Context of Business - Tesco Assignment

CONTEXT OF BUSINESS

Abstract
This study summarises leadership style, management practices as well as well
organisational culture that influences performance and effectiveness of business operations.
Leaders and managers play an important role in developing an effective and healthy working
environment within an organisation. The present study focuses on a well-known retail
organisation – Tesco, the managers or leaders uses democratic leadership style also known as
participative leadership style. It assists in motivating the employees leading towards the
development of healthy working environment. The report also identifies alternative options
available for the chosen organisation in context to leadership and management. It is suggested
that Tesco can imply transformational leadership style for improving decision making process by
using unique and innovative ideas of the each and every employee.

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
1. Brief history and summary of the business ............................................................................3
2. Vision, leadership style, management practices and organisational culture ..........................4
3. Impact of the culture and management style on the business functions and strategies..........6
4. Recommendation to make improvement in leadership and management practice. ...............7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Business context refer to the background, environment, situation of the business
organisation, settings and framework of the business, and circumstances under which employees
perform. All these can be said to the context of the business. This study of the business context is
all based on the Tesco organisation, which is the trending British multinational retailer of the
United Kingdom. It is the third largest retailer in the United Kingdom and ninth largest retailer in
the world. This report will include the detailed information of the chosen organisation which is
Tesco. Furthermore, this will include the vision, leadership style, management practices and the
organisational culture of the organisation by using different theories. Through this file influence
and impact of the organisational culture and management styles will also being explained. And
lastly recommendation will be given in order to improve the leadership styles, management
practices and various strategies.
MAIN BODY
1. Brief history and summary of the business
Tesco is the British multinational and trending retailer of the United Kingdom. The
headquarter of the Tesco is in Welwyn Garden city, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom.
On the basis of its gross revenue, it is the third largest retailer in the United Kingdom and the
ninth largest retail operator in the world measured by it revenue. Tesco is the public limited
company, which was founded in 1919 by the Jack Cohen, whose motto was “Pile it high and sell
it cheap.”
It serves its services to the number of locations such as, United Kingdom, Ireland, India,
Malaysia, Thailand, Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland with having 6,569 shops by the 2018,
around the the world. Tesco has 460,000 number of employees by 2017, who help the company
to accomplish all its task and objective by giving the best services to their customers and other
stakeholders (Kew and Stredwick, 2016). It serves different product like supermarket,
hypermarket, superstores and convenience stores in different countries and gain the maximum
amount of the profit revenue.
By the end of the 2018, revenue of the Tesco was £57,491 million. Its operating cost was
£1,644 million by the end of the 2018 and the net income of the Tesco was at the end of the 2018
was £1,208 million. Tesco has different subsidiaries as well namely, Tesco stores Ltd. Tesco

bank, Tesco mobile, Tesco Ireland, Tesco family dining Ltd, Booker group, jack's and many
more. These also help to generate maximum amount of the profit by providing different facilities
to the customers.
Tesco is listed on the London stock exchange. It had market capitalization of having
approx. £18.1 billion as of 22 April 2015. this was the 28th largest company which was listing on
the London Stock exchange. As it serves their services in seven countries but Tesco is the market
leader of groceries in the United Kingdom, where the market share of the Tesco is 28.4%.
2. Vision, leadership style, management practices and organisational culture
Vision
It is the description of an organisation that what it would like to do or want to achieve and
accomplish. It can be midterm and long term vision of the future. It is the clear guidance of
choosing current and for the future course of action of the organisation.
As according to the vom Brocke, Zelt and Schmiedel, (2016) vision of the Tesco consist
five elements. These are:
needed and wanted around the world. Want to grow business, with full of opportunities, modern,
innovative and full of ideas, applying the skills globally and last is inspiring, earning trust and
loyalty from the customers, colleagues and communities.
Leadership style
Leadership style is the approach of providing direction, implementation of the plan and
motivating the people in the organisation. There are number of leadership style such as
Autocratic: it is the one dimensional leadership style in which all the power and authority are on
the single hand like leader, manager or the owner of the company and who is the only who rule
the organisation (Vision, values and business strategies
A Tesco case study, 2019).
Democratic: This is the participative style of the leadership. In which leaders involve their team
member in every decision making process.
Strategic: It is simply based on the leader's ability to create team, that are well trained to deal
with the threats an unforeseen risk of the organisation.
Transformational: This style of the leadership focus on the high goals, that they have to
complete every week or in month.

