Organisational Behaviour: Culture, Power, Politics and Motivation

This article discusses the impact of organisational culture, power and politics on individual and team behaviour and action. It also explores the role of motivational theories and techniques in achieving organisational goals. The article further explains the factors that make a team effective and how organisational behaviour concepts and philosophies can enhance organisational performance and productivity.

Organisational
behaviour

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1. Examine how an organisation’s culture, politics and power affects individual and team
behaviour and action....................................................................................................................3
M1. Examine how the culture, power and political of an organisation influence performance
and behaviour of employees........................................................................................................6
P2. Measure how motivational theories and techniques are helpful in achieving the goals of
the organisation............................................................................................................................6
M2. Measure how motivational theories, concept and models affects the behaviour of the
employees....................................................................................................................................8
D1. Measure the relation among culture, politics, power and motivation that helps the
companies in achieving success...................................................................................................8
TASK – 2 ........................................................................................................................................8
P3. Explain what makes a team effective as opposed to an ineffective team..............................8
M3. Examine the theories for team and group development in order to have an effective team.
....................................................................................................................................................11
P4. Apply concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour within an organizational
context and given business situation..........................................................................................11
M4. Measure how concepts and philosophies affects the behaviour of company employees...12
D2. Evaluate the relevance of team development theories, concepts and philosophies that
influence behaviour in the workplace to enhance organisational performance and productivity.
....................................................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

Books and Journals....................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Organizational behaviour refers to study of psychology of human being, way they use to
interact with others (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2019). Each and every individual working within
organization have different behaviour, it depends on attitude of an individual how they will deal
with problems faced by them. This also helps in understanding and analysing behaviours of
employees through which objectives of organisation could be achieved effectively and quickly.
The organisation selected for this particular project file is Marks & Spencer, it is a public limited
company. The company is dealing in retail industry, was founded in 1884 by Michael Marks and
Thomas Spencer. It's headquarter of the company is in London, England, United kingdom,
serving across the world. This file includes culture, politics and power of an organisation with is
influencing the performance of employees. It also includes motivational theories and techniques
used by company in order to increase its productivity and able to achieve organisational goals.
Along with it way which makes team effective and philosophies behind organisational
behaviour.
TASK 1
P1. Examine how an organisation’s culture, politics and power affects individual and team
behaviour and action.
ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
Organisational culture refers to behaviour and values followed by employees and
management of organisation. It also includes structure, rules, regulations and norms followed by
organisation (Kim and Chang, 2018). The organisational culture also determined performance of
employees. The organisation having good culture make employees feel motivated and it helps in
team building which improves performance of employees. With this employees feels free to
express their thoughts and expressions. Marks & Spencer is fully involved in improving culture
of organisation in order to enhance performance of employees as well as of organisation with it
gaols of organisation could be achieved. The classification of organisational behaviour is
explained with the help of 'Handy culture model'.
Handy Culture Model
Initially, Handy culture model was given by Harrison in 1972, earlier Charles Handy has
read about this model and made it popular in 1996, this is main reason why this model is

considered as Handy Model (Burgess, Adkins and Suniga, 2021). To classy this model, four
different culture are being discussed below. With the help of this model the behaviour of the
employees towards various organisation can be understood.
 Role culture – Role culture is followed in organisation where bureaucratic leadership
style is followed. Marks & Spencer employees and well as management knows individual
roles and responsibilities which they had to follow, their roles are pre-defined.
 Person culture – In this type of organisation employees are experienced and specialised
in their particular field. Sometimes, they are their own leader due to this behaviour of
Marks & Spencer employees they sometimes do not even listens to their management.
 Task culture – The organisational having task culture divide whole work of the
organisation into small tasks. For each and every single task, a group of four to six
employees were framed by Marks & Spencer management in order to perform work
quickly.
 Power culture – The structure of organisation using power culture appears like a web of
spider. Higher level authorities of Marks & Spencer stand at middle of company and low
and middle level of employees are surrounded to them. The employees has right to
express their view and the final decision making right is in hand of top level
management.
The organisational culture adopted by Marks & Spencer is role culture, the reason behind
adopting this culture is that company believes the employees are assets of organisation so equal
rights should be provided to them in all aspects. This is how the culture of organisation influence
performance and behaviour of individual as well as team. The company involves the employees
of each level at time of decision making, which makes the employees feel motivated. With this,
management of company has ability to pre decide the role and responsibilities of employees.
POWER
Power refers to ability of an individual through which they can influence other's
behaviour and attitude and assign work they want (Colwill, 2021). The person having power will
feel motivated towards this work. The power is only delegated to the employees how have the
capacity to handle and do not make misuse of power allotted to them. The power is being further
divided into four categorises which are mentioned below -

