3CO01 Business, Culture and Change in Context
Introduction to 3CO01
This unit examines the importance of digital, commercial, and external influence in shaping business within an organisation’s culture, the impact of people’s behaviour on culture, and an organisation’s ability to manage change effectively.
Learning outcomes
Students will be able to:
- Recognise that external influences impact businesses. These include legal influences, social, economic, technological, and competitive influences.
- Understanding how the culture of the workshop is influenced by the culture of the people in it.
- Identify how one’s actions affect others and how an organisation as a whole function.
- Identify the diverse ways in which employees can learn, adapt, and develop in an organisation.
- Develop an understanding of the concept of change in an organisation as a whole. In addition, students will learn about the impact of people professions on employees.
The unit is designed to help learners understand;
The business environment and significant issues affecting it
Each organisation operates in a different environment and faces a unique set of challenges. These can be analysed by:-
- Analysing the primary external influences that have an impact on the environment of an organisation.
Different external forces affect the current and future activities of an organisation. These factors include the market an organisation operates in and the steeple. Therefore, an organisation needs to conduct a SWOT analysis to understand better the market it operates in.
- Analysing an organisation’s goals and discussing the importance of planning.
The organisation’s vision and objectives, business structure, documentation of the business, and employment climate should be included in each business’s short-term and long-term goals. Organisations use different methods of informing their customers and staff, determining their goals, planning, and linking these to their policies and people practices. Business continuity planning provides insight into potential disruptions and enables an organisation to continue operating during a crisis. Additionally, it helps maintain an organisation’s reputation and saves time and resources.
- Assessing an organisation’s products and services and their target customers.
In order to analyse the market, analyse consumer needs, analyse features and benefits of products or services an organisation offers, and to create market segments based on consumer needs, consumer priorities, demographics and consumer interests, learners will need to discuss the products or services that an organisation offers and their primary customers.
- Examine the importance of technology within people’s professions and examine how it can improve collaboration and working practices.
Learners should be aware of the different technologies used within organisations, such as the internet, email, and electronic communications. For example, electronic communication includes smartphones; social media, such as Twitter, Google, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube; cloud-based communication methods; dashboards; cloud hosting; Bluetooth; voice command software; facial recognition software; fingertips; artificial intelligence; file management; autoresponders, and synchronising software. The course also teaches the capabilities of collective and individual technologies that are essential to change, improvement, and can influence working practices; the social and technological approaches that are utilised to enhance communication in organisations, digital marketing of products and services, customer service, improving work efficiency in organisations, and improving productivity and security.
The impact of people’s behaviour on an organisation’s culture
In an organisation, people’s behaviours influence and shape its culture by;-
- Determining the organisational culture at the workplace and highlighting the importance of promoting positive changes.
Understanding what culture is and describing its different types is essential to understanding culture in an organisational context; positive and negative cultures; impacts of culture; subcultures; norms and values; cultural diversity. Learners should also be able to comprehend and describe: the role people professionals play in facilitating relevant and effective organisational culture; an organisation as a holistic system; how to create diversity and inclusion principles in organisational practices; the importance of creating a diverse and inclusive environment in an organisation.
- Understanding how organisations operate as a whole system and how people professionals work and how their actions influence other areas.
The learners should be able to explain the type, structure, design and system of organisations. Furthermore, they should be able to identify the various approaches taken in order to achieve a productive holistic system approach, understand organisations as organic living systems, and determine how government influence, dissemination and communication, national and international, innovative developments, record keeping, changes in laws, legality and compliance are addressed.
- Assessment of employee skills and capabilities using organisational assessments of employees’ learning and development.
Students should be able to understand how learning can be transferred in order to achieve high performance and competitiveness within an organisation; the importance of learning; how to fill skill gaps, critical incidents and underperformance in organisations; how to capture and interpret learning trends; theories and factors affecting learning;
The importance of managing change effectively in an organisation
Each business must have effective management of change. Here are some ways to do this:
- Outlining the importance of managing change within an organisation.
Various factors trigger organisational change, such as competitive innovation, which is essential to beating competitors, technological change, which increases business opportunities, environmental turbulence, market demands, government policies, failure or divergence in the business community, and social and economic factors. In addition, the business can be affected by changes in initiatives and situations within an organisation. Therefore, several components of project planning need to be clearly defined, including roles, purposes, goals, and objectives.
- Defining the role and importance of people professionals in change.
Different types of people professionals play different roles in organisational change. People professionals play a significant role in facilitating the agendas of change, such as: being the gatekeepers to the process of change; taking on the role of the representatives of the change; they act as the catalysts for the change; they act as witnesses to the change; they act as change consultants; they actively participate and offer positive changes perspectives to non-participants; they provide legal guidelines and compliance; they disseminate information, and they keep records.
- Explaining how the change impacts people in different ways.
Individuals respond to change in different ways, including behavioural responses, personal responses and professional responses. To understand how change impacts learners, learners should explain how it impacts them. Job loss, demotion in position, promotion, relocation, degrading, and salary increment or decrease are among these impacts. For example, if someone is demoted, they may suffer from low self-esteem and mental health issues. In addition, customers report improved welfare, teamwork formation, and career advancement.
