Culture Serves as Informal Structure in Organizations - Organisational Behavior - Research Paper Example

? Organizational behaviour is considered the study and understanding of individual as well as group behaviour and patterns in trying to improve organizational performance and effectiveness. Organizational structure has been applied in systematic study of behaviour of persons within work clusters including the evaluation of group nature, expansion structures in the clusters and the procedure of implementing change. Organizations are made up of individual members who are central to the organizational behaviour and essential in any behavioural situation even when they act in isolation or part of a group in response to organizational expectations. Organizations are structured in certain ways in order to attain the different goals, while considering that structure of an organization has the ability to help or hinder its progress toward accomplishment of the goals. Organizations both small and large multinational conglomerates can achieve high profits in their business by matching their needs with structure they employ in operation. There are various forms of organizational structures and they include function, matrix and division structures. In functional structure, an organization is set up in order to group every portion of the organization according to its purpose and this structure works well for small businesses where each department relies on the talent and knowledge of workers and support. Nevertheless, the main drawback for the structure is that coordination and communication-linking departments is restricted by organizational boundaries that have various departments working separately. Divisional structure is employed in large organizations that work in large geographic location or in organizations that have different small organizations in the same company to take care of different forms of products or even market areas. The structure is beneficial in that it enables needs to be met rapidly although communication is inhibited since employees are in various divisions thus not working together; besides, the structure is costly owing to its size and scope. The matrix structure is hybrid of both functional and divisional structures and is often employed by multinational companies since it allows the benefits of functional and divisional structures to exist in a single organization. Nevertheless, the structures creates a potential for power struggles since many areas of the organization have dual management like a functional manager as well as a product or divisional manager working in the same stage and covering same managerial territory (Singh, 2010). In practice organization managers, achieve organizational goals through establishing goals, classifying structures, appealing to employees and screening performance outcomes. In order to carry out the processes a manger often takes several roles that include interpersonal, informational and decision roles. Interpersonal roles involve ways in which mangers work and communicate with others while informational role involve the ways in which managers acquire process and share information. In addition, decision roles include the ways in which managers employ information in making decision, identify opportunities and problems and acts on them appropriately by allocating resources, handling conflicts and negotiating. Motivation is an essential driver in an organization and is crucial to management since motivation determines what an employee does and the effort the employee uses in accomplishing the task as well as the period it takes them to accomplish the task. Thus, emotional intelligence for managers is essential in effective management and ultimate organizational behaviour, which is influenced by several factors like self-awareness, motivation and social skills. Therefore, understanding emotional intelligence is crucial in the changing organizational structures that create firms with les hierarchy and close peer contact. Motivated employees work more effectively and efficiently, which shapes an organization’s behaviour since the workforce has a strong impact on the company’s bottom line. Motivation closely ties to job satisfaction, which concerns a person’s feelings with regard to tasks they are supposed to perform that in return gets influenced by physical and social nature of the place of work. Hence the high the level of satisfaction employees feel, the more motivated the employees will be in making sure that they perform their jobs well. Organizational behaviour focuses on behaviour of individuals and groups at the workplace and seeks to explain their behaviours in various ways. Organizations rely on their activities for their success as well as the collective efforts of various people who are the essential human resource of an organization, because individuals and groups performance contribute to the accomplishment of certain objectives by organizations. However, organizations require much more if they are to survive and succeed like material resources for the organizations to offer useful products or services to clients (FOX, 2006). Organizational structure is a means for management in the push for achieving an organization’s objective that are often derived from the organization’s strategy. Structure of organizations follows the organizational strategy, which means that changes in the organization’s strategy necessitates a change in the organization’s structure in order to accommodate and support the change. Therefore, there are structural factors that affect attitude and behaviours of people at work; hence, the degree to which an organization structure reduces ambiguity for employees and clarifies concerns the more it shapes their attitudes and facilities and motivates them to high-level performance. Structure of organization can also constrain employees to the extent of limiting and controlling whatever the employees perform; for instance, organizations with high level of solemnisation and specialisation harsh devotion to chain of command and narrow spans of control offer workers little independence. Since