Organizations and Behavior - Essay Example

Organizations & Behaviour Table of Contents Case Study Dimensions of Organisational Structure 3 Question 3 Question 2 4 Question 3 5 Case Study 2: Organizational Structure and Culture 7 Question 1 7 Question 2 8 Case Study 3: Leadership Models and Concepts 10 Question 1 10 Question 2 11 Case Study 4: Need-Based Perspectives on Motivation 13 Question 1 13 Question 2 15 Question 3 17 References 19 Case Study 1: Dimensions of Organisational Structure Question 1 Decentralisation has multiple times proved an effective approach that induces responsibility among the employees towards their work, which in turn would enhance productivity level in the organisation, such as in the case of Svenska Handelsbanken AB, Carrefour S.A. and eBay among others (Caker, 2011; Eröcal, 2007). As expected, through this approach, the company shall be able to enhance its competencies to deal with the issues resulting in its overall performance decline and develop a standard timetable for each and every employee in the organisation to preserve the smooth flow of its operations. As it has been witnessed that the number of employees in the organisation has increased overtime to around 400 employees, indicating a medium to large size of the organisation, a structured timetable for the employees would ensure a more coherent and coordinated operational functioning of organisational resources whether human or non-human. This would help the company in comparing the labour hours with the employee performance and determine factors that act as a barrier towards enhanced employee performance enhancement. However, implementing decentralisation strategies is also not without its disadvantages and challenges of perplexity in decision-making, coordinating operations and making time and cost effective utilisation of organisational resources (Malone, 2004). To overcome these challenges that might hinder chances of success of this initiative, Jill Thompson should emphasise framing new rules with the help of the managers, inclined towards enhancing the productivity as well as level coordination in the various segments of the company. Additionally, philosophy of the top-level management towards decentralising the company structure, company’s past growth trends, physical location of the company, quality of the managers and external environmental influences on the company’s business should also be considered when framing the rules to implement decentralisation successfully. As these factors have a direct relationship with the organisational structure and culture, the process of decentralisation will certainly have a direct implication on different levels of the organisation, further inducing changes to the overall business process. Likewise, through decentralisation, it has been viewed that the culture being followed by the employees in the company will change to a certain extent, as this approach will create more responsibility and power of decision making for the employees (Mosley & et. al., 2010). Question 2 As argued above, the departmental managers will have to determine new rules and procedures to ensure that decentralisation is effectively implemented in Bosco Plastic. The managers can therefore come up with rules regarding change in the time table of the employees wherein there would be a different time allocated for the employees in different departments. It can be further asserted that these rules would be mainly focused towards motivating innovation in the manufacturing process of the organisation. Moreover, the mangers might come up with an idea of increasing the number of working hours for the employees that would directly influence the overall productivity of the company subjected to employee readiness to accept the change. The departmental managers also might introduce the system of performance milestone or benchmarking for the employees wherein monthly targets would be given to the employees according to their performance milestone to achieve greater heights. Likewise, the performing employees will be entitled for adequate compensation for their extra efforts, keeping them motivated and satisfied in their job positions. With such rules implemented, the performance and the degree of morale of employees towards their job functions can also be encouraged to a substantial extent (European Union, 2013). In Bosco Plastics, these new rules and policies would be created by the managers through decentralisation in the company. Therefore, there is a huge possibility that the manufacturing department of the company would be formalised to increase the productivity level of the staff members. Formalising the manufacturing department would aid the management in Bosco Plastics to improve the quality of products and enhance the performance of its business, being directly dependent on its organisational structure and culture. Therefore, in order to implement the new rules and policies successfully, it is considered that the organisation structure and culture must be supportive, wherein the above stated rules shall prove highly beneficial. This can be further justified by stating that the organisational structure is directly linked with the coordination of activities among employees and this coordination has an impact on the performance of the organisation. Likewise, if Bosco Plastics’ decentralised organisational culture induces team building and creates responsibility of work among the employees, its performance can be positively affected. Question 3 Bosco Plastics might face certain risks when different policies are established for different functional areas. These risks might become apparent in terms of inter-team or intra-group conflicts in the organisation wherein the employees might face problems in coordinating the various organisational functions to yield highest possible productivity. Additionally, implementing different rules for different departments might also give rise to decision making complexities for the management when controlling the productivity of each group. Thus, it is considered that uniform rules and procedures is the best way to coordinate the activities within employees of different departments, which shall also promote effective employee relationship within an organisation facilitating team building and good employee morale (The Saylor Foundation, 2013). In accordance with the above arguments, the two possible organisational structure designs available to Jill Thompson shall include the mechanistic and organic forms. With regard to decentralisation changes proposed by Jill Thompson, mechanistic structure will allow a bureaucratic