Kim Woods only

Post #1

The literature review I found on the gender pay gap went into detail on 5 reasons why this may be an ongoing issue today. This topic has been an ongoing debate on whether gender pay gaps actually exist and if yes, why does it exist? Although I don't agree with the wage gap and it is something that I wish didn't exist, the reasons listed were very clear to me, and I too believe that these points play a big role in the wage gap between men and women. One of the main points was that "women are more likely than men to undervalue the skill levels of their jobs" (Strebler, 1997). I have seen this in many instances, but have noticed that both men and women in the same position do the same amount of work. I feel like this is where they should let their voice be known and talk about the issue. Another point that the article states is, "although men and women managers do not differ greatly in the competencies they possess, women are consistently rated lower on leadership ability by managers" (Strebler, 1997). I have been managed by both men and women, and I don’t feel as if one is rated lower than the other. While they both have their own managing techniques, they both did their jobs in a manner that made the team feel comfortable.

References

Strebler, M., Sussex Univ., B. S., & And, O. (1997). Skills, Competencies and Gender: Issues for Pay and Training.

Post #2

My Topic is too many layers of authorization required for a specific system. One of my colleagues is still trying to get access to a system after trying for a month and this kind of change is at organizational level and this is not just a process change but a change in teams, people and organization. The topic of organizational change is of key importance to decision makers who periodically face the need to choose between alternative courses of action in rapidly changing environments. Although an extensive literature has focused on multiple aspects of organizational change (Wischnevsky, 2004) only limited empirical research has examined the links between change capacity and action to organizational performance.

 

According to the research paper has shown that various circumstances tend to increase the likelihood that decision makers will engage in major organizational change initiatives. Such circumstances generally involve performance-gap dynamics that have been described in the decision-making and learning literatures and include environmental shifts, performance declines, and top management changes.

Core aspects of organizations are defined on the basis of “the claims used to mobilize resources for beginning an organization and the strategies and structures used to maintain flow of scarce resources” (Hannan & Freeman, 1984, p. 156). In this article, we refer to such revolutionary changes as organizational transformations. Their survival consequences have seldom been empirically examined, and this article intends to contribute to filling that void.

The two insights I gained from the paper is first the change in an organization should be systematic and the study of change should be done thoroughly to understand the different types of resources and their skillset in mind.

Reference:

Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1984). Structural inertia and organizational change. American Sociological Review, 49, 149-164.

Wischnevsky, J. D. (2004). CHANGE AS THE WINDS CHANGE: THE IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL TRANSFORMATION ON FIRM SURVIVAL IN A SHIFTING ENVIRONMENT. Organizational Analysis (15517470), 12(4), 361-377.

Post#3

The authors begin, even the abstract, with the strong claim that, “The success of any organization depends on appropriate use of human assets available in the organization” (Vijayabanu & Amudha, 2012). This is something that caught my eye especially because it is such a broad claim. Any organization’s success and conversely failures are directly related to the ability to manage the people working for the company. I do generally agree with this claim, at lease anecdotally, the individual places in which I have worked varied vastly based on the staffing. The review encompasses the idea of workers being able to handle internal and existential change, training is the tool with which the organization molds the employee necessary at a given point, and finally that the right training strategy can be used to develop the cultural contribution, skillset, and self-driven employees.

As far as bringing stability to an organization in the face of changes Vijayabanu and Amudha find that training has to, “…concentrate on developing the ability, wisdom and skills of its workforce” (2012). What the authors are referring to is that a training program from the start of employment will bring the necessary steadiness in the employees to make it through changes of all kinds.

I learned from this review that training as a sculpting tool, which is something that I find particularly different from many of the organization for which I have worked. I have always been of the mind that you can train skill, but you have to hire for culture. This has gotten me in some hot water with management and staff in the early weeks of training, but always seems to work out after the culturally matching new hire does eventually learn the skills. The literature review asserts that training strategies can be employed to bring on any employee and they can learn company culture and/or skillsets necessary to become the right employee for the organization.

 This paper also uses much of the available research, but not all. This is an idea that I find particularly interesting as well. It does not seem like they’ve left anything out purposefully, but they have strategically chosen what research to include. The research they used is a way of learning about a topic, which the authors believe, through pulling together some of the prevailing research, they can gain more knowledge. A compilation of some of the research is still better than the individual studies alone. This brings more clarity to the practical purposes of a literature review of any kind.

 

Vijayabanu, C., & Amudha, R. (2012). A STUDY ON EFFICACY OF EMPLOYEE TRAINING: REVIEW OF LITERATURE. Business: Theory & Practice, 13(3), 275-282.