Critical Organisational Analysis – HR9610

Critical Organisational Analysis – HR9610
Student No :
Word Count : 2451 words
Submission date : 25th May 2020

Table of Contents
‘Tesla’ as an organization and its cultural aspects.........................................................................2
References........................................................................................................................................ 10
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‘Tesla’ as an organization and its cultural aspects
The discussions in this essay on Tesla Inc. contain, practices and behavior of Tesla
with regards to corporate culture from a symbolic theoretical perspective.
Tesla Inc. based in Palo Alto, California and It is an automotive, lifestyle and energy
firm ("Tesla Business Model (2020) | Tesla Business Model Canvas", 2020) which
relates to the ‘automotive energy storage energy production’ industry. They operates
since 2003 with the mission of "accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable
energy" ("TESLA : Careers", 2020). Its technology, power and environment
friendliness make the company different among other carmakers and specialties of
their products and services based on several factors, such as; design, the ‘frunk’,
fuel storage and electric drive etc. ("What Makes a Tesla Special? These 10 Things,
for Starters", 2016). According to their Annual report (2019), Tesla had 48,016
number of full-time employees as at end of year 2019 and the company believe they
are maintaining a good relationship with their employees as they have not
encountered any work stoppages.
The rational for choosing Tesla to write the essay is, there are plentiful information
available publicly and, found some challenging areas with respect to its culture which
are interested to investigate. It is noted that Tesla’s management makes the effective
use of employees’ creative and innovative behaviors through the organizational
cultural traits function ("Corporate Culture | Tesla Case", 2020). In fact, Tesla’s
organizational culture itself encourages employees to investigate and identify the
ideal solutions in means of innovations, to ensure continuous improvements of the
organization (Meyer, 2019). Therefore, it will be suggested that there is a convinced
relationship between cultural aspects and performance of Tesla and management
use it as a managerial tool to develop efficiency by influence on behavior of
employees.
First, a basis for the choice of the symbolic perspective will be given with theoretical
study and secondly, a short examination under seven themes will be presented and
then critical literature review on culture will follow. Application and evaluation of
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theoretical aspects of culture in the context of Tesla will be the final piece of this
essay and researcher will conclude the essay by mentioning recommendations
based on the findings.
There are three theoretical perspectives which facilitate to understand and analyse
organizations, they are; modern perspective, symbolic / interpretive perspective and
postmodern / contemporary perspective. All three perspectives concerning the way
of achieving success through organization and organizing. Hatch & Cunliffe (2006)
described modernist perspective as the knowledge that can be collected through
senses (touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight) whilst get rid of bias and focusing on
objective knowledge. However, symbolic perspective can create bias whilst concerns
about subjective knowledge that cannot measure through senses, such as; emotions
and personal experience. Postmodern perspective implies how knowledge is utilized
for power whilst emphasizing the way language can reflect reality and importance of
language. Briefly speaking, modern perspective is all about performativity with the
intension of defects reduction and how improvements are making, symbolic
perspective is about ‘local’ meaning of phenomena and finally contemporary
perspective is uncovering alternative narratives.
This essay aims to study and evaluate how Tesla controls cultural aspects of the
organization as a management tool, towards the improvement of efficiency in
operations. This seems to line up well with the symbolic perspective, which seeks to
build theories to explain convinced relationships between concepts like culture,
identity and performance (Hatch, 2018). For this reason, symbolic perspective has
been selected. Symbolic perspective aims at qualitative research which try to
understand and reflect changes in polices over key influences on efficiency;
whereas, postmodern perspective aims at anti-epistemological research which is
refraining to claim truth and instead collect stories on both individual and collective
surfacing conflicts. Hence, postmodern perspective does not concern about
efficiency of business operations as symbolic perspective do. Additionally, modernist
perspective considers about individuals’ interpretations, the way they react and as a
result what kind of changes occur in organizational behavior and future. It focuses on
objective knowledge instead of subjective knowledge as considered in symbolic
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perspective. Therefore, symbolic perspective seems to be a better selection to
conduct Tesla’s organizational analysis.
Moving on, following table will show an organizational practices and behaviors
evaluation based on seven specific themes; such as, structure and design, identity,
culture, knowledge management, performance, power and control and gender, with
respect to the Tesla.
