Organisational Behaviour in McDonalds - Case Study Example

Organisational behaviour in McDonald’s of Introduction Organisational behaviour is considered as a scientificapproach that can be implemented for managing workforce in an organisation. It is the study of individual organisational members as well as groups in context of their performance and activities within an organisational framework. According to some authors, organisational behaviour is concerned with examination of behaviour of individuals in terms of understanding, predicting and controlling the same in an organisational setting. Organisational behaviour is a relatively broad concept and includes various areas such as job performance and satisfaction, leadership, group and team building, organisational culture and diversity and motivation (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003). In this paper, organisational behaviour in McDonald’s has been discussed while taking in account various theories associated therein. In addition, the company profile has been discussed briefly so that the operations of the company and behavioural aspects of the same can be related appropriately. Company profile The business of McDonald’s was initiated in 1954 in California, United States (US). Presently, the company is a multinational food chain that has restaurants worldwide. McDonald’s mostly operates in the form of franchisee in the international market and offer a large variety of food products and beverages to its consumers. The company data suggest that company operates in approximately 117 countries with more than 30000 restaurants where most are operated by numerous franchisees (McDonald’s, 2014a). McDonald’s, over the time, has earned the reputation of an international brand in the food service industry. In many locations, the company has its own distribution centre that is independently operated and has been approved by the company (McDonald’s, 2014a). Various theories of organisational behaviour can be accommodated in the organisational structure and operations of McDonald’s, primarily because the company operates in different form in different locations and have workforce and consumers from different cultural background. Consequently, theories related to leadership, motivation and team work can be recognised thereof. Organisational behaviour theories Corporate culture and work culture in McDonald’s Assessment of McDonald’s work culture is very important while evaluating team management, motivation, leadership strategies and cultural functionalities at the organisation. It has been observed that the work culture at McDonald’s appears to be heavily dependent on various line managers who are in charge of the restaurant at that particular point of time. The leadership approach of managers differs among different employees (inexperienced and experienced). During peak business hours, managers tend to adopt mechanistic approach so that higher amount of business transactions is pursued. However, the leadership approach is relatively relaxed during off-peak hours (Financial Post, 2013; Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003). It has also been observed that the rich corporate culture of McDonald is based on mutual respect and collaboration. According to certain eminent personality in McDonald’s, the success of the organisation is driven by organisational commitment towards employees and its dedication towards the community. The work culture of McDonald and supportive workforce enable the organisation to reinvent and evolve in terms of performance over the time. Considering McDonald’s brand reputation in the international food service industry, the company aims at exceeding consumer expectations through retention of talented workforce and employee engagement. The company has established a culture of trust and coordination among the employees at its various outlets and it employs ‘three legged stool’ approach where each leg represent the company, its supplier partners and its franchisees. McDonald’s make significant investment in the future of its employees and thereby; earn profit with the help of a happy and motivated workforce. The company believes in the philosophy that no individual is as good as all the members serving as a team. Using the three legged approach, the management ensures that all the three legs or components are functional and are interdependent. Additionally, the work and corporate culture at McDonald enables individuals to pursue their personal goal along with their organisational goal with the help of different kinds of trainings and possibilities. Employee engagement is conducted with the help of various challenges and suitable opportunities. Another important aspect of McDonald’s work culture is that, it provides job flexibility to employees from different field of education so that they can pursue their career path. The company also ensures that its employees have sufficient exposure to multiple disciplines within the organisation for better understanding of their career structure. The corporate culture of McDonald’s is characterised by significant contribution of the corporation towards achieving personal goals of employees by providing them the necessary resources for succeeding within the organisation or outside. In the US, the company also provide credit facilities to employees who want to pursue training facilities regarding professional development in the company. In this regard, McDonald’s directly transfer credit facilities to selected colleges and universities. Besides, formally structured training and development facilities and educational assistance programs, the company also invest significantly in recognition and reward programs for employees. For ensuring employee engagement, the company rewards its employees, suppliers and franchisee members in monetary and non-monetary forms. Overall, it can be suggested that the corporate environment at McDonald’s is driven on the basis of employee empowerment and team management (Financial Post, 2014; McDonald’s, 2014a). Leadership at McDonald’s Leadership is defined as the process of influencing and motivating others through various aids and support in order to accomplish a common task. Traits of leaders have been described differently