Influence of Workgroups, Power, and Politics on Organisational Culture: A Case Study of Hilti Corporation

This report analyses the influence of workgroups, power, and politics on organisational culture using Hilti Corporation as a case study. It discusses the importance of organisational culture, the impact of workgroups and teams, and the influence of power and politics on decision-making processes.

MANAGEMENT

Executive summary
Every company has a defined organisational culture by which goals and objectives can be
attained and achieved. The culture of the organisation refers to values, assumptions, and
beliefs, which are collectively shared by all the team members of the company. Teamwork is
renowned in a sense to affect the character of the organisation as it affects the organisational
structure, performance, and values. Organisational culture is a framework by which an
organisation can achieve the goals. If the company lacks its organisational, culture and is
confused for its operational processes. The effectiveness of the team severely depends on
organisational culture. Apart from this, interest groups have their personal interest, which has
conflict between employees that ultimately hampers organisational goals. As a result,
aggravation of infrastructure and structure regarding the achievement of crucial goals of the
business enterprise. By considering relationships between several teams, politics, power, and
corporate culture where report analyses the influence the workgroups, power, politics, and
team on organisational culture.

Contents
Executive summary...............................................................................................................................1
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
Influence of workgroups and teams on organisational culture.............................................................3
Influence of politics and power on the organisational culture..............................................................6
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................9
References...........................................................................................................................................10

Introduction
This report discusses on cultural journey in “Hilti Corporation” which will study the cultural
journey that will analyse the advantage of some initiatives. This discussion will carry specific
measures, which will consider corporate culture and focus on developing employees and
managers. Hilti designs and makes leading-edge technology, services related to software that
finally empowers the professional construction industry (Hilti Corporation, 2018a). The
company is global and it is based on 120 countries with more than 28000 employees (Lai,
Lam, and Lam, 2012). The company offers 360-degrees service for construction purpose that
starts from software for designs, tools for work sites to train, test, consult, and repair.
Moreover, in order to ensure products with high quality and standards, Hilti Corporation
produces its own products in its factories with the external partners. As the company is
privately owned founded by Martin Hilti in 1941 (Hilti Corporation, 2018a). The report
undertakes the discussion on critical discussion on organisational culture that is being
influenced by workgroups and teams and power and politics. Hitli Corporation is a company
that has positive organisational culture regarding to power and politics. Leadership affects the
work culture; a leader can exercise the power to affect the organisation culture (Hilti
Corporation, 2018b).
There always exists struggle for the scarce resources in every organisation. According to
Cooper, C. and Barling, J. (2008), Politics and influence are the common actions, the
behaviours through which potential power can be exercised more. Power is mainly the ability
to get things done the way one wants them to be done. This report will first observes
efficiently how groups and teams affect the culture of Hilti Corporation and then it will
discover the influence of politics and power on the company`s culture (Hilti Corporation,
2018a).

Influence of workgroups and teams on organisational
culture
According to Awadh and Saad (2013), every company confront several challenges in relation
to shortage of resources and unequal treatment between the stakeholders. For the case study
involved on Hilti Corporation, it can said that every successful practise and procedure
management effort needs strong emphasize on leadership, culture, and change management
(Alsalamah, 2015). The analytical tool of Hilti Corporation is to realise and aspire the
corporate culture is “cultural journey.” which means each employee goes from the phase of
“team camps.” Apart from this, these working sites are organised off-site and it intends to
nurture the teaching and other learnings of corporate beliefs. The endeavour is to conduct and
organise the training significant. In 2008, working days increased to nearly 53000 days
annually (Ahmed, and Shafiq, 2014).
According to Roberts, Roberts, Danaher, and Raghavan, (2015) The company`s corporate
culture is to embed its management process and conduct annual rating system to analyse till
what extent the organisational culture is lived by the subordinates. To analyse the
effectiveness, the aspired culture realisation measures at each individual and team-level and
consolidates at group and department level that is being lived by the subordinates
(Setterstrom, and Pearson, 2013). For every subordinate “evaluation Metrics for personality
development” that can be evaluated through scorecard including company value dimension
such as teamwork, courage, commitment, and integrity. For instance- if employee lies or
violates integrity that considers the dismissal is considered (Cooper, and Barling, 2008).
Apart from individual`s management for the team members, the main value rating is an
crucial part of performance evaluation at department level. An organisation can achieve the
objectives with the help of conceptual models such as leadership, self-management,
Customer relationship model, motivation theories, and organisational behaviour theories. For
instance-Maslow`s theory of motivation signifies certain stages such as self-actualisation

