Influence of Culture, Politics and Power on Organizational Behavior: A Case Study of The Body Shop

This report analyzes the influence of culture, politics, and power on individual and team behavior at The Body Shop. It also evaluates content and process theories of motivation and explains the difference between effective and ineffective teams. The report further applies concepts and philosophies of organizational behavior to a given business situation of change management at The Body Shop.

Unit 12 assessment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Analysis of influence of culture, politics and power...................................................................1
Analysis of content and process theories of motivation..............................................................2
Explaining effective and ineffective teams..................................................................................4
Application of concepts and philosophies to given business situation........................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Organization behavior is an important aspect that focuses on building better relationships
by focusing on achievement of organizational as well as people’s objectives. A wide array of
human resource areas are covered in this which include training and development, leadership,
teams, change management employee behavior etc. (McShane and Glinow, 2017).It is important
for the organization in every industry to focus on the organization behavior as it forms the
essence of management. The Body Shop is a British skincare company that also manufactures
cosmetics and perfumes. It currently has a range of 1000 products which are sold in outlets in
morethan 65 countries. The company is known for its animal cruelty free and environmentally
friendly products and processes. The present report analyses the influence of culture and politics
on individual behavior. It evaluates content and process theories of motivation. further, the report
prvids an explanation of difference between effective and ineffective team.
Analysis of influence of culture, politics and power
The culture, politics and power of the Body Shop influence individual and team behavior in
many ways.
Culture
According to Handy’s culture Model, there are four types of cultures:
 Power culture- It focuses on key decision makers of the organization.
 Role culture- This is a formalized culture in which there are clear rules and procedures
set for each job role (Hitt and et.al., 2017).
 Task culture- This is the culture that focuses on specific projects.
 People or person culture- This culture is characterized by presence of considerable
freedom to the staff to act and work in an independent manner.
The culture of Body Shop is people culture which promotes the independence of employees
and their ways of working. The organization makes its commitment and goals clear and the
employees can take required step to achieve them. This type of culture influences the behavior of
individual positively. It provides them ample space for creativity which motivates them to work
better. It not only leads to increase in productivity but also promotes innovation. Therefore, the
performance of the individual improves due to culture. Similarly, the team performance is also
1

positively impacted by the person culture at Body Shop. As it promotes freedom, the team
structures can be flexible depending upon the situation and project deadlines (Luthans,Luthans
and Luthans, 2021). Therefore, the productivity of the overall team increases. Also this culture
favors effective communication which further improves team performance.
Politics
Organizational politics influences the individual behavior in negative manner. This is
because the politics is generally associated with the elements of biasness and favoritism. It also
reduces transparency within the organization. This makes the employees lose trust within the
company and its decisions. Therefore, the individual performance decreases.
Considering the team performance, the politics influences it both positively and negative.
Organizational politics sometimes inculcates the feeling of competition which may make one
team at Body Shop perform well to give competition to the other teams. However, as the
employees begin to distrust the company owing to political agendas, it may impact teamwork
negatively as well because the individual contribution to the team would be reduced.
Power
The power of an organization impacts individual and team performance. At Body Shop
there is matrix organization structure which ensures that the power is not concentrated only to
the higher levels of management. Hence, the staff at various levels of the organization have the
power to take decisions for the company upto a certain limit. This positively influences the
individual performance as they get motivated to work (Gagné, 2018). However, unequal
distribution of power may make the individual and team performance decrease.
Analysis of content and process theories of motivation
Content theories of motivation
Maslow’s Hierarchy theory
This theory comprises of a hierarchy of needs. The most complex need is at the top of the
hierarchy. Once a need is satisfied, an individual moves up the hierarchy to the next need. These
needs are as follows:
 Physiological need
 Safety and security
2

