Organisational Behaviour: Impact of Culture, Politics, Power, Motivation Techniques and Theories

This report discusses the impact of culture, politics, power, motivation techniques and theories on organisational behaviour. It focuses on Waitrose as a case study and provides insights on how these factors affect employee performance and productivity. The report covers Maslow's hierarchical theory of motivation, Skinner's reinforcement theory of motivation, and Handy's model of organisational culture. It also provides techniques to motivate employees such as asking for employee input and offering personal enrichment programs.

Organisational
Behaviour

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
P1. Impact of culture, politics and power at workplace..............................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
P2. Meaning, techniques and theories of motivation..................................................................6
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
P3. An effective team is different from an ineffective team.......................................................9
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
P4. Concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour.....................................................11
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14
Books and Journals:..................................................................................................................14
Online:.......................................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Organisational behaviour is an important concept within the workplace. It relates with the
academic study of how employees interact and communicate within the teams or organisation as
a whole. The concepts and principles of the organisational behaviour study deals in such
attempts which aims to operate business in a more effective way. In the organisational setting,
this study helps managers to develop accurate predictions about the individual behaviour, but it
is equally important for the workers as it aids in clarifying their personal aspirations and
acknowledge the factors that are influencing them. For this report, the company which is
considered is Waitrose (Al-Dhaafri and Alosani, 2021). It is a British supermarket brand,
announced in the year 1904 as Waite, Rose and Taylor which is abbreviated to Waitrose. The
head offices of such supermarket brand are situated in Bracknell and Victoria, United Kingdom.
The organisation has 332 outlets across the UK. Also, it has world-wide business operations,
covering 52 countries. In an organization, the individual and team performance can be influenced
by various factors such as culture, politics, along with power. It will also evaluate the content
and process motivation theories, along with motivational techniques in the business context.
Later, it will also show how an effective is different from ineffective team. In the end, there will
be some philosophies and concepts of organisational behaviour within the business context.
TASK 1
P1. Impact of culture, politics and power at workplace.
The workplace culture can be understood as a system of shared valued, beliefs, along with
attitude which is built within a company and regulates employees’ behaviour. It relates as the
fundamental values, assumptions and ways of interaction which contribute to incorporated social
and psychological environment of an organisation.
Handy' model of organisational culture: Power culture: In this type of work culture, only certain people in the company have
power to make rules and decisions. These are generally top level authorities in the
organisation and where subordinates are bounded to adhere all the rules and instructions
of high level authorities (Al-Henzab, Tarhini and Obeidat, 2018). In case of Waitrose,
people at managerial position are tend to have power to take right decision for the welfare
of employees that makes them positive towards the company.

 Task culture: In this type of culture, task is given on the basis of employees’ ability,
knowledge and skills. In chosen company, teams are developed as per the employee’s
qualification and address all the issues and attain goals of organisation. Person culture: In personal culture, employees are allowed to take decisions for the
goodness and benefit of their own in the workplace. It helps in increasing individual
performance as they have a right to make decisions.
 Role culture: In role culture, the roles and responsibilities of each employee is defined as
per their interest and qualification (Bratton, 2020). It helps in increasing overall
productivity of the business as all the members understand their work and responsibility.
In chosen organisation, the role culture is adopted in the business as it supports in creating
friendly environment for the employees while resolving conflicts and issues arises between
employers and employees as all the employee work self-reliantly to contribute in
accomplishment of organisational goals. Also, the best performance is appreciated and rewarded
by prizes and promotion.
Power and politics:
Power in the organisation can be defined as a capacity or controlling behaviour of an
individual that affect employees’ behaviour within the workplace. Positive power defines when
the higher authorities utilise their power over employees without any kind of biasness, while,
negative power defined as the high level authority sometimes promote favouritism as well as
promote only their favourite employees.
Politics can be defined as a variety of activities related with the exploitation of influence
strategies to increase individual or organisational interest. Politics in business is understood as
the use of power by management for bringing changes at work. It helps in attaining benefits that
cannot be a complete without having controlling behaviour. Positive impact of politics: If the high level authorities do not play politics and provide
rewards to workers on the basis of prayer performance will create motivation among
people and also increase their satisfaction level (Corvellec, 2018). Through such politics,
employees will perform better and will be loyal towards the Waitrose. Negative impact of politics: If the top level authority promote favouritism, then, it creates
negative influence on the employees and they will not like to work in the company for