 Expert power – Expert power is attained when an individual has deep knowledge,
understanding and experience in the specified field. With this, knowledge employees of
Marks & Spencer got credibility and respect among co- workers.
 Legitimate power – After reaching at the higher position, with rise in position, powers
are also delegated to employees. Here, the power of Marks & Spencer employees are
decided by the role and position undertook by them.
 Reward power – When an individual or employee is able to complete allotted task
successfully, management provide them some sort of benefits such as promotion or
appraisal in order to praise employees. This helps in boosting performance of Marks &
Spencer employees and they are recognised by everyone.
 Coercive power – Most of the leaders suggest not to use this kind of power within the
organisation. In this type of power, Marks & Spencer managers use threatening ways and
punishes the employees for bad performance.
 Referent power – In this power is attainted among the employees with their self-quality.
Having good qualities such as honesty, respect, interpersonal and team building skills
reflects the behaviour of Marks & Spencer employee which makes them powerful among
other co-workers.
Power within the organisation should be used in such a way that it should provide benefit
to the employees as well as to the management. In Marks & Spencer, uses Reward power and
Coercive power at the same time. The employees are rewarded for their better performance as
well as they are punished in form of salary deduction if performance of the employees is poor.
This is how the power of organisation influence performance and behaviour of individual as well
as team.
POLITICS
Politics in an organisation refers to unnecessary involvement of other person, which
affect the performance of the employees (Ferris and et. al., 2018). The employees can be more
productive when they perform work independently as compare to when unnecessary burden is
enforced on them. The politics in the organisation is further classified into four major divisions
which are states below -
 Weeds – When some individual forms an informal group is considered as Weeds politics
(Khan, Khan and Gul, 2019). It can be good and bad both at the same time, good because

the employees of Marks & Spencer can share their ideas more freely and bad because the
employees feels superior and spreads a dominant attitude towards other.
 Rocks – The rocks is the politics performed at an individual level, the Marks & Spencer
employees who have reached at the higher position and title starts doing politics.
 High ground – The politics is done at organisational level, while forming the structure or
style of the organisation some kind of politics were performed in Marks & Spencer.
 Woods – Woods is a informal group formed within Marks & Spencer at organisational
level it involves hidden hypothesis.
Weed politics is taking place within Marks & Spencer. Politics mostly creates a bad
impact over the performance of the employees so in order to remove all these unnecessary stuffs
company is taking proper control over the activities of the employees so that inappropriate could
not take place. This is how organisational politics affects performance and behaviour of
individual as well as team.
M1. Examine how the culture, power and political of an organisation influence
performance and behaviour of employees.
Marks & Spencer is involved in providing a healthy environment in the organisation in
order to increase the productivity of the workforce. They are following role culture because they
believes in providing equal opportunities to the employees. With this they had a well designed
structure through which they are easily able to define the role and responsibilities of each and
every individual. The company is using reward power to boost the performance of employees.
Along with this the company is taking proper action against the political issues occurring within
the company.
P2. Measure how motivational theories and techniques are helpful in achieving the goals of
the organisation.
Motivation is the factor which influence individual to achieve all business as well as
marketing goals (Burlakova and Gubanova, 2019). The ability to perform effective work of the
employees get improved when the employees feels motivated. The motivation is classified into
two parts which are stated below -
 Extrinsic motivation – There are two factors behind the motivation of Marks & Spencer
employees, either they are getting reward for their better performance or they are getting
punishment in the form of salary deduction or fear of losing job.

