Organisational Behaviour Assignment Sample : Marks and Spencer

ORGANISATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 The influence of organisation's culture, politics and power on individual and team
behaviour.....................................................................................................................................1
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................4
P2Evaluate how content and process theories of motivation and motivational techniques
enable effective achievement of goals in an organisational context...........................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P3 Explain what makes an effective team as opposed to an ineffective team............................6
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................9
P4 Apply concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour within an organisational
context and a given business situations.......................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Organisational behaviour refers to the study of behaviour of people at the workplace. In
other words it tells about the interaction of people within an organisation. It is the most efficient
tool which is used in improving the performance of the job and also beneficial in promoting the
innovation and encouraging the leadership. The chosen organisation in the present study is
Marks and Spencer which is a multinational retailer dealing in large number of product range
having a headquarter in London, UK (Barry and Wilkinson, 2016). The following report will
study about the culture, politics and power which influence the behaviour of individual and team.
Further more this report also discusses the motivation theories which are used in the organisation
to achieve the goals. At last this report will covers different kind of teams and concepts and
philosophies of organisational behaviour.
TASK 1
P1 The influence of organisation's culture, politics and power on individual and team behaviour
Marks & Spencer is a British multinational retailer which offer higher quality clothing,
luxury food products and home essentials. The main objective of company is to offer high
quality of product or services at relatively affordable price to customer. Main mission of the
company is to become a leading retailer along with unique and strong heritage of brand value.
The vision of M&S is to make brand more accessible to customer throughout the world. The
organisational culture of any company includes the rules, mission and vision formulated by the
company's manager in order to achieve the goals and objective of an organisation. This helps the
employees of the company to effectively perform their duties in order to complete their task. The
elements of Culture, politics and power influence the behaviour of individual as well as team.
With the help of Handy's culture model, Marks and Spencer is able to understood about its
culture. The theory of culture is discussed below:
Power Culture: Under this factor, power is only given to the specific person who are
responsible for taking decisions in the firm. In this typology, such a person is required who are
able to take quick decision for the betterment of an organisation (Chung, Lee and Han, 2015). In
M&S the power of taking decision is in the hands of the managers. Subordinates of Marks and
Spencer must work according to the powers of the managers that has a positive impact on the
team members.
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 Role culture: According to this culture every person has different roles in an
organisation. Here in M&S it is the responsibility of manager to assigned different roles
to the employees according to their desired capabilities. By doing so, strength and
weakness of an individual can be known and optimum results can be achieved on time.
 Task culture: In this type of culture, the main focus is on completing the task within the
specified time (Crane, 2017). Here it is the role of manager to evaluate the performance
of every employees and then divide the task to the individual as well as team. M&S use
this culture to get the results on time. This type of culture will motivate team and every
staff members to perform the task and also help managers in checking the work
performed by the subordinates.
 Person culture: This type of culture focuses on the capabilities of employees rather than
the task. As the organisation knows that the employees are their pillars and they are only
responsible for achieving the goals and objective of the company.
As all the culture plays an important role in an organisation and the culture which Marks
and Spencer uses is the task culture. As it is the most suitable for performing the task in the best
manner. For performing the task timely, every individual is responsible. As every employees of
the company were assigned the task by the managers. This result in positive completion of work
of the company which led to the success of an organisation.
Power: It refers to the ability which helps in influencing the behaviour of the people. With the
help of French and Raven concept of power is explained in the context of Marks and Spencer.
 Legitimate Power: This type of power is highly unstable and unpredictable as it
develops with the experience of job. Such type of power remain in existence only once an
individual is entitled for a job (Driskill, 2018). This type of power creates a negativity in
the minds of employees as they need to change their working pattern with the change in
the power of a person.
 Reward Power: This form of power is based giving rewards to the employees in order to
increase their morale. Rewards can be of two type monetary and non monetary. The most
popular form of rewards are promotions, certificates, compliments and monetary benefits.
This type of power can be adopted by Marks and Spencer as it effectively build a
relationship between the employer and employees.
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 Coercive Power: In such type of power, the managers of the company forces the
individual to work against their will. This type of should not be adopted by Marks and
Spencer as it led to the unhealthy behaviour and might led to dissatisfaction at the work.
 Referent Power: It refers to the ability of manager by which they are able to influence
the behaviour of the individual (Furnham, 2012). Here leader is considered as a role
model. Such type of power is only hold by the individual who are most experienced and
have the ability to manage the things. Such type of power can be adopted by M&S as it
brings a positive impact on the company as employees work with proper guidelines of
their managers and leaders.
