Organizational Perspectives For Human And Financial Resources

Discussion

Discuss about the Organizational Perspectives for Human and Financial Resources.

Although it is a known fact that any organization achieves success or encounters failure, depending on the way it manages its human and financial resources, it is important to note that the management of the former largely depends on what organizational perspective is being adopted by the management authority In simpler terms, the management authority of any company manages, improves or even transforms the operation of its organizations, based on the application of either of the four organizational perspective theories- the modernist theory, the symbolic interpretive theory, the critical theory and the post modernist theory. Each employee working in an organization is compelled indirectly to embrace and imbibe the knowledge “created” by the organization, regarding what should constitute the duties, obligations or rights of the organization, and the employees, being a part of the system, fail to question the validity of the assumptions, and consequently suffer from social stratification and organizational inequality (Shafritz and Jang 2015). Hence, in the context of the organizational perspectives exhibiting different narratives about the organizational inequality, the following essay intends to discuss and analyze the two organizational perspectives- the critical theory perspective and the symbolic interpretive perspective.

The Critical Theory of organizational perspective attempts to evaluate as well as challenge and question the commonplace assumptions prevailing and dominating any workplace in today’s world. While discussing about the critical theory, it is highly important to refer to the view of “ideology” as propounded by Karl Marx who indeed had a very remarkable influence on this theory of organizational perspective. According to Marx, in any capitalist market, the bourgeoisie group o people would distort what constitutes “reality” in order to facilitate their exploitation of the laborers (Hatch and Cunliffe 2013). Thus, the ideology that governs the workplace policies of an organization, is primarily formulated by the higher class, that is the management authority of an organization, who compels the exploited proletariats embrace their socially constructed ideologies to be the ulterior truths and ultimate facts. In the famous article “Deconstructing the Privilege and Power of Employee Engagement: Issues of Inequality for Management and Human Resource Development”, the authors rightly assert how employee engagement becomes the success mantra for the employees, that compels each employee to work with greater dedications, so as to accomplish greater power, and yet the employees fail to realize that the real power belongs to the management authority (Shuck et al. 2016). No wonder, this leads to employee exploitation, and yet the employees are usually so absorbed in their ideological perceptions of what functional roles they should play in the company, that they fail to realize the same.

The Critical Theory of organizational perspective

Ontologically speaking, the critical theory emphasizes and reinforces the presence of a reality that exists independent of the knowledge of the employees working in an organization. The authors of the article rightly point out that although employee engagement is an important concept that promotes organizational success, by actively involving the employees, the outcome of the same is not as beneficial as the employees believe them to be (Zelwegger et al. 2013). In other words, any organization can operate its business activities with the equal and same level participation of the employees, with some employees doing manual work, others supervising the same. This is how an organization works in reality.

However, epistemologically speaking, a subjective truth exists, that is governed by the ideological perceptions of ‘hard work’, ‘higher power’ and ‘greater personal accomplishment’. While different employees have different levels of specialization, and consequently offer service in various professional fields in the company, there is no need to segregate the employees according to power and social status. However, the management authority of an organization purposively separates the employees to keep them engaged. This form of social stratification indeed tempts the employees to work harder, the harder they work the higher they can reach. Even if the pay-scale would not differ to a considerable extent, the employees on being promoted to a higher designation would feel more motivated (Shuck et al. 2016). Thus, although the company’s expenditure on the employees is not very likely to increase, it will undoubtedly enhance the participation of the employees by elevating their spirits. The organization creates false ideological perceptions of ‘power’ and ‘superiority of ranks’ that can be solely accomplished through hard work and longer hours of dedication towards the workplace. The organization creates a system of social stratification, whereby the employees working in higher designations enjoy separate rooms, or respectable titles to be addressed with, and other amenities that ignite the desire among the remaining employees to achieve similar promotion (Hoobler et al. 2014). However, although many employees will work harder, work overtime, not the skills of everyone will be recognized in the process. Though the company’s expenditure on the higher salary of the employees remains limited, given that not all the employees are promoted, the organization enjoys an overall increase in the average rate of employee participation and active engagement within the company. The organization stratifies and creates new positions, within the entity, and attaches meanings to each one, such as higher position implies greater social status and instills greater pride, or commands greater respect. The organizational culture experienced by the employees set standards that in turn offer challenges to the employees, they wish to overcome, while reaching something higher. The Critical theory asserts that even if the truth that the company is ultimately benefitting from the higher rate of employee engagement, is known to the employees, they will keep on toiling to ensure greater power, privilege and security to be enjoyed in future. Unless the organization creates a sense of meaning and purpose to the repetitive work done by an employee, the employee will lose his motivation and purpose at work, and will start questioning over the issues of exploitation of labor- such as low pay-scale or unpaid overtime duties (Gond et al. 2015). Hence, the idea is to create a meaningfulness and attaching a sense of personal accomplishment, This explains why the organization willingly creates and encourages employee inequality at workplace, so that the employees ca strive to work with greater productivity and efficiency rate. The company sets standards, creates employee inequality, designs new job designations heightening a sense of hierarchy, and cultivate the ideological perceptions among the people, regarding the importance of achieving greater social status through higher designations. This in turn would inevitably lead to greater dedication, often implying working overtime without additional pay, and the employees would unknowingly participate in their own exploitation.

