Questions on Theory of Organizational Culture - Assignment Example

Section A: Short Answer Questions Question 1A Select ONE concept in the theory of organisational culture and discuss how it informs what went wrong at Enron, as explained by Sherron Watkins in the Beenan and Pinto (2009) article (see Moodle). Do not simply describe the concept; the emphasis should be on discussion and application One concept of organisational culture that described informs what went wrong at Enron is ethical culture. Ethical culture can be viewed as a subset of the broader organisational culture, and encompasses number of formal and informal systems that work together to support ethical conduct within an organisation. Formal systems include aspects such as codes and rules while informal systems include issues such as behaviour norms. At Enron, ethical culture was lacking as the management was involved in flouting accounting rules and corruption. The management played around with the underlying accounting principles to misrepresent the true status of the company. Question 2A Given your knowledge of communication theory, what can you do to improve communication by email? To improve communication by email, I should be concise, i.e. keep the email short, simple and easy to read, create a meaningful subject line, and make the message personal, e.g. by addressing the recipient by name. In addition, I should answer incoming emails promptly, and reply to all questions. Question 3A When you are leading a team or facilitating decision making, what will you do to prevent “groupthink”? I would encourage each member to be critical of the group’s actions and present their views openly. I would also be impartial and refrain from stating my personal preference in the discussion and encourage members to discuss the problem with members outside the group to promote diversity of opinions. Question 4A Why should managers care about job satisfaction? Managers should care about job satisfaction because satisfied workers are likely perform better in the workplace, hence improving the organisation’s productivity. Organisations in which workers are satisfied with their work are also characterised by a high morale, which is good for enhancing interpersonal relationships. Question 5A Identify French and Raven’s five sources of power and group them according to the two categories of formal and personal power. Briefly comment on the significance of the two different categories. The five sources of power are: reward, coercive, legitimate, expert and referent. The first three are derived from the formal position in an organisation while the second two are derived from personal attributes. Leaders should create a balance between the two forms of power in order to gain support. Question 6A Robbins and Judge (2013) state that agreeableness (one of the five traits in the Big Five Personality Model) is likely to result in lower levels of deviant behaviour. Briefly consider why “agreeableness” may not always be desirable. While agreeableness is good for creating trust and consensus in teams, it can assert a negative impact since agreeable individuals may tend to avoid conflict and submit to others when conflict arises. This may impact team decision making negatively since there is no divergence of opinions. Section B: Compulsory Essay Questions Question 1B Question (i). Discuss the motivation issues raised in the case (The Currency of Motivation) from the perspectives of 1) Maslow’s and 2) Herzberg’s theories of motivation. Be sure to move beyond simply copying a description of each theory. (12 marks) The case titled “The Currency of Motivation” highlights the significance of motivating employees without the common approach of using money as the sole motivator. The key theme in the article, and as noted by Robyn Walshe, is that using bonuses as the “currency of appreciation” is misadvised especially in the current economy when funds are short. In added, it is important to look at the theories of motivation postulated by Maslow and Herzberg. For Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, people have a number of needs to be met, which can be arranged in a hierarchy starting with physiological needs like food and a place to sleep; safety needs like job satisfaction and security; social needs like affection and belongingness; self-esteem need like autonomy in the work place, achievement, recognition and status; and self-actualisation needs like growth self fulfilment and achieving one’s needs. These needs have to be met in the order of the hierarchy. For instance, a person looks for a job in order to meet the basic requirements as obtaining food and paying bills, but once settled in the job, he or she will want to be assured of safety needs such as social protection in the work place. This means that organisations apart from paying salaries and bonuses have to come up with employee safety schemes such as medical benefits and retirement benefits. Once such needs are met, employees will look social motivators such as participation in teamwork, periodic praise and organisational social activities. Further, employees will be interested in meeting their self-esteem needs such as praise, being given more responsibilities, and being afforded more training opportunities. Finally employees will also need to fulfil their self-actualisation needs such as being given more raining opportunities and encouraging them to be more creative so that they can take on more challenging tasks in their careers. It is evident that not all the different need involve money. From the case study, there is no doubt that it is based on meeting the needs at various levels of the hierarchy that a McKinsey & Company survey found that three non-cash motivators were effective at motivating employees: praise from the management, leadership attention, e.g. being given more responsibilities, and a chance to lead projects and tasks. Similarly, Robin Walshe awarded her company’s salesperson of the year with a training opportunity rather than money. For Herzberg’s two factor theory, the factors used to motivate employees can be categorised as hygiene and factors and motivators. Hygiene factors include things such as pay, work conditions, and quality of supervision. Motivators include achievement, advancement, recognition and promotion. Based on these apart from ensuring that employees are well remunerated, it is also important to ensure “more time and commitment from senior managers” as suggested in the case. It is also important to offer training opportunities as indicated in various points in the case. Question (ii) Given your discussion in question (i), what conclusions can you draw about the relevancy of Maslow’s and Herzberg’s theory to the management of motivation in contemporary workplaces? (3 marks) It is clear that money is not the only motivator in modern organisations. Therefore, managers have to look beyond bonuses and better remuneration to motivate their employees. Instead, they can focus on other non-financial areas such as improving the work conditions by offering more flexibility, offering more challenging opportunities to employees such as working in teams, and providing training opportunities. This will make employees feel appreciated in meeting their other needs that are not financial but which are very critical for their tasks and career. Question 2B Question (i) Based on the principles of Robert House’s path-goal theory of leadership, discuss why Art and Bob appear to be less effective than Carol. (5 marks) Path-goal theory of leadership emphasises the leader’s impact on subordinates’ goals as well as the paths to achieve these goals. The theory basically attempts to explain the impact that a leader’s behaviour has on the subordinates’ motivation, effort, satisfaction, as well