Leadership Style, Culture and Management Practice: A Case Study of Tesco PLC

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This research paper explores the interplay of leadership style, organizational culture, and management practices within Tesco PLC, a leading multinational grocery retailer. Through a case study analysis, the paper examines how these elements contribute to the company's success and identifies areas for improvement. The research delves into the history of Tesco PLC, its business summary, and the rationale for choosing it as a case study. It then analyzes the company's vision, leadership style, management practices, and organizational culture, highlighting the influence of these factors on business functions. Finally, the paper provides recommendations for enhancing Tesco PLC's leadership, management, and cultural practices to further optimize its performance.
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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
Name of the student:

Name of the university:

Author’s note:

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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
Table of Contents

Introduction
......................................................................................................................................3
LO3: Leadership, management and development of people
...........................................................3
History of the organisation
.......................................................................................................... 3
Business summary
.......................................................................................................................4
Rationale for choice
..................................................................................................................... 4
LO4: Development and appropriate policies for meeting stakeholder interest
...............................5
Vision of the organisation
............................................................................................................5
Leadership style
........................................................................................................................... 5
Management practice
...................................................................................................................6
Organisational culture
..................................................................................................................7
LO5: Design and development of organisations
.............................................................................8
Influence of culture and management strategies on business function
........................................8
Recommendation
......................................................................................................................... 8
Conclusion
....................................................................................................................................... 9
Reference
....................................................................................................................................... 10
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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
Introduction

It can be observed that in order to run a business, it is essential that the organisation should look

upon the various business functions. These functions generally include management style and

practice, culture that prevails in the organisation and leadership style that prevails. Therefore,

with the help of organisation function a business tends to perform which ultimately leads the

organisation to yield income. Based on this, the research shall focus on the aspects of

management styles and practices, leadership styles and organisation culture. The case study of

Tesco PLC shall be analysed for this particular research. Further, recommendation shall be

provided for improvement.

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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
LO3: Leadership, management and development of people

History of the organisation

Tesco PLC is founded by Jack Cohen in the year 1919 who was a Jewish merchant. He started to

sell war surplus from a stall, which is located in the well Street market, Hackney, in the region of

East End of London (Tesco - Supermarkets | Online Groceries, Clubcard & Recipes. 2019). The

brand was first brought into the market during the year 1924. Tesco PLC was named after the

merchant had brought shipment of tea from Thomas Edward Stockwell. The labels were named

after the initial of the suppliers’ name (TES) and the surname (CO). The first store was opened in

1931and it was listed in stock exchange in the year 1947. This marked the expansion of Tesco

PLC and they acquired more than 8000 stores during the year 1950’s and 1960’s. This happened

as the funder set a motto “pile it high and sell it cheap”. During the year 1987, Tesco PLC had

completed the takeover of the Hilards chain of 40 supermarkets, which is worth of 220 million

pound. Tesco PLC introduced various loyalty and bonus cards for the customers. This also

marked the overseas operation in the global business scenario.

Business summary

Tesco PLC is trading as Tesco, which is a multinational grocery and general merchandise retailer

and is headquartered in Garden city, England. Tesco PLC is the third largest retailer in the world

in terms of gross revenue and is the third largest in the world in terms of revenue generation.

This has happed due to their huge number of stores, which are located across the globe. They

have as many as 6800 stores which are being managed by 450,000 employees and helping them

to earn a net income around 1320 million pound. Further, the revenue of Tesco PLC is around 63

million pound (Tesco - Supermarkets | Online Groceries, Clubcard & Recipes. 2019). This is

only possible due to their diversification of the business into certain areas i.e. retail books,

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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
grocery and other things. The main products of Tesco PLC are supermarket, hypermarket, super

store and convenience stores. Tesco PLC is also listed in the stock exchange of London with an

appropriate value around 18 billion pound.

Rationale for choice

Tesco PLC is a well-known retail company in the world with a diversified range of management

that is working hard for the betterment of the organisation. Through the help of analyzing the

various case studies, it will be easy for the researcher to analyse the culture, management styles

and practice and leadership styles that are being followed for the betterment of the company. The

case studies shall provide an in depth knowledge about the various aspects of business functions

that prevails in Tesco PLC. Further, the cultural aspects can be analysed in terms of national and

international retail markets in which Tesco PLC is operating.

