Positive and Stable Organizational Behavior - Term Paper Example

?Organizational behavior Executive summary: This paper is based on a highly sensitive issue based on organizational behavior. This issue has extreme importance in all the organizational setups and its importance can never be denied because of its strong relation with a company’s success and customer satisfaction. Positive and stable organizational behavior forms the bedrock of any organization and even minimal deficiency in this behavior can lead to big catastrophic results. Organizational behavior is about the cultural diversity, managers’ philosophical thought, and new creative ideas by the employees. There are many factors that negatively affect the solidarity of the organizational behavior and most important of those factors are discussed in this paper while taking into consideration a Wal-Mart supercentre located in Ontario, Canada. The reasons of the success of the worldwide conglomerate like Wal-Mart are also illuminated. The factors that contribute to pandemonium in an organizational setup and that tarnish the organizational behavior and culture are identified and discussed in the paper. High absenteeism and poor motivation are distinguished as the most lethal factors that weaken the strength of organizational behavior. Various strategies are also presented that can play a major role in culmination of the poisonous factors like discrimination and reduced teamwork in an organization. This is the general consensus among employing organizations that motivating racial and gender diversity in workplaces has always been the ultimate need of the time. The more chances of diversity of cultures, races and religions in a workplace, the higher would be the rate of healthy competition among the employees. Promoting diversity is the key to improve the overall productivity owing to the positive aura built through zero discrimination. 2. Introduction: Organizational behavior involves the study of all the people working together at different levels in an organization for achieving common goals. It focuses on the individual behaviors of the members of an organization and analyzes how each of them perceives the concept of organizational culture and whether they share a common thinking approach for achieving any important target. It is an unambiguous fact that even healthy conflicts in an organizational context, which are not fraught with any ill intentions, can swiftly take a negative turn if those working in an organization start taking any critical comment as personal offence. Rotten biases and ill prejudices that are among the basic factors for polluting an organization’s environment, originate from negative organizational behavior and for this purpose, deep analysis of the organizational behavior by some reputable organizational consultant from time to time is highly important. Economic crisis can result if the behaviors and creativities of the members working in an organization are channeled into individual modes rather than being channeled into a mode of common welfare for that organization. This paper lays stress on the deep understanding of organizational behavior and supports this fact by taking example of Wal-Mart discount superstores in Canada. Different aspects of Wal-Mart supercentres are discussed in this paper including their structure, culture, mission, and objectives. Conflicts in any organization can create immediate chaos if mixed with discrimination and bias, and such negative emotions demand the attention of organizational consultant, who assess the reasons of conflicts and negative organizational behavior. 3. Why Wal-Mart is so successful all over the globe? Wal-Mart is basically an American multinational corporation that successfully runs hains of large departmental stores all over the globe. Sam Walton founded Wal-Mart and it was under his remarkable ruling that this small corporation changed into a worldwide conglomerate in the span of a few years. The unparallel success of Wal-Mart can be judged from the fact that it was considered to be the world’s largest public corporation by annual revenue in 2010. (Forbes.com, 2010). This astounding success is not dependent upon the managerial authorities alone, rather it is the result of the combined efforts and teamwork. Positive organizational behavior is the hallmark of all the departmental stores of Wal-Mart due to which it has the highest rate of providing private employment. People happily hasten to seek employment in any Wal-Mart department store or warehouse store and be a part of the world’s most prestigious company. Wal-Mart’s operations throughout the world are highly successful and this success is largely made possible by the harmonious rapport existing between its members, no matter from which background they are. When its members get employment in any of its big discount store, they just remember how to work in union for the betterment of the company and strengthen the prestige of the name Wal-Mart. Conflicts are readily resolved among its members who take care that bias and racial discrimination do not get able to feed the everyday small conflicts. This genuine and remarkable understanding and respect for each other lays the foundation of Wal-Mart’s huge success. It is mentioned by (Daniel, 2010) in a research report that Wal-Mart has more than 8 thousand stores in more than 15 countries under 55 different names, yet very rarely problematic issues make prominence on public level and also very rarely, its ventures in any country turn unsuccessful. 