needs, self-esteem, safety needs, social needs, and physical needs. If these needs are satisfied
then the individual work efficiently in the teams and overall performance measurement of
each team member and their core organisational value rating identifies cultural issues. For
instance- employees are often asked to analyse the link between team and work relations. By
following the above rating analysis, it can be said that Hilti can take actions to ensure that
corporate culture is maintained. In this process, employee’s feedback is a source of
knowledge that can become a measure to take further steps (Sullivan, and Gouldson, 2017).
Continuous examination until what extend, the company has met the vision and indulged it in
the business model of Hilti Corporation in order to fuel the primary sustainable profitable
growth (Hilti Corporation, 2018b). Moreover, it is seen that Hilti Corporation follows a
systematic process through which it can realise and maintain the aspiration towards corporate
culture. In order to make a strong team in the organisation, Hilti Corporation has the
opportunity to work with the phenomenal people. Hilti Corporation has provided clear career
planning for its employees and also derives various opportunities to grow. Moreover, the
company still tries to encourage various career advancements. For instance- An employee
shared, an experience at Hilti Corporation marked that the employees were able to maintain
work life balance and autonomy of each person, which further grant jobs well (Hilti
Corporation, 2018a).
The company understands that the working environment is too dynamic and it keeps
changing which enforce that the employees have to balance the commitment between work
and home. With the help of leadership theory, company uses the form of leadership theory
that expects that Hilti team members set challenges and targets for the whole team (Hilti
Corporation, 2018b). However, at the same time, team believes in caring for the culture so
that people can support each other and perform well. An efficient leader believes in
promoting attractive working conditions and finding flexible ways to work from mobile

office (Lunenburg, 2012). The organisation knows it properly that it is based on people to
achieve long-term success. As Hilti Corporation works, in a construction industry, that holds
several risks and it is significant to step some proactive actions to prevent accidents (Islam,
Jain, and Haque, 2016). A democratic leader also values the concern of the employees at the
workplace and the company with the help of such leader manages the guidelines, which aims
to occupational safety and health safety at workplace that includes personal and protective
clothing. The company works at global level so that it can evaluate workplace danger and
finally coordinate the appropriate preventive measures. Apart from this, driver offers safety
training to the people and trains the people in order to use protective gear and clothing too on
a constructive gear, as staying fit is equally important. Apart from this, to be prescribed by
law, the organisation offers employee health promotion activities that are ultimately
responsible for health management unit. Some of the crucial ways to promote the healthy
lifestyle among the employees in order to sponsor numerous leisure time among the groups.
Apart from this, specialist for various medicines support and advise the employees at the
headquarters on how to promote occupational-related illnesses. It includes sensible offering
that are related to vaccinations and assistance at workplaces after illness or accident.
Influence of politics and power on the organisational
culture
According to Islam, Jain, and Haque, (2016), before discussing on power and politics, it is
important to know about the executive board. The CEO of the company “Dr. Christoph Loos”
who previously was responsible for finance, IT, corporate department, and HR. Apart from
this, in 2011, he was appointed as an analyst for the emerging market and global industry and
energy. Initially, he was leading corporate development team and further established strategic
management unit (Danish, Munir, Kausar, Jabbar, and Munawa, 2014). CFO of the company
is “Jorg Kampmeyer” who was responsible finance, human resources, IT, and corporate

development. The executive board is responsible for business accessories, technology,
corporate research, internet of things (Palthe, 2014). Alike them, there are various other more
leaders who has the right to impose power and affect the employee`s performance. Although,
it is noticed that Hilti Corporation is a great company to work in but it suffers from several
problems, lack of employee morale, turnover that have ultimately resulted in changes in
leadership. With the recent changes in the work environment, politics in the company led to
poor decision making related to employee turnovers, promotions, and terminations because of
poor leadership qualities of the top-level management (Azanza, Moriano and Molero, 2013).
A dominating and autocratic leader signifies that people are often on edges and insecurity for
employment in the organisation. Many organisations face several challenges regarding the
scarcity of resources and unequal treatment amongst the stakeholders. According to Palthe, J.
(2014) “power and politics influences the organisational unit in regards to company`s goal”
which further suggests that scarcity of resources, favouritism, and other organisational
support are some of the variables which affect the organisational structure and actions of
many organisations (Abbas et al, 2014). For other several issues, politics and power have
become two important defining factors of interaction between leadership and employees. It
depends on how a leader exercise power on personnel, and working environment, which may
further be unfriendly or friendly for workers. This is how organisational culture is affected by
power and politics, which is ultimately resulted into decision-making processes (Pulker,
Trapp, Scott, and Pollard, 2018).
According to Rae, Sands, and Gadenne, (2015), organisational behaviour researchers focus
on interest groups, coalitions, and workgroups that have impact on analysis. It is seen that
individual groups have become more powerful to affect the organisational structure (Farivar,
and Scott-Ladd, 2016). Hilti Corporation is not at all exempted from the influence of power
and politics. The decentralisation in which several different branches of the organisation