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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
LO4: Development and appropriate policies for meeting stakeholder interest

Vision of the organisation

The vision of Tesco PLC is divided in five elements, which shall describe the aspiration of the

company. These elements are being described below:

-
Fulfilling the wants and needs around the world
-
Helping to grow the business with the help of grabbing many opportunities
-
Bringing in modern and innovative ideas
-
Enhancing the skills which could be applied on global platforms
-
Inspiriting and earning trust from the surrounding customers and the employees
Leadership style

Leadership style is an important aspect of any business. This is mainly because of the fact that it

helps in bringing together the group of people so that the goals are achieved easily (
Renko et al.,
2015)
. In Tesco PLC, the company is focusing on the democratic style of leadership and it is
further known as participant style of leadership. This is helping them to make decision where the

employees are also taking place in decision-making process and their voices are being heard too.

This is motivating the employees and is helping the company to serve the needs of the customers

with better and high quality service. Further, the management of Tesco PLC is also appointing

leader as the head of each department so that organisational working process is being handled in

an effective manner. This is making the employees to get clear about their roles and

responsibilities, which is ultimately helping the management of Tesco PLC in implementing

various strategic management decisions. The decisions that are being implemented with the help

of having better channels of communication. Thus with better communication channels Tesco

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PLC can conduct meeting on regular basis and follow ups can be made so that it ensures that the

employees do not drift away from providing quality of services to the customers and operate

effectively (Iqbal, Anwar and Haider, 2015). This leadership style is being imitated by various

leaders of each department who are being appointed by the management of Tesco PLC. For

instance, the duty manager of the each store is leading the employees in making daily business

decisions regarding the operation of the stores. This is the result of the efficient duty managers

always takes a note about the development of the leaders and the employees. Further, they also

ensure that the experts and the associated employees undergo periodic training programs, which

will ensure that the leaders are fully trained and participative in nature.

Management practice

Tesco PLC follows a “steering wheel” strategy as their management practice, which has made

them to become the largest retailer (Slack and Brandon-Jones, 2018). This has also made them to

become “value retailer”. For this Tesco PLC continuously compromises with their vision,

mission, objectives so that their goal of having best management practice can be implemented

easily. This is why they are able to open huge number of stores across the region of the UK.

Each departments of the company is being managed by different offices and department heads.

Thus, it allows the management of Tesco PLC to utilise this concept with the help of setting

some of the finest strategies (Palm, Lilja and Wiklund, 2016). Therefore, it makes the objectives

more time bound, which is the result of the performance appraisal of the employees. It makes

each manager of the various departments to follow the instructions given by the line managers so

that there is a smooth flow of work. For instance, the line managers may ask the managers to

increase the revenue by certain percentage within a defined period (Eilon, 2018). Through this, it

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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
is making Tesco PLC to satisfy the needs of the clients and build a loyal customer base with a

better logistic system.

Organisational culture

Organisation culture may be defined as the values and beliefs that prevail in the organisation. It

leads to ideologies, policies that are being followed from the culture that prevails in the

organisation. One such, theory is the Edgar Schien model of organisation culture. The theory

says that there are three levels that prevail in organisation culture. These are artifacts, values and

assumed values. In Tesco, it can be found that web theory of organisational culture prevails

which helps in analyzing the various levels of organizational culture (Kenyon, Thurston and

Sweet, 2017). It is speaking about the various layers of organisational values, beliefs and actions

that Tesco PLC has undertaken for doing business. Thus, it tends to demonstrate the cultural web

that surrounds Tesco PLC and how it is influencing their business strategy for a stable growth

rate. Further, the web theory of organisational culture is also depicting the usefulness to

understand the aspects of organisational culture for the betterment of the business. Further, the

motto of “pile it high and sale it cheap” can be found in their culture but certain changes have

been made in terms of product offering. They have successfully maintained the culture of selling

products at a cheap and affordable price. However, they have made certain changes in the culture

so that the culture may be flexible for meeting the demands of the customers in the most

effective way. For instance, the culture of Tesco PLC has helped the HR department to

implement a strategy so that it helps the staff members to avail certain opportunity (Cadden et

al., 2016). This leads to arranging some training programs, which would ultimately help in

reducing the labour turnover and make the staff more flexible to changes that may be

implemented due to changes in the business dynamics of the global retail business. Thus, Tesco

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PLC is implementing certain changes in their culture yet the basic thing i.e. their motto remains

the same.