Theme Organizational practices
Structure and
design
Organizational structures designed in order to conduct
operations/ activities which can not do individually and group
up to carry out the desired activity to become more efficient
(Hatch, 2013). There are two types of organizational
structures; structure which refers with the availability of
material things in an organization is called physical structure,
whereas structure which indicate the relationships of different
groups of people within the organisation is called social
structure.
When considering the social structure of Tesla, it is
incorporate with functional organizational structure; for
example, they have structural group of employees for sales,
services and engineering (Meyer, 2018). Most important
factors in Tesla’s organizational structure are their functional
based hierarchy and centralized managerial control group.
Geographically situated divisions mainly represent the
Physical structure of Tesla.
Identity Organizational identity is referring what is essential and
important to the organization to distinguish among others
(Ysen Lin, n.d.).
Tesla’s vital identity is their brand name. They have been built
a strong brand value over the period. Organizational identity
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and culture are both interconnected concepts. For example,
employee retention would affect by identity of the company.
Employees engage in decision makings like whether they
want to remain as a part of Tesla in their future career which
recognize them as ‘Tesla employees’, would directly base on
identity of the organization.
Culture When much of the employees’ behaviour determines by a set
of shared assumptions and a socialization process would
educate the newcomers about rules and norms, it reflects the
organizational culture (Schein, 2004).
Tesla encourage their employees to search ideal solutions in
the means of innovation and ensure the sustainability
through improvements. Tesla maintains a higher level the
human resource capability through its corporate culture
("Corporate Culture | Tesla Case", 2020). However, corporate
culture of Tesla will be evaluated further in following parts of
his essay
Organizational
learning and
knowledge
management
"Rather than regarding knowledge as something people
have, it is suggested that knowing is better than regarded as
something that they do" (Blacker, 1995, p.1023).
Tesla performance may depend on various factors; such as,
competition on labour market and negative publicity etc.
Tesla have employees who have specialized knowledge on
manufacturing engineering, software engineering and electric
vehicle designing. Performance of a company like Tesla is
more depend on their skilled, knowledgeable workforce who
is well equipped with creative innovative ideas. Tesla mostly
uses formal activities and it is important since managing
knowledge could change Tesla’s chance to survive.
Aesthetics, From a symbolic perspective, aesthetics aims to
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performance
and narrative
communicate professional, social or status signals in a
material form within the organization (Elsbach, 2003).
Tesla’s aesthetics symbolize the organization’s futuristic
attitude and car manufacture’s wiliness of technological
adventure (Debord, 2017). They may not drop their
aesthetics / values in market. Instead, they bring up the
feeling of respect towards the mission of Tesla which detailed
to quicken the global evolution to sustainable energy.
Power and
control
Comparing with the other perspectives, symbolic perspective
not much concern about power and control.
In the view of the author, Tesla is using ideological power
style which influences people to act against their own
interest. However, there are no such information on power
aspects of Tesla which totally confirm the power type of it.
Additionally, Tesla has incurred more fines compared to its
competitors (Ohnsman, 2019) and therefore they need more
investigations on workplace safety. The idea behind that
referring to the control and it implies that there are some
shortfalls in its centralized management process.
Gender In this theme, it will study the extent to which there is parity
between men and woman within organization. Studies
estimate that women employees comprise only a quarter out
of total technological industry employment (Kolhatkar, 2017).
When considering the situation in Tesla, they have taken
actions to increase the female employee level through
internship programmes etc. But there is a gender gap and
according to reporters, that it is because of a exposed sexism
case in 2017(Hartmann, 2017).
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While understanding on Tesla’s organizational practices and behaviours under
several themes, moving to evaluate the literature on culture.
Tylor (1871) has been defined culture as, that system which comprise morals,
beliefs, law, morals, customs, knowledge, art and any other capabilities and
behaviours received by a man as a member of society. The likenesses all humans
share to their cultural changes direct Herskowitz (1948) to change Tylor’s
interpretation of culture to; the entire system of knowledge, values, beliefs, goals,
behaviour and sanction that account for the way of life of a people. That definition
opens the avenues to debate about organizational culture as the way of life within an
organization. Hofstede (2000) argues that culture is not only a social rule but also
can be used as a management tool, while describing organizational culture in the
form of onion that comprises number of layers and values that create the principals
of the organizational culture.
Organisational culture would differ from one company to another and it makes a
powerful influence on behavioural patterns of employees and management.
