Ch. 8 Virtual Teams

I thought the section on virtual teams was really interesting because I see this becoming even more popular over time new technology and employees spread out through the country. According to the book a new range of technological tools has evovled to support these groups of people who work together across time and space in what are called virtual teams (241).

I agree with the book that it does take trust to with people in virtual teams. However I think it is great and it does a better job at meeting customer needs. Sometimes at the VA employees are forced to work in virtual teams because the hospitals are located throughout the nation. However people from around the nation are able to come to together to work for a commom goal.

Ch. 8 Communicating in Teams

On top of individual responsibilities employees in organizations also serve as as members in one or more working groups (235). According to the text a team-based organization has restructured itself around interdependent decision-making groups, not individuals as a means of improving work processes and providing better quality and service to customers.

For example at the Department of Veterans Afffairs interdiscplinary teams of doctors, nurses, psychcologist, soical workers, OT's and many other positions work together in teams to help diganose and treat patients. Although the Department of Veterans Affairs is very bureaucratic it does practice team-based organization because it is best for the patients. Team based organization was created to improve work processes and provide better quality and service to customers. In this case customers are patients and with all the physicans and therapist working together in a team towards one goal the patient recieves better care.

Web Lecture: Technology & Teams

This web lecture on communication and technology was very relative to me because I work in a large organization which practices multiple ways of communicating through new technologies and still relies on older technologies as well.

As I sit here typing this at work a interview via telephone is in process in the next room. Such technologies as the telephone frees participants from the constraints of time and physical location. The Recreation Therapist my supervisors are interviewing over the phone is located on the East Coast in Boston. Although it was great that my supervisors got to interview her they did complain that it was not the same as interviewing a person face to face.

The lecture also talks about virtual or real communication. They bring up the question if team members meet online such as email or chat does that mean the communication isn't real? Although this applies to newer technologies I think you can also throw the telephone into that mix. If you don't meet face to face is it real communication? I believe it is real communication however not communicating face to face can cause problems also. I believe communication also involves physical cues such as body language and without communicating face to face you can't pick up on those extra things.

Ch.7 Gender Difference in Work/Life

It's no secret that men and women communicate differently, however the way they communicate also has implications for the ways that men and women negotiate their work and their personal lives. Woman have always assumed the role of caregiver and assume most of the responsibility for domestic labor at home on top of there responsibility's at their jobs outside of home. Arlie Hochschild has called this phenomenon the second shift.

According to the text the term captures the amount of labor that women perform in the private sphere for which they receive little compensation or gratitude. Women who work outside of home do twice the amount of housework then their male partners who also works outside the household. I believe it's much more difficult to be a working mother then a working father. Sadly most of the household responsibility's are still placed on women and they are forced to do twice the amount of work. My dad does help out as much as he can like cooking dinner and cleaning up once and a while but for some families it is all on the mother. Right when she gets off from an 8hr work day she is forced to work at home with little help.

Theory, Metaphors, and Organization: Critical Approaches to Organization Web Lecture

After reading the section on Critical approaches to organization I felt that I could really relate to the dominate metaphor because at my old job I felt that they exploited their employees. Domination metaphor explains how organizations use and exploit employees, damaging employees health and intruding on their personal lives. Domination metaphor theory also shines light on the privileging of management in decision making.

At my previous job my manager was very dominate. At times she would make us feel guilty for leaving the office to grab lunch and leaving other employees behind to deal with customers because we didn't close for lunch so it was well known it was not OK to leave for lunch all the time which I could of sued them for. I also felt that I was exploited, I was hired as an assistant to sales and I was just suppose to file and help out sales once and a while and then I found myself handling full on sales orders and being passed along sales orders from the actual sales people themselves because they didn't want to do it but even though I was doing the same exact job as them I was getting paid a whole $3.oo less because I was just an assistant to them.

Also my manager would change my hours and my schedule on weekly basis not even asking me if it was OK. If we were slow she would tell me not to come in so I wouldn't get paid. One time she didn't have me come into work for a whole month because we were slow.

Theory, Metaphors,and Organization Web lecture

There are two approaches to culture in organizations, they are the practical view and the interpretive view. I thought the practical view was very interesting because it talked about managers changing an organizational culture and how much employees were actually involved in the process. I took a Organization business management class and this is actually one of the subjects we discussed.

The practical view assumes that it can be managed and changed from the top. Although even though some members on the top have more power in creating organizational life all members within the organization help create, maintain, and change organizational culture. According to the text many researchers have questioned the degree to which managers can actually change a organization.

I don't believe a manager or owner can change an organizations culture by themselves, if the employees don't buy into it's not going to change. I believe it is a joint effort, yes the manager can enforce the new change but the employees have to change with the new culture, help create it and maintain. If can try to change the culture of an organization from the top all you want but it is the employees that maintain that change.

Ch.6 The Hidden Power of Knowledge: Surveillance, the Panocpticon, and Disciplinary Power

Scholar Foucault suggests that a central feature of current modes of power is survillance or constant supervision. Supervision is a structural feature of modern power systems. According to the text Organizational members are subject to systems in which real and present possibilty of surveillance exists.

I can relate to being under constant supervision at the organization I work at. The Internet sites we visit are constantly monitored and each week they release the top 10 Internet abusers and they contact the V.A police service. I work for the Veterans Hospital which is a government hospital so they like to keep track of what all employees are doing and making sure you are not abusing government property. Also they supervise how many phone calls you make. They give us a 5 digit phone code just to dial out and they keep track of how many phone calls we make and how long we stay on the phone, they also determine how much each phone call costs them. I always feel like I have someone supervising every move I make and I think I feel that way because I do. At the VA there is always someone there to monitor what you are doing.

