Organisational culture and management in human service organisations

This article discusses the management theories of Situational Leadership and Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory and how they are implemented in Mercy Care Hospital - Albury. It describes the theories, provides evidence of their implementation, and critically analyses their benefits and challenges. The article is relevant to the subject MSWPG7212 and is useful for students studying organisational culture and management in human service organisations.

Pro Forma – MSWPG7212
Assignment 2 – Organisational culture and management in human service
organisations
Student Name:
Focus Agency: Mercy Care Hospital – Albury (NSW, Australia)
Student ID:
Management Theory #1: Situational Leadership Theory
Describe the management theory (making links to theoretical literature) (250 words)
Situational leadership is one of the most relevant leadership styles, used to handle a
contingent management issues in any type of workplace. As the name suggests, this
leadership theory describes the characteristics of the leaders to be applied in different
types of situations. Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory is one of most
popular contingency or situational leadership models. According to Thompson & Glasø
(2015), Hersey and Blanchard stated that effectiveness of the leaders is highly dependent
on the situations. The readiness of followers to perform the jobs willingly is a major
situational factor and that often affects the efficiency and effectiveness of the leaders. In
this model, the authors distinguished between the relationship behaviour and task
behaviour of the leaders. They also stated that, a situational leader must adjust his
leadership style as per the readiness, that is, ability and willingness to perform, of the
followers. McCleskey (2014) explained that, the situational leaders have the ability to
understand the readiness of the followers and act accordingly. When the followers have
low readiness for the tasks given, then the leaders should use the high degree of task
behaviour by defining tasks and their responsibilities, and low degree of relationship
behaviour, that is, guiding or directing them. With time and situations, the degree of these
behaviour structures should be changed. In the social work structure, this model is highly
relevant as various types of situations or follower readiness changes quite frequently due
to involvement of a large number of people with different social, cultural and economic
background (Chemers, 2014).
Provide evidence/examples of how you see this management theory being
implemented in your focus agency (250 words)
Mercy Care Hospital or Mercy Health is one of the major publicly funded healthcare
institutions located in Allbury, New South Wales. It caters to a large number of populations
in the Albury–Wodonga and surrounding regions. This social institute provide various
types of health and care services, such as, aged care, palliative care, transitional aged
care, mental health programs, geriatric evaluation and management, and support and
community therapy and inpatient rehabilitation programs. However, it does not provide
services for acute disease care services (Mercy Health Services, 2018). Based on the
services offered in this social work institute, it can be inferred that many types of situation
or contingency arise here due to involvement of a large number people, that is, patients,
physicians and healthcare workers, which calls for the application of situational leadership.
Many emergencies arise, such as sudden inflow of aged patients and children during the
winter, which needs special attention. The working shifts needs to be increased and the
healthcare workers need to put more efforts to take care of the excessive number of
sensitive patients. In such situations, many healthcare workers, especially the new recruits
or interns, who did not face such situations before, might have some readiness issues. For

example, in terms of work load, handling different types of needs of different patients at
the same time, ability to understand the patient’s mentality, background as well as needs
etc, the workers might not be ready to work effectively and efficiently. In these cases, the
situational leaders adjust their leadership styles to make the followers work efficiently by
applying different degrees of task and relationship behaviour.
Critically analyse (1) the benefits and (2) the challenges of this management
approach (250 words)
Situation leadership model has both benefits and challenges. As stated by Cherry (2012),
this type of management or leadership is quite flexible in nature. Instead of imposing rigid
rules, regulations and procedures, which can demoralize the healthcare workers, the
leaders or the management of the social institutions can adapt to the reactions and
capabilities of the followers and accordingly plan the strategies to make them work
efficiently. McLaurin (2013) describes that in this leadership style, the leaders and the
followers both experience the management issue or the situation, and both work to adjust
their capability and willingness, which makes the followers feel valued and important in the
organisation. On the contrary, Van Wart (2013) highlighted that, often the situational
leaders put focus on short term goals than the long term objectives. To handle the short
term or immediate situations, these leaders put emphasis on changing the working styles,
which might not be beneficial for the long term objectives of the organisation. Moreover,
according to Bedford & Gehlert (2013), the Hersey-Blanchard model fails to define and
quantify the emotional and job maturity of the leaders and the followers. A manager or
leader may assume that an emotionally mature and tenured worker can take on the job
responsibilities easily, which might not be the case always. Thus, the manager fails to
recognize the needs of the situations and cannot work effectively. Hence, in the Hersey-
Blanchard model, there is no measurement scale, which can be applied to measure the
effectiveness of the model.