 Intrinsic motivation – In this type of motivation the employees of Marks & Spencer do
not need any external factor to feel motivated. They put all their efforts in order to
increase their knowledge, skills and personal growth.
CONTENT THEORY
Maslow's need hierarchical theory
Maslow theory was given in 1943, to know the changing satisfaction level of an individual
(Page, 2018). It is divided into five major parts which are mentioned below -
 Basic need – This need is related to fulfilment of basic needs of an individual such as
food, water, cloth and shelter (Stewart, Nodoushani and Stumpf, 2018). Marks & Spencer
provides meal facilities to the employees along with this the basic pay is being provided
to them to fulfil their needs.
 Safety need – Safety needs in about the security and safety of the employees. Marks &
Spencer is providing various insurance plans for the employees in order to fulfil their
safety needs. Along with this at the time of Covid – 19 pandemic proper facilities were
provided to make them feel safe and secure.
 Social need – This need is related to love and belongingness needs, at this point of time
they start giving prioritise to their loved ones. Marks & Spencer always tries to keep
friendly and healthy working culture in order to enhance employees satisfaction.
 Esteem need – In esteem need the employees wants to get feel respected and appreciated
by others. Marks & Spencer gives rewards to employees for their better performance. Self actualisation – At this stage an individual make full use of his skills, knowledge,
talent or potential. Marks & Spencer is giving opportunity to attain higher positions
within the organisation by showcasing their talents.
PROCESS THEORY
Vroom Expectancy theory
According to Vroom Expectancy Theory, motivation of an individual depends upon there
future expectation (Patil, 2020). There are three factor of this theory which are stated below -
 Expectancy – It determines the sum of believes that mangers shows towards the
employees that they are capable enough to complete assigned task (Chopra, 2018). Marks
& Spencer provide proper training to employees through which they are able to achieve
goals of the businesses.

 Valence – By rewarding the employees for their performance they feel motivated to
perform the assigned work with full potential. This is the main reason why Marks &
Spencer award employees working within the organisation.
 Instrumentality – In order to put for efforts towards the work, the employees expects
something in return from higher level authorities. That's why management of Marks &
Spencer provide development opportunities to employees.
M2. Measure how motivational theories, concept and models affects the behaviour of the
employees
The content theory used by Marks & Spencer is Maslow need hierarchical theory, which
helps in determining changing needs of the employees. The company look after fulfilling all the
needs of the employees to enhance there satisfaction. The process theory includes Vroom
expectation theory, which states that employees feels motivated by getting reward for their
performance and sometimes the motivation comes from within.
D1. Measure the relation among culture, politics, power and motivation that helps the
companies in achieving success.
With the helps of motivational theories Marks & Spencer can boost the performance of
the employees. As the employee working with full motivation will put all his efforts in order to
achieve the goals of the organisation. With the culture, power and politics the company can
evaluate the strategies imposed by them upon employees to make by efficient.
TASK – 2
P3. Explain what makes a team effective as opposed to an ineffective team.
With team efforts the goals of an organisation could be achieved more quickly.
Coordination among employees helps in bringing out the best outcome. Along with this the
companies can achieve success when employees of organisation comes together a focus towards
a common goals (Mazzarol and Reboud, 2020). In order to attain the success in the organisation
Marks & Spencer is involved in using a effective team building process, which is mentioned
below -
 Set purpose – It states that the roles and responsibilities of the Marks & Spencer
employees should be clearly defined to them. This will give them a clear understanding
the work they have to perform.

