Question 2

Please explain, using your own words, the concept of Pygmalion Effect.

What are the potential implications, uses, or challenges that this effect may pose for organisations engaging into international operations that require the understanding of diverse cultural contexts? Can you use this concept to explain the relationship between national and organisational cultures?



The main idea of the Pygmalion effect is that when you have expectations in a person, that person will prove those expectations, this idea is also known as the power of expectation.

The Pygmalion it’s also know as the Galatea effect because on a Greek mythology, an greek artist carved a statue of a beautiful woman and fell in love with the statue, and the goddess Aphrodite brought to life as Galatea, you can also see how an expecttion can affect a person, in the play "Pygmalion" written by George Barnard Shaw, a gentleman bets that he can turn a cockney flower girl into the perfect image of a lady.

This effect happens every where, it can be in the office, a classroom, a mall or even a party, the effect can influence a person in a negative or positive way, for example, if you are a teacher in a class room and you are watching the students as they make a test, you center you attention in two students, to the first student you think, “I think that he will get a very good grade in this test” and you turn your gaze to the second student and think “I don’t think that he will get a good grade”, when you are grading the tests, you will see that the first student got a A+ and the second student will get a C-, this effect can influence a person according to the expectation that you have of that person.

It’s also the same situation in an office, if a manager gives an employee a task and he does not believe that he is the right person for the task, the person will fail. It’s very important if you ever are going to give a task to a person to keep in mind that the person is the one for the job, that he will complete the task that has been given to him. Also, the way to treat a person can affect their performance, if a manager doesn’t pay attention to a particular employee or he does not praise the employee as much as the other, the employee will think that he is a failure and his attitude toward work will become negative and he will make mistakes and will not try hard enough to make an excellent work and can affect negative way his co-workers, but, if the employee is being treated the same as the others, he is being praised for doing a good work, slowly, the employee will get better and more secure with his work and will become an important part of the company and he will have a positive attitude toward work and will affect in a positive way to his co-workers.

The effect of the Pygmalion effects is not something that you see at first sight, you know the theory but in order to see results you have to investigate for some times and you will see that the final result on an employee and on the company, this is the desirable result that every teacher, company or organization want to achieve. This is the positive effect of the Pygmalion effects.






J. Sterling Livingston said "If he is unskilled, he leaves scars on the careers of the young men (and women), cuts deeply into their self-esteem and distorts their image of themselves as human beings. But if he is skillful and has high expectations of his subordinates, their self-confidence will grow, their capabilities will develop and their productivity will be high. More often than he realizes, the manager is Pygmalion."


http://www.accomplishlife.com/blogs/8/The-Pygmalion-Effect.html
http://www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Pygmalion_Effect.html
http://humanresources.about.com/od/managementtips/a/mgmtsecret.htm
http://fcis.oise.utoronto.ca/~daniel_sc/assignment1/1968rosenjacob.html