Organization Behavior Management - Case Study Example

Student Name Tutor Title: Organization Behavior Management Institution Date Organization Behaviour: The Prince of Wales Case Study Introduction There has been a growing need to understand organization behavior, which today is considered one of the vital aspects of corporations and business particularly in the midst of a competitive and fast paced market (O'Creevy et al, 2011). The importance of organizational behavior rests in understanding how individuals, groups, and organizational structures interact and affect one another. In addition, it is also relevant and critical for explaining challenges within an organization. This essay gives a case of Bruce Wallace, the manager of The Prince of Wales theatre, New South Wales. Background information The Prince of Wales theatre is a small theatre located in the Murray Darling region of New South Wales. It was first opened as the Price's in 1884 and was renamed the Prince of Wales in 1886. Then a new theatre designed in 1937 by Robert Cromie. It was extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner The Theatre is currently controlled by Delfont Mackintosh Theatres Ltd. The theatre should not be confused with the former Scala Theatre in Charlotte Street, off Tottenham Court Road that was known as the Prince of Wales Royal Theatre or Prince of Wales's Theatre from 1865 until its demolition in 1903. The theater was associated with a good reputation in local area until Bruce Wallace began to manage the theatre work where everything changed to the worse. As it stands now, Bruce Wallace is an incompetent manager given his management records. To justify this, I will identify specific shortfalls of Mr Wallace in line of the different management roles as explained by different theorist particularly Henry Mintzberg, Robert Katz, and Fayol. Bruce Wallace Shortfalls Henry Mintzberg has presented a wide range of management roles which include figurehead, leader, liaison, monitor disseminator, spokesperson, entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. Robins and his group have further reduced these roles into three groups: interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles (Robbins et al., 2008). Mintzberg’s interpersonal roles are primarily social in nature; meaning that they are roles in which the manger’s main task is to relate to other people in certain ways. For instance, the manager sometimes many serve as a figurehead for the organization. This is majorly associated with ceremonial roles however, in the role of leader, the manager works to hire, train, and motivate employees but the the liaison role consists of relating to others outside the group or organization. Obviously, each of these interpersonal roles involves behavioral processes. In terms of Informational Roles Mintzberg’s talks of fundamental roles to include the monitor who actively seeks information that might be of value to the organization in general or to specific managers. It also entails information dissemination and acting as the organization’s spokesperson. With regard to Decision-making Roles Finally, Mintzberg highlighted four roles: The entrepreneur voluntarily initiates change, such as innovations or new strategies, in the organization. On the other hand, the disturbance handler helps settle disputes between various parties, such as other mangers and their subordinates while as a resource allocator the manager decides who will get what, how resources in the organization will be distributed among various individuals and groups and lastly, the negotiator represents the organization in reaching agreements with other organizations, such as contracts between management and labor unions. Again, behavioral processes are clearly crucial in each of these decisional roles. With regards to the analysis of Bruce Wallace, it appears that he does not poses good interpersonal roles particularly as a leader who is supposed to direct, motivate his subordinates as well as train, advice and influence them. A case in point is that he has failed to influence his subordinate towards a working organization culture. Organization culture according to Kefela (2010) is important as it shapes the way people act and interact and strongly influences how things get done. It encompasses the organization's goals and behavioral norms as well as values. He adds that organizational Values can help employees find meaning and purpose in their work and link their individual efforts to those of the entire company. Kefala (2010) assert that Leadership is critical in codifying and maintaining an organization’s purpose, values. On the other hand, as a leader, one is expected to set the example by living the elements of the organization culture including values, behaviors, measures, and actions. In general, it is a common belief in the business world that a good leadership strategy can significantly improve business results. At the same time, good leaders seem to be rare things these days. According to recent study, it has been found that recruiting and retaining qualified leaders has become crucial challenge facing businesses today and in the future (Goodyear, et al, 2008). The effective leadership facilitates employee’s work satisfaction, and enhances friendly relations between staff and management level and trust seems to be a significant attribute associated with it. However, organizations are feeling the pressure of implementing a leadership strategy quickly and effectively as in the case of Prince of Wales under the management of Bruce Wallace. From his track records, Bruce Wallace concentrated more on innovation as an element of the organization culture however this turned out to be unrealistic thus affected the entire work in the theatre. It is also apparent that at one time Bruce left his position Boondocks for a lucrative Artistic Director’s job in Sydney and the Board reflected on the finds of the auditor’s report for that first year. Again, auditor’s reports revealed that the culture and structure of the theatre were a complete disaster and both needed an extensive overhaul to promise any future at all. This is enough evidence that most of the staff of theater did not trust their general manager Bruce. In fact, they constantly questioned and criticized his leadership. This is a total failure for Bruce’s leadership work. Lack of trust and poor leadership has also been illustrated with respect to