Implications of Concepts of Organizational Behavior at a Local Restaurant in London - Essay Example

?Implications of Concepts of Organizational Behavior at a Local Restaurant in London Introduction This paper emphasizes on the private business of Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith has lived in United Kingdom for many years. Across the continent, his family and ancestors have been operating chain of restaurants and therefore he is much acquainted with this type of business. Currently, the location of Mr. Smith’s restaurant is in Central London. This location is in vicinity of many attractions and public transport is also easily accessible in this region. He is owner, founder and Managing Director of his business. He has the sole authority of controlling operational and managerial issues such as sales promotion, staff, hiring, finances and accounting etc. The restaurant is comprised of totaling fifty employees. Most of these employees are foreigner students who work part time at Mr. Smith’s Restaurant. Mr. Smith offers flexible working conditions to these students. He allows them to work full time during holidays as well as part time during exams. Lately, the restaurant underwent a substantial increase in numbers of customers. This increment is mainly due to the popularity of International and European Cuisine offered at Mr. Smith’s Restaurant. Such popularity has encouraged Mr. Smith to open more chains of this restaurant throughout U.K. In this paper, Mr. Smith’s business has been analyzed from the following mentioned perspective. Organizational Culture and Structure Leadership and Management Styles Motivational Theories and their implications Teamwork and Group Behavior In subsequent paragraphs, these aspects of Mr. Smith’s business are discussed in detailed manner. Task 1 - Understand the relationship between Organizational Structure and Culture a) Compare and contrast ‘geographical’ and ‘functional’ organizational structure. You should include examples of the application of these organization structures in real businesses. Organizational Structures and Culture Organizational structures are developed to define a framework of command and order through which the tasks and activities of an organization can be organized, planned, directed and controlled in order to achieve the overall organizational goals. Within U.K, most of the restaurants possess geographical, functional and entrepreneurial structures. Functional Structure; this structure refers to organizing the business depending upon what each department does. Geographical Structure; This structure groups activity according to their geographical location. Services are provided after considering ease of management and convenience of customers. Product-based Structures; Companies that possess wide range of products have this type of organizational structures. Wide range of products is generally categorized in width extension, breadth extension and line extension Multifunctional and Multidivisional Structures; this structure is typically possessed by large corporations whose business operations are expanded globally. This structure possesses multiple hierarchical levels in organization. Matrix Structures; matrix organization requires an employee to report two bosses at same time. For instance, a person might be an employee in sales department but he has to report to finance manager as well about the sales of a certain period. Centralization; in centralization, only one individual or top management has the sole authority of taking decision for the entire company. Decentralization; decentralization disperses the decision making governance in proximity of workers (Heathfield, n.d.). Implication of Organizational Structure in Mr. Smith’s Restaurant Since the business of Mr. Smith is family owned, therefore substantial reliance is upon the owner-manager that is Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith has the sole authority, accountability and responsibility of the entire organization. The relationships between Mr. Smith and other members of organization are developed in informal and personal basis. However, at the same time Mr. Smith plans to expand his business which requires a formal style of management as well as organizational culture. In this regard, Mr. Smith’s business would have flat structure having different functional levels of core areas including HR, sales and promotion, purchasing and procurement, finance and accounting etc. (Organizational Culture and Performance, n.d.). b) Compare and contrast ‘power’ and ‘task’ culture. You should include examples of the application of these cultures in real businesses. Organizational culture: Power Culture; the key element in power culture is ‘control’. Power culture is mostly found in medium and small sized business where there is only one owner. Role Culture; Role culture splits up organization according to different functions. Each individual is assigned a particular function or role to perform. This culture increases productivity because employees are assigned those tasks which come under their area of expertise. Task Culture; Task culture is more oriented towards developing teams in order to accomplish a certain task or pursuing a certain project. Person Culture; person culture is mostly found in non-governmental organizations or charitable organizations where focus is mainly on individuals or particular aim. Cultural Norms and Symbols; every culture possess some norms and symbols which are validated within the boundaries of that culture. Values and Beliefs; just like the way every country has different set of values and beliefs, every