Given the negative effects that taken-for-granted assumptions can have in the organizations strategy, which measures can be taken to avoid them?

Please have a read through the case study provided below and answer the question with suitable references.

Barney (1986: 657) defines culture as a complex set of values, beliefs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in which a firm conducts its business. Furthermore, Barney (1986: 657) explains how culture affects how the organisation perceives and interacts with certain key actors, and thus, affects the organizations structure and strategy. Johnson et al. (2014: 153) presents four layers of culture, which are: values, beliefs, behaviours, and taken-for-granted assumptions. Taken-for-granted assumptions are the core of an organisations culture and held great influence on the organisations strategy (Johnson et al., 2014: 154).

As Schein (1988: 9) explains, taken-for-granted assumptions often come from a repetitive strategic approach generated by an initial belief. For example, a manager or founder may believe that producing medium priced and medium quality products is the best approach, and thus, will create a strategy around this belief. If this strategy is repeated systematically over time, the initial belief will gradually become a taken-for-granted assumption and will cease to be questioned (Schein, 1988: 10). When this happens, the organization may not be able to unlearn this assumption and, therefore, may not be able to adapt its strategy if the organizational environment changes, which can have devastating effects (Schein, 1988: 10).

As Johnson et al. (2014: 154) explains, culture has great influence on strategy, which can be very beneficial since employees who share the same principles and values as their organization are able to understand the strategy and perform the necessary activities more effectively. However, as explained above, certain aspects of the organizational culture, such as some taken-for-granted assumptions, can have a bad influence on the organization and affect the success of the strategy.

Given the negative effects that taken-for-granted assumptions can have in the organizations strategy, which measures can be taken to avoid them?

Organisational culture is one of the major issues in academic research and education, organisational theory, and in management practice. (Alvesson, 2012) Arriva offers public transport in the form of buses across the Northwest and Wales.Discuss

Organisational culture is one of the major issues in academic research and education, organisational theory, and in management practice. (Alvesson, 2012) Arriva offers public transport in the form of buses across the Northwest and Wales. There is a mass amount of culture that surrounds this industry not only with the Management, and staff, but with the public too.

Culture has embedded all that is delivered at Arriva, and this is clear to see from the newly implemented brand values of the business.

These values work alongside the overall business strategy and aid the delivery of operations, whilst ensuring culture is adapted by all. They can be related to culture in four layers (Johnson, Whittington, Scoles, Angwin, and Regner, 2014) as follows:

One Arriva Ensures that the values of the business are installed into all associated with Arriva.

Great Customer experience By delivering brand values, all customers start to respect the brand. Customers are all stakeholders involved in the business; people will believe in the brand and what it is Arriva aim to achieve.

Doing the right thing Delivers behaviours; after getting stakeholders to believe in the business, the business will then start to cause market their efforts. For example investing in greener technology to reduce CO2 Emissions.

Thinking beyond Evolving the taken for granted assumptions; these are the beliefs and values that become second nature to all involved with the business and continually investing in being innovative to improve the first three layers.

It is clear to see that Arriva take culture seriously, and it is something that they use to their strategic advantage. Are there any downsides to using values and beliefs as part of an active strategy?

Explain the main reasons for the failure of IKEAs international marketing strategy were the different lifestyles.

Thinking of language and cultural barriers, a number of big retailers have failed in their expansion plans possibly through not developing good local relationships.

These include Walmart who tried to launch in Germany and the IKEA Group who also failed in Japan when it first tried to enter this market. The main reasons for the failure of IKEAs international marketing strategy were the different lifestyles. Japanese customers were not ready for flat pack living and not convinced by assembling their own furniture. Could localization have helped the company in this market?

However, there are also plenty of success stories including Lidl and Aldi where the export strategy of low cost and identical stores works in almost all markets.

What does the group think are the key advantages and disadvantages of each export mode and are some barriers (such as cultural) more relevant to international marketing than others?

Describe the situation, putting both the personal problem and the larger social issue in boldface, then explain the relationship in terms of cause and effect.

For this assignment explain how a personal problem can be caused by a larger social issue. It can be a problem that you, a friend or family member, or someone you have read about has experienced. Describe the situation, putting both the personal problem and the larger social issue in boldface, then explain the relationship in terms of cause and effect. Limit your response to a single double spaced page.

Discuss Tattoo in sheriffs clique may have celebrated shooting

Write a two-page reaction paper based on this article: Tattoo in sheriffs clique may have celebrated shooting. In consideration of the chapter readings, discuss how this type of police culture evolved and how it impacts a police organization and the community. Also discuss your ideas on how to prevent this type of behavior within an organization. The article is uploaded into the files.