 Team assembling – The team of Marks & Spencer should be divided in such a way that
proper balance is maintained within the groups. The high performer employees and low
performers should be kept in a single group so that they can learn from others and can
coordinate with them properly.
 Deciding goals – After the team is defined the goals of the organisation should also be
decided as well as communicated among all the employees. Marks & Spencer decides it's
goals along with it's employees.
 Set expectation – The senior manger pre decides the output they want from an individual
employees by viewing and measuring their previous performance. The Marks & Spencer
is clear with there goals and deliver to each and every employee at the time of joining.
 Monitor and review – The mangers should have a look towards the performance of
employees whether they are not correct path or not. If they makes any mistake the
mangers provide them reviews and suggestion for improvement. The mangers of Marks
& Spencer monitors and give correct feedback through which employees can enhance
their performance. Rewards – After the successful competition of task and achievement by employees, they
should be rewards for their good performance and set them as an example so that it
motivates other employees to perform in a better manner. Marks & Spencer always
reward employees for their good performance.
Tuckman Model of team development
Team is the group of individual which are involved in achieving the goals of the
organisation (Egolf, 2022). The team includes persons from different region, mindset and culture
which results in bringing out the best output for the company. The employees are able to develop
a strong bonding among each other which makes them feel more comfortable. The employees
are able to work more effectively when they work in team as compare to individual employees.
The theory includes mentioned below points -
 Forming – In this type of team development the employees are highly dependent on the
workforce. The roles and responsibilities of the employees are not clear among each
other. The leaders are the one who manges the team in an effective manner. Marks &
Spencer is having a high qualified leader which helps the employees in getting proper
guidance.

 Storming – The agreement do not take place within this form as they believes in working
as a team. With each other support Marks & Spencer employees are able to achieve the
set target, with this it creates a good working environment.
 Norming – At this stage the team starts getting comfortable and start interacting in
informal manner. With each other efforts they successfully attain the objectives and
Marks & Spencer believes in team work, so they tries to provide a good working
environment for it's employees.
 Performing – This is the stage at which employees of Marks & Spencer are independent
to perform their work. The high level authorities makes them free to perform work, team
member are sufficient for each other to solve the problems.
Difference between effective and ineffective team
Basis Effective team Ineffective team
Decision making power The lower as well as middle
level of employees are
involved at the time of
decision making.
Only higher level of authorities
have right to take
organisational decision.
Distribution of power As per the capabilities of the
employees the management
divide the power among
employees and the work is
allotted equally, no
discrimination is made among
employees on any basis.
The management do not
distribute the power among the
employees equally, this results
in reducing the confidence of
employees.
M3. Examine the theories for team and group development in order to have an effective
team.
In order to have an effective team Marks & Spencer have to follow certain team building
step through which objectives of the organisation could be achieved in an effective manner.
Initially, company should set goals of organisation then allot work to employees as per their
capabilities, finally they should end up with monitoring performance of employees. The theory

applied for team development is Tuckman Model, which states the changing behaviour and
attitude of employees while working with the team.
P4. Apply concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour within an organizational
context and given business situation.
Organisational behaviour helps the organisation in attaining success. The good behaviour
and attitude of employees improves the working environment of the organisation.
Situation – The situation arrived due to Covid pandemic affect for of organisation. Marks &
Spencer is also one of them, to deal with this situation some theories and philosophies are
mentioned below -
Path Goal Theory
In order to decide the correct path on which the organisation has to move so that it's goals
can be achieved Path Goal theory is used (Goffnett, 2020). With the help of this theory the
employees get the idea on which path they had to move so that they can make their contribution
towards the growth of the company. The employees of Marks & Spencer is moving in the
direction which is helping them in fulfilling the goals of the company. The steps of path goal
theory are mentioned below -
 Employee's characteristics – In order to retain employees in organisation for a longer
time it is important to know about the attitude and behaviour of the employees. The
mangers of Marks & Spencer always provide guidance and motivates employees with
this they tries to understand their requirement and problems. In the pandemic situation the
company pays proper attention towards the requirement of the employees.
 Task and environmental characteristic – The important tasks are undertaken by the
mangers, so the management of Marks & Spencer is involved in finding out the root
cause of any problem. Due to pandemic the employees are not able to work in an
effective manner along with this they are facing financial as well as health problems. So,
management identified this problem and put efforts to help the employees. Leadership behaviour style – There are certain style of leaders which helps the
employees in understanding the correct path. Basically there are four types of style which
are mentioned below -