4. Beginning of the Wal-Mart’s ventures in Canada: Walmart Canada began in 1994 with the acquisition of the Woolco Canada chain of 122 stores. As of February 28, 2011, there are 124 supercentres and 201 discount Walmart stores in Canada (Walmart Corporate, 2011). These facts show that the idea of Wal-Mart ventures in Canada proved to be highly successful and far exceeded expectations. Wal-Mart opened its first store in Canada in 1994 as mentioned before, which very soon led to opening of a large chain of supercentres in various cities in Canada. The current situation of the stability of Wal-Mart in Canada is that over 82000 Canadians are employed in Wal-Mart stores and this net of stores is scattered over 300 different locations. The headquarters of Wal-Mart in Canada are situated in Ontario. (Walmart Canada Corp., 2010). This much becomes clear by now that Wal-Mart is the business of progress and opportunities and it promises the same for its employees as well. It promises it employees a new horizon of glittering opportunities that they can readily avail to their benefits. It is such a business that is getting stronger and stronger day by day, despite many obstacles and economic hurdles in the way. Its reliability in the market can be assessed by the fact that it is among one of the top organizations in the world that provide highest rate of employment. of course, this reliability would not have been easy to achieve in the market had there not existed strong stability and positivity in the organizational behavior of Wal-Mart. In 2008, Wal-Mart supercentre in the retail district of Ontario was opened and that was 300th store opened by Wal-Mart in Canada. (Walmart Corporate, 2011). The opening of so many successful stores by Wal-Mart in Canada has made a majority of Canadians very enthusiastic Wal-Mart shoppers. 5. The Wal-Mart supercentre located in Ontario: The welcome board of the 300th Wal-Mart store in Ontario contains script written in 9 different dialects, so this means that it sensitively addresses to many nations individually. This is a very unique approach adopted by the managerial team of Wal-Mart and which also succeeded in attracting many Canadians on the very first day. This means that Wal-Mart really has a hugely sensitive approach when it comes to cultural issues. It also maintains the same sensitive approach within the organization. Research reports suggest that the store used to be always stocked with products ready to serve various ethnic and cultural tastes satisfactorily. The customers also felt good inside the store and could not help but appreciate the warm and friendly environment maintained by the workers. But, like any other ordinary organization, big conglomerate or small private business, this supercentre is also having its share of negative effects produced by the deteriorating organizational behavior for some months. This deterioration in the organizational behavior is majorly produced by the common issue of racial discrimination, and biases and prejudices that result from this poison are also playing a significant role in creating pandemonium in this supercentre. Actually, the employees working in this big three-storied supercentre are from different cultural and racial backgrounds. All of them do not belong to a common cultural background and this difference laid foundation for small conflicts that gradually started happening everyday. Obviously, the customers noted this significant hostile change in the environment and did not particularly liked or favored the employers shouting rude and offensive compliments at each other in front of the customers. This, of course, led to a marked decrease in the number of customers and consequently, the revenue also decreased thus, further deteriorating the condition of the store. 6. Factors contributing to mismanagement and weak organizational structure in the Wal-Mart supercentre: This chaotic situation occurred in the Wal-Mart store because the managerial team and the employees working at every level did not have a sound knowledge regarding the basics of organizational behavior and ways to handle it appropriately. Actually, organizational behavior is formed from a combination of many things. The most important constituents of the organizational behavior include management’s vision and philosophy, cultural values, creative ideas, and goals. These factors make up the organizational behavior which in turn drives the organizational culture which is largely responsible for determining the type of leadership existing within an organization. it can be said that all these factors are different bricks that make up the structure of an organization and if one brick moves, whole building can knock down easily. That is why, organizational consultants all over the world award huge importance to the organizational behavior because that forms the bedrock of any organization. In the currently discussed Wal-Mart supercentre, the stability and positivity in the organizational behavior started to be tarnished by the managerial team and the employees gradually. The initial goal of this supercentre was to attract as many Canadian customers as possible, so that the competitors could be controlled and the reputation of Wal-Mart could be strengthened subsequently. This mission of the supercentre was initially rigorously remembered and followed both by the managers and the employees but after sometime, the environment within the supercentre started shifting to chaos and confusion. Like it happens in most of the cases, the people actually responsible for causing mess in the system of the supercentre were very few. But, more and more people started to get involved in this mess and gradually, this fire of hatred and stinginess engulfed nearly every person working in the supercentre. Conflicts happen in any organization and if handled maturely, many conflicts give origin to such creative ideas that are potentially capable of increasing the productivity and hence, revenue of that organization. On the other hand, if conflicts are deliberately spiced with the negative emotions of discrimination and favoritism, then even healthy conflicts, that are not fraught with any ill intentions, can swiftly take a negative turn if those working in an organization start taking any critical comment as personal offence. 