by different authors. For instance, David McClelland underlined that leadership can be considered as a function of personality of ego of an individual. According to Robbins & Judge (2012), there are a number of leadership theories which can be implemented in different organisational context. For instance, most commonly recognised leadership styles in various organisations include charismatic leadership, innovative leadership, transactional leadership, transformational leadership, Laissez Faire, situational leadership and servant leadership (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 1988). Different leaders possess multiple skills and traits and alongside, numerous leadership approaches can also be recognised in organisations where a particular approach cannot define the entire managerial practice in the organisation. In context of McDonald’s, a blend of traits, styles and situational approaches can be considered while determining the leadership style practiced in the organisation. It was ascertained that Jim Skinner has been a very charismatic leader with innovative leadership traits and inculcated among the members of the organisation that leadership should not be limited to managers, but should be practiced by every employees in the organisation. Skinner is believed to bear characteristics of charismatic as well as transformational leader (McDonald’s, 2014b; North Western University, 2001). His innovative approaches lead to development of McDonaldisation by George Ritzer. Theoretically, McDonaldisation was developed on the concept of rationalisation that had been posited by Max Weber and business strategy that was adopted by the organisation in its different locations. The main pillars of McDonaldisation are predictability, calculability, efficiency and control (Ritzer & Ryan, 2004). The leadership behaviour of other managers and employees at authoritative position can be ascertained to be a combination of transformational and transactional leadership. Transformational leadership was mentioned because it was observed that, managers at McDonald’s neither punish employees nor reward them based on their performance (M Bass & R Bass, 2008). Additionally, manager do not make any effort towards understanding employees, instead, they stick to business and believe in workplace management as task oriented managers, thereby, reflect transactional leadership (Wang & Huang, 2009). In this regard, Managerial Grid Model by Blake and Mouton can also be taken in consideration. In McDonald, team style managerial approach is adopted as the company is significantly concerned about personal growth of employees and assumes that it would lead to organisational growth (McDonald’s, 2014b; North Western University, 2001; Blake & Mouton, 1981). Motivation at McDonald’s Motivation is defined as a process of initiating, guiding and maintaining goal-oriented behaviour. The process of motivation can be initiated by others as well as by oneself. Motivation has been discussed theoretically by a number of authors. For instance, McGregor has proposed theory X and theory Y in this regard which has again contrasted by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory. In context of McDonalds, four principles have been determined which act as motivating factors for the employees. Firstly, there should be different set of motivational techniques for different segments or departments so that employees from different segments are able to achieve necessary elements in Maslow’s hierarchy model (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 1988; Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003). The second principle explains that every outlet of McDonald’s should have achievable and specifically defined objectives at store level as well as at personal level of the employees so that they feel more motivated. The third principle posits that goals should not be constant, instead they should change constantly. The role of managers in this regard is very important, as they have significant responsibility towards goal management. The fourth principle focuses on compensation and suggests that reasonable increase in salary will act as source of motivation for employees in the organisation (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 1988; Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003). It has already been mentioned that motivational theory that was found apt in context of McDonald’s is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, in the following section various elements of the hierarchy are explained as follows. In McDonald’s, self actualisation is achieved by employees in the form of problem solving. Research suggests that, employees are continuously exposed to various work related issues which they need to resolve using innovation and creativity; thereby, their feeling of personal achievement is fulfilled. Personal growth is offered to employees in the form of training and development. McDonald’s has its own university, namely, Hamburger University that deliver requisite training to employees that are working at the firm. The training helps in enhancing confidence level of employees by upgrading their skills and knowledge. Alongside, this process helps employees in achieving their self esteem as well. Self esteem not only empowers one particular employee, but also empower that individual to motivate others. McDonald’s offers several opportunities for boosting employees’ self esteem through various methods (McDonald’s, 2014a; 2014c). The motivational strategies of the company deliver sense of empowerment among employees so that they work with team spirit. Team management is very crucial in the company; most activities are pursued by teams instead of individual effort. Team of employees having complimentary skills alleviate level of enthusiasm among employees as well as make them more responsible and accountable for their job. Between mechanistic and organic organisational structure, McDonald’s has organic structure where every employee is interdependent on each other. McDonald’s has a relatively stress free environment at the restaurants, specifically defined job role, and flexible shift timing which further enhance physiological needs of employees. However, only one drawback