (2012). “We’ve learnt how to be local”: The deepening territorial
embeddedness of Samsung–Tesco in South Korea. Journal of Economic Geography.
Retrieved from http://joeg.oxfordjournals.org/content/13/2/327.full
Hsu, G. & Hannan, M. T. (2005). Identities, genres, and organizational forms. Organization
Science, 16(5): 474–490.
TESCOPLC. Core Purpose and Values. Retrieved from
http://www.tescoplc.com/index.asp?pageid=10