 Belongingness and love
 Self esteem
 Self - actualization
This theory helps in achievement of organizational goals as it directs the management and
leaders to design the work and incentives in a way which fulfill the needs in the hierarchy
(Wagner and Hollenbeck, 2020). This helps the Body Shop in motivating the employs in a steady
manner and retaining them within the organization. The highest need which is self -actualization
can be used for determining the structure of the incentives. These can be design in a way that
fulfill the self- actualization and recognition needs of the employees. In this way, they will be
motivated and will work to increase their productivity thus leading to achievement of
organizational goals.
Herzberg’s two-factor model
According to this theory, there are job factors which can be classified into two categories:
 Hygiene factors: These are the factors which are essential to be resent in an organization
for avoiding demotivation. these are external and are required for preventing
dissatisfaction of employees. Though these factors may not promise positive satisfaction
however, their absence can lead to dissatisfaction. These include physical working
conditions, fringe benefits, company policies etc.
 Motivation factors: These factors are those that yield positive satisfaction. They are
inherent to work and motivate the employees to give superior performance (Weick,
2017). These include recognition, sense of achievement, growth opportunities,
responsibility etc.
From this theory, the Body Shop can identify the aspects that it needs to focus for improving
employee motivation. By focusing on providing more growth opportunities, sense of
achievement to the employees it can encourage them to work better. This will help in effective
achievement of goals of the company.
Process theories of motivation
Vroom’s expectancy theory
3

According to this theory, behavior is a result of conscious choices which are made with
the intent to reduce pain and maximize pleasure. Expectancy, instrumentality and valence are the
three variables that account for the behavior of a person. Expectancy is the belief that increase in
effort will result in enhancement of performance. Instrumentality is the belief that on performing
better, it would result in a valued outcome. Valence is the importance assigned by an individual
to the expected outcome.
From this theory, it can be analyzed that organizations like The Body Shop need to
understand that motivation is perceived differently by employees. Therefore, employees would
work towards the goals when they expect an outcome and assign importance to it (Gelfand and
et.al., 2017). Hence, the organization can use this theory to carefully plan the rewards for the
employees so that they work towards the goals.
Locke and Latham’s Goal Setting Theory
This theory proposes five key principles using which motivating goals can be set by the
organizations. These principles are:
 Clarity
 Challenge
 Acceptance
 Feedback
 Complexity
It can be evaluated that this theory is valuable as it can guide Body Shop in setting goals
which contain all the five principles. In this way, the goals will be motivating and the employees
will be encouraged to work towards them. This will help in achieving the goals.
Explaining effective and ineffective teams
Effective teams Ineffective teams
Conflict resolution Disagreements are evident in the teams
and are dealt with properly without
avoiding them. The members of the
team accept the disagreement and
work towards resolving them.
The team members do not deal with
disagreements effectively. They are
either suppressed by the leaders or are
ignored.
Decision making While making decisions consensus is Decisions are made prematurely
4

obtained from the team members. The
team reaches to a common decision
which is in best interest of the goals of
the team and is reached after general
agreement (Judge and Robbins, 2017).
without examining the situation or the
issue. No consensus is taken from the
team members.
Communication There is effective communication in
these teams. The members
communicate with each other. Proper
procedures for inter team
communication ae adopted to avoid
any miscommunication. Also, timely
communication is emphasized on. The
communication is transparent.
In effective teams, the communication
is generally overlooked. Information is
not shared with the team members and
they felt left out. There is lack of
transparency (Foerster-Metz and et.al.,
2018). This makes the team members
lose trust on their leader and makes the
team ineffective.
Clarity Roles and
responsibility
There is clarity in roles and
responsibilities with the team. The
team members have specific
responsibilities assigned to them. Thus
there is claritywhich prevents
duplication of tasks and saves time.
The roles and responsibilities are not
clear. This leads to confusion among
the team members as they do not get a
clear direction to move forward.
Goals and
objectives
In effective teams, the goals and
objectives are well known and
understood by the team members.
They align their work accordingly
which helps the team in achieving its
goals.
The goals and objectives are not
appropriately communicated to the
team members. Hence, individual
members of the team are not clear
about the goals of the team. This
hampers their productivity.
Leadership The leadership of the team is such that
it operates in an informal and relaxed
manner. Responsibility for team
leadership is shared by the members
(Wibowo, 2017).Democratic
leadership encourages the team
members to put their ideas and
suggestions forward.
Here, the manager dominates the team
and the team members have little
autonomy for managing their work.
They are also not encouraged to share
their ideas as the leader generally
adopts autocratic style and provides
commands.
5