organization also does. What is considered as righteous in one organization may not be applicable for other organization. Development of Organizational Culture; Organizational culture is developed by sharing stories, rituals, language and symbols within the organization. It entirely depends upon the owner of the organization about which type of organizational culture he selects, whether he goes for formal culture or informal culture. Implications of Organizational Culture on Mr. Smith’s Business Since it’s a family owned business, Mr. Smith’s business is categorized as a power culture. The structure of Mr. Smith’s business is hierarchical and entrepreneurial. All the responsibility, accountability and authority lies on the shoulders of Mr. Smith. After going for expansion in other states, Mr. Smith’s business will have: Lower cost of management overhead Broader span of control encouraging motivation and delegation Improved communication as lateral and horizontal communication is encouraged Meaningful and genuine promotions Proximity between lower level and top management Mr. Smith is expected to have greater and better control over all of its organizational activities due to the specific type of culture which is prevailing in his restaurant. c) Explain how the relationship between the organization structure & culture adopted by an organization can have an impact on the organization performance. Impact of Organizational Culture on Financial Performance Organizational culture has always had profound impact on organizational performance. Corporate culture is designed primarily for the employees and management of the organization. The purpose of hiring employees is to boost the productivity and financial performance but if there are disputes pertaining to the corporate culture then definitely financial performance will be affected through this as employees wouldn’t be in a position to pursue their tasks. If the culture of an organization doesn’t allow employees to give their full potential due to unnecessary restrictions and obligations then certainly there will be a huge loss of productivity, time and resources. Similarly, if an organization while tapping into international market, negates the cultural barriers than it would be in a drastic situation after expanding its businesses in such areas (Robbins, 2009). In Mr. Smith’s business, the resultant increase in numbers of customers was also triggered by organizational structure and culture. Mr. Smith has allowed his workers flexible hours and convenient timings, in this regards, whenever employees are on their shift they provide their full efforts in meeting the organizational objectives by giving the best to each of their tasks. Mr. Smith seems to be a very sensible entrepreneur who believes that if it is required to satisfy the external customers (customers), internal customers (employees) must be satisfied first. If they are motivated, inspired and enthusiastic then overall organizational performance will certainly increase. d) Discuss some of the key factors that influence individual behavior at work in an organization of your choice. Perception: the central features of an organization are individuals. When the demands of organization clashes with the needs of individual, it usually results in frustration, fatigue and conflict. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of the management to incorporate the individual with the organization so that individual’s needs are met as well as goals of organizations are achieved. The perception of individual for organization must be very positive. If the work environment is not pleasant then the rate of absenteeism and turnover will increase. At Mr. Smith’s Restaurant, employees are given flexible hours so that they can work as per their convenience. This concern from the employer creates job satisfaction among employees. Significance and nature of individual differences: individuals must feel valued while working in the organization. Employees must be given reward, values and encouragement for their efforts even if they don’t achieve any substantial objective. At Mr. Smith’s restaurant, individual differences are valued by providing them equal employment opportunities. Individual behavior at work: the impact of any change in management is directly seen on the behavior of employees. Either they will resist change or else they will be enthusiastic about change. Employees must be involved while taking any major decision so that they feel sense of security and value while working in that organization. Many employees feel comfortable and easy while working at Mr. Smith’s restaurant due to the cooperating and collaborating nature of Mr. Smith (Mullins, 2009). Task 2 - Understand different approaches to Management and Leadership a) Compare the autocratic leadership style and the democratic leadership style and comment on their effectiveness in your chosen organization. There are different styles of leadership which are present in different organization. Some of the most common styles of leadership include: Autocratic; in this style of leadership, the owner takes all the decision. There is one way communication and there is not any concept of participation of employees through suggestion, feedbacks etc. Democratic; under this style of leadership, feedback, suggestion, involvement and participation of employees are highly encouraged. Transformational; transformational leaders enhance the morale, motivation and performance of its followers through variety of tactics and mechanisms. Strategist: strategic leaders set a long term goal for organization and motivate and prepare the followers in