The Role of Organisation Behavior in the Operations of a Public Service Organisation - Literature review Example

Running Head: Organisational Behaviour Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code and Name: University: Date Submitted: Organisational Behaviour Introduction An organisation is identified and characterized by its leadership style and structure as well as its organisation culture. The combination thus attained uniquely by each organisation, is what is referred to in modern literature, as the organization behavior (Appleby, 1994). According to Appleby (1994), each organisation is patterned differently as regards leadership style and structure. Each organisation has a particular culture (the way things are done). Each organisation has a set or code of belief systems and order of getting things done. That is what results to the organization’s behavior, one uniquely identifiable in each organisation. Employees ranging from the most junior to the most senior, the leadership itself, the stakeholders of that organisation and any other significant public of the organisation (i.e. suppliers, sub-contractors etc) all act in accordance with the patterned organisation behavior (Mullins, 2004). In this light, this paper postulates the thesis that an organisation targets, behaves, performs and achieves what its leadership and culture prioritizes and enforces, since leadership and culture are two interlinked factors that form the template on which everything is done in such an organisation. In other words, Mullins (2004) says that, the success of an organisation in all its operations is prescribed by its leadership and its culture. This brief essay thus examines the role of organisation behavior in the operations of a public service organisation. To achieve this end, the essay assumes a case study approach of an accounting department within an organisation. The organization’s setting is in Saudi Arabia and thus prescribing and or conforming to the contextual cultural and social surroundings of this Middle East nation. The purpose of the essay is to arrive at a viable generalization on the role of organisation leadership and culture in its core operations. The essay begins with a brief on the organisation and the department under scrutiny before embarking on a theoretical definition of the twin concepts of leadership and culture. After the background information is provided, the essay then proceeds to review the available literature on organisation behavior before inspecting the leadership structure and style within the accounting department and how this underpins its performance. Next the essay considers the culture notable in the accounting department as part or as typical of the public organisation at large, and then how this culture is played out in the normal operations of the department. To draw the generalized conclusions based on available literature in support of the above noted roles of leadership and culture in organisations, the paper then explores the link between these two features as played out in the accounting department. This link will be elaborated on before a tenable conclusion is made as appertains to the thesis of the essay elaborated on above. Background Information The organisation under consideration and which helps build a case study is within Saudi Arabia, one among the most lucrative oil-rich nations in the Middle East region. The paper does not base its examination on the entire public service organisation but on as singular department within that organisation so that the enquiry is focused enough to draw generalizations that are applicable to the entire organisation at large. The essay considers the accounting department of this public service organisation, which has a total of 19 permanent employees. Each employee in the department is assigned a unique job description with a set of distinct duties and responsibilities. As the paper examines the department, the focus will be maintained on the role of leadership in this department (in terms of leadership styles and structure) and on its culture (assumed to be the subset of the organisation culture at large). The organisation has several departments, one of which is the Finance department under the leadership of a Finance Director. The Finance Director has two assistants, Deputy Finance Director, Planning and Strategy and Deputy Finance Director, Accounting. The later is the head of the Accounting Department. Under the Accounting Department Head, we have a manager, the Accounting Manager, who is in charge of all accounting responsibilities within the public organisation in its day to day operations such as payrolls, budgeting and resource allocation, taxation, expenditure, overheads etc. the paper is written from the point of view of any of the two Accountants serving under the Accounting Manager. Organisation Behavior For the purposes if this paper, Organizational Behaviours (OB) will refer to the scientific study and or application of scientific knowledge about people and how they act as individuals and as groups within organisation contexts (Robbins, 2008). Every organization's base or foundation rests squarely on several elements, which will hereunder be referred to as elements of organisation behaviour, such as its management's philosophy, vision, values and goals (Robbins, 2008). As Robbins (2008) postulates, this behaviour then drives what is referred to as organizational culture, the way things are done in that organisation. The culture itself is composed of three elements namely, the formal organization (leadership structure), the informal organization (employees group relations) and the social environment (Robbins, 2008), such as the Saudi Arabian context for this paper. The organisation culture is what determines the type and style of leadership in that organisation, the communication channels and modes, the group dynamics and such features of an organization (Mullins, 2004; Robbins, 2008). The