 Expert power: Such type of power is hold by the individuals who are intelligent and
have the ability to fulfil the organisation goals. The one who is holding such power is
most trusted and respectful person among the all. In order to increase the individual skills
such type of power can be adopted by M&S where they required to provide adequate
training to their employees.
The power which M&S implement in their regular work in reward power. As through this
employees can be motivated which helps in profitability and success of an organisation.
 Politics: It is defined as the process where there is a interaction between the power and
the authority. In an organisation so many employees are working together so there exist
both official and non official relations. Politics should not exist in Marks and Spencer as
this sometimes led to the conflicts among the employees of the company. Company
should find certain measures so that politics can be removed to some level. For this job
rotation plays a great role as through this interaction among every individual will be
developed which will be beneficial for minimising the negative impact.
There is a difference between personal, decisional, structural and organisational change which is
discussed below:
 Personal: In this manager studies the situation of office premises. After analysing the
needs changes are made in the personal behaviour (Haque and Kumar, 2018).
 Decisional: The decision power lies in the hand of managers through which employees
are delegated the task so they can efficiently perform.
 Structural: The managers are required to make some of the changes in structure
according to the needs and requirement of employees.
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 Organisational: Here the decision taken by the manager are for the overall organisation
so that both employees and employers get the benefit.
Thus from the above culture, politics and power it can be concluded that all these three
factors are responsible for affecting the individual behaviour and team. Effective culture proved
to be beneficial in improving the performance of individual which directly have a impact on the
organisational performance (Katzenbach. and Smith, 2015). Thus such factors help in boosting
the motivation which helps individual to develop some of the innovative ideas that helps in
improving the individual quality as well as quality of the organisation.
TASK 2
P2Evaluate how content and process theories of motivation and motivational techniques enable
effective achievement of goals in an organisational context.
Motivation is an internal process that helps a person in achieving the goals of an
organisation. It plays a crucial role as through this individual is able to identify the capabilities.
M&S in order to motivate their employees organises various training and development programs.
There are two types of motivation namely intrinsic and extrinsic. In Intrinsic motivation, the
individual is motivated by their own internal desires. For example desire of individual to move
forward. Where as in extrinsic motivation, the individual is motivated with the help of external
factors. For example rewards, promotions etc. There are two types of motivation theory namely
content and process theory.
 Content Theory: This theory is also known by the name of need theories. As this theory
effectively identifies the need and are related to the motivation. The following theory can
easily be understood with the help of Maslows Hierarchy of Needs. M&S with the help of
this theory is able to increase their probability by fulfilling the needs of their employees.
 Physiological Needs: It includes basic requirement of life which is very important for the
survival namely air, food, shelter and water ( Keyton, 2011). M&S must look after these
needs and should provide payment in the way individual is able to survive easily.
 Safety and security needs: Such type of needs are related to the job security, protection
from harmful elements, health and safety that employees look after in their workplace.
The managers of M&S must provide job security to their employees and must take
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several health measures like insurance of them and their family so that without any
tension employees are able to perform their duties.
 Social needs: Such type of needs involves the feeling of belongingness. The managers of
M&S must look after the relations of every employees at the work place and must ensure
that no one at the premises is facing a depression and anxiety.
 Esteem needs: It is the need for appreciation and respect. Here the individual expects to
get reward for the work done by them (Namhata and Patnaik, 2019). The managers of
M&S must look after the performance of every individual and must provide them with
rewards on the regular basis, i.e., quarterly, half yearly or yearly.
 Self actualisation needs: When all the above needs are fulfilled, this need arise in the
individual which helps the employees to evaluate their own performance, potential and
strength. Here the manager must motivate their employees by different task so that their
inner capabilities can be enhanced.
Advantages Disadvantages
This theory is designed to specify the needs of
individual members or the workforce of an
organisation.
It sometimes failed to understand the actual
want of the employees which results in
conflicts in the organisation.
 Process Theory: In such type of theory individual get motivation by their manager in
order to perform the specific task. In order to motivate, manager need to provide training
and development programmes which enables to strengthen the skills of individual.
Process theory in context of M&S can easily be understood with the help of Vroom's
Expectancy theory.
 Vroom Expectancy Theory: This theory believes that the performance of an individual
depends upon the factors such as personality, skills, knowledge and experience (Raes and
et. al., 2015). It also states that there is a link between efforts, motivation and
performance. This theory is divided into three parts which are explained below:
 Expectancy: It states that the performance can be effectively increased with regular
efforts. So in order to improve the efforts of their employees, manager of M&S must
provide training to their employees on the regular basis.
