The Influence of Corporate Culture and Organisational Commitment on Performance - Essay Example

Assignment Brief Review of Case The case of Rough Seas on the LINK650 presents an interesting case for a review based on organizational behavior theories. The case provides a typical organizational behavior case that brings out several fundamental insights on how organizational behavior theories apply to real life situations. More specifically, the case study highlights important elements about the effect of organizational behavior patterns on organizations and individuals within such organizations. To understand this, it is important to have a brief review of the case. LINK650 is a new drilling rig that was build by the Texas based LINK Inc. The company just arrived in North Sea fields several years ago. By the time LINK650 was setting up in North Sea fields, there was so much excitement about the arrival. This prompted many job seekers to apply for various technical and non-technical jobs within the company. One of the lucky people to have gotten the chance to work for LINK650 as a non-technical employee was Shaun O’Neil. Specifically, O’Neil was given a drilling job, which was dangerous but well-paying and with more time off. Having being selected among a pool of many applicants, O’Neil and his colleagues at LINK650 were so happy and enthusiastic about their new jobs. To them, this represented a great opportunity to showcase their talents, apply their knowledge, and gain some income. The new hires were initially pleased with the recruitment process that was used in selecting them. O’Neil was particularly impressed by the recruitment team because they showed concern about their welfare while working in the oil drills. It is only later on that it emerged that the recruiters were actually hired from a consulting firm with specialization in recruitment and hiring. Apparently, O’Neil and his colleagues had not actually met or interacted with any manager from the LINK Company during the entire recruitment and selection period. Just after a few months of starting work, real problems began to emerge. Although some of the new non-technical hires had previous experience on oil fields, they were shocked to find that the experience they found at LINK650 was not close to what they had anticipated. Their welfare and safety as employees working in dangerous conditions were not taken care of. They had to work under dirty and very cold conditions. This caused some of the employees to resign. As if that was not enough, the supervisors in the company were too harsh on the new hires. They treated the employees badly by being abusive blatantly ignored safety concerns raised by the employees. The supervisors put so much pressure on the new hires such that some more decided to quit while others were fired for simple reasons. As things got from bad to worse, the employees decided to unionize, which got the company’s management by shock. In an attempt to deal with the unionization, the management used various tricks including using consultants to undermine the union support. O’Neil later joined the other employees who had quit their rig jobs because of feeling disenfranchised despite the fact that he had tried as much as possible to give his best under the tough circumstances. Detailed Analysis of Case The case of LINK650 can be analyzed using different theories on organizational behavior. Actually, the entire case has more to do with organizational behavior than anything else. Organizational behavior theories entail the relationship between organizational elements such as structures and cultures and the subsequent human behaviors (Chance, 2013). To explore the underlying issues in the case, this section will rely on various organizational behavior theories and concepts that are relevant to the case. Some of the main elements to focus on include leadership, group dynamics, organizational structure, motivation, workplace stress, and organizational culture. Poor Leadership One of the evident issues in the case is the leadership weakness in LINK650. In organizational behavior, organizational leadership is an important element that affects the behavior of employees directly and indirectly. Overall, good leadership ensures that employees are treated well and provides the necessary support to the employees in performing their roles. From the case, it appears that the leadership of LINK was not providing the necessary guidance and support to the grid workers, which ultimately led to may of the workers leaving the job. To understand this better, it is important to consider the relationship between organizational leadership and organizational justice and how this affects organizational citizenship. According to Moorman (1991), organizational justice is categorized into procedural justice and distributive justice. Procedural justice refers to the fairness that employees use in determining the outcomes they receive within an organization. On the other hand, distributive justice refers to the fairness of the outcomes that employees get within the organizational context. In this regard, organizational justice is considered to be present when employees are treated well by their colleagues or leaders. Considering the LINK650 case, there was no organizational justice in the company. Apparently, the supervisors did not treat the employees well. For example, they used abusive language on the employees, put so much pressure on them to complete tasks, did not care about their safety concerns, and fired some of them for no good reason. In this regard, the employees felt that the outcomes of their work and dedication to their jobs were not fairly appreciated because of the unfair outcomes. Ultimately, the employees became dissatisfied with the job and lost their organizational citizenship. The evidence of losing organizational citizenship is available in the case. Organizational citizenship behavior entails the extra-role that employees play in an organization. The extra-role has benefits to employees as well as the organization. The resignation of many new hires at LINK650 is evidence of the low organizational citizenship. The employees did not feel the need for taking extra-roles. Additionally, the unionization efforts shows the loss of organizational citizenship among the employees who felt that joining a union would be an effective platform for them to oppose the extra work pressure piled on them by the supervisors. For the employees, it enhances personal goal realization and improves performance. For the organization, it helps in increased productivity. It is worth noting the organizational citizenship is influenced by leadership style. In a recent study, Jha (2014) found a strong correlation between transformational leadership and organizational citizenship. This implies that LINK650 could have lacked transformation leadership. In fact, the approach taken by the company’s management shows that transformation