7. Reasons of the unhealthy environment created by the employees: Apart from the problems discussed above that are faced by the members of the Wal-Mart supercentre, there is also another grave problem and that is related to high absenteeism on the part of the employees. This is such a grave issue that even the slightest possibility of an increase in the customer percentage diminishes because of it. This is an obvious fact that if there will be just a few employees in any organizational setup, bank or a superstore to attend the customers, then why would anyone bother going to that particular place for buying any commodity. The present age is all about fierce competitiveness and this wild competition cannot be dealt with easily. Great measures have to be taken by the managerial team of any organizational setup in this regard and the most important measure that should be applied immediately, is the inculcation of motivational spirit and teamwork in every employee working at every level. No employee should be distinguished from any other, no matter if he is working at the quality control department or engaged in the productivity process. If there is no teamwork in any organization, chaotic situation will erupt automatically. Almost every employee will definitely feel less motivated towards the work in hand, and deviance from the right path will be guaranteed. When workers will be deviated from their duties, no work will be completed on time and customers will be hugely dissatisfied. Customer dissatisfaction is a potential threat for any organization and many factors contribute to it, among which high absenteeism is the most important and lethal factor. This was the very problem confronted by the Wal-Mart supercentre located in Ontario. Poisonous issues regarding racial or cultural discrimination and open favoritism gave rise to unhealthy conflicts that were left unhandled by the managers, and such a flaw in the organizational behavior gave origin to poor motivational spirit in the workers, due to which they appear late on work and some of them even remain absent. 8. Interpersonal and cultural conflicts occurring in the Wal-Mart supercentre: The article “How management teams can have a good fight” by Eisenhardt, Kahwajy, & Bourgeois (1997) intelligently reflects upon the conflict-oriented issues originating in the workplace settings, and which are truly capable of destroying the workplace environment if not handled at the right time and taken positively by the top managers. The article lays stress on the fact that conflicts should never be spiced up with bias and negativity, rather they should be acknowledged as means of introducing rich repertoire of innovative ideas and strategies. Interpersonal conflicts make up a common problem faced by many organizations all over the world, but not all of those organizations meet failure as a result of those conflicts. This is because some perceive these conflicts as a healthy means of introducing new ideas and opinions for the betterment of a company, and others acknowledge these conflicts as the end of any organization and then start mixing those conflicts with long-held biases and prejudices very deliberately. Conflict usually happens between two workers and it should be culminated right there or it should be handled with the help of a reasonable manager. In most of the cases, chaos results because the two workers involved in the conflict do not even stop for a second to involve any reasonable member of the organization, rather they start projecting their long-held resentments on each other. These resentments are usually reflective of gender, racial, ethnic, religious or cultural discrimination. In today’s age of cultural diversity in almost all the organizations, it is very hard to escape the looming prospect of interpersonal conflicts. Therefore, proper strategies should be planned and implemented by the managers and they should address themselves to their workers from time to time so that they remain updated about any conflicts that may have happened behind their backs. But obviously, if there is high absenteeism in any setup like Wal-Mart’s supercentre in Ontario, no body would be there to listen to the problems of the workers because the managers themselves would not be serious about the progress or future of the organization. 9. Disarray created by persistent tardiness at the Wal-Mart’s supercentre: (Tiwari, 2010) identifies “lack of time management” to be one of the most important factors contributing to tardiness at the workplace. It is also identified by (Tiwari, 2010) in her article that “punctuality” is the most demanding workplace ethic. At Wal-Mart’s supercentre, where already the interpersonal conflicts were turning into a abusive show in front of the customers, rate of absenteeism was high and even the managers were rarely found on their seats, tardiness has totally ended any possibility of escape from the badly tangled mess. If there are 30 workers employed in a big superstore, and among those 30 workers, 15 remain absent and the remaining 15 appear at the workplace well after the actual timings, who are the customers supposed to turn to for a talk about various desired commodities? This is the very thing happening at this supercentre and the managers are not playing any reasonable role to control this chaotic situation. Managers do not tend to care about the various problematic issues faced by their employees when they have developed a strong indifferent behavior towards them and the organization. This indifferent behavior is also joined sometimes by ill emotions and negative biased feelings about the other workers, and then such selfish managers take out their anger about some old issue on the employees by not listening or communicating with them. Such managers start appearing late in their offices and when they do appear, they spend all their time in uselessly scolding one employee after another. This is because they are not sincere with their organization, rather they are more concerned about satisfying their individual egos. Lack of time management is such a bad negative trait in most of the humans that it brutally ends all prospects of success because, many important tasks are left unattended when one appears late at the workplace. Tardiness is especially a perturbing feature for the employers because it seriously affects the rate of productivity along with increasing the rate of customer dissatisfaction. Those Canadians who were once so enthusiastic about shopping at the Wal-Mart supercentre, have started hesitating going there even once a month because they are not attended there appropriately by the employees. Either they are not present on their posts or they are found too busy in shouting abusive comments at each other. The point is that the managers need to communicate with the employees who habitually appear late at workplace and inquire about the reason of late arrival. Such employees need to know that the managers are concerned about their late arrival and they will not excuse them again and again or wait until lots of lateness pile up. At the supercentre under discussion, the managers are of course not found to be concerned about the either the employees or the name of the organization. They are rather more concerned about their own personal benefits, and this defiant behavior led the way to the markedly high level of tardiness observed at the supercentre, that also played a major role in declining the rate of productivity. 