Organizational Behavior Assessment for Netflix

This assignment conducts an organizational behavior assessment for Netflix, elaborating on the factors that affect its performance. It discusses power and politics, leadership, decision making, group dynamics, managing conflict, and job satisfaction.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Organizational behaviour
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Introduction- Organizational behavior assessment is an umbrella term that refers to
the systematic process of retrieving effective material about the performance of an
administration and the features that create an impact on the performance (Görög, 2016). With
the aim of gaining a better understanding of the steps that must be taken to enhance their
capability and expertise to perform, businesses can conduct such organizational behavior
assessments. Netflix is a media service provider organization, situated in America, with his
headquarters in California. The organization has recently gained attention for its subscription-
dependent streaming OTT services for television programs and films, produced in-house
(Netflix.com, 2019). This assignment will conduct an organizational behavior assessment for
Netflix, and elaborate on the factors that affect its performance.
Power and Politics- An understanding of existing organizational politics necessities
an evaluation of coalitions, power and bargaining. The organization was founded in Scotts
Valley, California in August 29, 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph. Randolph was
then working as the marketing director for Pure Atria, Hastings' company. An estimated $2.5
million had been invested in cash for the startup and it was launched in the form of DVD
rental store on April 14, 1998. The organization currently has shares that are held by
institutional investors that commonly include Capital Group Companies, BlackRock, The
Vanguard Group, and others. However, the major power struggle for the organization can be
accredited to the wiping out of the share price in 2014 (Voigt, Buliga & Michl, 2017). Netflix
was found to add 3 million subscribers internationally during 2014, which was however less
than its own prediction for the accumulation of roughly 3.7 million new clienteles
(McDuling, 2014). Collaboration with other networks is of prime importance to Netflix
owing to the fact that it intends to stream their content through the subscription, and lack of
license for telecasting such movies and shows might lead to non-existence of the
organization. There exists a coalition between Netflix, Disney and Epix, in relation to an

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annual licensing deal (Bell, 2015). Furthermore, ACT, the largest fiber broadband in India
has come together with Netflix under the ‘Better Together’ enterprise for delivering premium
content shows at high speed to global customers (Justus, 2019).
Leadership- Reed Hastings, the founder of the organization has been successful in
making Netflix one of the most prominent subscription based media provider all across the
globe owing to his leadership skills and creative intelligence. Hastings follows the
transformational leadership style, and his approach towards personal time off, formal
appraisals, travel policies, and recompense packages are far from the conventional. He is
generally known to provide autonomy to his employees, expects them to work as responsible
adults, and has eliminated the need of conducting formal reviews (Techcentral.ie, 2018).
Instead, the employees are provided market-based wage in place of compensation, which
makes the operations of the organization highly successful. This leadership style typically
encompasses behavior where the leaders are able to motivate, encourage and inspire the
employees for creating and innovating changes that will facilitate growth and expansion of
the organization, while shaping the path for success (Bowers et al., 2017). In addition, role of
this leadership style in ensuring success for Netflix can be accredited to the fact that it
inspires the staff to increase their productiveness and also helps in the development of a
strong rapport and bond between the employees and the manager, thereby lowering the rates
of employee turnover. Furthermore, it can also be stated that efforts taken by Hastings to
develop a positive company culture play an important role in fostering reciprocity, by making
the staffs feel indebted to reimburse the corporation by performing well (Baharuden, Isaac &
Ameen, 2019).
Decision making- Every judgment at Netflix, from the program covers, to the color
palette that has been utilized, to tailored drip marketing policies, to forthcoming innovative
content, is determined completely by data comprehensions. In other words, comprehensive

