Organizational Behaviour - Organizational Culture, Power and Politics, Conflict and Negotiation - Coursework Example

Organization Behaviour Organization Behaviour Name Institution Date of submission Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Organization Behaviour 2 Introduction 2 Power & Politics 3 power 3 Coercive power base 3 Expert power base 4 Reward power base 4 Referent power 4 Legitimate power base 5 Politics 5 Conflict & Negotiation 7 Organization culture 9 Organization structure 10 Conclusion 11 Bibliography 12 Organization Behaviour Introduction A group is identified as an organization when people come together having a common purpose. They are governed by rules that enable them to remain as one unit since each is important in fulfilling the role of the whole organ. Organization behaviour involves all factors that determine how people with a common goal interrelate with each other with a purpose of maintaining productivity. The behaviour is formed through shared values, norms, objectives , a vision, mission and rules that govern them. Various factors should be looked into running an organization. These include the political environment and distribution of power, existence of conflict and how to solve it, organization culture and the established organization structure. If these are not kept in a check, targeted outcomes may never be achieved. In this paper, I will discuss the various aspects that determine and form organization behaviour. An emphasis on the role of politics and how positive results can be achieved is emphasizes. the organization considered in this case is the university and how various aspects of organization behaviour are represented. Power & Politics power The university is a good ground for developing leadership characteristics in the students. Power and politics can not be assumed in such an institution where the major concern is acting in a given manner to achieve predetermined goals. A university is formed by interrelationship of people from different cultures and nationalities. Politics form a major part in the daily operations to achieve compliance and ensure that all parts are moving towards the same direction (Goran 2010). This is seen from the administrative body to the students. In each level, a given group is involved in exercise of power and politics. In any given society, there exists a group of individual who are more powerful than the others. In the university, the administration is in control and administration of student affairs. However, the administration is also ranked in such a way that there remains one at the topmost position who manages the institution to ensure that set goals and objectives re met. Five bases of power are applied in exercising these powers namely: coercive powerbase, rewarding power base, expert power base, legitimate power base, referent power base and expert power base. Coercive power base Coercive power base is mainly applied in the institution when issues seem to get out of order. For instance, students are threatened that if they use plagiarized work, they may be expelled from the institution. This maintains order by ensuring that students acquire genuine degrees and certificates from the institution. All disciplinary cases have coercive power as the applied bases of power. Staff members have coercive power applied to them for any form of misconduct such as awarding a student what he or she does not deserve (French and Raven 1959). Expert power base Expert power base is evident in the lecturer student relationship. The lecturer is in control since he or she has the skills that the students need to achieve personal goals and the institution needs to achieve institutional goals. The lecturer is employed on the bases of acquired experience and skills acquired. Reward power base This is evident when people are given gifts for the good things they do. This includes promotions and money as rewards. Receiving gifts acts as a motivator towards achieving better results through motivation. People in the institution compete for these rewards hence overall improvement in performance. In the university, best performing employees are rewarded through promotions. Referent power Referent power is evident among the students where some students simply acquire power over the others as a result of their personal characteristics and desirable resources. For instance, leadership in the religious bodies is attained on the basis of personal characteristics. Rewarding power is also very applicable in the university. The best performing employees are rewarded for their hard work resulting to positive competition where each competes to acquire the reward. Promotion at the department and institutional level is dependant on the past achievement. As a result, more people work hard to get the promotion and this contributes to meeting the overall institutional goals and objectives. Legitimate power base Legitimate power base refers to power acquired by an individual as a result of the position they hold. For instance, the university chancellor has power over every other staff working in the institution including the deputy vice chancellor due to the position he holds. Similarly, student representatives in the student associations are in a position of power than the other students and can delegate duties. Compliance is achieved simply because of the position these people hold. These five power bases are well applied and result to failure whenever misused. When coercive power is applied on students at the wrong time and for the wrong reason, they are likely to react by opposing the application of any force. This has been evident in the institution and other institutions