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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
LO5: Design and development of organisations

Influence of culture and management strategies on business function

It can be seen culture has a good impact on the working procedure of Tesco PLC, which might

be changing in nature (Laforet, 2016). This influence is being brought in through the help of

changing organisational culture that Tesco PLC implement to meet the business requirements.

However, this change in organisational culture is not a huge task for Tesco PLC as they are

having multi cultural and diversified labour work force, which are operating in numerous

branches across the region of the UK. This regards that the organisational culture of Tesco PLC

has been formed between the interactions of the employees (Anitha, 2016). The influence can be

found on the current culture as culture of Tesco PLC is matching with the style that the founder

wanted the employees to follow. This influences the hiring style that prevails in Tesco PLC. For

instance, it can be found that the hiring strategy is helping to motivate the staff members so that

the overall labour turnover reduces and makes the employees more flexible to work. For this,

Tesco PLC conducts periodic training programs and incentives so that Tesco PLC can easily

retain the workforce. It also includes paid holiday after every 6 months (Elsmore, 2017).

Recommendation

The recommendations are:

-
The leaders should be passionate and set various goals to execute works in a proper way.
For this, they should invest more time in clarifying the goals to the employees more

often. Benchmarks can be used to achieve a particular goal thus giving the employee a

sense of pride of working in Tesco PLC. This could be the management practices that

Tesco PLC may follow

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-
The leaders should be acting as the motivational factors for the employees. This will
make the employees to develop a sense of belongingness towards the organisation. Thus,

it makes the employees to work harder and focus on achieving the goals. This could be

another leadership style that Tesco PLC may follow

-
Lastly, the sales department should monitor the trends of the markets on a regular basis
so that the sales can be increased and new products might be brought into the market

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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
Conclusion

This research is generally focusing on the various aspects of business functions that drive the

company towards a stable growth and development within a specified period. The research

concludes on the fact that the organisational culture, leadership style and management practice is

very much flat, flexible in nature. This allowing every employee to take part in the decision-

making process and the management is also hearing their advices for making improvements. The

leadership style is also allowing Tesco PLC to focus on the long term strategies so that the future

can be made stronger which is ultimately helping them to lead in the retail market.

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Reference

Anitha, J., 2016. Role of Organisational Culture and Employee Commitment in Employee

Retention.
ASBM Journal of Management, 9(1).
Cadden, T., Millar, K., McKittrick, A., Cao, G. and Humphreys, P., 2016, April. The influence

of socialisation practices on organisational culture and supplier operational performance.

In
British Academy of Management Conference.
Eilon, S., 2018.
Management practice and mispractice. Routledge.
Elsmore, P., 2017.
Organisational Culture: Organisational Change?: Organisational Change?.
Routledge.

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.
Kenyon, J.A., Thurston, A.J. and Sweet, J., 2017. Organisational culture in the volunteer sport

sector: A case study of sailing.

Khoreva, V., Vaiman, V. and Van Zalk, M., 2017. Talent management practice effectiveness:

investigating employee perspective.
Employee Relations, 39(1), pp.19-33.
Laforet, S., 2016. Effects of organisational culture on organisational innovation performance in

family firms.
Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 23(2), pp.379-407.
Palm, K., Lilja, J. and Wiklund, H., 2016. The challenge of integrating innovation and quality

management practice.
Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 27(1-2), pp.34-47.
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LEADERSHIP STYLE, CUTURE AND MANAGEMENT PRACTICE
Renko, M., El Tarabishy, A., Carsrud, A.L. and Brännback, M., 2015. Understanding and

measuring entrepreneurial leadership style.
Journal of Small Business Management, 53(1),
pp.54-74.

Slack, N. and Brandon-Jones, A., 2018.
Operations and process management: principles and
practice for strategic impact
. Pearson UK.
Tesco - Supermarkets | Online Groceries, Clubcard & Recipes. (2019). Retrieved

from
https://www.tesco.com/
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