leadership was lacking. For example, the management ignored the concerns of the employees, which negates the elements of transformation leadership. In transformational leadership, the leader and the follower work cooperatively to enhance their levels of motivation and morale (Bacha, 2014). Clearly, this type of leadership was lacking at LINK 650. Group Dynamics The element of group dynamics and teamwork is also applicable to the LINK650 case. This is precisely because of the nature of the job that O’Neil and his colleagues performed in the oil fields. Apparently, the new non-technical hires worked as a team. Right from their recruitment, it was evident that they were going to work as a team. The recruitment process selected 50 non-technical employees to work in the North Sea oil fields. This formed the basis of group dynamics. In group dynamics, people come together to complete or achieve a common goal. The new non-technical hires qualify as a group as espoused in group dynamics because they were united by a common task of working in the oil fields. While this is only a general view of the group dynamics involved, a close look at the group development will highlight the important role that group dynamics played in the LINK650 case. When O’Neil and the other new hires joined the company, they were enthusiastic about their new jobs. This can be linked to the first stage in group development, forming (see Miller, 2003). At first, each new hire was concerned about the nature of work, treatment, or acceptance they would receive. When they realized that their expectations were not being met, some of the new hires decided to quit their jobs after several weeks. By this time, the group had not formed a strong bond, which explains the loss of some of the group members. However, as time went by, the group became stronger as the new hires began to know each other and understand each other. For instance, it reached a point where the employees began to perceive themselves as a group. They started realizing they were being treated unfairly by their supervisors. They started working as a group to address their common problems. For example, many of the employees started faking back problems, which became a common feature that they referred to as “rigger’s backache”. This typically shows that the group had moved from the forming stage to other advanced stages in group development. Ultimately, the efforts by several employees to unionize the rig shows the development level of the group. It had reached to a point where the employees were now seriously in a group. Unionization was a way of formalizing their group, which is at the performing stage of group development. At this stage, the group begins to be fully functional in the members come together to make their contributions. Collective pressure is also a typical characteristic of the performing stage in group development (Miller, 2003). Therefore, group dynamics also explains the employee response to their dissatisfaction with their jobs at LINK650. At first, their reactions were small and more individually based because they were still at the early stages of group development. However, as the group development progresses to higher stages, the employees begin to come out more clearly and united in their response towards their dissatisfaction. Organizational Structure The organizational structure of LINK Inc. was also responsible for O’Neill’s loss of organizational commitment. Organizational commitment refers to the level of an employee’s attachment to an organization. The concept of organizational commitment is important in understanding organizational behavior because it determines whether an employee stays in an organization or is likely to leave the organization easily (Rahmani, 2014). Organizational commitment can be influenced by various factors including organizational structure and organizational culture. At LINK Inc., the organizational structure was not supportive of organizational commitment from the employees. Duringthe recruitment process that led to O’Neil and others getting jobs at the LINK650, it emerged that the company’s management was not involved in the entire process. This is despite the normal practice in the industry where the rig manufacture, in this case LINK650, manages the daily operations. This would have meant that the managers of LINK would have been involved in recruitment process of the new hires. By failing to be involved in the recruitment process, this laid a poor foundation for organizational commitment among employees. In fact, when O’Neill later realized that no LINK manager had been involved in their recruitment, he thought that things could have turned out differently for them. According to Kanter’s theory of structural power, structural elements of an organization have major influences on employee empowerment and organizational commitment. Specifically, the theory posits that employee empowerment, which is crucial in organizational commitment, is enhanced when they have access to structural power in terms of information, support from management, and resources. When employees lack access to support from superiors, peers, and subordinates, they are less likely to be empowered to show organizational commitment behavior (Cho, Laschinger & Wong, 2006). The organizational structure at LINK did not provide the new hires with the support from their superiors/managers. Without the supportive structure, the employees felt less empowered and committed to the organization. It was the effect of them noticing that the managers of the company were less committed to the organization and to them in particular by ignoring them during recruitment and later when they started working. After beginning work, O’Neill and other rig workers could not reach their managers at all. Instead, they only knew about their supervisors, who were treating them badly. With such supervisors, these employees would have wanted to get the support of the top managers to explain their problems. However, because of the hierarchical structure of the company, the management only passed decisions from top down. It was impossible for information to move from bottom to the top because of the unsupportive structure. Employee Motivation Employee motivation was also low at LINK650. Employee motivation is affected by various factors. According to the Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, human motivation is affected by the fulfillment of the most basic of needs before advancing to higher needs levels. Maslow’s classified human needs into different levels including physiological, safety, love/belonging, esteem, and self-actualization (Zalenski & Raspa, 2006).For one to be motivated, Maslow’s theory posits that the lowest levels of needs starting with physiological needs and safety needs must be met. At LINK650, the rig workers including O’Neill were not motivated because their safety needs had not been met adequately. Specifically, the