Organizational Cultures and Workforce Motivation

This document explores the relationship between organizational cultures, power, and politics and their influence on workforce motivation. It analyzes how power and politics have played a role in Uber's culture. It also presents content and process theories of motivation and evaluates their effectiveness. The document concludes by discussing how motivation can assist Uber in attaining its organizational goals. Subject: Organizational Behavior, Course Code: OB101, Course Name: Organizational Behavior, College/University: Not mentioned

Organizational cultures and
workforce motivation
company booklet assignment

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1. Company’s profile along with its mission, vision and aim.....................................................3
2. Relationship between culture, power and politics...................................................................3
3. Analyzing how much of an influence power and politics played in this culture.....................5
4. Presenting content and process theories of motivation............................................................6
5. Critically evaluate the motivation theories..............................................................................7
6. How motivation assist Uber to attain organization’s goals.....................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Positive working environment within
a company improve the overall performance
and creates positive impact too. In the same
way, current study is based upon Uber
which is one of the best online
transportation companies that leads to
improve the customer base and offer best
food service as well. The study will help to
analyze how an organization’s culture,
power and politics influence individual and
team behavior. Further, study will present
the theory link with process and content
theory that motivate employees.
1. Company’s profile along with its mission,
vision and aim
Uber is an online transportation
network company that offers vehicles for
hire, food delivery to their customers.
Currently it operates within 785
metropolitan areas at worldwide via its
websites and mobile application. The
company’s working environment is not so
happy and that is why, it is no stranger to
controversy. Moreover, due to Uber’s ‘bro’
culture that proved to be one of the biggest
scandals that led resignation of CEO in June
2017. Thus, this is clearly reflected that
there is a need to change the culture, power
and politics within organization that assist to
attain the goal.
Mission: To bring best transportation for
everyone and everywhere.
Vision: By providing best transportation at
cheaper price and this turn to creates more
job opportunities with higher income for
drivers as well.
Aim: The aim of Uber is to reduce the need
for individual car ownership and this in turn
reduces the congestion in cities as well.
2. Relationship between culture, power and
politics
Culture: it is the characteristic and
knowledge of a specific group of people.
Thus, in the workplace, culture is all about
the shared value, belief systems that every
employees shares. Hence, in the context of
Uber the culture of the company is not good
and that is why, there is a need to comply
with Handy culture theory in which culture
are define in four types such as:

Power: In this power is held by few
individuals who influence the goals of a
company and there are some rules and
regulations which have to be followed by
others (Korsakova and et.al., 2016). Though
it is a strong culture but companies do not
follow the same because employees are
judged by what they attain instead of how
they act. That is why, Uber do not follow the
same.
Role: Another culture which is based
upon rules and used by tall organizational
structure. The decision generated by comply
with this culture is slow and that is why,
most of the business do not follow this
culture because of late decision making
process. Hence, Uber do not comply with
the same.
Task: This type of culture used when
specific teams are formed in order to attain
the specific goals or problems. Thus, this
culture proves effective and creates a sense
of responsibility among team members. In
the same way, Uber is also follow the same
in order to meet the define aim (Yerznkyan,
Gassner and Kara, 2017).
Person: In this type of culture,
people think that they are superior and
unique to a firm and that is why, they
consider work more lightly. This in turn
affects the overall performance o the
company in negative manner. Hence, quoted
firm do not comply with the same.
Power: It is the ability or act of doing or
attaining something. Thus, in corporate
world, there are different types of power
used. In the same way, manager and leader
of Uber also comply with the same to attain
the define aim and motivate the employees.
Hence, as per French and Raven, there are
five types of power such as:
 Legitimate: This type of power
comes from a position and people are
influenced because of rules of
society. So, this comes from a belief
that person has a right to make
demands and expect others to be
compliant (Yerznkyan, 2016). In past
times, Uber also uses this power

which affect the motivation of team
as well as company performance.
 Reward: It means provide benefit to
others for doing something. Most of
the top company uses this in order to
keep the team motivated. Similarly,
to attain specific target, Uber also
offer monetary and non-monetary
benefit which encourage people to
attain targets.
 Expert: It is based upon individual’s
expertise which means the level of
skill, competence and experience
assist to influence others. Uber have
such people who assist to meet the
target and motivate employees as
well (Kochigina, 2020).
 Referent: The power is based on
being liked and respected such that
influencer who attract customers. So,
it is a highly personal type of power
but most of the company does not
use it.
 Coercive: power involves forcing
someone to do something against
their will. Such that in Uber there
were multiple accusations of sexual
harassment at firm and this reflect.
Company follow this type of power.
Politics: It is the process and behavior in
human interactions which involve power
and authority. There are two types of politics
which is used by the company which
somehow benefited the firm or creates
negative impact as well. One of them is
positive politics, in which company’s
performance affected in positive manner and
also employees are motivated to attain the
organizational goal (Alapo, 2018). On the
other hand, negative politics creates conflict
between employees and this affect the
overall performance in opposite manner.
Manager of Uber have both politics which in
turn leads to affect the business and its
working environment in opposite manner.
3. Analyzing how much of an influence
power and politics played in this culture
The culture followed by Uber is not
good because employees are not happy and
leads to negative working environment as
well. Such that manager of quoted firm uses
Coercive power in which they did work
against the will and this leads to harassment.
While on the other side, sometimes negative
politics is also followed by the firm which
generated conflicts and also affects the
business in negative manner (Cheong and
Kim, 2018). So, it is analyzed that there is a
need to solve the problem that leads to
change the overall environment and
encourage employees to perform well. The
culture of the company is not positive such

