Organisational Behaviour: Influence of Culture, Politics, and Power in Uber

This report explores the influence of culture, politics, and power in Uber and how it affects individual and team performance. It also discusses motivational theories and techniques and provides recommendations for improving motivation within the company.

ORGANISATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR

Table of Contents
Point 1 – INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................3
Point 2 &3 - Influence of Culture, Politics and Power in Organization......................................3
LO2..................................................................................................................................................5
Point4 – Motivational theories and its impact on achievement of goals of team ......................5
Point 5 - Evaluation of other motivational techniques . ..............................................................8
Point 6 - RECOMMENDATION....................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

Point 1 – INTRODUCTION
Organizational behaviour is the analysis of how employees will behave within groups and
organizational settings. This is used for developing effective organizational structure which helps
in improving organizational working. Uber technology, provide vehicles for hire, food delivery,
courier etc. The mission statement of Uber is to bring transportation for everybody and which
can be available everywhere and the vision statement of Uber Serves as transportation which is
smart enough with fewer cars and which can be easily accessible by public. Present report will
address to how culture, power and politics in company influences behaviour of individual and
team performances and will also brief on how various content and process theories influences
the decision and enables team members for effective achievements of team goals.
MAIN BODY
LO1
Point 2 &3 - Influence of Culture, Politics and Power in Organization.
Organizational culture refers to collection of values, practices and expectations that
informs and guide actions of individual and team performance in a company. An organization
with good culture helps in improving productivity of its individual which in turn helps company
to achieve its objectives and goals. Whereas company with bad culture will always find it hard to
achieve its desired goals and objectives. (Erthal,Marques,2018).
It helps in binding a workforce of Uber together and helps in providing right direction to
company. Culture gives the direction to the company on how to effectively achieve its goals.
(Kraśnicka,Głód,Wronka-Pośpiech,2018).
Advantages is it help the company with better working environment which can improve
upon day to day interaction of employees leading in enhanced productivity of team members and
individuals performance to achieve goals of Uber (Wahjudi, 2016). Disadvantage of this is it can
sometime leads to failure when company inculcate new values in the workforce which are not
satisfactory on the part of employees and result in demotivation leading to failure in the
performance of individual as well as team. (Laforet, 2016).
Organizational politics refers to behaviours which are used self by employees to
increase their probability of generating positive outcome in a company. It refers to an informal
way where people of Uber try to exercise influence by means of management of similar

meaning. Positive politics in company are designed to influence others with the objective of
helping company as well as person playing politics. (Butt,2019). It is referred as self serving
interest of individual in Uber which is not considered with its impact on how goals of company
may be influenced. It lowers down the output of employees which eventually affects the
performance of company. (Organizational politics: Curse or blessing,2020).
Advantages of organizational politics is that it help employees who are not performing
good in Uber, gets to motivate through competition as it generates healthy competition which
motivate people who want to succeed.
Disadvantage of organizational politics is it damages trust as when someone develops an
image in minds of fellow employees to be a manipulator which leads to lost of trust among
employees, which is harmful for the success of individual and company too.(Lampaki,
Papadakis, 2018).
Earlier in Uber power and politics affected in a way as the system was not strongly
integrated and there was politics which was not favourable which led to demotivation among the
employees which resulted in lack of performance, and also lead to conflicts among the team. But
now the company implement effective use of power and use favourable politics which lead to
overall growth of individual where they derive job satisfaction.
Organizational power is ability of company structure to utilize all important resources
of company in favour of development of accompany which can be man, machines and other
things. When company exerts power or authority in correct direction it leads to individuals and
team to perform its role more efficiently and effectively. It can be said as ability to influence &
control anything that is of value to its people (Tomlinson, 2018). It can be interpreted from the
scandal that lead to resignation of CEO in the year 2017 which was on grounds of discrimination
and harassment in company where it reported unethical culture and misuse of power by the CEO
which lead adverse effect on performance of company where its operations where highly
affected as result of power being exercised in unfavourable manner. It is said to be getting one's
way or an ability to exercise one's will over others and can be said as an ability of individual or
group to make their own views count to achieve goals of Uber (Cacciolatti, Lee, 2016).
Effective power distribution and favourable politics influences the culture of Uber in
positive way as it helps in deriving culture where employees love to work because of pleasant
working environment which derives the best out of one to perform. It helps Uber in deriving the

culture where all individuals are patient, courteous have fun when they work and solves the
problem as team which helps to achieve the goals of the company.
Advantages of implementing power in Uber is it helps its managers to perform their
leadership responsibilities in a way that its subordinates perform their job role to achieve desired
goals.
`Disadvantage of emphasizing power in company leads to distance between management
and employees that badly affects performance of the company. It also leads to unethical culture
where managers of the company are free to take action that are illegal and leads to exploitation
of subordinates.
Globalization helped Uber in maintaining culture transparency in its operation as
company accounts to Diversity of employees from different countries which help in bringing
new values, belief to achieve the goals of the company. It helped in bringing ideas for the
company to get an edge over the competition to win where company implement effective
strategies. Technology has influenced Uber to succeed and grow as by use of technology they
capture huge customer base and get to know what are the actual things' customer demand and
deliver accordingly to satisfy the needs.
LO2
Point4 – Motivational theories and its impact on achievement of goals of team
Content theory
Content theory of motivation defines what are things that motivates employees of
company. It defines system of needs of company that helps in motivating actions of employees at
workplace. Uber adopts
Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory
This theory has five model of human needs and Uber also believes that in order for
motivation to arise at the next stage, each stage must be satisfied within the individual
themselves. The five needs are as follows:
Physiological needs : These are the lowest level needs and are the biological requirement
for human survival like food, shelter, clothing, health etc. which are essential and serves as basic
needs to survive, Uber also identified these needs and provide their employees with same.

