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Facebook, Filipino Culture, Internet, New Social Media, Organizational Communication, Organizational Culture, Patricia Sy, traditions, UP Manila, values
There really must be some force that does not want me to write this article (probably because there really isn’t anything quite spectacular about it) because just when I was about to save the draft in the middle of the entry, my Internet connection decided to go awry and showed that irritating “Problem loading page… Try again” that comes up when you seem to have encountered a problem either in Mozilla Firefox or your Internet connection. I guess I’m just thankful that WordPress automatically saves drafts once in a while. 😀
In this blog post, I have attempted to sort of modify a model we discussed in our OC152 class. I had almost given up on pursuing this blog topic (and almost decided to create an altogether different blog post) because really, I have not the imagination and I am not good with things that has something to do with creating figures and analyzing them. Here’s the model:
The 3 Factors That Affect Organizational Culture:
- social media evolution
- collaborative economy
- new breed of consumers
4 Elements in the Organization Impacted by these Factors:
- people
- process
- formal networks (e.g. hierarchies, memo)
- informal networks (e.g. grapevine)
But then, as I was brainstorming on what I can do to somehow innovate the model, it occurred to me that there should be another factor that opened up organizations. We should not forget the Filipino culture.If we must analyze organizations, I think it would be best if we put it in the Filipino context.
If you would ask me why and how Filipino culture affects an organization’s processes, people and networks (formal and informal), I guess I would say it has something to do with our values and traditions.
Here is my proposed model:
Filipino culture (or national culture if applied to other countries) has a huge impact on organizations primarily because it has been cultivated on us long before there was San Miguel Corp., Ayala Group or SM Development Corp. Our values and traditions as a people have developed and impacted each Filipino ever since our ancestors stepped foot in the islands. Before there were technological advancements, we already have a set of values that defines us as a collective group. We must remember that we, Filipinos, are collective in nature and if there is one more thing that would affect organizations in the Philippines today, our culture would be it. In fact, I am pretty sure that the way we use social media, the way we are as consumers and the way we collaborate, are also reflective of our culture. We use social media to express ourselves as individuals, and part of a group. Somehow, we are able to show as well that we are part of a certain culture and nationality. Just like in Facebook, there are groups like Definitely Filipino and other pages that are in Tagalog. In fact, you can also use a Tagalog-translated Facebook profile.
That is why I decided that the model should look that way: Filipino culture is injected to those three factors that affect organizations which affect those four elements and which at the core of it, would affect an organization’s culture. In short, I’d say it’s more of the macro level, which is the Filipino culture, affecting the micro level, which is the organizational culture.
I guess that’s how I would see it. Any suggestions? Or perhaps, corrections? 😀
Special Thanks to Patsy for enumerating the ideas for the original model… 😀