10. Authoritarian management style can promote absenteeism in workplaces: Research identifies that it is the authoritarian managers who willingly or unwillingly, tend to produce high absenteeism rates in the workplace. By giving proper training to such authoritarian managers and making them learn properly the precautions necessary for good organizational behavior, high absenteeism at workplaces can be cured significantly. (Vikesland, 2007). An authoritarian manager is one who believes that he/she has to be followed unconditionally and every order should be strictly observed by the employees, no matter if that order is passed without any guidance from other senior employees. An authoritarian manager has not any concern with the development of the employees, due to which the morale of the workers is highly reduced. They remain poorly motivated and nothing triggers their working spirit while they are at the workplaces. Employee development is actually, the key to an organization’s development, and managers like those hired at the under discussion Wal-Mart supercentre, play a major role in confronting their employees in an unhealthy manner which ultimately decreases their enthusiasm, due to which they start remaining absent from their workplaces. For dealing effectively with the problem of high absenteeism, managers should develop an authoritative approach, which is in contrast to the authoritarian approach. In the authoritative approach, the managers adopt a sensitive approach and listen to the absenteeism problems of their employees understandingly. This makes their employees acknowledge the fact that their employers are not ignorant of them, rather they are hugely concerned about their issues because this can directly affect the organization’s productivity. 11. Tardiness should be handled by immediately approaching the tardy employees: Like discussed above, all the major organizational consultants around the globe agree on the point that tardiness can be handled effectively if the manager approaches the tardy employee and communicates with him/her, wanting to know the actual reason behind coming late. This appears to be the most basic and the most important strategy, that the managers can adopt for dealing with tardy employees. When the managers sensitively let their employees know that they want to know the reason of their late coming, they also make them learn a silent message that the manager wants them to achieve their personal and professional goals effectively. Communication is the key to solving any conflicts that may arise in any workplace. When the managers develop an authoritarian approach and hesitate to communicate with their employees thinking that it may make them inferior somehow, they create a wide communicational gap between themselves and the employees. This communicational gap makes the employees strongly reluctant to share the reasons of their late comings with their managers or employers. That is the reason it is recommended strongly that the managerial team should not wait for a long time until lots of lateness complaints pile up. Actually, the absent standards or attendance targets should be recorded by unit, shift or department and this gives rise to the concept of accountability. The concept of accountability suggests that an organization is specific about the problem of tardiness or absenteeism by unit, shift or department. This approach makes the supervisors at each unit realize the fact that they need to be strictly accountable for maintaining a specific number of workers at work. (Maun, 2011). 12. Conflicts should be kept from turning into interpersonal disagreements: Occurrence of conflicts in any organization is not a sign of abnormality, particularly if they are handled in a healthy manner by a culturally and psychologically sensitive manager. However, such conflicts that rapidly turn into heated interpersonal disagreements can prove to be particularly detrimental for an organization’s performance and productivity. Hence, this is extremely important that the senior managers do not argue pointlessly without scrutinizing the positive aspects that are associated with almost every conflict. These positive aspects open door to new ideas that can prove to be especially beneficial for the overall performance of an organization. These positive aspects are almost always overlooked by the managers or employers, due to which conflicts remain unsupervised and so, they rapidly turn into a heated interpersonal disagreement. The actual challenge for any organization is to effectively keep the conflicts from turning into destructive interpersonal disagreement. Moreover, collaboration and conflict are directly linked, and no manager can be capable of handling one of the two things properly without having to deal with the other. In today’s world of fierce competition, managers have to collaborate increasingly with their workers to speed up the decision making process and satisfy the customers. References: Eisenhardt, K.M., Kahwajy, J.L., & Bourgeois, L.J. (1997). How management teams can have a good fight. Harvard Business Review. 77-85. Daniel, F. (2010). Head of Walmart tells WFU audience of plans for growth over next 20 years. Winston-Salem Journal. 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