As according to the Souto, (2015) Tesco apply the democratic leadership style in their
organisation, which also known as the participative leadership style. As this is the most effective
leadership style which help the Tesco and enable their leaders to encourage their employees in
the decision making and in other activity which help to know the views of the every team
members and can gain effective, creative and innovative ideas for making strategies.
Management Practice
Management practice of the Tesco is based on the on going professional development of
the employees. This on going professional development help the Tesco to increase the
productivity of the employees by providing the development program. This help to employees to
understanding their job role effectively, and then they can work upon their weak point and can
improve them to give the best services to their customers. This help to increase the profit revenue
by satisfying the need of the customers and giving them best after sells services to them.
Iqbal, Anwar and Haider, (2015) stated that this is the very important and necessary to
providing the on going professional training and development to the employees of the Tesco. As
it operate in number of location worldwide, this generate the reason to understand all the
customers need, countries situation and culture so that they can effectively understand all the
need and cultural demand and fulfil it, to increase the profit in all region and country.
Organisational culture
Organisational culture refers to the set of believes, assumption values and the way the the
employees of the organisation interact with each other and upper level management.
For the effective organisational culture, Handy's cultural model is to be applied which
consist different kind of the culture. Such as
Power – This is the culture where, power and authority is on the single hand like owner. And
according to their rules and regulation employees have to be operate and perform.
Role – Role culture is that where, employees of the organisation have their delegated roles and
responsibilities according to their qualification and interest (Handy's Model of Organisational
Culture, 2018).
Task – This culture of the organisation is based the task, and formed to achieve the target or to
solve the any kind of the problem.
Person - This is the culture where, employees of the organisation are more important than their
organisation.

Tesco follows the Role and Task culture. As according to the role culture employees of
the Tesco has the delegated roles and responsibilities as according to their education
qualification and interest, this help the Tesco that employees willingly accept the roles and task
and challenges and effectively complete it. And with having Task culture, all the target and like
production and selling is being achieved on time (Glinkowska and Kaczmarek, 2015).
3. Impact of the culture and management style on the business functions and strategies
Organisational culture and management style of the Tesco affect the strategies and the
decision making process of the Tesco as whole. As the role and task culture applied by the Tesco
and the ongoing professional development of the employees is being applied as the management
style of the Tesco. On the basis of this Management and leaders make strategies and take
decisions.
Organisational culture:
As the Tesco apply the Role and task culture in their organisation, these both culture
affect the strategies and the decision making of the Tesco. As according to the role culture,
organisation have to set the different roles and responsibilities of the employees to give them and
allot them on the basis of their educational background, experience and the qualification. And
according to these things they have to plan the training module so that they can easily adopt the
skills and job role and vision and target of the company (De Hoogh, Greer and Den Hartog,
2015). For example for the marketing, Tesco only hire those employee who have the marketing
knowledge and have the degree on the marketing, if they put their employee in different
department, the will affect the whole culture of the Tesco, that they can not perform the task on
the time and the overall target will not be achieved and the conflict condition may be occur. And
influence and affect negatively the strategies and decision of the Tesco. If employees have the
work and job role according to their interest so it create the positive environment in the
organisation.
Management Style:
As the Tesco management practice followed by the ongoing professional development of
the employees. This affect the business and its strategies and also the decision making process of
the management of the Tesco. As by providing the best and on going professional development
management have to make strategies as according to the qualification, educational background
and experience of the employees, so this affect they decision of the Tesco as they have to make