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 Instrumentality: This state that every employee of the company contributes to the
results of the business (Shepard, Penuel and Pellegrino, 2018). So employees shroud be
valued timely so that they able to perform well and objective of company can be attained.
Manager of M&S in order to motivate the employees must provide them with proper
rewards both in monetary and non monetary form.
 Valence: This value is based upon the basic needs of individual. Here the manager of
M&S must formulate the policies so the individual needs can be ascertained.
Advantages Disadvantages
Employees expectation can be increased with
the help of rewards which enables the
achievement of proper goals.
The theory fails to work when there is no
proper participation of the managers.
From the above analysis it can be concluded that both process and content theory is
important for the functioning of an organisation but the best suits to Marks and Spencer is the
process theory. As it can be universally applied and by analysing the needs of individual goals
and objective of individual and organisation can be easily achieved.
TASK 3
P3 Explain what makes an effective team as opposed to an ineffective team
A team plays a effective role in every organisation as it is very effective in building a strong
relationship among the employees. It is defined as a group of individual that works together in
order to achieve the goals of an organisation(Springer, Cham.Lim and Apple, 2018). They all
have a common goals and work together to achieve them. The size of a team depends upon the
task to be accomplished. There are different types of team which are explained below:
 Virtual team: It refers to the group of people which participate together in an
organisation to achieve the common objective. Here in such type of team, member are not
present at a single place. They are situated at different zones so they don't have any face
to face contact. Only the communication mode used here is technology
 Functional team: These team includes the member of same department with different
responsibilities. Only one person is the head of department which delegates the task to
other team member. All the subordinates need to report them after completion of the task.
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It is very beneficial for M&S as with the help senior person, team can effectively work
for achievement of the task.
 Project team: In such type of team, group of people toward on completion of a goal.
Here team is developed on the basis of project (Steinmetz, 2018). As so as the project is
completed, the team get dissolved. Project can either be short or long depends on the
work. It is the work of manager of M&S to delegate the work to other employees under
the project so that work is completed properly on the time.
 Cross functional team: Such type of team are made up of members from different
departments that works toward a common goal. This include members from different
department like finance, production, sales and human resource department. Such type of
department is beneficial for completing wide range of projects.
From the above mentioned team it can be known that together working in team will help
the organisation to achieve the goals effectively and timely. The team which best suits the Marks
and Spencer is Project team. As it helps in identifying the problem and finding the best solution
for it. Moreover with such type of team, task can be executed within a sort span of time.
The difference between team and group is explained below:
Group Team
 It defines as the collection of individual
that work together for completing a
specific task.
 The main aim of group is toward the
accomplishment of a individual goal.
 Members of group are independent to
each other as they are working for the
individual goal.
 It defined as a group of people that
works together towards the
achievement of goals.
 The main objective is toward the
accomplishment of team goals.
 Each member of team are
interdependent to each other as all are
working toward the achievement of a
common goals.
Effectiveness and ineffectiveness of a team:
Effective team:
 Team members of M&S are very well aware about their duties which help in performing
of the task appropriately.
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 They corporate and coordinate with each other in order to accomplish the task.
 They provide suggestion to each other in improving the performance of the team.
 Every member of team participate in order to achieve the task.
The effective team of M&S are always aware about their duties and always provide suggestion to
the team which help in improving the team perfromance.
Ineffective team:
 No corporation and coordination exist between the team members.
 The members of the team are not clear about the duties and responsibilities.
 Conflicts and dissatisfaction mainly exist between the team members.
 The members are not at all creative and innovative so it is the main reason they are
lacking behind.
The ineffective team of M&S lack coordination and are unaware about the duties which need to
be performed by them.
Tuckman model: This model was developed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965 and believed that in
order to grow, face up the challenges and finding the solution this model is very necessary (Liu
and Li, 2014)This model is divided into five parts namely forming-Storming-Norming-
Performing-Adjourning.
 Forming: In this stage, team is formed and task are allocated for the same. It is the duty
of manager of M&S to delegate the task to different team member in order to get the
work complete. The major time of this stage is involved in planning and collecting of the
information.
 Storming: It is the second stage of Tuckman model where team starts working toward
their appropriate task. Different ideas are shared on the ground of completion of task.
Here the work of manager of M&S to look after the relationship between the team
members because sometimes this stage led to conflicts as the ideas of one person didn't
match the another one.
 Norming: it is the stage where all the members come together to accomplish the plan.
Every member of the company develops a trust and also helps everyone order to perform
the task. This stage will help M&S to build a effective relationship among the employees.
