Week 5 Update

Communication for week 4 was 99% group discussion board. Everyone tried to participate, but because of fragmented work schedules, our interaction seemed to be less coordinated than earlier weeks. Regardless of our conflicting schedules, each group member contributed to the final assignment. We were able to complete this week’s assignment by using Group Task Behaviors such as proposing how we approach the assignment and building on that idea.

There are a couple of minor roles starting to develop. Kara has taken the lead on editorial functions and Simon has been uploading the edited blog entries. All other roles are dynamic. We have moved into the norming stage of development. If all goes well over the next several weeks, we should move into the performing stage.

All of our companies appear to have similar espousal values such as integrity, commitment and citizenship. Other espousal values that were not shared by our companies included accountability, compassion, customer service driven, service level excellence and ethically minded. We all feel that the enacted values are different than the espousal values. For example, in one company, organizational leaders valued citizenship, excellence and commitment as these values contributed to the financial bottom line. The employees at this same company valued compassion, integrity and excellence which were more in line with job satisfaction. Another company’s espousal value of integrity may not be enacted since some decisions are made by focusing on the smaller picture, not the bigger picture causing integrity to be lost.

The majority of us had many old pictures and representations of how our businesses have progressed over the years including documents, awards, plagues and pictures of former presidents. These artifacts are key in showing the sustainability of many of our companies.

We all feel that our companies have strong corporate cultures based on the fact that our companies have been in existence for many years. For some companies, our corporate culture has been re-shaped through the acquisition of other companies. Our success is based on our culture being dynamic and changing based on current business environments. We all believe that an adaptive culture is most effective in creating member expectations because it is flexible and allows employees to define their roles within the organization. It also helps the company to be more competitive.