achieving that goal. Magician; also known as charismatic leaders, magician leaders possess such phenomenal personality that followers get aspired to follow their leader unintentionally. Their leader becomes their role model. Opportunist; such leaders have the ability to capitalize their mistakes and they extract opportunity from even a drastically worse situation. Leadership style of Mr. Smith lies among democratic, autocratic and strategist. He believes in giving liberty and convenience to his employees at the same time he directs and guides them in carrying out their tasks and responsibilities. He sets long term objectives of expansion and growth and in this way he also possesses the qualities of strategist style of leadership (Changing Minds, n.d.). b) Comment on the impact that different leadership styles may have on employee motivation during periods of change. In the periods of change, generally the employees have the fear of unknown and they are uncertain as to how the proposed change would work and what would be its probable consequences. This is the reason why generally employees show some sort of resistance in accepting a particular change. At the workplace of Mr. Smith, various techniques are used by him to keep his employees motivated in every stage of change. There are some changes which need to be implemented immediately and Mr. Smith cannot wait for every employee’s approval and acceptance. For those kinds of changes, autocratic style of leadership is followed by Mr. Smith. However, these kinds of changes have the most unfavorable impacts upon the employees as they are not taken on board. As a result in case of any discrepancy in the actual results performed by those employees, those employees simply decline and do not take any responsibility for adverse results and provide justification of not being consulted at the time of implementing a change. On the other hand, for some routine based changes, Mr. Smith does consult with his employees and ask for their suggestions as well. For those kinds of change implementations, Mr. Smith adopts the democratic style of leadership and takes a decision collectively approved by the majority of the employees (MindTools, n.d.). c) Compare the scientific management approach and the contingency management approach and evaluate their use in your chosen organization. Scientific approach of management guides the leaders to plan out the activities and take the decisions accordingly. In scientific approach, every future action is planned and the related strategies are formulated to undertake those actions. In other words, proactive approach of going ahead with the time is focused by this approach. On the other hand, contingency approach deals with the decisions as per the demand and requirement of a particular situation. Whatever the situation demands from an organization, the organization prepares an immediate strategy to deal with that particular situation. No preplanning activity is conducted in this approach. At the workplace of Mr. Smith, both kinds of approaches are in use such that Mr. Smith has applied scientific approach regarding the quality of food, ambience and other facilities. All of these areas are preplanned by Mr. Smith and sets the standard for all of these areas and they actively tries to achieve the desired results. However, contingency approach is adopted in the times when special orders are placed or some specific events are conducted. Due to varied nature of the orders, parties and events, various instantaneous strategies are formulated to fulfill the special requirements of the customers. Task 3 - Understand ways of using motivational theories in organizations a) Outline the elements of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs motivation theory and ONE OTHER motivation theory. Describe how each theory could be applied by managers in practice and evaluate the usefulness of Maslow’s theory to managers in an organization of your choice. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory Motivation can be described as the force that stimulates a person to do an action or to abstain from that action. Motivation theories have been presented by many behaviorists so that individual’s behavior can be analyzed especially in terms of work and organizational context. The most common theory of motivation that gained the highest popularity despite of some of the loopholes is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. This theory keeps the importance of milestone in understanding the human behavior. Maslow tried to split the human needs in five kinds which are physiological needs, safety needs, love and affection needs, esteem needs and lastly self-actualization needs. According to Maslow, it is human psyche that all these needs are fulfilled in the above mentioned sequence by the human beings. Once a need is satisfied, humans move up to the next level of needs. In this way, it can be summarized that satisfied needs no longer motivates a person to satisfy that need again and humans try to reach to the next level of need of need and try to satisfy that need. Later, Maslow realized that the initial two needs do return even after having been fulfilled. For instance, a person fulfills his hunger need and move to upper level of need but later on that hunger need once again arises. Therefore, Maslow regarded those needs as the repetitive needs (Enterprise PM, n.d.). Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory Another theory of motivation which also has substantial impacts on the human behavior is Herzberg’s two factor theory. According to this theory, there are some factors, on the completion or achievement of which, a person feels satisfied and motivated and those factors are called as the motivators or motivating factors. However, there are some factors which do not motivate a person, but if they are not satisfied, they created de-motivation. In other words, the presence of these factors does not motivate a person but their absence can de-motivate a person. Those factors are called as hygiene factors. It is important to note that money or salary is not considered as the motivating factor rather it is regarded as the hygiene factor by the Herzberg (Cherry, n.d.). According the scenario discussed earlier, Mr. Smith also have all those five levels of hierarchical needs such that physiological and security needs keep on arising and being satisfied by Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith also has the love, affection and social needs and he has fulfilled most of these needs. Esteem need is the one which is under progress of being achieved as Mr. Smith tries hard to bring some ego and esteem in to his personality. Mr. Smith has realized that if he respects and takes care of his workers, they will also respect him and eventually will earn him some real goods profits which is the ultimate objective of his business. Mr. Smith also feels quite confident and has the bold personality due to which he has the risk taking ability and is ready to open new branches of his hotel. Mr. Smith also believes in achievement needs as it his dream to open as many profitable branches across UK as much as he can. Therefore respect, confidence and achievement are all the indicators that esteem needs are in the process of being satisfied. However, unless Mr. Smith completely satisfies his esteem needs, he cannot move to self-actualization need. Task 4 - Understand mechanisms for developing effective teamwork in organizations. a) Using examples from your chosen organization explain the differences between Groups are the collection of those people who have similar tasks to perform; shared beliefs and views and have the specific identity. On the other hand, teams also have specific identity but they are made for special purpose, they have specific projects to be completed and each member of the team is specialized into his/her area of concern such that a team consists of those people who have distinct skills and special capabilities. As far as the restaurant of Mr. Smith is concerned, there are various groups have been built upon. For instance, the group of chefs, waiters, administrators and different others can be called as groups. These are the groups which have their shared beliefs and point of views, love to be identified by their designations and all of them have similar interests. On the other hand, Mr. Smith also formulates different teams for certain orders or events such that a team is developed in which different members from different groups are gelled together to complete that particular event. Generally a team comprises of an administrator, chef, two to three helpers etc. In this way, a team is selected for the purpose of completing an event in which all specialized members are included and which exists till the completion of that event thus having a temporary cohesiveness. b) For a team that you are, or have been, a member of outline the factors that contributed to, and/or hindered the team’s performance and discuss how the use of technology influenced the team’s success. In the restaurant of Mr. Smith, both kinds of factors exist which contribute in the team’s performance as well as hinder the performance of the team. The biggest strength of the teams developed in the restaurant is inclusion of foreign students who need financial assistance therefore they are always prepared to take the challenging tasks and accordingly fulfill them. As a result, a team of such dedicated and hardworking members increases the cohesion of the team and also support in achieving the identified objectives of the team. Another important factor that contributed in the success of the team is specialized skills and capabilities of each member included in the group which have shown some results in achieving the purposes for which the teams are formed (Team Impact, n.d.). There are some factors which exist in Mr. Smith’s workplace and which have hindered the performance of the team and deteriorated its effectiveness. Since the employees working in the restaurant belong to various different countries, therefore, cultural and social issues become hurdles in getting together and understanding the mood and personality of each other. The team members face some real resistance in making adjustments with each other. This hurdle really puts Mr. Smith in to real dilemma as he cannot hire the locals because of higher salary demands as well as lack of interest in the jobs. But due to cultural issues, Mr. Smith also has some worries in making the effective teams (Jane, n.d.). As far as the use of technology is concerned, it has impacted the restaurant of Mr. Smith substantially due to innovation of new cooking and baking equipment as a result of which chefs can perform outstandingly well even in cases where they have to cook the food for large number of people in one time. These innovations have certainly reduced the amount of workload especially from the chefs. However, impact of technology is negligible in rest of the areas of restaurant. Works Cited Changing Minds, n.d.. Leadership styles. [Online] Available at: http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/leadership_styles.htm [Accessed 5 May 2012]. Cherry, K., n.d.. Theories of Motivation. 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