different strategies and have to take different decisions according to the employees. This also
affect if the management style applied by the Tesco is no being smoothly running. This affect the
productivity of the employees, production of the Tesco will be reduced and profit margin as well
(Sreih, Lussier and Sonfield, 2019). For this Tesco have to make new decisions and strategies in
order to increase the production and productivity of the employees so that they can give the best
services to their customers in different remote location. And can gain the maximum profit
revenue in different location it will help the Tesco increase its brand value and help to maintain
its position in the retail market. In this way the management style affect the decision and
strategies of the Tesco.
4. Recommendation to make improvement in leadership and management practice.
From the above study, it analysed that Tesco follows the democratic leadership style, so
instead of this Tesco can apply the transformational leadership style ion their organisation. This
can help the Tesco to adopt different, creative and innovative ideas in the organisation to solve
the problem and also to the complete the task. As according to this transformational style, leaders
initiate the change in the organisation, so that this leadership style can help the Tesco to improve
its organisational culture, and with the help of this Tesco can make improvement in their
strategies and decision making process with new and innovative way (Sreih, Lussier and
Sonfield, 2019).
In order to that, company should follow different strategies for improving culture and
implementation of strategies within the firm. Strategies involves theories, techniques and
methods of management, leadership and culture for accomplishing the vision and mission of
Tesco. As well, company should also follow the person culture which is also called as market
culture. To increase the management practice and function, Tesco can apply the different training
and development program so that they can effectively increase the production and productivity
more and more and this will help the the Tesco to smooth running of the operation and the
organisation and get help to manage all the activities. So that they will increase its market size,
and expand their business in other countries as well (Asrar-ul-Haq and Kuchinke, 2016).
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been concluded that Tesco is the third largest retail company
in the UK and also the king of the retail merchandise in the United Kingdom. This also been

concluded that Tesco follows the democratic leadership style in their organisation that help to
equal participation in all the activities of the organisation. And this follow the role and task
culture in their organisation that help to increase the productivity of the employees and help them
to accomplish the task on time. Ongoing professional development, management practice applied
by the Tesco this help to increase the productivity and efficiency of the employees of the Tesco.
It also been analysed that these organisational culture and management practice affect the
strategies and decision making process of the Tesco.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Asrar-ul-Haq, M. and Kuchinke, K.P., 2016. Impact of leadership styles on employees’ attitude
towards their leader and performance: Empirical evidence from Pakistani banks. Future
Business Journal. 2(1). pp.54-64.
Ben-Zur, H., 2019. Transactional Model of Stress and Coping.
De Hoogh, A.H., Greer, L.L. and Den Hartog, D.N., 2015. Diabolical dictators or capable
commanders? An investigation of the differential effects of autocratic leadership on team
performance. The Leadership Quarterly. 26(5). pp.687-701.
Glinkowska, B. and Kaczmarek, B., 2015. Classical and modern concepts of corporate
governance (Stewardship Theory and Agency Theory). Management. 19(2). pp.84-92.
Iqbal, N., Anwar, S. and Haider, N., 2015. Effect of leadership style on employee
performance. Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review. 5(5). pp.1-6.
Kew, J. and Stredwick, J., 2016. Human Resource Management in a business context. Kogan
Page Publishers.
Souto, J.E., 2015. Business model innovation and business concept innovation as the context of
incremental innovation and radical innovation. Tourism Management. 51. pp.142-155.
Sreih, J.F., Lussier, R.N. and Sonfield, M.C., 2019. Differences in management styles, levels of
profitability, and performance across generations, and the development of the Family
Business Success Model. Journal of Organizational Change Management. 32(1). pp.32-
50.
vom Brocke, J., Zelt, S. and Schmiedel, T., 2016. On the role of context in business process
management. International Journal of Information Management. 36(3). pp.486-495.
Online
Vision, values and business strategies
A Tesco case study.2019.[Online].Available
through<http://businesscasestudies.co.uk/tesco/vision-values-and-business-strategies/
vision-and-mission.html>
Handy's Model of Organisational Culture.2018.[Online].Available
through<https://www.tutor2u.net/business/reference/models-of-organisational-culture-
handy>