Safety needs : These are the second level needs and are related to needs of individual to
feel secure and safe. (Hopper, 2019). Uber also protects their employees from violent conditions
or health threats and sickness. They make their drivers believe that they are safe on the roads and
can trust Uber's vehicles and equipment.
Belonging needs : The third level needs is love or belongingness needs as human are
emotional enough who understand need of building relationships Uber realized the need for
interpersonal relationships that motivates employees behaviour and allows their employees to
interact and make friends etc.
Esteem needs : This is the fourth level need which is related with individual status,
recognition and gaining self respect. It includes individual dignity, level of confidence, prestige,
fame and others which serves as respect which individual can derive from other.
Self – Actualization needs – It relates to individual realisation to its full potential, self-
fulfilment, growth etc. Uber believes desires of individual to become everything by
accomplishing things which comes in its way. Uber measures this need through the concept of
peak experiences (McLeod, 2020).
Process theory
These theories define the system that relates to ideas which states that how Uber has developed
and grown. These are also called variance theories that explains how an entity changes and
develops.
Mintzberg theory of motivation
Henri Mintzberg is a management expert who believed that skills are something which
are learnt by gaining experience and not by classroom training.
Interpersonal role is derived from managerial position at Uber which defines status and
authority of individual.
 Figurehead – this part is associated with handling legal, social & other aspects which is
highly professional in nature
 Leader – The leader of Uber builds the relationship with the employees and
communicates, motivates and coached them.
 Liason – Liason of Uber are concerned with building and networking relationship from
outside the company and getting information as required

Informational role involves receiving, collecting and disseminating information and it consists
of:
 Monitor – It relates to get information from and outside the company to assist how
operations are run or any further improvements need to be made
 Disseminator – Disseminator of Uber transmition of information to company that is
obtained from externally.
 Spokesperson – In case of Uber who transmits information about company to outsider is
a spokesperson. He serves in the interest of stakeholders to keep updated about business
operation
Decision making role involves
 Entrepreneur – In Uber the entrepreneur acts as designers, initiators who encourages for
innovation and change. They implement and create new ideas.
 Disturbance handler – In case of Uber it takes measure that serves in interest of company
to handle contingencies. They handle all the external or internal or roadblocks.
 Resource allocator – Resource allocator of Uber helps in distributing resources which
can be in terms of equipments, human resource and others (Nurhaeni. and Kurniawan,
2017).
 Negotiator – Uber's negotiator represents in negotiation that are major parts which affects
areas of managerial responsibility which is integral on all above parts.
All these roles performed by various people in Uber helps to improve their effectiveness as
person performing interpersonal role maintains healthy relationship with people within the
organization and outside too.
Mayo theory of motivation
It states employees motivation far more by factors that are relational such as attention
and positive relational factors rather than pay or environmental factors. It laid down matrix
which defines productivity in different situations.
 Groups with low cohesiveness and low norms : These are groups in company with simply
less productivity
 Groups with high cohesiveness and low norms : These groups have adverse impact on
productivity. It encourages negative behaviours.

 Group with high norms but low cohesiveness : It impacts productivity in limited manner
as individuals are more focused towards their own goals rather than company as whole
(Muldoon. and et.al., 2019).
 Group with high norms and high cohesiveness : It has the greatest positive impact on
productivity, as each other in team support each other and committed personally to their
success and also to their team's success.
Point 5 - Evaluation of other motivational techniques .
Herzberg's two factor theory – It argues that there are two factors that an organization can
take into consideration to gain motivation in workplace which consist of factors like
achievement, recognition, growth etc. and hygiene factors like relationship, security,
remuneration etc. (Alshmemri,Shahwan-Akl. and Maude, 2017).
The main difference between above two theory is that the basis of former is human needs and
their satisfaction while that of the later is rewards and recognition.
Vroom expectancy theory – This theory states that efforts and performance of employees
are directly linked with motivation they derive. Three variables are used to account this which
are expectancy, instrumentality and valence (Patil, 2020).
The main difference Mintzberg theory and Vroom's expectancy theory is that Minzberg divided
the role of employees into interpersonal, informational and decision-making while vroom
separates employees efforts, performance and outcome. Uber according to the requirement
divides the role and sometimes separates their performance, efforts and outcome to improve the
effectiveness in terms within Uber.
Equity theory – This theory states that people are motivated if they are treated equitably
and receive a fair return for their efforts.
The main difference between Mayo theory and equity theory is that Mayo proposes that
employees are motivated by the attention and positive relational factors rather than pay or
environmental factors while Adam states that people are motivated by equal pay in comparison
to the efforts.
Point 6 - RECOMMENDATION
 As the employees of Uber get motivated this will enhance their level of efficiency and
output as motivation helps in fulfilling gaps between efficiency of individual to produce
outputs.

 Motivation causes goal-directed behaviour if employees within Uber are not properly
motivated then no useful purpose can be served in planning, organizing and staffing
functions.
 Motivated employees help in stability of workforce and reduced turnover as motivated
employees will have a sense of loyalty and will remain with the organization which will
lead to reduction in hiring costs and training costs.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that Uber follows a strong and flexible organizational culture. Both
good and bad politics prevail in the organization and follows combination of power in their
organization. Various motivational theories and techniques are evaluated that can help improve
the effectiveness in terms within Uber. And lastly improved level of motivated within the
company helps to achieve its organization goals like enhancement of efficiency and output,

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