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 Performing: It refers to the stage where team is very clear about the goals and the
objective. Here there is no role of leaders and managers of M&S and also there is less
conflicts. The team on reaching this stage becomes high performing team.
 Adjourning: It is the last stage which sometimes known as mourning. Here in this stage,
task is completed and team is dissolved.
Belbin's team role: It is an effective way through which strength and weakness of team can be
known. In order to become high performing team, the team need to access the nine team roles
which are as follows:
 Resource investigators: They are the most innovative and curious member of M&S.
They are the one in the team that explore all the available options, develop contacts and
help the team in accomplishing the objectives.
 Team worker: They are the one that provide supports to the team and work together in
attaining the goals of M&S.
 Coordinator: They are the one who takes initiative among the team and sometimes
referred as the chairman. They are responsible for guiding the team about the objectives
and goals of M&S.
 Plant: They are the individuals of M&S that brings new ideas and innovation and
approaches in the working. They sometimes work apart from the team because of their
ideas and are sometime poor communicator as they are not able to tell about the ideas to
everyone.
 Monitor Evaluator: This refers to the individual of M&S that evaluating the ideas of
other members. They are the critical thinkers.
 Specialist: They are the one who have specialised knowledge in M&S . They have
developed their skills and abilities with the experience
 Shaper: They are the one who shapes the team with all possible ideas so that the team
does not lack anywhere. They are the one who always guide the team in improvement in
M&S.
 Implementer: They are the people who get the things done in the company M&S. They
are the one who are responsible for turning the ideas of the team into practical plans and
action.
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 Complete Finisher: They are the one who finalise the project and sees whether is project
is completed thoroughly or not (Yusoff, Kian and Idris, 2013) It the duty of them in M&S
to check that there are no errors or omission in the work.
TASK 4
P4 Apply concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour within an organisational context
and a given business situations
The concept of organisational behaviour can easily be known with the help of Path goal theory
and Contingency theory.
 Contingency theory: This theory was developed by Fred Fielder in the year 1958. This
theory states that leadership style chosen by the leader is totally depended upon the
situation exist. This theory is concerned with that no single theory can be said to be the
best. The best leader is the one who changes their best style according to the situation. If
the leader of M&S sees that there is fast dynamic situation in that case they are liable to
take the autocratic decision as they dont have that much time to consult every one. If
there is slow dynamic situation in that case leader can adopt democratic leadership as
they have plenty of time to consult every one(Alavi and et.al., 2014)
 Path goal theory: This type of theory was developed by Robert J. House and Terence R.
Mitchell .This theory lays emphasis on improving the performance of employees by
satisfying their basic needs and requirement. It pushes the leaders toward the
achievement of goals of the company. This theory will help the leaders and manager of
M&S to motivate their staff so that they can effectively contribute. Style of path goal
theory is mentioned below:
 Directive leadership: It is the stage where leaders are very clear abut their task and
know who can help them in performing the same. The leaders are responsible for
providing the proper guidelines to their subordinates so that they can carry the task
effectively. In order to get the task complete training are also provided.
 Supportive leadership: In such type of leadership style, the main focus of leader is over
the needs of their employees. The leaders of M&S should be very friendly towards their
employees and should help their team members at the time of an problem. With such type
of leadership style effective relationship can be maintained.
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 Achievement oriented leadership: In such type of leadership style, the goals are set by
the leaders for their employees. Leader of M&S forces their employees toward the
achievement of goals which overall helps in increasing the confidence and abilities of the
employees.
 Participative leadership style: In such type of leadership style, there is active
participation of leaders and employees towards the achievement of goals of the company.
It is the duty of leaders of Marks and Spencer to check whether every person is
participating in the decision making process. By participating every member in the
decision making process, effective and timely decisions can be taken. (Fu and et.al .,
2015)
Recommendations
As discussed from the above theories it is known that both contingency and path goal
theory can be used to effectively know about the concept of organisational behaviour. In path
goal theory different elements were discussed. The best suits among them all is participative
leadership style as through this style better suggestion can be taken of the individual member. So
it is recommended that at the time of selecting the leadership style, leaders must consider the
participative style so through this different activities of an organisation can be easily handle.
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report it can be concluded that with the help of
organisational behaviour, the nature of individual can be easily known. Through this report it has
known that culture, politics and power influence the individual behaviour and also the behaviour
of team. Process and content theory are used in the report which is used for influencing the
motivation of individual. With the help of proper team, organisation is able to achieve the goals
with the specified time. At last path goal theory and contingency theory are used through which
organisational behaviour can be known. This theory help in encouraging the team and motivate
them towards the success.
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