form of organisation with its merits in facilitating a formal and centralised decision-making process, which will again increase efficiency in production function along with minimisation of costs within an organisation. However, these structures permit less possibility of innovation and quick decisions making in the organisation. On the other hand, organic structure provides flexibility allowing a decentralised culture facilitating job satisfaction to the employees, as the management will be able to design their roles on the basis of the organisational requirements. However, the communication process might turn out to be quite complex under this structure as the organisation might be subjected to frequent changes. In this regard, it can be asserted that because the change proposed by Jill Thompson intends promoting decentralisation in the organisation, it is suggestible that the organisation would follow an organic structure. This structure will benefit the company to enhance its performance and increase its productivity level, as the employees would be satisfied with their job roles and performances valued at a significant level. However, the communication process within different departments would be disruptive in the organic structure, which indeed calls for due attention from the management (The Saylor Foundation, 2013). Case Study 2: Organizational Structure and Culture Question 1 Organisational culture is a set of assumptions that a company holds, which collectively determines the perceptions and reactions of the company in different situations. There are four types of organisational cultures, viz. role culture, power culture, task culture and person culture (McGraw-Hill Education, n.d.). Role culture: This type of organisational culture is followed by organisations based on mechanistic structure that believes that bureaucracy is the virtue for increased performance and operational efficiency. Gradually, a company using role culture becomes highly specialised in its communication process and enhancing its ability to solve identified problems with time and cost efficiency (Boak, 2007). Power culture: This type of culture is generally followed by smaller organisations wherein the power of decision-making and control is centralised with one or a few individuals. This organisational culture follows a systematic approach towards its business functioning wherein the control is exercised by a single individual or key individuals (Boak, 2007). Task culture: This type of culture is followed by organisations that are oriented towards achievement of the assigned tasks. A task-cultured organisation values its employee’s role in the organisation along with encouraging teamwork within the employees. Moreover, under this culture, the employees are observed to be adaptable to changes with high reflection of cooperative behaviour in order to achieve the business goals (Boak, 2007). Person culture: This type of culture is followed by organisations that value its employees in its top priority list. Organisations following this culture are also observed to lack focus towards manufacturing products and/or services for its customers as compared to other types of organisations. This culture is mainly followed by social clubs or societal organisations that are focused towards welfare activities rather than developing a corporate ambience (Boak, 2007). Correspondingly, it can be asserted that Greenscape follows a task-based organisational culture as the employees are treated as friends by the founder. The organisational culture of Greenscape can be viewed as open and friendly for its employees, as the culture was designed by Ong based on the perception that employees were her friends who volunteered willingly to expand the business of the company. Moreover, the company encourages teamwork to achieve the assigned job that falls under the task culture. This can be further justified by stating that the employees tend to be cooperative in task culture, which has been quite apparent in the case of Greenscape. Question 2 A company, in order to change its organisational culture and structure requires growing or expanding its business to a certain extent. It is considered that when small companies grow their business there is a requirement to change the organisational culture and structure to cope with the developing business scenario (Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators, 2009). Certainly, as Greenscape has been showing better growth prospects in its business, the requirement to change the organisational culture and structure has also increased for the organisation. Correspondingly, it is quite important to change the organisational culture and structure based on the changing business requirements. This is because change in the culture and structure of the organisation increases might augment the necessity of higher involvement of the employees and a hierarchy within the company. It is also important to bring a change in the organisational culture and structure to reduce the operational cost of the company along with increasing its productivity by maintaining coordination and structured policy framework of governance within its various paradigms (Stare, A, 2011). There are certain difficulties that Greenscape might face in changing its organisational culture, as this change will be beyond managerial control and shall be obstructed by reluctance of employees to follow particular hierarchy and cultural norms. For instance, the employees habituated in following the task-based culture might be reluctant to cope with the new organisational culture, which in turn would reduce their morale towards their job roles and hamper their functioning largely. Nevertheless, if Ong can manage employee behaviour motivating them to accept the change necessary for the organisational growth, changing the organisational culture might benefit Greenscape creating a positive work environment, wherein change in organisational culture would provide a more precise direction to the employees towards the organisational goals (Alvesson & Sveningsson, 2008). Accordingly, changing its organisational structure, Greenscape would get benefitted, as the overall performance of the company would enhance in a more structured and planned manner. However, the already persisting employer-employee relationship must be preserved by Ong to an extent in the new organisational culture, which will be required to motivate the employees in accepting change and reducing chances of conflicts (The Saylor Foundation, 2013). Case Study 3: Leadership Models and Concepts Question 1 Observably, since her