as their performance. Based on the case, Art and Bob appear to be less effective than Carol in their roles as leaders because they are not participative and supportive of workers when it comes to doing the required tasks. Art is hands’ on and does not take consideration of what the workers feel about the nature of their task. On other hand, although Bob is people oriented, he has a laissez faire attitude that makes the workers deviant, hence the high absenteeism and turnover during his shift. Turning to Carol, she is considerate as she holds meetings regularly to make note of any challenges that the workers face, she participates in the tasks and supports employees when they seem to fail. She also strives to help them in attaining their goals. As such, employees in her shift have high trust in her and are more motivated and satisfied. Therefore, the leader’s approach towards employees impacts their motivation, effort and performance as depicted by this case and the path-goal theory of leadership. Question (ii) Explain the leadership styles of Art, Bob and Carol from the perspective of Hersey and Blanchard’s situational theory of leadership. (5 marks) Art is a directive leader because he makes it clear what employees should expect. He gets very involved in the day-to-day operations of the facility. He also requests employees to follow standard rules as spelt out in the respective tasks. Bob can be described as supportive because he is people oriented, but he also has a laissez faire attitude since he is not so much focused on the task at hand. Instead, he is very outgoing and get involved so much with employees outside work. Carol is supportive, participative and achievement-oriented. She holds meetings to identify workers problems, makes attempts to help workers overcome glitches in their tasks, and gives reassurance about workers’ competencies. She also helps them focus on their personal goals. Question (iii) If you were consulting with Brako about leadership, what changes and recommendations would you make regarding the supervision of Art, Bob and Carol? (2 marks) I would recommend that Art becomes more involved with the employees by designing the so that it requires more of employees participation rather than standard operational rules which make the job boring. For Bob, I would recommend that he focuses his people-oriented approach on actually doing the work. He can use such an approach to support the employees in their tasks to avoid poor service delivery, high absenteeism and turnover. For Carol, I would recommend that she introduces more challenges to the workers to make them independent in decision-making. This can make the workers more reliable when they are rotated to other tasks/shifts. Question (iv) Based on your discussion of questions (i), (ii) and (iii), what conclusion can you draw about the relevance of the Ohio and Michigan studies for leadership in a business or management context? (3 marks) The Ohio and Michigan studies for leadership were not based on leadership styles but sought to determine the behaviour of effective leaders. It is clear from the studies that the character of a leader determines the how the followers perceive him or her and hence affects the workers’ level of performance. Clearly, supportive, participative and achievement-oriented leaders like Carol are more likely to deliver better results in the workplace since their followers feel motivated to perform better. This is tandem with the Michigan and Ohio studies which advocated for participative leadership. Therefore, although the Ohio and Michigan studies were conducted long ago, their findings are still relevant in today’s organisations. Question 3B Discuss the role that Todd Jick’s ‘ten commandments for implementing change” can play in the development of an organisational change management path. In your discussion comment on how Jick’s work integrates the work of Lewin and Kotter. Be sure to illustrate your discussion with relevant workplace examples. Todd Jick outlined “ten commandments” of change, which provide a useful guide to managers getting ready to implement change. The commandments are basically steps which involve analysing the organisation as well as its need for change, creating a shared vision and setting a common direction, separating the present from the past, creating a sense of urgency, developing a strong leader’s role, lining up political sponsorship, crafting an implementation plan, developing enabling structures and reinforcements, communicating and involving people while being honest, and monitoring, refining, and institutionalising the change. These steps clearly indicate the essence of any change process and how the change should be initiated. For any change process to be successful, the need for that change must be identified and communicated. For example, an organisation that wants to shift from receiving cash payments to an online-based payment system must identify the reason why it needs to do so. These reasons could include convenience, safety, efficiency and making savings on devices used to hold hard cash and so forth. Once the reasons are identified, the intended change must be communicated to the people involved in handling cash such as cashiers. Such employees may resist such change at first for fear of losing jobs or fear that the new processes will be complicated. They need to be reassured, for instance, through being informed that they would be trained, and being advised on the benefits of the new payment system. The new system can then be evaluated and implemented. The above change processes can be explained through Jick’s “ten commandments, Kotter’s Eight-Step change model and Lewin’s unfreeze-change-refreeze model. Kotter’s change model can be likened to the “ten commandments” since it involves establishing a sense of urgency (i.e. establishing the need for change), creating a team to guide the change process, developing a vision and strategy for the change, communicating the vision, empowering employees for action (e.g. emphasising the need for the new payment system and ensuring that the cashiers have confidence in using it), generating short terms win by ensuring that people have confidence in the change, consolidating the gains made, and anchoring the new changes in the system so that it becomes part of the organisational culture. Both the “ten commandments” and Kotter’s change model show the need to for an organisation that wants to implement a change to identify why the change is necessary, to communicate about the change and to make sure that the people to be affected by the change have confidence in the change process by being involved. This way, it is possible for the organisation to remove resistance to change since people usually show resistance when they do not understand why the change is necessary or why it should be implemented at a given time. This step is what is known as unfreezing in the Lewin unfreeze-change-refreeze model. Unfreezing implies destabilising the present balance in an organisation to create a need for change. This means that the organisation must create the forces for change and then reduce resistance to change. This is followed by the actual change process, which involves stabilising new patterns of behaviour and setting up new relationships. The same can be likened to having the new payment system and making the cashiers use it, which is the same as institutionalising the change under the “ten commandments” and anchoring the new change in the system under the Kotter model. Once the change has been implemented, there is need to refreeze so that it becomes part of the organisation’s daily activities. All three models show how change can be implemented without having to cause inconveniences to people at various levels of an organisation. Read More