employees will always perceive that culture as the essence and or quality of their work life, thus directing their level of motivation at the long run (Mullins, 2004). Their final performance deductively will thus be directly proportion of their individual satisfaction, their personal growth and their development (Mullins, 2004). Conclusively therefore, all these are elements that combine to build a framework that each organization must operate from (Mullins, 2004). Leadership Style and Structure We have four distinct types of organisation behaviors based on their leadership style and structure. These behaviors have otherwise been referred to as models of organisation behavior (Robbins, 2008). The first one is autocratic, a behaviour mapped out by the power structure of the organisation (its leadership style) and by those persons in command and who have the power to control others in that organisation (leadership structure) (Mullins, 2004). In this behaviour the employee are mandated to obey orders from above without questioning or opining about them, else be penalized (Mullins, 2004). As Mullins (2004) notes, the orientation here is of employee obedience to the boss and not respect. The second behaviour is custodial, which is much of a welfare arrangement that practices paternalism such that organization uses its economic recourses to fully cater for the employee’s security needs (Robbins, 2008). According to Mullins (2004), the employees here are thus fully dependent on the organization (a Marxian approach). The third one is supportive, a behavioural approach that uses great leadership as the driving force of the organisation and not autocratic power or money (Mullins, 2004). The leadership helps employee to develop and accomplish their goals in life through the organization (Mullins, 2004). The last approach is collegial, which is a team approach to organisational behaviour (Mullins, 2004). This later approach is depends on the management creating a partnership with their employees (Mullins, 2004). In the accounting department under scrutiny, the leadership style and structure adopted spells out an autocratic leadership style where the employee’s behaviour is mapped out by the power structure of the organisation (its leadership style) and by those persons in command and who have the power to control others in that organisation (leadership structure). The employees behave as mandated by the orders they receive without questioning or opining about them. Little motivation is derived from the leadership besides the obedience to their boss in doing what they are required to do. Very little ever comes out of the initiative of the individual employees, with most doing just as much as is adequate to safeguard their job and as little as they can get by with. A very interesting feature of leadership in this department is that leaders reward obedience and not performance such that an employee who forms a good relationship with the manager, assistant directors or the director, gets numerous bonuses and overtime allowances. The sycophant employees willing to praise and obey their boss in every whim, personal or professional, will always get promotions. The sycophant will always be the one attending the numerous paid conferences around the world as a representative of the government. The leaders use a system of performance appraisal that is hazy in defining performance with such terms of appraisal as ‘responsible, available, likeable, well dressed’ etc being the appraisal criteria. This means that all employees, the lazy as well as the most hard working, always gets the same results during performance appraisal in complete disregards of one’s contribution. If an employee defaults orders from the manager, or is absent from duty for a prolonged period (usually measured as in excess of six working days in a month) the manager gives a verbal warning which if defaulted again leads to a deduction in salary. That means every employee can be absent from work for at most five days in a month and still be safe from the wrath of the boss. But even when the manager or any other senior official in the department decides to fire anyone, the customs and traditions of the Saudi Arabian context always plays the largest part of the decision. For instance, an employee may survive being fired until he or she retires only because she is a window and in need of financial aid, irrespective of poor performance and lack of discipline. In most cases, the manager views his responsibility as that of a protector of his family ensuring that everyone in that family gets a piece of the cake (in respect to the Muslim faith and practice of brotherhood in Islam). Aspects of Organisation Culture Robbins (2008) postulates that an organisation must at all times be considered as a social system with complex sets of human relationships, each person interacting with others in numerous ways. Within any organization, there is a social system that includes all the individuals in it, and then their relationships with and to each other, to the management and also to the outside publics (Robbins, 2008). The behaviour of any individual member of that social system impacts both directly and or indirectly, the behaviour of others ultimately accumulating to the overall organisation behaviour (Robbins, 2008). The social system is also without boundaries since it exchanges (receives and transmits) services, goods, norms, ideas and culture with the environment in which it is placed (Robbins, 2008). Available literature classifies organisation culture as the conventional behaviour that social system encompassing beliefs, norms, customs, ideas, knowledge and even practices of the individuals and groups that form the social system (House, 2006). This culture influences the human behaviour of every individual in the organisation even though that seldom is a product of decision or conscious thought (House, 2006). In all aspects of an organisation’s operations, employees