Organizational culture may not guarantee the success of an organization, but the
organizations with strong corporate culture have more possibility to become
successful than their competitors (Jarratt & O’neill, 2002). Organizational culture not
only serve as strength, but also it can distribute weaknesses to the organization
(Schein, 2004). The characteristic of the organization that have weak corporate
culture comprise bureaucracy instead of entrepreneurship and creativity, reluctance
to pursue best practices from outside of the organization, politicized organizational
environment and oppose to change (Kotter and Heskett, 1992).
Additionally, subcultures may arise in situations where, people’s behaviour is not
controlled. Sometimes subcultures may clash with the corporate culture and as a
result, business process may hold back, and organizational performance could be
adversely affected. Studies suggest that the symbolic perspective that culture is not
possessed by management may not hold true.
Moving to evaluate practices and behaviours that Tesla has undertaken in relation to
their organizational culture. Simply by referring Tesla’s website, it is possible to
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notice the firm’s object which outline what Tesla seek mostly. It declares ‘talented
individuals who share their passion to change the world’ and it indicates the Tesla
employees as a whole one group. Further, it is mentioned as they effort to build an
inclusive environment where everybody would able to perform their best regardless
of background, age, race, gender or religion. This implies the equality values they
believe and exercise. Their culture is energetic, fast-paced and innovative.
Tesla encourage their workforce to search ideal solutions in means of innovations to
ensure rapid development in performance. Problem solving count on effective
communication and sometimes organizational hierarchies may stop the precise flow
of information. To efficiently overcome hierarchy friction and adopt a better corporate
structure, Tesla encourage flexible and smooth communication through
organizational culture to get things done (Fournier, 2019).
Tesla’s organizational culture can treat as an innovation problem solving type of
corporate culture (Meyer, 2019) which motivates workforce to develop more fruitful
solutions to current and expected future problems which may be occur in market.
According to Tesla, their organizational culture got six main characteristics and they
featured them as, constant innovations, move fast, reason for first principles, think
like owners, do the impossible and we are all in (Meyer, 2019). Constantly innovation
itself declare its meaning and the company address this requirement through
organizational culture as said earlier. The situation where Tesla speedily answers to
challenges and current issues in the industry through their corporate culture is
named as move fast. Tesla workers use first principles in satisfying their job through
its culture, while company’s human resource management facilitating training
programs to accomplish it. Tesla’s organization culture supports to create the
mindset of employees to think like owners and that idea is also distributing from their
vision and mission statements by inspire employees to take accountability and
responsibility in their jobs. Tesla believes their culture also encourage employees to
think outside the box and as a result they may face unconventional matters which
opens new opportunities to win the market. That situation featured as ‘do the
impossible’. Lastly, ‘we are all in’ is all about its teamwork towards business
improvements. Tesla believes that its cultural factors support to minimize conflicts in
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teamworking, and such teamwork leads to improve synergy in the firm’s human
resources.
Cultural aspects of Tesla would enable the company to manufacture and supply
technologically advanced products for its customers. Also, corporate culture of Tesla
facilitates to response problems more effectively with consuming comparatively less
time and it also makes sure the effective fulfilment of customer’s need and
preferences. However, it is noted that organizational culture of Tesla put more
pressure on workforce to create constant innovations. This will badly affect the long
run of the organizational culture and as a result, the quality of future innovations may
decline. It is also noted that the company’s corporate structure puts limits on
responsiveness of workers. That may result adversely on speedy decision-making
process and corporate culture. Within Tesla, there are both looseness and tightness
in cultural norms which leads both positive and negative traits in business. Tight
cultures are boosting order and predictability while loose cultures represent disorder.
Loose cultures are highly creative and open to change than tight cultures. For this
reason, successful innovation necessitates both looseness and tightness. In the
viewpoint of writer, Tesla is struggling to maintain a balance between these two types
of organizational norms.
What is argued throughout the essay is that it is possible to use culture as a
management tool and Tesla needs to develop their current cultural features while
changing them with the concern of future challenge when necessary. However, to
achieve better organizational culture, it can be recommended to be more flexible
than present. Also, Tesla can give more attention towards employee voice and limit
the level of stress put on them. As they stress employees more and more towards
innovation creation, their quality of ideas and solutions will be decreased. Instead,
they can pursue disciplines like talent optimization, minimize leadership gaps, hire
and develop talent and take collective / correct actions. To conclude, the analysis of
the behaviours and practices of Tesla with regard to corporate culture demonstrate
that this company is following significantly good cultural aspects which leads to make
changes in its performance and therefore, needs to be develop further.
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