Best Company Project Report

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Project Report

Introduction:

Organizations are one of the biggest assets of an economy. They play an important role in accelerating the development of an economy, provide jobs to a significant proportion of the population, and play a crucial role in serving the society. Hence, it is no surprise to see that people take the decision of working for an organization very seriously and would want to work for the ‘best’ organization. Now, the definition of ‘best’ in the context of an organization is obviously different for different people, but it is important to note that regardless of any definition of ‘best’, people will thrive in an environment in which they are most comfortable in. This is not to say that a particular organization is perfect, but to say that the compatibility of the person and the organization is a very important aspect of why people would give different answers to the question of what is the ‘best’ organization.

Methodology:

For the purpose of this research, we preferred interviews over surveys. The reasons for this decision was mainly influenced by two factors: quality of response and better understanding. Our group felt that we should conduct interviews because the responses that we would get will be more accurate, and that the managers would be able to explain their point of view in a more effective manner, enabling us to better understand what they are trying to say. At the same time, we also felt that the chances of untrue responses on the surveys would be much higher, along with the constraint of surveys not being able to gauge the perspective of the manager in greater depths, which in turn would lead us to a lack of understanding of the manager’s position. The focus of our project was on the following organizational elements: culture, tasks and task significance, opportunities and growth, job satisfaction and job involvement, rewards, ethics, people and work environment.

Culture, in an organizational context is defined as “a system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations”. (Robbins). The culture is one of the most crucial components of an organization. Culture forms the basis for the relationship dynamics between employees, allows an increased amount of communication between them and also guides employees to behave according to the norms of an organization, even if there are no formal rules in place. Most importantly, though culture affects every single member of an organization and is a very strong representation of the experiences, philosophy, values that hold it together and is expressed in its self-image and interactions with the outside world. (Ashok Kumar). Therefore, the culture does not only influence the employees, but also dictates the compatibility and relationship of an individual with the organization. Hence, our interview questions regarding culture were aimed to find what specific qualities of cultures of organizations in Pakistan are most appealing to an employee. This would then allow us to identify any similarity between the qualities mentioned by different respondents and allow us to get an overall idea regarding the features of organizational culture which are considered to be the ‘best’ in Pakistan.  

Tasks refer to the work that an employee does, whereas task significance refers to the impact of an individual’s work on other people and the society. In other words, it can also been described as the influence a job has on the well-being of other people. (Khayat). Task significance is usually a very important aspect an individual considers while making a decision regarding where to work. This is because task significance helps to generate a sense of purpose and meaningfulness to a person’s work which helps to increase internal motivation, leads to improvement in productivity, better job performance and an overall increase in job satisfaction. This is backed up by research as meaningfulness is considered to be a very key contributor to the well-being of a person and has consistently been linked to improvement in other career variables such as loyalty and tenacity. Several researches have also reported that people who see their work to be purposeful, they show greater signs of organizational commitment, lower absenteeism and improvement in all performance measures. (A.Allan). Keeping this in mind, we wanted to know whether individuals, especially in the context of the prevailing economic, social and political situation in Pakistan, want to have an impact on the society and whether they consider this aspect while deciding to work for an organization.  

Opportunities are fundamental to the growth and development of an individual. The play a major role in polishing the capabilities of an employee and allow them to have a better chance of career advancement.  They also provide a great learning experience regarding the realities of a competitive marketplace and allow an individual to develop the skills which will help them not only survive in face of competition, but also enable them to improve their creativity which is a fundamental for any individual who wants to succeed. From the perspective of Pakistan, where there is a lot of room for economic development and where a significant proportion of the population faces various issues, opportunities can give individuals the platform not only for personal gain, but also to have a greater impact on the society. Therefore, the questions in our interviews regarding opportunities were aimed at trying to find out whether the Pakistani workforce considers them important and if so, do organizations in Pakistan have a strong reputation for providing them.