Management Theory #2: Herzberg’s Two-Factor or Motivator Hygiene theory
Describe the management theory (making links to theoretical literature) (250 words)
In any type of social work, motivation of the people is extremely essential. The social work
often entails more effort for the benefit of the community as a whole than the personal
benefits. Hence, due to many factors, the motivation of the workers gets affected. Hence,
to solve the motivational management issues, the motivational theories are appropriate in
the social work (Yusoff, Kian & Idris, 2013). One such relevant theory is the Herzberg’s
Two-Factor or Motivator Hygiene theory. According to Herzberg (2017), two types of
factors affects the motivations of the employees and those are known as motivation and
hygiene factors. Motivation factors include the career growth opportunities, recognition,
job satisfaction, sense of accomplishments, and responsibility. On the other hand, salary,
benefits, organisational policies, work environment and interpersonal benefits are the
hygiene factors, that are the causes of job dissatisfaction. As stated by Ghazi, Shahzada
& Khan (2013), in the social work, the managers or the leaders must pay attention to both
the motivation and hygiene factors, although, in majority cases, the hygiene factors
outweighs the motivation factors. There are many management issues in social work,
especially, lack of adequate fund or capital, which affects the salaries and benefits of the
workers. This creates an impact on the satisfaction level of the employees and
organisational culture, and thereby their performance is affected. Hence, to bring out the
efficiency of the social workers, the management should pay attention to the hygiene
factors, which in turn will increase the motivation and job satisfaction of the employees
(Latham, 2012).
Provide evidence of how you see this management theory being implemented in
your focus agency (250 words)
The focus agency, that is, Mercy Health Albury, is a publicly funded health care institution.
It is registered under the healthcare department of the Australian government. Being a
public healthcare organisation, Mercy Health faces quite a few challenges, which affects
the motivational level of the healthcare workers. Funding issue is one of the major issues
that create a challenge for efficient working of Mercy. Since, it cannot charge a lump sum
fee from the patients and the price for the other healthcare packages are lower than in the
private hospitals, it has to depend on the government funding and donations from the
patrons. In its website, the hospital has options and information about the donation,
volunteering and fundraising to mercy health foundation to improve its healthcare and
wellbeing facilities for the community (Mercy Health Foundation, 2018). Thus, it is evident
that the hospital needs capital for efficient and improved services. It leads to the lower pay
structure for the employees. They are often dissatisfied due to lack of motivation and
insufficient pay, benefits and rewards. On the other hand, there is also lack of permanent
employees, which makes the management ask for volunteers. Hence, the hygiene factors
are more dominant than the motivation factors in Mercy Health Care Hospital. The
organisation hence focuses on securing the predictable and certain local funding sources,
securing the revenues from insurances, and hiring more temporary contractual workers.
Securing adequate capital not only ensures a better pay structure of the employees, but
also ensures an improved working conditions and healthcare facilities for the patients.
This helps in increasing the satisfaction level and motivation of the workers.

Critically analyse (1) the benefits and (2) the challenges of this management
approach (250 words)
According to Lacey, Kennett-Hensel & Manolis (2015), the two-factor theory by Herzberg
highlights two types of behaviour patterns and the factors affecting those. The motivational
factors increase the overall job satisfaction, while the hygiene factors do not provide
satisfaction, rather increases dissatisfaction if absent. Hence, this theory helps the
management of an organisation to differentiate between the organisational factors that
cause satisfaction and dissatisfaction among the employees and put focus on those.
Through this approach, the managers can differentiate between the behavioural needs of
the workers and can make strategic plans accordingly to meet the needs of the employees
while meeting the organisational goals. On the contrary, this approach has many
challenges. As stated by Malik & Naeem (2013), this theory often ignores the situational
factors, and there is no comprehensive measurement scale for assessing the satisfaction
level. Moreover, the reliability of the theory is ambiguous, as raters may analyse different
findings in different manners, leading to different outcomes. Another challenge of this
theory is that, the motivational factors can change over the tenure of an employee. Thus,
these factors have dynamic implications on the employees and this influences their needs.
However, this theory labels the factors quite rigidly and there is no scope for flexibility in
assessing the motivation and hygiene factors over the lifetime of the employees. Not only
in the social works, but also in any other job sector, the factors are dynamic, leading to
change of needs and attitudes towards the job satisfaction. Herzberg’s theory does not
measure this dynamism in the behavioural pattern of the employees, which also changes
the motivation and hygiene factors (Ozguner & Ozguner, 2014).

Reference List – Management Theory One
Bedford, C., & Gehlert, K. M. (2013). Situational supervision: Applying situational leadership
to clinical supervision. The Clinical Supervisor, 32(1), 56-69.
Chemers, M. (2014). An integrative theory of leadership. Psychology Press.
Cherry, K. (2012). Leadership theories.
McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and
leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117.
McLaurin, J. R. (2013). The role of situation in the leadership process: A review and
application. Electronic Business, 12(2).
Mercy Health Services. (2018). Mercy Health Albury. Retrieved from https://health-
services.mercyhealth.com.au/our-locations/mercy-health-albury/
Thompson, G., & Glasø, L. (2015). Situational leadership theory: a test from three
perspectives. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(5), 527-544.
Van Wart, M. (2013). Lessons from leadership theory and the contemporary challenges of
leaders. Public Administration Review, 73(4), 553-565.
Reference List – Management Theory Two
Ghazi, S. R., Shahzada, G., & Khan, M. S. (2013). Resurrecting Herzberg’s two factor
theory: An implication to the university teachers. Journal of Educational and Social
Research, 3(2), 445.
Herzberg, F. (2017). Motivation to work. Routledge.
Lacey, R., Kennett-Hensel, P. A., & Manolis, C. (2015). Is corporate social responsibility a
motivator or hygiene factor? Insights into its bivalent nature. Journal of the Academy
of Marketing Science, 43(3), 315-332.
Latham, G. P. (2012). Work motivation: History, theory, research, and practice. Sage.
Malik, M. E., & Naeem, B. (2013). Towards understanding controversy on Herzberg theory of
motivation. World Applied Sciences Journal, 24(8), 1031-1036.
Mercy Health Foundation. (2018). Mercy Health Foundation: Donate To Improve Care and
Life Outcomes. Retrieved from https://www.mercyhealthfoundation.org.au/
Ozguner, Z., & Ozguner, M. (2014). A managerial point of view on the relationship between
of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's dual factor theory. International
Journal of Business and Social Science, 5(7).
Yusoff, W. F. W., Kian, T. S., & Idris, M. T. M. (2013). Herzberg’s two factors theory on work
motivation: does its work for todays environment. Global journal of commerce and
Management, 2(5), 18-22.