independently make certain decisions in respect to expenditure and critical choices that has
been conditioned by the political agreements, which provides sub-entities within the self-
sufficiency. Generally the organisations are multidimensional that assumes the difficulty of
structure.
Power and politics affect the sharing of the information. Political influence has affected the
perception of the results which are work-related that further includes decision quality,
acceptability, information sharing, predictability of some authorised decisions related to
employees, motivation and job satisfaction that is further considered that assumption and
belief are some of the essential elements of organisational culture. If a leader instructs the
subordinates without motivating them, the consequences can not be effective much.
Moreover, employees put minimum efforts in the tasks hurt the productivity of the company.
Apart from this, decision-making is a significant activity for politics and power in each
organisation especially a leader plays an important role in forming policies and procedures.
Board of directors and Family trust leads the leadership team of Hilti Corporation and it is
subject to certain changes in the occasion of company`s Annual meeting. Hilti family trust is
established in 1980 and its objective is to secure successful development of the organisation
and ensure continuity. Moreover, this continuation and development can only be achieved by
timely succession plan for leadership. For the last few years, the company will face major
generational changes for both helm of trust as well as board of directors. Hilti says that by
nominating the first non-family trust and first chairman of the board who particularly has
operational role in the group. It is another step in long-term succession plans. The growth rate
registered double digits in relation to local currencies. Europe and North America region has
been strengthened strongly that is being positioned on 12.4 and 12.2% growth in the local
currencies. Trend moving upward in the Latin America slowed because of currency
devaluation of currency and other political tensions in other countries (Hilti Corporation,

2018a). Although political situation has become more unstable, that continues to show high
level of investment into innovation and sales resources. The main investment focus has been
in the area of digital solutions. World`s political uncertainties and volatile currency do not
significantly worsen, the group have doubled the digital sales growth for the entire year.
Ongoing investment at Hilti expected that the operating results in 2018 were similar to
current growth level.
Decision-making is an important battlefield for politics and power in each organisation. In
some organisation cultures, top management takes all the decisions in regards to company
without involving employees, which ultimately leads to generation of conflicts, performance,
and low involvement. Apart from this, it is seen that companies and employees have become
collaborative in relation to system of employees that work together in order to achieve
concrete goals for political arenas for the individual groups with the diverse interests. Hilti
Corporation consistently sorts several ways which further contribution to the employee`s to
the affairs of the institution. For example- employees are needed to submit other views for the
changing of the policies before they are flowed into the organisational culture in the
company. Power and politics reinforce mistrust in organisation. An organisation represents its
culture as valuable, fair and justice and if it does not practise them and treat the employees to
invite rebellion. Power and politics plays an important role for the commitment of the
executives to the organisation. Leaders often have perpetuated the discriminative behaviour.
A most common concern in promotional and incentive activity for a less competent person is
always based on favouritism. In Hilti Corporation, which is officially, was blamed of racial
discrimination. The wrong use of power of organizational leaders has been broadly spreading
and recorded. He was perceived to favour those of the same skin colour (Rae, Sands, and
Gadenne, 2015).

Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be summed up that organisation culture is affected by the
teamwork, workgroup and also the power and politics. This has been proved with the help of
critical analysing the motivational theories and leadership theories in regards to affect
teamwork, groups, power, and politics. By reviewing the organisational culture of “Hilti
corporation”, it is seen that majority of the system is operated by the family and it pressurizes
the workforce. As a recommendation, Hilti Corporation should diversify its workforce that
would bring innovation and attract profitability. In the organisation, structure is defined by
policies and procedures, which is referred to as artifacts that ultimately resulted into political
bargaining between several interest groups. At the middle-level management level, this is
delegated to the organisational characters as well as the underlying assumptions. Workgroups
and teams comprises of important part of company that increases the level of performance,
image in the society, cooperative decision-making, justice, ethics, information sharing and
justification among several other essential traits. At the central of Hilti Corporation, there are
many other expectations that unite the views, myths, and practises. Therefore, everyone is
familiar that might flop to poster at first. All the above mentioned individualities of the
Corporation may result from the power and politics interaction between personalities, groups,
and teams.

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