longer period. It will influence the employees’ performance and will make them negative
towards the Waitrose.
Influence of power: If the higher authorities in chosen company utilise their power
negatively to transfer, demote or deny raises to their individual, it may develop grievances and
conflicts among employees and between group members. Therefore, it will influence the
willingness and attitude to do work as the employee.
French and Raven's forms of power:
French and Raven have identified that there were six types of power that could be
exploited to influence other. In case of Waitrose, these are explained below: Coercive power: This is the power which is used to force someone to do a particular task
or activity against their will. Coercion can only ever attain abidance in others, but it can
never lead them to increase a minimal delivery level (Ekienabor, 2018). Reward power: It encompasses rewards and benefits to the individual for doing
something. It makes employees to work to the point at which they can earn reward for the
attainments. Legitimate power: It is a power which derives from a set of formal relationships or
position. People who use legitimate power will make others to do work due to the rules of
society and organisation. Expert power: This power is generated due to the enhanced skills, experience and
competencies which helps in gaining trust in expert person. This type of power used in
the organisation helps in attaining better results. Referent power: It is derived from the person detected worth, value and attractiveness.
This is highly personal form power, together with influenced by position.
 Informational power: This power is relied on the ability to control the movement of
information which is required to complete the tasks successfully. It is often derived from
having access to private data that other do not know.
In context of Waitrose, the reward power has been used in the organisation in order to
give positive influence on the employees and gain favourable outcomes for the organisation.
These rewards can be personal and formal at the same time (Farrukh and et.al., 2020). Leaders
give “thank you” as an appreciation for the hard work and goals attainments.

TASK 2
P2. Meaning, techniques and theories of motivation.
Motivation is used as an important factor that helps in encouraging individuals to
facilitate their best output for the growth of business, together with its goal accomplishment. A
strong and positive motivation will allow an increased productivity of employees, but a negative
motivation will decrease their performance (Gong and et.al., 2021). Motivation represents as a
key element in managing personnel. In case of Waitrose, there are two types of motivation which
are mentioned below: Intrinsic motivation: It is one that comes from inside the individual, reliant on the
enjoyment of any task as well as their personal requirements. In chosen company, the
employees can feel motivated when they work in team as they feel it enjoyable to
collaborate and communicate with other people. Extrinsic motivation: It defines as the type of motivation wherein the motivation comes
from the external factors as it pushes them to attain or realise something with the
objective of earning a prize, reward or appreciation or even to avoid negative outcomes.
For example, employees in the chosen organisation, helps other co-workers in order to
gain praise from their leaders or superiors.
Content theory of motivation:
Maslow's hierarchical theory of motivation: This is a content theory of motivation
which defines that five categories human necessities dictate the behaviour of individual. Those
needs are discussed underneath in the company's context: Physiological needs: These needs are the basic needs for human survival such as food,
water, warmth, shelter, sleep, fresh air and many more (Hasani and O'Reilly, 2020). In
case of Waitrose, the company need to provide fresh air and regulate temperature as per
the need of climate, it can also provide nutritional food and drinks to the employees. Security and safety needs: Once the physiological needs are satisfied and fulfilled, the
needs of safety and security become prominent. These needs are freedom from fear, law
and order, employment social welfare, social stability and many more. Waitrose can
provide several health benefits and perks to their employees through which can feel
working in the company is worthwhile and simultaneously build motivation among
employees.

 Love and belongingness needs: It involves the needs of being socially loved and
involved in the community or even in the organisation. It is a need that reflects emotions
for building inter-personal relationships, connectedness, affiliating and being part of the
group. In Waitrose, the company should conduct activities or tasks in which individuals
can interact with each other in order to know personally or professionally. Hence, every
person need someone to share feelings and emotions so that they can sense that there is
someone whom they can share things and trust as well (Jiang and Holburn, 2018). Self-esteem needs: These needs involve the needs of being respected, accomplished and
self-worth in the organisation. For example, an employee can be motivated when he see
his personal growth and attainments towards their work. It helps in gaining respect and
dignity from other people. Self-actualisation needs: It relates with the realisation of individual's potential, self-
fulfilment, peak experiences and seeking personal growth. For example, an employee
have a strong desire to become a marketing manager in Waitrose.
Process theory of Motivation:
Skinner's reinforcement theory of motivation: According to the viewpoint of this theory,
individuals learn to perform behaviours that shifts towards the aimed results and learn not to
perform behaviours that gains undesired outcomes. It is depend on the assumption that behaviour
that is rewarded is promising to be repeated, while behaviour that is punished is less promising to
repeat. As per the opinion of Skinner, employees will most probably engage themselves in
wanted behaviour, if they are positively reinforced for performing the same, rewards are most
efficacious if they immediately locomote the aimed response. Moreover, the behaviour that is
punished or not rewarded is likely to be repeated. In context to Waitrose, the managers exploit
the following ways for controlling the employee's behaviour in the organisation: Positive reinforcement: This shows providing a positive response when the employee
exhibits the required and positive behaviour (Kumari and Singh, 2018). In Waitrose,
managers can immediately praise their employees and staffs for coming in time or early
at their work. Such kind of reinforcement will boost the occurrence of behaviour. Negative reinforcement: It relates with the removing hurdles so that employees can
respond positively and work the way that they are anticipated to. For example, if some
employee from the group winds up their work early due to the long journey back home,