depend on the organisation culture to give them security, stability, understanding, order and the ability to react and respond to any given situation that arises in the performance of their work (Robbins, 2008). In the accounting department under review, the culture is one or reckless abandon and one that is mostly mitigated by a weak enforcing leadership. For instance, if an employee wakes up late in the morning, all he or she has to do is call the manager and tell him that he or she will be late and thus will arrive at office as soon as he or she can. That is deemed as adequate answerability to the demand of punctuality at the workplace. The same happens if an employee has an emergency for which he or she must go out the office. No forms are filled and no permission is requested in person. The employee simply informs, not requests, but informs the manager by a mobile phone. Being a government workplace, the accounting department just as the organisation at large, features some practices that have been inherited for decades from old employees to the new (Ali, 2008). Most of these practices are backward and a hindrance to the proper performance of work. Yet these practices are maintained in the department as the organisation culture. A good example of this is the practice of having breakfast for a whole hour every morning in the cafeteria immediately after reporting to the office. The employees always have their breakfast together in one big dining room for an hour or more after reporting. This means that they waste a lot of time, delaying the transactions of the day before they move out about two hours later for coffee break and an hour later for lunch. The Effects of Leadership and Culture and in the Department In our case study, the accounting department is part of a government office, a public service organisation lacking in the profit making goal. Public service departments in Saudi Arabia have no performance contracts and there is rarely a review of performance among their employees. The leadership of the department is largely earned by seniority over years of service and slightly by qualifications, with the leaders being responsible of avoiding their organisations being linked to a public scandal than in performance. Targets of these departments are framed in imprecise immeasurable terms such as, ‘to serve the public diligently’ or ‘to be accountable to the public’. For as long as the department is not linked to a scandal, then the Finance Director and his assistants or the Accounting Manager keeps off interactions with the staff in a supervisorial capacity. These are the leadership dynamics that sets out the organisation behaviour reminiscent in the accounting department of the government workplace under scrutiny. In government accounting, as long as the money received has been receipted as used, rarely will the department be made to justify the use in most states of the world (Dyson, 2007). Conclusively therefore, leadership of an organisation is what sets the pace and determines the organisation culture adopted in the organisation by all employees and the stakeholders (House, 2006). Lack of answerability and responsible supervision in the government department means that the employees become lazy and disorganised in the performance of their work (House, 2006). Appleby (1994) and Robbins (2008) agree that it is important here to conceive the organizations in the systems approach as a network of interlinked relationships configured in sets of whole persons (individuals), whole groups (such as departments and in this case accounting department), whole organizations and ultimately as whole social systems. According to Appleby (1994), in this approach relationships built to achieve the human, organizational and social objectives are set out by the organisation behaviour. We have several elements of organisation behavior as noted above namely management's philosophy, vision, values and goals all translating to the both leadership and culture (Robbins, 2008). Appleby (1994) believes that this background is what drives the organizational culture. Of special note here is the role played by leadership of an organisation, which is itself a subset of the organisational culture. These two are the single most important facets of organisation behaviour (Appleby, 1994). Conclusion This essay has used a case study of an accounting department within a government organisation. To identify the role of leadership style and structure as well as organisation culture in an organisation. The combination attained by leadership and culture is always unique to each organisation, and this has been elaborated by the essay where a lenient autocratic leadership has helped build a culture of irresponsibility, impunity and laziness in the government department. The organization behavior as Appleby (1994) concurs is patterned differently as regards leadership style and structure where all employees ranging from the most junior to the most senior, the leadership itself, the stakeholders of that organisation and any other significant public act in accordance to that accepted way of doing things. This paper thus correctly postulates that an organisation targets, behaves, performs and achieves what its leadership and culture prioritizes and enforces, since leadership and culture are two interlinked factors that form the template on which everything is done in such an organisation. References Ali, A. (2008). Business and Management Environment in Saudi Arabia. New York: Routledge. Appleby, R. (1994). Modern Business Administration. New York: Prentice Hall. Dyson, J. (2007). Accounting for Non-Accounting Students. New York: Prentice Hall. Mullins, L. (2004). Management and Organisational Behaviour. New York: Prentice Hall. Robbins, S. et al. (2008). Organizational Behavior. London: Pearson Education. House, R. (2006). Culture, leadership, and organizations: the GLOBE study of 62 societies. New York: Global Leadership. Read More