control in such organizations is tight, the behaviour tends to vary within a narrow range; hence, organizations with structures with low formalization, wide spans of control like offering employees great freedom result in great behavioural diversity. An organizational culture acts as a social adhesive that holds the organization together by offering standards that ensure that employees understand what they ought to do. An organisational culture proposes a consummate plan for employees to understand the attitudes and behaviours preferred and establish norms that act to shape the behaviour of people as well as groups within an organization. The culture of organizations influences the individual who is allocated what job and if the candidates accept the offer, which means that people are assessed with whether their attitudes and behaviours are in line with the culture of an organization (Chaneta, 2010). An organization is a focused system that has various subsystems where people and activities are combined to realize certain predetermined objectives through labour division and coordination of activities. There are various key elements of organizational behaviour like people, structure and external elements to the operations of the organization; for instance, when people join an organization to accomplish certain objectives, it necessitates infrastructure. People make the internal social system of an organization since organizations are made up of individuals and groups and huge groups as well as small ones. People are the living and thinking beings that create organizations that exist to achieve their goals; hence the workforce is a critical resource that needs to be managed. Organizational structure defines the official relations people have in organizations since different tasks are required to accomplish organization activities; hence the need for managers, employees, accountants and assemblers in organizations. Nevertheless, the main structure in organizations relates to power and duties of people within an organization like managers who make decisions that affect the work of people. The concepts of organizational structures include hierarchy of authority, division of labour, span of control, specialization, standardization, formalization, centralization and complexity. Organizational behaviour and organizational structure is connected to various theories like Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s factors, McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, Theory Z, Expectancy theory, equity theory and reinforcement theory. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, when an individual meets his needs in one category, the individual gets motivated to seek needs in preceding level and in his hierarchy of needs Maslow includes physiological needs, safety, social, esteem and self-actualization needs. As individuals move high in the corporate hierarchy, they may consider high-order needs to be essential compared to low-order needs. Moreover, needs vary based on career stage, organizational structure and location and the hierarchy of needs could suffer from ineffective application in various contexts, since some organizations may value social needs compared to psychological and safety needs. Hence, the theory necessitates managers to be in a position to identify and understand employee needs although this is not usually easy since there is possibility of inaccurate assumptions. Therefore, taken in the right context, recognising the significance of needs is essential method of conceptualising factors of employee motivation, which directly influences an organization’s behaviour (Parikh and Gupta, 2010; Cole, 2000). Herzberg studied characteristics of occupations in an attempt to establish factors that serve to increase or decrease worker satisfaction and he identified two factors that are related to job satisfaction and they include hygiene factors as well as motivational factors. In Herzberg’s factors, hygiene factors include factors maintained at adequate levels and related to the organization’s environment in which employees work instead of the nature of work. Essential hygiene factors involve organizational policies, working conditions, relations with peers and subordinates, status, salary and job security sufficient levels of the factors are crucial to prevent dissatisfaction however improving the factors does not necessarily lead to increased job satisfaction. Therefore, similar to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Herzberg’s factors have to be considered by the sensitivity of individual and cultural differences, which necessitates managers to establish what levels are considered adequate by employees. Theory Z tries to motivate employees by offering them increased accountability and ensuring they feel appreciated. Moreover, the expectancy theory assumes that quality of employee efforts is impacted by results they receive for their efforts. The theory believes that employees get motivated to the degree they feel their efforts result in acceptable performance that is rewarded and the value of reward is highly positive. To apply theories related to expectancy theory necessitates managers to establish desired behaviours in a clear manner. Once the management accomplishes this, the management has to consider rewards that can serve as possible rein-forcers and the way the rewards have different values for various people. Equity theory states that when people determine compensation they receive to be fair compared to colleagues’ compensation is crucial because any perceived inequity affects the individual’s motivation. Sense of inequity can be negative when workers feel that receive low compensation compared to others who perform the same work; however, positive inequity is possible when an employee feels that he or she receives more compensation than others who perform the same task. Regardless of the form of inequity, both forms of inequity can motivate workers to in a manner that restores sense of equity in the workplace. In addition, reinforcement theory involves both negative and positive reinforcements and two other