Organizational Controls Essay

The case describes one of the most common problems that arise in cross-cultural business expansions without accounting for cultural and social differences across borders. Lincoln is a well established company with a great concurrent control system which enables it to move swiftly through processes and end up with phenomenal figures of efficiency and productivity. The control system at Lincoln is concurrent, although it can be argued that the system has certain similarities with the feed-forward control system. However, one thing is certain: the system is quick and flexible to change quickly which does not consist of the slowness of the feedback system. In particular such a system along with the different types of reward schemes makes Lincoln highly successful in the United States. It would be really difficult to find an organization comparable to Lincoln in terms of the amounts and kinds of rewards given to its employees. The different employee rewarding schemes are all tools and techniques which Lincoln has adapted to over the years because of the realization of the fact that employees in the US are highly motivated through pay-based rewards. (Susan Meredith, 2004) Essentially speaking it is this single factor which has contributed largely to the success of Lincoln in the US and the different kinds of pay-based rewards only seek to satisfy all kinds of people with different ideas and expectations for pay-based rewards. It should be understood by the management of Lincoln when they are transporting the US approach to other cultures that the cultures of different nations maybe and probably are entirely different from the American culture. It is not necessary that the same kinds of objects and pay-based rewards may drive them and motivate them towards high productivity. There are a lot of other intrinsic rewards available at the disposal of managers to use to meet the demands of the workforce. The same types of rewards may not work on different cultures due to the social and political circumstances of those nations. Employees may have different needs, which if met by the management, will motivate them to work harder and achieve levels of high productivity and efficiency. (Daft, 2001) The problem made by the management at Lincoln was to generalize that fact that pay-based and other monetary rewards will definitely motivate employees to achieve high productivity and efficiency. Instead, the operations failed due to the different cultures having different motivational factors, which obviously were not identified by the Lincoln management. The suggestion here to be followed by the management is to identify through research and internal mingling the factors that affect motivation and job satisfaction amongst the different cultures in which they have expanded their operations to and address specifically those issues to reap the same results as in the US. (Robbins, 2004) Employees would maintain their relationship and confidence in Lincoln only if the organization upholds it’s the expectations the employees and their unions hold from them. If Lincoln is unable to pay its US workers the bonus they deserve, Lincoln will be in deep trouble. The overall situation would go from bad to worse. It should be understood that the US employees had no share or tear in Lincoln’s expansions and that the losses arising as a result of the bad policies implemented in the new acquisitions was not transferable onto the US employees. Thus, Lincoln should not dishearten the US employees or risk the deterioration of employee satisfaction, morale and motivation which will affect Lincoln negatively in a significant manner. (Robbins, 2004) Therefore, I believe that Lincoln should borrow money to pay its US workers the bonus they actually deserve to take no risks in losing potential employees to its competitors or risk the loss of employee boost and motivation due to a break in expected promises.