manager can ask them to take some work along with their home and provide them some
flexibility in the work. Punishment reinforcement: In this method, managers tend to impose some negative
effect or remove some positive effect to let someone from continuation to behave
unacceptable. In Waitrose, the manages can terminate or suspend the worker for violating
the rules and regulations at work. The key purpose this method is to discourage bad
behaviour. Extinction reinforcement: Through this way, the managers lower down the probability
of undesired behaviour by the employees as they withdraw reward for that type of
behaviour. For example, if the worker no longer gets admiration and praise for his work
then, they may sense that their behaviour is receiving no berried consequences. In the
context of Waitrose, suppose if the team is needed to perform on a vital project (Rajabi
Farjad and Najar, 2018). Every employee has to work overtime and even extra on their
weekends or holidays. The managers will provide the overtime fees for the contribution,
but after the finishing of the project, the seniors stop giving any bonus or incentives and
soon this gained behaviour of performing duties overtime ends. Hence, employers need to
be careful about how they exploit extinction reinforcement as these can affect the
employee's morale.
Techniques to motivate employees: Ask for employee's input: It can be motivational technique when employees are regularly
surveyed. Conduct unidentified polls to demonstrate workers that organisation care about
their perceptions and value their outcome. Waitrose managers can ask their employees to
give opinion how they can enhance their working conditions. They can also take actions
after getting the suggestions of the poll back. This will help in motivating employees
when they see that their perceptions really matters to the company. Offer personal enrichment programs: Building an individual enrichment program could
mean that the organisation provide tuition reimbursement and send workers to seminars
and workshops where they can enhance their skills. Waitrose employers should seek the
methods to promote the employees in professionally development.
 Job security: Employee may get distracted from the job and work if they see that they do
not have any kind of job security. Instead of being productive at job, the employee can

fill his mind with full of thoughts such as how they can pay for mortgages, feeding their
family and many more. In context of Waitrose, employees should grant with control of
their work, and providing training and development workshops to stay on the top of the
current trends in their area (Severgnini, Vieira and Galdamez, 2018). Facilitating
advanced opportunities also helps in retaining employees.
TASK 3
P3. An effective team is different from an ineffective team.
A team is build up of two or more than two people who work collaboratively and
mutually to realise the shared objectives. Teams provide an option to a vertical chain of
command as well as are much more inclusive approach the business association. When team is
effective in the business, it can lead to enhanced employee morale and organisational
productivity at the same time. Team groups are generally for individuals to share information as
well as make choices so that each individual can attain their personal goals as well. In an
effective team, the employees not only share information, but also share liabilities for the work
of whole team. An effective team performance covers both individual result, together with
collective work products. It build positive synergy through coordinated work. The team
performance in a team is higher than the summation of single performance. It involves higher
commitment to shared objectives and agenda, along with the higher degree of mutuality and
interaction. On the other side, in an ineffective team, they are often build up of persons who not
mix and integrate well into the team, or who do not have essential skills to do a range of work at
hand. Some ineffective teams may have too many individuals with the same skill, whereas other
may suffer from the deficiency of accurate training (Singh, 2019). In case of Waitrose, the
managers need to critically understand the difference between effective team and ineffective
team:
Effective team Ineffective team
 The task of objective of the team is
well comprehended and accepted by
each and every person.
 It involves a range of discussion in
order to reach the conclusion. Also,
 It is quite challenging to acknowledge
what the team task is or what are its
aims.
 Less people tend to influence the
discussion and often efforts are less in