fundamental reinforcement strategies that involve extinction and punishment. In positive reinforcement, workers are motivated by offering rewards for every desirable behaviour and for efficiency; the rewards are delivered only when desired behaviour is exhibited. On the other hand, negative reinforcement involves withdrawing negative penalties if the desired behaviour is exhibited; however, unlike positive and negative reinforcement, punishment is designed for discouraging negative behaviour. Extinction involves withdrawal of reinforcing penalties for desired behaviour with the intention of eliminating undesirable behaviour (Ledbetter, 2003). In determining organizational behaviour, various theories offer insight into organizational behaviour resulting in various observations from the theories. For instance, employees have needs and for managers to motivate employees, the managers have to understand the extent of the employee needs, which is often difficulty since it requires open and frequent communication that link managers and employees. Therefore, structuring jobs in such a way that the needs of employees are met offers a way for a supervisor to increase an employee’s motivation. Moreover, compensation is crucial in motivating employees according to their contributions to the organization. Since employees can be dissatisfied when they get less than they deserve, managers need to be proactive regarding reward structures in order to decrease likelihood of perceived inequities. Motivational theory underlines the significance of evaluating needs, compensation and rewards in organizational structure that increase employee job satisfaction and organizational behaviour. Organizational structures are based on goals and objectives of an organization influenced by various factors with the chose structure capable of facilitating or hampering organizational pursuit. Structure in organization affects behaviour in organizations the same way design and structure of an organization are influenced by outcome of organizational behaviour. The basic bureaucratic model for organizations depend on principles of hierarchy defined by rules and division of labour with authority delegated downward while a reporting relation to the top is established. The hierarchy allows people to know the levels within an organization with division of labour indicating the degree of specialization and differentiation within organizations. Organizations based on this basic and traditional bureaucratic model ensure that matters are resolved either by rules and formalization or by exercising an individual’s authority and enforcing discipline. Therefore, as organizations grow role-pressure impact behaviour largely; however, changing environment brings up new models of organizations that are lean and group-based because of downsizing and frequent changes at the top. The new forms of organizations have relations that have little basis on power and authority but partnership and expertise and prefer interdependence over subordinate dependency on superiors. Various organizations encourage different forms of culture like power culture that draws power and influence from the central figure and few other individuals hence power is often left to a few who form a web. Moreover, organizations encourage role culture that is built on defined jobs, rules and procedures; hence, the culture operates based on logic and rationality with its strength lying in its functions or specialists. In this culture, organizations encourage the top management to have small span of control and organizations tend to operate in stable environment where creativity is discouraged although it establishes stability. Other organizations encourage task culture, which is team oriented and adaptable with focus on problem solving by pooling required resources and people from various part of the organization on a temporary basis. Hence, in task culture, power is delegated to expertise ability of teams to work instead of the formal authority; thus, matrix organization is one structural form of task culture. Meanwhile, other organizations encourage person culture where an individual is the focus thus the organization exists to help an individual instead of the other way round (Griffin and Moorehead, 2012). In conclusion, culture serves as informal structure in organizations and affects how firms balance needs for exploration of fresh opportunities and exploitation of developed ones. Organizations with strong culture have high commitment to establish ways of understanding the world, while in weak cultures there are huge differences. When culture becomes established, it generates deep involvement in its members who consequently generate commitment and identification with an organization’s mission. Organizations are created in ways to accomplish their goals; however, their structure can aid or hinder progress of the organization, which in return affects organizational behaviour. Organizations can be grouped in three main categories that include functional, divisional and matrix structure that are useful in both large and small organizations. Organizational behaviour results from an individual’s attempt to meet idiosyncratic needs demand of informal activities as well as formal organizational demands; therefore, an organization combines work with people or groups with facilities necessary for executing the duties. References Chaneta, I. (2010). “Organisational Behaviour”. Journal of Comprehensive Research, Volume 8, Pp. 13-18. Cole, G. A. (2000). Organisational behaviour: theory and practice. London, Continuum Fox, W. (2006). Managing organisational behaviour. Cape Town, South Africa, Juta. Griffin, R. W., & Moorehead, G. (2012). Organizational behavior: managing people and organizations. Mason, OH, South-Western/Cengage Learning. Ledbetter, R. (2003). Organizational Structure: Influencing Factors and Impact in the Grand Prairie Fire Department. National Fire Academy. Parikh, M., & Gupta, R. K. (2010). Organisational Behaviour. New Delhi, Tata McGraw Hill Education Pte. Ltd. Singh, K. (2010). Organizational behaviour: text and cases. Chandigarh, Pearson. Read More