Organizational Theory and Practices

Running Head: MARKS AND SPENCER 0
Organizational Theory and Practices
Student Details
4/11/2019

Marks and Spencer 1
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Management Aspects and Issues................................................................................................3
Leadership..................................................................................................................................4
Motivation..................................................................................................................................7
Rewards and Benefits...........................................................................................................11
Conclusion................................................................................................................................12
References................................................................................................................................14

Marks and Spencer 2
Introduction
Marks and Spencer which is also known as M&S is a British multinational retail
organization. Headquarter of M&S is located in Westminster, London. M&S sells variety of
products of various categories such as clothing, food products, and home products. M&S was
founded by Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer in 1884. In 2008, it also started selling of
some branded goods such as Kellogg’s Corn Flakes.There are around 979 stores of M&S
located in U.K and 615 of them sells only food products (M&S, 2019). The company started
its expansion in international market in the year 1960 by opening its first store in Kabul,
Afghanistan of Asia. It also expanded its business in Canada in 1973 and managed to develop
47 stores there. Despite of several efforts made by M&S to enhance its image, it was never
able to come out of its reputation of stodgy retailer in Canada. Therefore, company started
closing of unprofitable stores there and by 1999 remaining 38 shops were also being closed
(Koumparoulis & Solomos, 2012). However, its expansion in other countries like France
made huge profits.
Profits of M&S were on peak in 1997/1998, but it is considered that during the tenure of Sir
Richard Greenbury, company profits declined to untenable levels as well as customer’s
loyalty was battered seriously. There were several other issues which caused declination in its
profits like more cost by British suppliers and company did not accept any credit card except
chargecard of its own (Bassous, 2015). These combined factors dropped M&S into a sudden
decline.
This report discusses about various management actions taken by M&S in order to improve
its profits and organizational structure and behaviour. There is also a discussion about role of
leadership and motivational theories to enhance the company’s performance.

Marks and Spencer 3
Management Aspects and Issues
Every issue within an organization whether it is related to family, politics, or societal, affects
the performance of the organization and the way employees behave and work. Human
resource management is a strategic function which is responsible for long term implications
on the organizations due to its practices. Issues of HR are being planned while considering
the future outcomes. Planning for the organization’s activity is the crucial role for managers.
Presently the huge economic pressure on M&S making its management to rethink about its
priorities and they are cutting costs and firing many employees (Yusoff et al., 2013). This has
created a sense of insecurity among employees and they are forced to work for extra hours in
fear of being made terminated. It has created several issues related to
management/organizational behavior such as leading to dissatisfied and demotivated
employees.
Organizational culture followed by M&S is customer driven which means that all the
processes of the organization are customer centric and performed to deliver the best services
to the customers. Customer driven culture at M&S suggests that organization makes real
efforts in its business processes to enhance customer service, recruitment of people and their
training, and market research (Spillane, 2012).
Another issue that M&S is facing is due to increasing immigration into Britain which is
allowing inclusion of various racial and ethnic groups in its culture. Employees that belong to
the ethnic minority groups have to face race and gender discrimination despite of having
several governmental laws and regulations against discrimination. This is one another issue at
M&S which its management has to consider and should take steps to stop racism and sexism
(Antonakis & Day, 2017). An organization’s most important asset is its employees because it
is the commitment, well-being, and development of employees which ensures its success and