The Symbolist Interpretive perspective

The Symbolist Interpretive perspective is also an important theory that deals with the social construction of reality. As opposed to the aforementioned perspective, that challenges the inherent ideological perceptions building inequality at workplace, the present perspective highlights how the traditional ideas and values of the society indirectly affect how an organization is administered (Rafaeli and Pratt 2013). According to this perspective, commonplace assumptions of social life pervade and dominate the organizational management as well. An entity will fail to look at the objective version of truth, because of the subjective awareness of the facts deemed to be ‘truth’ by the same. The symbol interpretive perspective believes that any form of truth is highly subjective, and that it varies from person to person, and according to time, place and context. The interpretive as well as the symbolic acts or gestures more than often determine the business administration of an organization, and consequently create inequality (Coutinho 2017).

In the article “Trapped by Metaphors for Organizations: Thinking and Seeing Women’s Equality and Inequality” rightly examine how the social perceptions about gender roles, inherent in the society ultimately determines the participation of women in the organizations (Kemp 2016). The occupational inequality as per the sexual identity of the employees has been a common problem in organizations. Max Weber has rightly pointed out that an individual perceives reality in the light of his past experiences, and usually fails to perceive the same, by distancing himself from the traditional perceptions of organizational life. For example, women have always been socially interpreted as beings that are capable of nurturing and caring people, and doing the jobs that involve heart rather than the intellect (Johansson et al. 2016). Consequently, the organizations usually tend to deem women befitting the job roles of a front line executive, customer care executive or a Human Resource expert, while the managerial decisions are usually being allowed to be taken by the male employees. Such ideological, biased interpretations of the employee expertise contribute to workplace inequality (Afraz et al. 2015).

Epistemologically speaking, the theory upholds that truth in itself is highly subjective and that the interpretation of the truth largely depends on how the meaning of the social discourse is being construed and constructed. The important fact here is that any kind of idea deemed to be true or factual is but only a mere socially constructed thought that needs to be challenged. In case of organizations working under patriarchal setup, will necessarily be prone to promote male employees, even though the female employees possess equal or more expertise, professional skills and knowledge (Kemp 2016). As the article suggests, women have always been metaphorically interpreted to be fragile and creative individuals, who are deemed fit for professions that involve communication, care and creativity. On the other hand, men have been always considered fit for managerial duties, such as administrators and managers or CEOs. As shown in “Images of Organization”, no matter how much successful and effective a business strategy is, if it is formulated by a woman, it will be defined as a ‘daughter strategy’ that needs to be implemented only after the proper supervision by a male employee. According to the symbolic interpretive perspective theory, the gender stratification exists within an organization only because male supremacy and female socialization permeate the social discourse that gets spread through social interaction. The women have always been socialized to believe that they deserve to be placed in subordinate positions, only to be dominated and guided by some male employee (Newman 2014). The job roles of the males have always been interpreted to be something related to guide, mentor and lead, while that of the female employees have been traditionally conceived to work under supervision and in compliance with the leaders. The symbolic interpretive theory of organizational perspective upholds that the personal point of view of an individual is largely guided and determined by  the social forces that has shaped his perception about the world, and that he fails to interrogate or challenge the commonplace perceptions, simply because he interprets the commonplace facts to be ‘real’. The women have been historically considered to be docile and fragile individual, who are powerless, and consequently a female employee ended up remaining a second sex, who being the ‘other’ can never prove to be professionally equivalent to the male counterparts. The male employees have been continuously identified with the images of a “Father” or a “Warrior” within the organization, who is expected to participate more actively in the managerial decisions, bring bout drastic change, and ensure the long-term sustenance of the company. It is important to note that even business terms, such as the image of a stag leader, is inherently associated with a male figure, and as for the female ones, there is no word as a doe leader (Basford et al. 2014). Consequently, unlike the male employees, the female employees have little professional choices at workplaces, and they are left with no option but to encounter workplace inequality and to remain content with little or no corporate growth (Zellweger et al. 2013).

Conclusion:

To conclude, each of the four above-mentioned organizational perspectives has a distinct approach in managing the employees, and cultivating specific organizational cultures. In order to make a systematic sense of the organizational structure and culture, the companies often distort reality to compel employees to work harder and keep them motivated, while sometimes the inherent symbols pervading the social discourse deprives some employees from just privileges. Thus, the companies often adopt organizational perspectives which end up creating workplace inequality.

Reference List:

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