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and all-inclusive decision is at the center at the booming Netflix culture. The corporation may
at present own $20 billion in debt, nonetheless owing to its steady belief in the prominence of
policymaking, they most probably will endure to be efficacious in the long-term. Netflix
generally inspires and encourages the staff for making wise decisions despite the presence of
ambiguity (Pontefract, 2019). The company has also been found to empower all team
members not only at the time of decision making, but also keeps in mind the long term
performance of the corporation. The major concern for the organization is the absence of
necessary skills among employees in making informed and strategic decisions based on facts
and data. Hence, the decision making model at Netflix focuses on the fact that all forms of
data related to success and failure of the business must be easy to discover, accessible, and
easily processed (Sokolowski, 2019). In addition, visualizing the dataset and finding
customer data at a rapid speed enhances performance of the organization. Thus, it can be
stated that Netflix follows the principle of Data driven decision making (DDDM) that
encompasses a procedure of assembling data based on quantifiable objectives, examining
patterns and evidences from these understandings, and exploiting them to advance
approaches and accomplishments that benefit the industry in several domains (Benson &
Magee, 2018).
Group dynamics- According to Forsyth (2018) group dynamics is an umbrella term
that refer to a system of psychological and behavioral processes that occur in or between
social groups. The reason behind success of this organization can be accredited to the fact
that the high performing teams in Netflix allows people on both sides of the team to share
their opinions, and the conversation is not dominated by any particular person. The
interactions are generally energetic with an enhanced face-to-face communication, which in
turn allows the employees to directly connect with one another, and not just with the team
leader. Providing employees the opportunity to go outside the group at times allows inclusion

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of pertinent outside information. Furthermore, individual talents and contributions are
considered less fruitful that group communication patterns (Hale. 2017). The primary finding
is that enhancing teamwork is not the only internal primacy for an organization like Netflix.
In contrast, it places an emphasis on development of bonds with the customers and purveyors,
with the aim of accomplishing a true tactical objective. This is owing to the fact that
negativity and distrust between groups can often disrupt relations. This calls for the need of
conducting in-person human communication, which empowers the team members and helps
in ensuring success of the organization.
Managing conflict- Conflict management refers to the procedure of imposing a
restriction on the negative characteristic of conflict, while concomitantly enhancing the
positive features. It has often been found that Netflix use the accommodating style of conflict
management. This conflict management style is one of unselfishness, detriment, and low
assertiveness. It has often been found that while manifesting this conflict resolution,
employees of an organization display a wiliness towards preserving the association with third
parties and consumers. Hence, adoption of this style makes the organization forsake its
desires, objectives and needs in exchange for the needs of others (Riasi & Asadzadeh, 2015).
Thus, Netflix takes adequate efforts to putting the concerns of the consumers before their
own. In other words, this style allows the organization the advantage of providing the
opportunity to the consumers and third parties to accomplish their objectives. In addition, the
style is generally used under circumstances when there is a wish to maintain peace, or a
matter of concern is considered as minor. Netflix is also anticipated to use this strategy when
the organization realizes that it is at wrong, and displays an interest in learning from the past
mistakes (Labrague & McEnroe–Petitte, 2017).
EE Stress and Job Satisfaction- Time and again it has been established that work
related job satisfaction and stress creates a negative impact on the working group productivity

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and eventually brings about an added cost to the expenditure of an organization (Hoboubi et
al., 2017). Taking into consideration the 124-slide deck published by Netflix on corporate
culture, it can be suggested that according to the goals of the organization, succeeding on a
vision team is about realizing effectiveness, and not working hard. The organization suggests
searching for different vocation and this has resulted in the firing of several employees such
as, McCord, whose performance had been evaluated by Hastings. It has been found that when
an employee is fired, the executives of Netflix send e-mail to several employees in order to
provide an explanation for sudden termination of the individual (Kosoff, 2018). Furthermore,
the former employees of Netflix generally obtain a generous compensation and they usually
get snapped up by another corporation. Thus, data confirms that Netflix workers are, overall,
as content and pleased as people working in different media companies due to some factors
like pay (Spangler, 2018). However, several staffs seem to be disincentivized from taking
efforts to support, or display empathy towards their co-workers who have been terminated,
lest they would be the next target for the organization.
Conclusion- Thus, it can be concluded that Netflix is now the indubitable front-runner
in the entertainment business and has several million customers. However, it maintains a
hyper-competitive and harsh work culture that often generates stress among the employees.
Nonetheless, high compensation, accommodating conflict resolution and transformational
leadership style ensures successful performance of the groups and the organization as a
whole.

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