Organizational Behavior of Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service - Case Study Example

Name : xxxxxxxxxxx Institution : xxxxxxxxxxx Course : xxxxxxxxxxx Title : Organizational behavior Tutor : xxxxxxxxxxx @2010 Organizational behavior Lancashire Fire & Rescue Service Lancashire fire and rescue service has been protecting people living in Lancashire and assisting the community in ensuring the area is safe for everybody. It is a county-wide, constitutional emergency fire and rescue service responsible for ensuring safety in the Shire County of Lancashire, England. It responds to fires and also carries out visits in education institutions and gives advice in homes on fire safety tips and means of maintaining a safe environment. The success of the service has been attributed to hard work in all the operations, control and also in the support of the staff members. The service has been able to reduce deaths and injuries from fire incidences by half in the year 2003/2004 and has minimized deliberate fires by close to 30%. The service focuses on fire prevention as a means of saving fires. The service also works close with the police, local authorities and local NHS Trusts to carry out work in the most efficient way (Becker et al, 2001).. Internal organizational structures and external environmental factors The organizational behaviour of every institution is affected by the interrelationship between the organizational structure of the firm and the external factors that affect the firm. The effect of the external factors can best be analyzed by considering the PESTEL analysis of the macro-environment. The macro-environment greatly affects the decisions the managers make in the organization and consequently the behaviour of every individual or stakeholder of the organization. Lancashire fire and rescue service is not an exception in this case. There are several factors in the macro-environment that the affect the organization of the service (Bradford & Burke, 2005). The PESTEL model of analysis classifies the external factors as follows: Political factors: These refer to the government policies and strategies that affect the behavioural patterns of an organization. An example of such a factor is the degree to which the government intervenes in ensuring that the economy is enhanced. The government can subsidize some of the services provided by the fire and rescue service and thus affect the entire operation of the fire service. The priorities the government has in place and the political decisions can have a significant impact in the operations of an organization. Education and training of the work force are greatly affected by the decisions made by the government (Lawler, 2003). Economic factors: these include aspects such as interest rates, taxation rates, inflation, economic expansion and exchange rates. In some organizations higher interest rates will hinder investment since it will be expensive to borrow while a strong currency may render exporting difficult as this will increase the price of the goods in regard to the foreign currency. Inflation can also lead to demand for wage increases by the employees as well as increased costs. Higher or increased national income growth can lead to an increased demand for an organization’s services or products. All these factors will greatly affect the operations of the organizations and thus the entire organizational behaviour. Social factors: Changes in social patterns can have some influence on the demands of the organization’s products. It will also affect the availability of employees and the motivation to work. An example is in the UK where the population is getting older implying that organizations must committee themselves to investing in pension schemes for their employees. This has increased the operational costs of the firms and thus the organizational behaviour has been altered. Other firms such as Asda have begun to recruit older workers with an intention of benefiting from the expanding labour pool (Becker et al, 2001). Environmental factors: These factors include weather and climatic variations. Changes in whether has some influence in many industries including farming, tourism and insurance. As a result of global warming, climatic variations and increased awareness has rendered this factor an important consideration for many firms. The increasing demand to protect the environment has some influence in the operations of organizations especially the fir and rescue service organization (Lawler, 2003). Technological factors: New technology results to creation of new processes and goods. Examples of products created by new technology include MP3 players; computer games, online gambling and high definition TVs. Technology can also minimize expenses, enhance quality and result to innovation. These improvements can result to benefits to both the consumers and producers. They will in turn affect the organizational behavior in general. Internal factors Internal factor also referred to as micro environmental factors include customers, employees, suppliers, shareholders, media, and competitors. These also affect the organization behavior of every firm. Power and organizational conflict, culture and change Power and organization conflict are significant factors that affect the behavioral patterns in an organization. Power is defined by Max Weber as the probability one actor within a social setup to exert his will irrespective of resistance. It is the capacity of a principal A to influence the behaviour of B to in a manner that B would otherwise not. There are various types of powers which include coercive power, utilitarian power, and normative power. Al these affect the organizational behaviour in every firm (Lawler, 2003). Another aspect that affects organizational behaviour is organizational politics. Politics in an organization refers to recognizing and finally reconciling competing concerns within the firm. Competing concerns or interest can be integrated through a number of ways. Politics can be a way of establishing a non-coercive, or a democratic job environment. Organizations thus require mechanisms and systems with which they can reconcile conflicting interests with in them. Such systems of rule include autocratic to democratic systems. Political behaviour within an organization is another factor that affects the entire organizational behaviour. Political behaviour is defined as the non-rational influence or impact in the decision making process in an organization. The successful exercise of organizational politics is assumed to result higher level of power. Irrespective of the level to which workers are committed to the firm’s objectives, personal interests will still be exhibited in their behaviour. Organizational politics thus arise when individuals behave and act different