human resources policies in which Bruce has demonstrated favoritism by hiring his friend instead of considering technical competencies required. Agarwal (2007) stated that with the adoption of appropriate Human Resource policies, the organization can reap the full business benefits and become successful to the great satisfaction of all its stakeholders. In fact, excellent human resources policies can not only help the enterprises to find and utilize the ability or potentials of employees but also help them get satisfaction from their work. McFarlane (2011) also share the same sentiments with regards to leadership as he sates that the need for leadership actions by those who are in positions to influence and make a difference is critical to individual and organizational success. Accordingly, he believes that Genuine or authentic leaders do not hide behind their positions, fame, privileges, or authority; they lead by examples and recognize that they are still humans and must be personable and compassionate in their actions to continually be effective in ways that attest to their leadership as timeless and compassionate. Unfortunately as I have indicated, this seems no to be the case for Mr. Wallace who has instead appointed the staff for the theatre through his personal networks in the region and also from his friendship circles hence violated the human resource policies. At the end of it, this not only decreased the productivity of the organization but also made employees doubt his management skills. Another aspect worth considering is the decisional role as postulated by Mintzberg. One aspect that is serious lacking is the disturbance handler role by being able to take appropriate actions particularly during crisis, apart from this, is the ability to resolve conflicts as well as the capability to adapt to external changes (Robbin et. al, 2008). Mr Bruce Wallace has failed because he is been unable to proposing and implementing a corrective action plan to deal with the current crisis. Closely related to this is the role of entrepreneur, to be able to initiate new project and even be able to spot opportunities to improve on the affairs of the Prince of Wales. Poor management of Mr. Wallace is further exhibited in terms of the kind of work design he proposed. From his management records, he really invested a lot in terms of organizing the mechanics of the various productions in his first year of work. Unfortunately, while he really emphasized a lot in doing what was expected of his staff, he did not guide them to perform these tasks systematically. Apart from this, asking too much from the staff leads to stress and lack of enthusiasm yet according Shadare and his colleques motivation is one of the policies of managers to increase effectual job management amongst employees in organizations (Shadare et al, 2009). The kind of management under Bruce Wallace is one characterized by a lot of emphasis to Administration, Technical Service and Events, which to some extent allowed involvement of everyone in the running of the theatre nevertheless, it brought a lot of confusion about who was ultimately responsible for the work of the various sections, so the carious systems for running the theatre tended to evolve haphazardly. Again, although this type of management general is likely to bring the power concentrated in the top level, it is more likely to but also will be lower efficiency and increase bureaucracy. On the other hand, Bruce Wallace also lacked managerial roles as illustrated by of Kat’s management skills. Robert L. Katz conducted research in the field of management and discovered the following necessary skills of the managers: technical, human and conceptual (Robbins et al., 2008). With respect to the perspective of Katz on the usage of human skills as being high in all levels of management, Mr. Bruce Wallace seems to lack these human skills that must be demonstrated through conducting training, awareness sessions and interactive workshop in order to familiarize with the working colleagues and subordinates and improve his communication with them. Most of the researchers have commented on the fact that this is the skill that most managers lack. It is also interesting to evaluate Bruce Wallace in terms of Fayol’s theory who basically analyzed the process of management in terms of technical ability that is more dominating on the lower level and middle level of management whereas managerial ability is more important for higher level of management. He also considered that sound management practice is a cohesive doctrine of management, one that retains its utility even in the present theoretical frameworks of organization (Alajloni et al, 2010). There are four basic management functions associated with Fayol which include planning, organizing, leading and controlling which are evident to some extent, if not all, in most managers (Robbins et al., 2008). However, this is not apparent in Bruce Wallace. Consequently, there is no proper usage of the organizing function which Robbins and his colleques defined as assembling and arranging work in order to achieve the main organizational objectives and goals (Robbins et al., 2008). Conclusion The aim of this paper was to give a case for Bruce Wallace, the manager of the Prince of Wales Theatre and evaluate his management skills, discussing whether he is a good manager, incompetent or whether he has strengths and weakness. In conclusion, I must agree with the statement that Bruce Wallace, the manager of Prince of Wales thearter lack most of management skills as illustrated by various theorists like Minttzerber, Katz, and Fayol. The case of Prince of Wales is that characterized by unrealistic organizational culture, impossible to adapt work design and inappropriate human resource policies; that associated with favouritism. This among other things eventually messed the Prince of Wales theatre it is therefore urgent to have a complete change of management in order to assure any future for the organization. From the aforementioned analysis, it imperative to that various theories should be considered so that business and organization can achieve the most appropriate representation of management skills or roles. Although some of these theories were formulated some decades ago, it is clear that they are still very relevant in today’s management. Reference list: Agrawal Kalpana (2007). 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