was recognised in McDonald’s, which is regarding safety needs. The company does not pursue any contract regarding long term employment with employees (North Western University, 2001). Conclusion In this paper, organisational behaviour in McDonald’s has been discussed in an elaborate manner where organisational culture, leadership, team management and motivation have been highlighted in context of the subject. The paper also related various leadership theories with employee management practices in the organisation which further revealed that employee empowerment is significantly emphasised in the organisation. Overall, organisational structure suggests that the company is significantly concerned about its employees because they are considered as prime component in the success of the company. Usefulness of knowledge regarding organisational behaviour in context of employment opportunity The paper evaluates organisational behaviour of McDonald’s from various aspects such as motivation, organisational culture, leadership and team management. The study helped the researcher to develop new perspective about organisational behaviour which is beyond general theories. It was observed while pursuing the paper that, activities in multinational organisations are comparatively complex as these organisations operates not only in its home country, but also in multiple numbers of third national countries. Therefore, cultural diversity is an essential factor which should be taken into consideration. One essential thing that was pointed out in this regard is that, their approach to internationalisation of venture was pursued using franchising (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 1988). Adoption of franchising in McDonald’s as its internationalisation approach helped the researcher to understand that this technique will not only reduce issues related acculturation but will also enhance brand name of the company in different locations. The researcher, while conducting research on the subject of the paper, established that, success of organisation depend significantly on employees and other partners of a firm such as investors and suppliers, therefore, an environment of mutual respect and trust should always be maintained. The researcher also gained significant knowledge about various set of values and practices that are followed in organisations which further strengthens the pillars of success. It was observed that, employees and management of a firm share high level of interdependency as team performance always generate more productive outcome than individual performance. It was also gathered from the paper that, healthy relationship between employees and employers enhances overall organisational environment. The study of organisational behaviour in McDonald’s also enabled the researcher to develop strong insight of various leadership styles and various situations to implement the same. It was further ascertained that, an organisation cannot function solely based on one leadership style and leaders and managers need to integrate various leadership approaches to achieve optimum result. Moreover, implementation of wrong style may result in disastrous consequences (Robbins & Judge, 2012). It was gathered from McDonald’s approach to organisational behaviour that, personal development along with organisational development is very important for retaining and motivating employees. Furthermore, the company placed significant emphasis on employee retention and engagement as the source of business success. In employee retention and motivation, leaders were observed to play significant role as managers and leaders are the most immediate person to approach regarding problems of employees. In this context, managers need to practice techniques of various leadership theories such as Managerial Grid Theory to keep employees satisfied and engaged. For instance, the team style of Managerial Grid Theory was observed to be the most appropriate strategy as it exhibits concern for employees as well as for production output (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003). Training and development plays a significant role in organisational development as ascertained from the paper. Training not only enhances skill and knowledge base of employees, but also motivates them to seek more attractive opportunities within the organisation. It was further gathered that, monetary gain is not sufficient for employee motivation, even though it is an important factor therein. Satisfaction of self-esteem and self actualisation needs are of utmost importance in context of motivation. The researcher also learned about importance of team and responsibilities of team members in an organisation. It was also understood from the paper that an employee should not only be efficient but also be effective in terms of their job responsibilities and overall responsibility towards the organisation. The researcher also learned that an organisational culture and structure has an important role in employee management. The researcher gained brief yet useful insight of two contrasting organisational structures, namely, organic and mechanistic structure which are useful in managing activities in different organisations. It was also learned by the researcher that, organic structure provides greater interdependency among employees and job flexibility. It can be ascertained that, enhancement in knowledge base of the researcher as a result of undertaking this paper will present him/her as prospective employee to an employer (Kinicki & Kreitner, 2003). References Bass, B. M. & Bass, R. (2009). The Bass handbook of leadership: Theory, research, and managerial applications. US: Simon and Schuster. Blake, R. R. & Mouton, J. S. (1981). Management by Grid principles or situationalism: Which?. Group & Organization Management, 6(4), 439-455. Financial Post. (2013). Rich corporate culture at McDonald’s is built on collaboration. Retrieved from http://business.financialpost.com/2013/02/04/rich-corporate-culture-at-mcdonalds-is-built-on-collaboration/. Hersey, P., Blanchard, K. H. & Johnson, D. E. (1988). Management of organizational behaviour. New York: Pearson Education. Kinicki, A. & Kreitner, R. 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