 Directive – In this leadership style the direction is provided by the leader which helps the
employees in finding out solution of every problem. The leaders of Marks & Spencer
helped employees in showing them the correct path at the time of Covid pandemic. Supportive – The leaders are always ready to support the employees at any point of time.
Marks & Spencer support employees financially this motivates the employees to put their
best efforts to achieve the goals of the organisation. Achievement – In this the employees are involved in motivating employees towards
achieving their personal as well as organisational goals. Marks & Spencer applied
different theories of motivation to be successful.
 Participate – With the efforts made by employees and leaders they are able to achieve the
goals of the organisation. Marks & Spencer believes in working with team and this is
how they achieve there goals.
M4. Measure how concepts and philosophies affects the behaviour of company employees.
With applicability of Path Goal Theory, employees of Marks & Spencer are able to
determine path on which they have to move through which goals of the organisation could be
achieved. Characteristic of employees determines his behaviour and attitude towards the
management and co-workers. With this the loopholes present within the organisation is also
being identified on this timely action could be taken.
D2. Evaluate the relevance of team development theories, concepts and philosophies that
influence behaviour in the workplace to enhance organisational performance and
productivity.
The Tuckman Model, is being used by Marks & Spencer in order to evaluate the
behaviour and attitude of employees. As, for achieving the goals of the organisation it is crucial
for the management to understand the factors which affects the performance of employees. For
having a clear understanding on which path employees should move to achieve goals, Path Goal
Theory is used by the management of Marks & Spencer.
CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that, in order to improve the performance of
employees it is crucial to understand the behaviour of workforce. Organisational behaviours
refers to the study of human psychology. With this the impact of power, politics and culture on

the organisation were also discussed. Along with this motivational theories such as Maslow and
Vroom theory used in Marks & Spencer to boost the performance of the employees. Lastly, with
the help of Tuckman Model the behaviour of employees is understood and Path Goal Theory
helped in understanding the path on which the employees have to move.
REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Buchanan, D.A. and Huczynski, A.A., 2019. Organizational behaviour. Pearson UK.
Kim, T. and Chang, J., 2018. Organizational culture and performance: a macro-level longitudinal
study. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.
Burgess, C.T., Adkins, J. and Suniga, N., 2021. Management and Leadership: A Practical
Review of the Organizational Culture. Handbook of Research on Multidisciplinary
Perspectives on Managerial and Leadership Psychology, pp.396-412.
Colwill, D.A., 2021. Conflict, Power, and Organizational Change. Routledge.

Khan, N.A., Khan, A.N. and Gul, S., 2019. Relationship between perception of organizational
politics and organizational citizenship behavior: testing a moderated mediation
model. Asian Business & Management, 18(2), pp.122-141.
Ferris, G.R., Harris, J.N., Russell, Z.A. and Maher, L.P., 2018. Politics in organizations.
Burlakova, I.I. and Gubanova, L.V., 2019. The definitions of learning process (Types of
Motivation and Theories). Language and Text, 6(3), pp.28-34.
Stewart, C., Nodoushani, O. and Stumpf, J., 2018, July. Cultivating employees using Maslow's
hierarchy of needs. In Competition Forum (Vol. 16, No. 2, pp. 67-75). American
Society for Competitiveness.
Page, K., 2018. Psychology for Actors: Theories and Practices for the Acting Process.
Routledge.
Chopra, K., 2018. Vroom’s expectancy theory to motivate academic library users in India using
grounded theory approach. Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication, 68(4/5),
pp.300-322.
Patil, M., 2020. Victor Vroom’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation.
Mazzarol, T. and Reboud, S., 2020. Team Building, Company Leadership and Strategic
Alliances. In Entrepreneurship and Innovation (pp. 355-390). Springer, Singapore.
Egolf, R.S., 2022. Exploration of Tuckman’s Model of Group Development: Perceived
Applications and Prevalence among Adventure Education Practitioners (Doctoral
dissertation, Prescott College).
Goffnett, S.P., 2020. Leadership, goal acceptance, and QMS conformance readiness: exploring
the mediating effects of audit team cohesion. Total Quality Management & Business
Excellence, 31(1-2), pp.43-67.