promotion in the top management position, Brenda Hogan, focused on applying a participative management style of leadership to build a more transparent relationship with the employees and assist them in achieving their goal resulting in accelerated productivity. This led to a sudden change in the leadership culture of the organization, which further made various factors transparent to alert Hogan regarding the problems faced by her eventually in Fancy Footwear. For instance, the reluctance of the employees working in the organization for more than twenty years should have alerted Hogan regarding problem that the company is facing in terms of employee dissatisfaction. With the involvement of Hogan as top management personnel, a new leadership style was initiated in Fancy Footwear that stimulated a degree of threat for the employees to uncertainty and subsequently, made them reluctant to new style of management, where they felt to be under continuous watch. Prior to Hogan’s involvement, the employees in Fancy Footwear used to work under autocratic style of management, wherein they used to work according to the set order given by the management without their intervention (Mishra, 2001). However, under the leadership of Hogan, the employees were given with more responsibilities and were continuously monitored with the application of a participative type of leadership, which was the opposite of the traditionally followed management practices in the organisation. While the participative leadership techniques proved effective amid the younger employees, the senior staff members were becoming gradually inactive in group-meetings, which should have also alerted Hogan. Furthermore, under participative management implemented by Hogan, the employees were provided with equal job responsibilities and forms team including the manager, which partially abolished the hierarchical structure in the workplace, igniting a perception of being devalued within the senior staff members. This should have also alerted Hogan, where a gradually increasing gap was identifiable within the younger employees and the senior staff members in response to managerial decisions. The others factors, which Hogan might have considered, as an indication to the present consequences was the degree of change acceptance persisting within the valuable staff members when implementing a sudden leadership change(Mishra, 2001). Question 2 To avoid the above stated problems, Hogan could have instituted the changes by understanding the varying motivational needs of the employees. At the foremost, she should have focused on establishing a direct link between the employees and the management, observing the traits of the employees in different groups and hierarchical levels. This would have assisted the senior staff members to understand the requirement of change and encouraged their active participation in the decision adding to their self-esteem needs. Although Hogan had implemented the similar leadership traits of participative management on each of the groups, only the members of the management relations group resigned collectively as she failed to understand the independence need of this particular group of employees that was used to be followed under the leadership of Worthy. Apparently, while the senior members desired for a more independent, formal but structured mechanism of work, junior members were motivated with a casual work culture. Correspondingly, to make the senior members understand the organisational needs and further motivate them to accept these changes, Hogan could have established particular reward benefits, both intrinsic and extrinsic, which could have been beneficial to elicit the problems (Shanks, n.d.). From an in-depth point of view, while recognition was obtained by the junior members, seniors lacked the same with the partial abolition of hierarchical levels in the distribution of job roles. Hogan could have also applied monetary rewards for active members in group-meetings along with value-based recognition that could have motivated and sufficed self-actualisation needs of the senior staff members. It is worth mentioning in this regard that Hogan should have focused on understanding that senior members could be motivated through self-actualisation needs satisfaction, as she focused entirely on sufficing the safety, belonging and esteem needs of the workforce. Creating an open channel of communication with each senior personnel could have also acted as a motivation for them to overcome their reluctance in accepting the change in leadership practices. Moreover, rather than practicing sudden implementation of change, Hogan should have attempted to apply a rather steady process of change management, which would have permitted both the management and the senior staff members to rebuild their coordination and understand organisational needs (Shanks, n.d.). Case Study 4: Need-Based Perspectives on Motivation Question 1 In the present scenario, it is considered that effective team and team building is the two most important aspects for an organisation to improve its productivity level, to attain greater profitability and to improve service quality on a continuous basis. Likewise, team building is considered as an activity to improve the teamwork and effectiveness in the group of employees, which makes it more important as an internal success factor for modern organisations (Fapohunda, 2013). With reference to the given case, it has been observed that Samuel Gibson, who had been working as a trainer for the company named Britannia Home Manufacturers, understood the importance of training the employees in an organisation. Eventually, Gibson proposed an idea to his supervisor wherein he wanted to offer English teaching classes to the floor workers at a reduced salary. Soon he started offering these classes to the floor workers at the factory floor. Initially, only 2 to 3 workers turned up to the class but gradually, a huge number of workers got attracted to these classes and started availing the training provided by Gibson. This in turn positively impacted the organisation as the productivity level improved that helped the company to increase its overall revenue. Moreover, Gibson’s training also encouraged the floor workers that increased their confidence level further, due to which they started applying for supervisory positions in the organisation. With reference to Gibson’s initiative to team building, it can be apparently observed that the nature of groups and group behaviour within organizations impose direct effects on effective group creation, having the capability of achieving high