Mba Essay Questions

1. What are the five assumptions of the cultural frame? What do these assumptions “boil down to”? In other words, what’s the main theme? Put another way, how is the cultural frame different from the structural frame?

The symbolic has several core assumptions:

-What is the most important is not what happens but what it means.

-Activity and meaning are loosely coupled; events have multiple meanings because people interpret experience differently.

-In the face of widespread uncertainty and ambiguity, people creates symbols to resolve confusion, increase predictability, find direction and anchor hope and faith.

-Many events and processes are more important for what is expressed than what is produced. They form cultural tapestry of secular myths, heroes and heroines, rituals, ceremonies, and stories that help people find purpose and passion in their personal and work lives.

-Culture is the glue that holds an organization together and unites people around shared values and beliefs.

The symbolic frame sees life more serendipitous than linear, which is the opposite of the structural frame. In a structural frame their is a clear cut hierarchy that employees within an organization must answer to. In the symbolic frame, symbols embody and express an organization's culture; the interwoven patterns of beliefs, values, practices and artifacts that defines for embers who they are and how they are to do things. More and more the importance of symbols in corporate life is becoming more appreciated.

2. What is a ritual? What is a ceremony? How are they the same? How are they different?

Around the world, at home and at work, ritual gives structure and meaning to daily life. Humans create both personal and communal rituals. There are many different types of rituals. These include initiation, softening of grief, fun and govern key relationships. A ceremony on the other hand are for grander, more elaborate circumstances. Ceremonies punctuate our lives at special moments. They can include baptisms, bar mitzvahs, graduations and weddings.

Historically, cultures have relied on ritual and ceremony to create order, clarity and predictability, particularly around issues or dilemmas too complex, mysterious or random to be controlled otherwise. The distinction between ritual and ceremony is subtle but there. Ceremonies, as was said earlier, are for grander occasions that happen less frequently. Rituals, on the other hand, are for simpler, day-to-day routines that still possess meaning.

3. What is your position on this question: “Do leaders shape an organization’s culture or does culture shape the leader”?

My position on this question is in the middle because I believe that it all depends on where the organization is within its life cycle. If the organization is in its infant to young stage, than the leader will be the one to shape the organization's culture. The reason for this is because most organizational culture comes from the founder. Usually the founder is an energetic leader that shapes the culture and those around him or her. For this reason, if the organization is in its initial stages than my answer would be that the leader shapes culture.

The flip side to my answer occurs when the organization has been established for a number of years and is approaching its maturity stage. An organization such as GE would be a perfect example. The leader coming into GE would have over 100 years of organizational culture to deal with. It would be almost impossible for him or her to change such a long standing culture. It's not impossible to do so, with an exception being a complete overhaul of the company