where people have gone on strike. Power in the institutions acts as the basis for reducing any uncertainties and directing actions and resources towards achieving desired outcomes. People loose their power when they become abusive, in accessible, technically incompetent or unethical. Politics Politics in the institution are exercised at all levels result to both negative and positive impacts. The selection of student leaders is based on democracy where all the students are allowed to vote for their candidates. To win the elections, one must have characteristics and competences that place them above the competitors. These include emotional intelligence, good communication skills (Cronk 1999) Politics is all about the ability to convince someone to be on your side rather than that of the oponent. This implies that good communication skills is a necessity if success is to be achieved. Some think that they can achieve their success by simply making citizens have a bad image of the opponent. Any candidate who win in the university student leadership positions is a brilliant oratory and his/her speeches are of the highest standard. The success of any politician is determined by the rule of the majority in democratic countries. The politician must potray a high degree of understanding of current and past issues in any sector including the university. This calls for one to be a good researcher who can gather information. If a student leader is questioned but cannot be in a position to give an answer, he is termed as incompetent and uncapable of taking leadership responsibility. The persuasiveness of speech can win peoples attention even when they are not aware of the personality of a politician. However, sustainability in the position is depedant on self awareness and adaptability. Conflict & Negotiation Leaders of dynamic organisations seek for new harmonies through provoking conflict (). This kind of leadeship allows persons with different perspectives to argue their case out. However, skillful tacktics are required in this kind of management which when not well applied, may ruin the whole system. Conflict can result to reduced productivity, sabotarge, dissession and lowered moral among other problems (Cronk 1999). Negotiation is one way of solving conflicts. Conflict in the institution is sometimes innevitable and main concentration should be on how to make the best out of it. This calls for leaders in the University to develop competences such as calmness, ability to take control and be able to deploy a business building strategy rather than calling people to arm themselves and lay down their tools of work. Calmness is recognised when the leader remains at ease when every one else is woried by the situation. The disagreement can lead to personal attacks and the leader must be in aposition to monitor the direction and level of discomfort. University management teamdministration and other staff members and between the student and university disciplinary board. These bodies are continously in conflit with each other. However, the situation is ontrolled in most cases ensuring that positive results are achieved otut of the conflict. The main coflict identified in the university is relationship conflict where conflict exists between the lecturers and the students ensures that conflict is not directed towards the personality of a specific staff or student. Negotiation is applied where the administration tries to explain the reason for establishing certain limitations and rules to govern the institution. There also exists task and process conflict mainly between the administrative body and other staff. For instance, the administrative sets time when the lecturer should work but some times they feel that the process involved in accomplishing a task is not fair. Task conflict occures when tone feels that a wrong task has been assigned to him or her. Sometimes workers may feel that too much is required of them. For instance, lecturers in the university sometimes feel that assigned tasks are too much in relation to the pay they are getting. To solve this, negotiation on the pay and the tasks to be carried out is discussed before one commences the job. As the number of students increase, the body of lecturers continously negotiate on pay increment. Negotiaation is aimed at bringing two conflicting groups into an agreement. This can either by weighing and settling for the best option or to divide the benefit to both parties. Differet ideas and perspectives are brought about in such kind of a discussion. This results to an opportunity for both opponents to learn. One who is not ready to learn from the others can never make a good leader. In a conflict situation, the leader must: acknowledge that the conflict is worth, admit to personal weakness in their own thinking process, be able to elaborate their ideas as the better option and be ready to point out to the weakness in their own thinking. There are five strategies basic to conflict resolution. These are avoidance, accomodation, compromise, competition and collaboration. One should separate emotions from decision making process. Each of the five strategies can be used in solving a problem but certain skills are required in identifying what to use and what not to use. Organization culture culture referrers to how a given group of people perceives itself or is perceived by others in reference to sharing their way of interacting and seeing the spiritual, inanimate and the animate world (French & Raven 1959). The behaviour developed by the group over a period of time enable them to cope together in the given environment. Organization culture therefore includes the shared norms, believes and