I believe in every organization employees are under surveillance and it's just their way of keeping employees under control and in line. However after working for the government I can say they are on another level when it comes to surveillance and supervision of their employees.

Ch. 5 Cultural Elements

The section in Ch. 5 about Cultural Elements talks about using various symbolic expressions to create a "unique self of place" that defines a organizations culture. The cultural elements they talk about are Metaphors, Rituals, Stories, Artifacts, Heroes and Heroines, Performance, and values.

For instance at my job we use ritual elements. Ritual elements stress a cultures basic values and can range from anything from personal day to day routines for finishing tasks to annual organization-wide celebrations of top performers and also birthday celebrations. The Veterans Hospital really likes to celebrate top performers. We get daily emails from the communications service celebrating employees who have been featured in the news or have been on t.v for various accomplishments. In my service particular they like to especially celebrate birthdays by sending emails out to the service letting everyone know someone is celebrating a birthday. I believe these examples at the organization I work for demonstrate ritual cultural elements.

Ch. 4 Peter Senge's Learning Organization

I think it is interesting that Peter has seperated organizations into two groups, learning organizations and organizations that have a learning disability. Learning organizations exhibit five features systems thinking, personal mastery, flexible mental models, a shared vision, and team learning.

I think the organization I work for does exhibit some of those traits. The VA has a very strong sense of a shared vision. The VA's vision is help hospitalized veterans and I believe everyone who works at the VA shares that vision. I also think the VA has a strong personal mastery which is all members share a personal commitment to learning and self-reflection. After working at the VA for a year I have witness the dedication of it's employees and the commitment of learning new things.

Ch.4 Partial Inclusion

I thought the section on Partial Inclusion in Ch. 4 was interesting. Weick uses Partial inclusion to analyze the balance between work and other activities and to explain why certain strategies for motivating employees are ineffective. He states that employees are only partially included in the workplace meaning we don't get see all their behaviors at work. For instance someone can be an unmotivated worker but be a church leader or model parent and someone can be an outstanding employee but engage in few outside activities from work.

Weick sees organizations as communities or social settings in which we choose to spend most of our adult life. After working at a hospital I have learned that few there actually participate in outside activities. I work for Therapists and they basically dedicate their life to their job. Most of them are working six days a week and work weekends. For me I feel that my supervisor actually lets her job consume her life and everything she does even outside work is related towards her position at the hospital. However for me I think I am motivated worker myself but I do not let a job consume my life, I like to engage in other activities outside my job. They actually asked to me to switch my major but I didn't want to because I know if I did and I worked there I would in sense have no life outside of my job.

I think it's great organizations are social settings but for me I wouldn't want it to consume my whole life, I would like to engage in other activities as well.

Ch. 3 Bureaucracy

As many of you might know from reading my previous post I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs which I will just refer to as the VA. The VA is well known for being a Bureaucratic organization so it was no surprise to me that I found this section in ch. 3 to be very interesting and easy to relate to.

The book mentions that many people associate bureaucracy with red tape and inflexibility. I will agree that I find the VA to be very inflexible because it so large and there are so many different divisions and the hierarchy there is just ridiculous, you have to go through a service of people and loads of paperwork just get simple tasks done such as fixing the air conditioning. For example a WHOLE MONTH ago I put in a request to our warehouse to have 3 pallets of craft supplies delivered to my office and they only just delivered them last week after a month of waiting.

However Charles Perrow defends bureaucracy and argues that the machine it self ought not be blamed but rather the people who misuse it to further their own interests. I can also agree with this statement because there have been some very important people at the the top of the hierarchy at the VA that have abused their powers and failed the Veterans of the United States and thus stricter regulations and new rules were placed on employees thus making it an even more stifle environment to work in.

Ch.3 Classical Management Approaches and Division of Labor

I am so upset....I just got done writing my blog which was well close to 200 words and I go to publish it and my laptop decides to lose Internet connection. So here I go again although this attempt might be a little more watered down because I don't think I can recall exactly what I wrote blahhh!!!!!!

After reading chapter three I felt that I could really relate to the section on Classical Management Approaches. Basically the book states that classical management approaches are represented by a collection of theories that share the metaphor that organizations are modeled after efficient machines.

Both Karl Marx and Adam Smith praised the divisions of labor. They believed the division of labor was necessary to organize corporations. I work for the Department of Veterans Affairs and they like many other classic bureaucratic organizations favor a top-down or management centered approach. This approach is very unfriendly to lower employees because it stifles any upward communication. The Department of Veterans Affairs depends on high ranked supervisors and managers to pass down information to lower division employees, however it is very difficult to get the communication to work upward. There are just too many people to go through. The VA is very much based off giving orders and emphasizing downward transmission.

I though the chart on pg. 67 of the principles of of classical management theory and bureaucratic organization was interesting. I have actually seen charts similar to this example at my work on out intranet. The chart at my work divided everyone one up by services and positions and than charted them in importance and superiority.

Hello everyone,

I am 22 years old and this fall I will be starting my senior year (hopefully) at SJSU. I am majoring in Communication Studies and minoring in Business. Currently I work at the Department of Veterans Affairs in Palo Alto as a Program Support Clerk for the Recreation Therapy Service. The Department of Veterans Affairs is a hospital in Palo Alto that serves Veterans of the U.S Military. Recreation Therapy is the use of therapeutic interventions to improve physical, cognitive, social, emotional and spiritual functioning. As a Program Support Clerk I help in all administrative tasks needed.