performance capacity along with satisfaction and team viability. This is because Gibson was successful in inducing synergy within the organisation that resulted accelerated in collaboration of personal and group goals during training. In general, groups can be bifurcated into two types that include formal groups and informal groups. Likewise, group behaviour, either required behaviour or emergent behaviour, plays a huge role within an organisation. Required behaviour is the behaviour, which is already anticipated by the organisation and formally defined among the members, whereas emergent behaviour is unexpected by the organisation as it arises out of organisational requirement (McCuddy, 2003). Overall, both these types of group behaviour can be apparently observed in Gibson’s training strategies. Question 2 As observed from the case of Britannia Home Manufacturers, a rift was created when some individuals in a group pursued training while the others did not. Notably, these gaps can be highly observed when individual work is taken into consideration instead of the group work and can be better understood with reference to the concept of group dynamics (Dairy NZ, 2012). Through proper evaluation of the work performed by the individuals in a group, it can be clearly understood whether the individual has engaged in effective training or not that further contribute to team building. Correspondingly, there are some factors that needs to be considered in team building which are as follows- Interdependence: In team dynamics, the structure of a team should be designed in such a way wherein the team members are cooperative but enjoy a certain degree of interdependence. While the people, who did not engage in training, were observed to enjoy more independence in comparison to those who participated, deciphering a variant distribution of coordination levels amid the trained and untrained group members. This in turn hinders the entire performance of the team and a rift is created within the members who engage in training and who do not (Sites.Udel.Edu, 2000). Goal Specification: In the process of team building, it is considered that all the team members must have common goals and their activity must resemble a group wherein the goal is specified. However, individuals who did not engage in training lack clarity in the group goals and the activity performed by them does not match the goals specified, causing such a rift (Sites.Udel.Edu, 2000). Cohesiveness: In group-dynamics, cohesiveness is widely considered as an important factor for team building, as individuals who do not engage in training tend to be inconsistent towards their function in the group, while others enjoy sufficient clarity in the same. In this case, untrained individuals rely on other team members to perform the group goals, as they are less oriented towards the tasks assigned to the team (Sites.Udel.Edu, 2000). Roles and Norms: According to the concept of team dynamics, a set of roles and norms are developed for a team. Most of the individuals in the team have to abide by the roles and norms framed for them in the organisation. However, it has been viewed that individuals who do not engage in training have the tendency of violating these norms and roles as they have a different outlook towards these frameworks as compared to those who engage in training (Sites.Udel.Edu, 2000). Communication: One of the most important factors in team dynamics is communication. It is considered that individuals who engage in training develop effective communication skills, which help them in achieving group goals. While, individuals who do not engage in training are poor in their communication skills due to which, their contribution towards the team is quite likely to have a minimal effect. Undoubtedly, these factors or issues must be treated with huge significance to ensure that there is an effective teamwork within an organisation (Sites.Udel.Edu, 2000). Question 3 In the 21st century, technology has become more incorporated in the learning process as it has helped in making the training process quite easier as compared to that practiced before. Arguably, proper use of technology increases the possibility in manifolds that the training process would be successful and it would help both the company and its employees for a longer tenure. However, it should not be ignored that technology might impose both positive and negative effects on the success drivers of a training program. Positive impacts herein include that the process of educating the employees would be smoother through technology usage. Likewise, incorporating technology in the training process provides a degree of surety that the learning outcome would be effective for the organisation. Moreover, trainers, through technology usage, can provide a better understanding to its trainees regarding the aspects that require to be developed within them. In addition, it might prove helpful to increase the knowledge of the employees regarding certain software systems and programs used in the training session. It is also considered that proficiency level of the employees would increase, with the effective utilisation of technology in the training sessions (Farquharson, 2009). On the other hand, technology might also impose few negative impacts on the training session, wherein employees are observed to be reluctant to participate in the training sessions actively, being unfamiliar with certain technological aspects. Likewise, employees falling under the older group in an organisation are likely to be old-fashioned due to which, they might resist training sessions as their comfort zone gets jeopardised. This in turn would create pressure among the older group of employees, as they might develop a fear of losing their job (Kowalski, 2013). Nevertheless, through effective utilisation of technology, team cohesion might be supported through technology usage in Gibson’s training sessions as the floor workers might take the help of each other in understanding the technology that has been used in their training process. This in turn would trigger increased interaction within the floor workers after they develop an interest towards technology usage in their personal and professional life. It would be worth mentioning that technology would also help in coordinating the activities of the floor workers, which in turn shall increase team cohesion. References Alvesson, M. & Sveningsson, S., 2008. Changing Organisational Culture. Routledge, pp. 1-174. Boak, G., 2007. Organisational Cultures. Workbook, pp. 1-12. Caker, M., 2011. 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