actions that give a particular grouping a distinctive character from the rest. For instance, the university has its culture that identifies the students, staff workers and the administration body with this institution aims at maintaining competitive advantage in the education industry. One of the basic values maintained in the institution is offering quality services in the institution. Norms regulate the way students behave in the institution differentiating them from any young person in the streets. For instance, students must report to class and ensure that assign tasks are accomplished in time. Established rules and regulations control the behaviour of individuals thus resulting to a common way of behaviour. Students who fail to follow the norms have to face disciplinary actions. In addition, the staff members who include the lecturers, department heads, secretaries and other workers have to follow the established rules. If for example an employee engages in any action of corruption or theft, they can be sacked from their job. The basic shared assumption in this case is that such actions would lead to poor performance at the individual and institutional level. The organization culture in the institution forms the criteria by which power, friendship, rewards, authority and punishment are awarded. Organization culture is not formed or manipulated by the leaders since it originates from the subconscious mind as assumption that certain behaviour are unethical or wrong. However, these ideas are not accepted by all individuals. For instance, organization culture has been referred to as a set of believes and values that can be changed, manipulated and measure by leaders (Deal & Kennedy 1999). The desired change can be achieved through offering sanctions and rewards to individuals. People act in a given way because the organization demands so. In this context, students do not always sit for exams and attend lectures because they want to, but because violating this would have implications and they can face disciplinary actions. The organization culture is dependant on the external and internal environment. The culture is formed by a combination of factors including interpersonal communication, procedures, policies and structures, socialization, rewarding system, modeling and leaderships, and participation. Organization structure This is a frame work which can either be formal or informal and managers implement rules and policies that govern how the organization is governed with the aim of achieving set goals and objectives. It determines how duties are delegated and power is controlled for the benefit of the entire system. In the university, the organization structure includes a top most body which makes decisions concerning management, recruitment, financial budgets and distribution of power. There is a good information flow from the highest to the lowest level through different communication mechanisms. The organization structure affects organization performance, behaviour, interdepartmental and inter-group, cooperation and team work and motivation. The structure in our university maintains high motivation for the employees and the student through rewarding best performers. This is very necessary if people are to find the value and purpose of their existence in an institution. The demand for results is stressful to people and they constantly need a source of power to keep them going. This requires an engagement of the leaders in the people’s hearts and mind. Without this, set processes cannot be translated into results. Team work is maintained by the recognition of each member as an important part of the whole organ. Various activities carried out at the university are aimed at maintaining team work. This includes games which bring together students who are from different family backgrounds and ethnicity. The intended goal is bringing out the value out of each of them. Conclusion A university is an organization like any other and has to find a means to ensure that all the organization maintains competitive advantage by ensuring that all the system coexist. Though politics and conflict in an organization are at times inevitable, the management should aim at achieving the best from this. Drifting from set goals and objectives should be avoided. If this is not done, the achieving organization success would remain a dream. The university consists of different people holding different positions and from very different cultural background. The only common characteristic these people share is that they are elite. This is completed when we consider its relationship in regard to the neighbours who may not be as educated. However, the external environment is as important as the internal environment. To ensure that all these separate individuals exist together and work towards achieving set goals, their separate needs should be put into consideration. Bibliography Goran, H, January 2010, Political accountability in Africa, is the glass half-ful or half-empty? APPP Discusion Paper 7, Dec 09, 'Theorie des jeux, mecanismes sociaux et biens publics en Cameron, Kim S, & Quinn, Robert E, 1999, Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture, Based on the Competing Values Framework, Reading, Mass, Addison Wesley. Cray, David & Mallory, Geoffrey R, 1998, Making Sense of Managing Culture, London, International Thompson Business Press. Cronk, Lee 1999, That Complex Whole, Culture and the Evolution of Human Behaviour, Boulder, CO, Westview Press. Deal, T, & Kennedy, A, 1999, The New Corporate Cultures, Revitalizing the Workplace After Downsizing, Mergers and Reengineering, Perseus. 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