from one another or different from the expectations (Becker et al, 2001). Organizational structure Organizational structure refers to group interdependency with in the organization. Greater interdependency in an organization raises the chances of the people in the organization to share resources. Conflict in organizations Conflicts in organizations arise when the individuals in the organization disagree over issues or when their opinions, values, attitudes vary. A conflict in an organization is characterised by opposition, scarcity and blockage. Inter group organization is described as the practice of opposition and confrontation in which one side obstructs the progress of the other. Conflict can be brought about by scarcity of resources. In an organization, a department may secure the scarce resource and prevent another department from benefiting from the resources. Some of the causes of conflicts within organizations include: communication failure, personality conflict, value differences and goal differences. Others are methodological differences, substandard performance and lack of cooperation (Bradford & Burke, 2005). Levels of conflict Conflicts in an organization can either be within the employees or between individuals or groups within the organizations as they compete or struggle to meet their personal interest. Intrapersonal conflict take place when an employee overseer or peers send conflicting prospects. Interpersonal conflicts are a difficult problem in organizations since they affect people’s emotions. An example of an interpersonal relationship is when an employee has a conflict with another in a different department. Conflicts in an organization can be resolved through the use of strategies such as confrontation, avoidance, accommodation, compromise and collaboration. Organizational culture and defining of roles Organizational culture is one of the significant factors that affect the behaviour of people in an organization. Organizational culture is defined as the A system of facts, of principles for perceiving, believing, assessing and acting in a manner that serve to relate human societies to their environmental settings. Organization culture is characterized by behavioral artifacts and values that are exhibited by an organization. To some extent it defines the roles each stakeholders play in the running of the organization. It is the organizational culture that defines everybody’s responsibility and embodies all the practices of the firm. In Lancashire fire and Rescue Service, roles are defined by the organization’s aims and objectives. The aims and objectives of the organization include reduction of the number of emergency occurrences and the resultant consequences while ensuring safety, healthy and experienced workforce. It also aims at minimizing the impact of fire accident on the environment and establishes a stronger, improved and more sustainable society (Bradford & Burke, 2005). The four main strengths of an organizational culture approach include: it emphasizes on the human resource side of organizational life and finds importance and learning in even its most ordinary aspects and clarifies the significance of establishing appropriate systems of joint meaning to assist individuals work in cooperation. It further requires members to acknowledge the influence of their behaviour on the organization’s culture and promotes the view that the alleged relationship between a firm. Motivation in organizational behaviour Motivation is an important factor that affects the behaviour of employees in a work place. Motivation can best be explained through the expectancy theory. It is used to explain how decisions by individuals are made with regard to behavioral alternatives. It is based on the fact that the performance of employees at the workplace is based on individual factors such as personality, knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience. This theory suggests that in order for a person to be motivated, there must be a connection between effort and performance. This theory is based on three beliefs or perceptions and they are Valence, Expectancy, and Instrumentality (Fitz-enz, 2000). Valence is the importance placed by an individual on the expected outcome; it refers to the individual’s emotional orientation with regard to the outcome. Application of the Motivation Theory in an Organization In the given scenario, the employees are not keen to meet the targets or production goals because their perception is that there is no reward or benefit that they will get as a result of meeting the targets. Their perception is that, mastering the new production process will involve putting in more effort but there is no reward for the increase in the effort put. For successful application of the motivation theory in the organization various things need to be done; there must be provision of the right resources for the job on time, the workers must be trained to acquire the right skills needed for the job (Ulrich, et al, 2003). Next the supervisors must offer the necessary support to get the job done and also provide the necessary information about the job. The employees must be made to understand the relationship between their performance and the kind of reward that they will get. Conclusion The supervisors must create trust in the employees concerning the decision makers and ensure there is transparency in the process that decides the outcome due to each person. The supervisors need to create an environment whereby the employees feel that if they increase their efforts it will lead to an increased performance, an increase in performance will lead to an increase in the rewards and finally the employees must value the rewards the organization offers for their efforts to increase production. Since this theory is based on perceptions, the employee might feel that they have provided a favorable environment for the job and therefore the employees have the right motivation for the job, but still some employees might perceive that the conditions do not work for them (Lawler, 2003). Bibliography Becker, B. et al, 2001, The HR Scorecard: Linking People, Strategy, and Performance. Watertown, MA: Harvard Business Press. Bradford, D.L. & Burke, W.W, 2005, Organization Development. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. Fitz-enz, J., 2001, How to Measure Human Resource Management. New York: McGraw Hill Publishers. Fitz-enz, J., 2000, The ROI of Human Capital: Measuring the Economic Value of Employee Performance. New York: Amacom Publishers. Lawler, E., 2003, Treat People Right! How Organizations and Employees Can Create a Win/Win Relationship to Achieve High Performance at All Levels. San Francisco: Jossey- Bass Publishers. Ulrich, D.et al, 1999, Results-Based Leadership. Watertown, MA: Harvard Business Press. Read More