that due to change in advance technology,
most of employees do not make decision to
comply with the same. For example, change
in the updates regarding to online booking,
or to solve the security issue within a
business is consider the biggest problem that
affect the operations of Uber.
On the other side, due to
globalization, culture of the company is also
affected such that Uber have its operations
in different countries and they all have their
own language which affect the business and
working culture (Madden, Rashid and
Zainol, 2016). As a result, company has to
face different issues that create negative
impact upon the working culture. So there is
a need to solve the problem and provide
positive working culture as well.
4. Presenting content and process theories of
motivation
Content theory: It is a subset of
motivational theory which tries to define
motivational element. So it deals with what
motivate people and actually concerned with
individual need and goals.
Process theory: It deal with process
of motivation and also concern with how
motivation occurs, instead of focusing need
of people (Motivation theories, 2020). Some
of the process and content theory are as
mention below which needs to be follow by
Uber such that:
Maslow hierarchy theory:
This theory determines the basic
need of an individual which is describing
within pyramid. So, it defines the basic need
into five categories that leads to satisfy the
need and motivate individual as well. These
are as mention below:
Physiological need: It determines the basic
need for human to survive such as air, water
and food. Hence, if these are not meet then
the individual life affected and motivation is
also affected in opposite manner.
Safety and security: Another basic need that
is known as safety needs which leads to
satisfy human (Kentikelenis and Seabrooke,
2017). These needs are assist to make an
individual feel value and protect a people
from accident and illness as well.

Belongingness and love: If both the needs
are fulfilled then affection and
belongingness comes that keep motivate the
people to meet the demand. It also
encourage people to meet the define aim.
Self-esteem: It means respect for a person
and appreciated by others so that they feel
valued. Hence, this will turn to promote
individual to meet the define aim and keep
motivated.
Self-actualization: It means people wants to
grow and develop their fullest potential.
Like at workplace they find different things
to grow and try to grab opportunities as well
(Pullen, Rhodes and Thanem, 2017).
Mintzberg theory:
The theory state that there are some
management roles and responsibilities which
needs to be followed by the manager in
order to be satisfy the concepts. For that
there are some roles are describe by
manager which in turn leads to motivate the
employees and sustain positive working
environment as well. Mintzberg also
recommend breaking down the management
roles and responsibilities to organize the
workplace in better manner which provide
positive culture within a firm (Anderman,
2020). Though every manager is different
such that they lies upon interpersonal,
informational and decision making roles etc.
Mayo Theory:
It state that employees are motivated
through many factors such that rewards or
environmental factors. That is why, Mayo
developed a matrix which assist to identify
the likelihood that makes a team successful.
The matrix contain four criteria like group
with low norm and low cohesiveness are
ineffective, low norm and high cohesiveness
have negative impact, high norm and low
cohesiveness positive impact, last is high
norm and high cohesiveness have greatest
positive impact (Wang and et.al., 2019). So
with the help of this model, company
generate a team working abilities and strong
communication that leads to improve
working environment.
5. Critically evaluate the motivation theories
Maslow theory assist to determine
the perspective of human and consider a
valuable approach off thinking about
motivation. Whereas McClelland theory
lead to learn about the motivator over time.
Hence it is analyzed that the theory leads to
satisfied the motivating factors while other
theory do not (Tsai and et.al., 2016).
Moreover, Mayo theory also gives more
freedom to an entire worker and also

provides a new hope that leads to increase
communication and teamwork. However, it
is critically analyzed that process theory of
motivation assist to analyze the factor that
leads to motivate employees. Further,
Mintzberg theory assist to improve the
practice of management which people who
are managers and this in turn leads to
motivate the employees. While comparing
the same with Herzberg theory it is analyzed
that hygiene theory leads to affect
performance level of employees and
motivate them as well.
6. How motivation assist Uber to attain
organization’s goals
From the above it is recommended
that there is a need improve the culture and
motivation within organization because it
leads to improve the overall working
environment. Such that to improve the
motivation, it is suggested to offer monetary
and non-monetary form of benefits while
attaining the define aim (Janmaimool,
2017). This assists to encourage people to
improve productivity and profitability too.
Moreover, this suggestion assists Uber to
grab the future opportunities and increase
the performance level of company as well.
On the other side, it is also recommended to
the company that task culture should be
followed in which teams are designed that
assist to improve the overall performance of
a company. So with the help of these steps,
company increase the level of motivation
which in turn help Uber to attain goals.
CONCLUSION
By summing up above it has been
concluded that culture of an organization
plays an important role in the success of a
company. Similarly, by adopting best power
out of five will help the company to improve
the operations and working environment as
well. The study also concluded that due to
negative working culture and legitimate
power, Uber did not improve the
performance of the company. Also, different
motivational theories are also complied
which in turn assist to improve the overall
performance and encourage the team
members to improve the productivity as
well.

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Motivation theories. 2020. [Online].
Available through: <
https://regi.tankonyvtar.hu/hu/tartalom/t
amop412A/2011-0023_Psychology/
030300.scorml >.