each member actively and virtually
participates, but it remains relevant to
the group task.
 Members tend to listen each other and
their idea is appreciated as well.
comparison with an effective team.
 Members avoid listening other's
opinions and perspectives as well as
ideas are ignored in an ineffective team.
Tuckman's theory:
The theory of Tuckman was introduced by Bruce Tuckman. It states that groups would
go through five phases of development such as forming, storming, norming, performing, together
with adjourning. In respect of Waitrose, these steps are discussed below: Forming: It is the first stage in which team has just been announced to each other and the
activity has been assigned (Suganthi, 2020). In this phase, the individuals tend to respond
independently. In order to build an effective team in Waitrose, each member will be
allocated with certain tasks as per their skills and interests. Storming: It is the stage in which ego among team members may start to demonstrate
themselves as well as temper may blaze. The group members disagree and voice out their
opinions to finish a certain task. In case of chosen organization, leader’s guidance plays
an important role in building an effective team. Norming: In this stage, all the team members will work on the pre-decided goals.
Conflicts may also be arising but also can easily be resolved by the team- members
themselves. Performing: It is the next stage in which team members understand each other strengths
and weaknesses as they are aware enough to support each other. In case of Waitrose, the
team members can work on the task without any strict supervision. Adjourning: All the team members will disband after reaching the ultimate goal while
sharing positive experiences.
Nine Belbin team roles:
The nine Belbin team roles are the explanation of job duties that come into three main
categories; action-oriented roles, thought-oriented roles and people-oriented roles. In case of
Waitrose, acknowledging each role of group member may support in work in a more efficient
way as an ineffective team.

 The monitor evaluator: These are the evaluators who make decisions based on the
rational thinking, facts and figures as opposed to instincts and emotions. They consider
all the possibilities and angles of each situations and then make insightful solution. The specialist: The specialist in an effective team is signified as an expert in a certain
area as they have depth knowledge, skill and expertise in a certain subject. In case of
chosen company, specialist are the invaluable assets for their organisation as they offer
expert-technical knowledge. The plant: These are the individuals who are creative and free-thinkers in the group as
well as suggest creative ideas of doing things. The shaper: These people are the game changers who push themselves as well as other
people to attain certain results. The implementer: These are the organisers who like to form their surrounding and keep
order. They can be practical in the task. Also, they are self-controlled and disciplined
who can disregard their self-interest to focus on the team requirements or organisation. The completer: They are the individuals who assure quality performance in the project. The coordinator: These people have excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
These people support team members to utilise their strengths in an appropriate way. The team worker: These people are extrovert and good listeners to function the team as a
whole unit (Vimal and et.al., 2019). These people are adaptable and versatile in nature
with supports them to interact with diverse individual in a team.
 The resource investigator: These people have enthusiastic and positive attitude to
explore new opportunities and developments in the way.
TASK 4
P4. Concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour.
Leadership can be comprehended as the ability of the managers or leaders to make sound
decisions and motivate others to perform well in the organisation. It defines as a process of
directing the employee's behaviour towards the goal accomplishments. In case of Waitrose,
leaders in organisation use different styles and concepts to lead their people so that their
performance can be mould towards the shared objective of business.
Path Goal theory:

Path goal theory of leadership is based on the assumption that the behaviour of leaders
affects the motivation, satisfaction and performance level of employees. It is assumed that
leaders complements their team members and will compensate for their short-comings. With the
use of this theory, leaders in Waitrose helps their employees by showing clear path, enhance
their employees' abilities, removing obstacles and pitfalls. The following are the forms of
leadership behaviour as per the view of Path-Goal theory: Achievement oriented: Leaders in this category tend to encourage their team members by
setting challenging goals so that their excellence can be enhanced. Also, employees do
their best as leaders trust their ability to handle challenges. Directive path-goal clarifying: Leaders in this phase provides clear guidelines for the
expectations and procedures of doing tasks. It also aims to minimise the ambiguity in
work functions and job functions. In Waitrose, employees are nearly directed which
makes it most suitable for unfledged workers who need direction and to be tracked on
regular basis. Supportive: Leaders pay close attention on their team members while considering the
well-being and create pleasant work environment so that employees feel confident and
motivated at work. Participative: Leaders involve their team members in the decision-making process to
reach the best outcome. In Waitrose, employees are involved in order to ask the goals of
task, opinions of the work, how task can be achieved and much more.
Contingency theory:
As per the viewpoint of contingency theory, there is no single leadership style that can
work or suitable for all the situations. Instead, it states that effective leadership style for any
provided organisational situation is the one that suits with the situation at hand. In Waitrose, it is
essential for the organisation to choose the right leader for each job based on their knowledge,
skill set and needs of the circumstance. Also, it is important for the leaders to evaluate their
styles for the given situation (Fiedler’s Contingency Theory: Why leadership isn’t uniform,
2021).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded that organisational behaviour is highly influenced by the workplace
culture, power and politics used in the company. These elements can impact the performance of

individual and team in a both positive and negative ways. Employees' performance can also be
affected by the motivational techniques used at the workplace. These can be different from
business to business. With the concepts and approaches of motivation, the manager can
understand how employees can be motivated and encouraged. It is also found that an effective
team is opposed to an ineffective team as they can even deal the challenges when there is no
strict supervision.

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Online:
Fiedler’s Contingency Theory: Why leadership isn’t uniform, 2021. [Online] Available through:
<https://asana.com/resources/fiedlers-contingency-theory>