employees were working under risky conditions, which threatened their health and lives. At some point, one of the workers, Bob Mackenzie died because of poor securing of a hoist. This incident shows the level of safety concerns among the employees. If one of them could lose his life because of the risky work environment, they had reason to be less motivated. Hence, rather than show high motivation by increasing their output and productivity, the employees resorted to feigning sickness through the ‘rigger’s backache’. Surely, if the employees’ safety needs had been met, they would not have reason to act in such a way. Vroom’s expectancy theory can also explain the low employee motivation at LINK650. According to this theory, people will be motivated if they expect something valuable afterwards. The theory links expectancy to instrumentality and valence. Instrumentality refers to an individual’s belief that they will receive a valuable outcome by performing well while valence is the level of importance that the individual places on the expected outcome (Lee, 2007). Using Vroom’s expectancy theory, it is apparent that the rig workers were not motivated because they did not expect anything valuable in return for their performance. Instead, the supervisors did not seem to appreciate their performance, leading to the firing of many of them. Therefore, the remaining employees did not have any expectancy of better outcomes despite their high performance. Workplace Stress Stress is common in every work environment. However, the levels and effects of stress often differ across organizations. This is because work stress is a complex phenomenon that includes the individual’s physical and psychological elements and the pressures from the environment or situation, which often affects the individual’s coping and performance. Unlike in normal psychological stress, work stress has more to do with the incompatibility between job demands and the worker’s capabilities to meet the job demands (Michie, 2002). Workplace stress at LINK650 emanated from the imbalance between the work demands placed on the employees and their capabilities to meet them. This began especially when the machines at the company were shut down twice because of mechanical problems. The managers of the company did not take this well. Instead, they pushed the supervisors to get the employees back to work. Even without correcting the machine problems, the supervisors pushed the employees back on their jobs. Apart from being forced to work with poor machines, the employees were also stressed by the constant verbal abuses and threats of being fired if they did not perform as per the expectations of their supervisors. However, the employees did not have the capacity to meet these demands. First, they did not have the best machines to work with. This meant that they probably had to work slowly to avoid further damaging the machines. Second, some of the employees had not prior experience working in the rig. The limited experience meant that they could not perform as better as the experienced employees. Organizational Culture Organizational culture is an important factor to consider when analyzing the people managing organizations and the context of those organizations (Abdul, Sambasivan&Johari, 2003). With regard to organizational behavior, organizational culture affects the behaviors and commitment of people within an organization. Likewise, the commitment of the people affects the organizational culture. In this regard, the organizational culture at LINK650 had some impacts on the behavior of the employees. Organizational culture covers the values and principles that govern the behavior and relationships of people in organization. For example, an organization that values integrity would avoid any activities that would violate its integrity such as corruption. Looking at LINK Corporation, one can conclude that the company had a weak or poor organizational culture. This is evident in the manner in which the employees are treated. The rig workers at LINK650 were not treated as valuable assets to the company. Yet, employees are the most valuable assets in any organization. They were poorly treated by the management of the company, which adversely affected their commitment to the organization. The frequent abuses, unfair pressures, and unjustifiable firing of employees epitomize the poor organizational culture in the company. According to a study on injustice perceptions in organizations, Barclay, Skarlicki & Pugh (2005) found out that fair practices in the treatment of employees especially during layoffs were important in determining employee views on injustice and retaliation. This finding resonates with the LINK650 case where the employees perceived their treatment by the supervisors and management as unjust and hence many opted to retaliate through resigning, feigning sickness, and forming unions. Conclusion and Recommendations From the case overview and detailed analysis, it is evident that LINK Inc. had serious organizational behavior problems. The fact that most of the employees were dissatisfied with the organization shows the extent to which these problems had reached. For an employee like O’Neill, who had joined the company with so much enthusiasm, it was quite devastating to come to realize that the company had serious problems in various aspects including poor leadership, poor employee motivation strategies, poor organizational culture, and work stress. Despite trying as much as possible to remain committed with the company, he finally had to give up and resign. The problems affecting LINK Inc. are complex and related. For instance, the poor leadership is also related to the poor organizational culture and structure. Without transformational leadership, it is quite difficult to establish a good organizational structure that would allow employees to access their managers without problems. Therefore, it cannot be said that one of the identified organizational behavior issues was more problematic than the others. To address the current problems in LINK Inc., this paper makes the following recommendations. i. There is an immediate need to overhaul the organizational structure in the company. Specifically, the hierarchical structure that limits bottom-up communication should be replaced with a more horizontal organizational structure that will allow easy and convenient of flow of information. With the horizontal structure, employees will be able to access the top executives whenever necessary such as when having problems with their supervisors. ii. The company needs to adopt employee commitment as part of its organizational values. Apparently, the employees need to be treated with dignity and respect such that they feel valued. The culture of treating employees badly should end with the adoption of this new employee-focused organizational culture. iii. 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