Application of concepts and philosophies to given business situation
The concepts and philosophies of organizational behavior inform and influence behavior
within a business situation at Body Shop. The situation of change management is one where
organization plans to introduce a change in the working practices. This situation of change
management requires application of concepts and philosophies of organizational behavior so that
the behavior of individuals cane influenced.
Leadership styles
Leadership styles encompass the approaches adopted by the leaders to manage teams. It
consists of their way of working and its influence over the team. During the situation where a
change is to be introduced in the working practices at Body Shop, leadership styles inform and
influence the behavior of employees. This is because the situation of change is often
accompanied with staff resistance. Therefore, introduction of change and its assimilation within
the organization is essential (Nicholson and Audia, 2021). Transformational style can be adopted
at Body Shop for managing the change. This style will work to energize the teams and move
towards the vision of the organization. By application of transformational leadership style, the
leaders will use empathy, praise and enthusiasm to drive the teams and encourage individual
employs. This will motivate them understand the reason for change and accept it to achieve the
organizational objectives. Application of this leadership style will make the employees feel
empowered to undertake the change. Hence, leadership style can successfully inform individual
behavior during the period of change at Body Shop.
Organizational culture
Handy’s model can be applied and suitable culture can be adopted at Body Shop to
influence individual behavior for implementing change within the workplace. Organizational
culture is an important concept of organizational behavior which encompasses the way of
working of people and their interaction at the workplace (McShane and Glinow, 2017). It
represents the predefined policies which provide direction to the employees. The concept of
organizational culture informs that the way employees feel and work within the organization is
determined by the type of culture. During the situation of change at Body Shop, the concept of
organization culture informs that implementing appropriate culture would help in eliminating
staff resistance to change and will align them to the future goals of the organization. For
6

managing the situation of change at Body Shop, task oriented culture and people culture will be
supportive. This will provide clarity of goals as it will focus on individual tasks while the person
culture will make them involved at the workplace. Both these will assist in managing the change.
CONCLUSION
From the report it can be concluded that politics, power and culture influence individual
and team performance at Body Shop. Process and content theories of motivation help the Body
Shop to effectively achieve its goals. There are various factors which differentiate effective
teams and ineffective teams. Various concepts and psychologies of Organizational behavior such
as leadership styles and organizational culture inform and influence a business situation at Body
Shop.
7

REFERENCES
Journals and Books
Foerster-Metz, U.S. and et.al., 2018. Digital transformation and its implications on
organizational behavior. Journal of EU Research in Business, 2018(S 3).
Gagné, M., 2018. From strategy to action: transforming organizational goals into organizational
behavior. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20, pp.S83-S104.
Gelfand, M.J. and et.al., 2017. Cross-cultural industrial organizational psychology and
organizational behavior: A hundred-year journey. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(3),
p.514.
Hitt, M.A. and et.al., 2017. Organizational behavior. John Wiley & Sons.
Judge, T.A. and Robbins, S.P., 2017. Essentials of organizational behavior. Pearson Education
(us).
Luthans, F., Luthans, B.C. and Luthans, K.W., 2021. Organizational Behavior: An Evidence-
Based Approach Fourteenth Edition. IAP.
McShane, S. and Glinow, M.A.V., 2017. Organizational behavior. McGraw-Hill Education.
Nicholson, N. and Audia, P.G., 2021. The Blackwell encyclopedia of management.
Organizational behavior. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Wagner, J.A. and Hollenbeck, J.R., 2020. Organizational behavior: Securing competitive
advantage. Routledge.
Weick, K.E., 2017. Perspective construction in organizational behavior. Annual Review of
Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4, pp.1-17.
Wibowo, G., 2017. Comparison of the Models of Organizational Behavior: A Review. Manag
Econ Res J, 2(2016), p.1264.
8