OB and HRM Practices: A Cultural Analysis

This assignment delves into the relationship between Organizational Behaviour (OB) and Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, focusing on how they are implemented in a culturally sensitive manner. It explores various OB theories and their practical application within organizations, including communication, interpersonal relationships, leadership styles, motivation techniques, and training programs. The assignment also examines real-life examples and case studies to illustrate these concepts.

Running head: Organisation Behaviour
Organization behavior

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Table of Content:
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
Week 6: Motivation..............................................................................................................................4
Week 7: Group behaviour & Team at work...........................................................................................4
Element of successful teamwork.......................................................................................................4
Other conditions for Team management..........................................................................................4
Steps to be taken to avoid problems at the onset of team work:......................................................5
Week 8: Leadership theories.................................................................................................................5
Difference between trait and behaviour theory:...............................................................................5
How can organisation choose and develop leader............................................................................5
Week 9: Delegate power or keep it close..............................................................................................6
Projects or parts of projects to delegate...........................................................................................6
Executives taking control...................................................................................................................6
Some tasks that top executives should never delegate to others:....................................................6
Week 10: Conflict & Negotiations..........................................................................................................7
Discussion of contentious issues in workplace..................................................................................7
Negotiators using conflict management to the advantage................................................................7
Open communication facilitating collaboration instead....................................................................7
Week 11: Organisational change...........................................................................................................7
5 Sustaining innovations that have affected in the recent past.........................................................7
3 to 5 disrupting innovations.............................................................................................................8

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Week 12: Culture...................................................................................................................................8
Explain the practices learned in OB and HRM practices being culturally active................................8
References:............................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
In this report, we will be focussing on analysing different situations related to organisation
behaviour, focusing on specific case studies and answer the questions attached to it. The report will
be revolving around 7 topics, namely: Motivation, group behaviour & team work, teams not working
the way they supposed to, leadership, power & politics, delegating power to keep it close, conflict &
negotiation and organisational change. These are some of the prevalent problems or situations every
organisation has to deal with on an everyday basis; hence special attention has to be given to them.
In the report further we will analyse all the situations separately.

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Week 6: Motivation
Sales force, McDonald, Hilton, Adecco, Cisco, Mars, Hyatt, Bayer group are some of the best
workplaces featuring in Top 50. All these companies predominantly are considered to best places to
work because of the strong reason of trust and relationship building between the employees and the
managers. A place is considered to be a great place to work where the employees feel valued and
they are consistently being praised for the efforts they put in the workplace. These companies
believe that if they build a culture of trust, and empower the employees by treating them as adults
who are responsible, and take accountability for their actions, the company is sure to feature among
best places to work. The employees are motivated throughout their journey with the company.
Maslow’s theory of motivation, which focuses on need based hierarchy theory, focus on theory x &
Y, work towards removing the hygiene factors in the company and working towards the motivating
factors. The companies fix problems of their employees as and when they encounter them and
consider employees as a big asset to the company (Nuttin, 2014)
To summarize, these companies work as a family towards the same organisation goal creating
positive synergies among employees and create an atmosphere of win-win in the organisation.
Week 7: Group behaviour & Team at work
Element of successful teamwork:
 The team size should be small and should have a consistent membership throughout, to
minimize the task coordination and hence save on a lot of valuable time.
 Support system for the teams should be in place.
 Effective leadership has to be there to lead the team and also at the time of a conflict with
the senior management, the leader should take side of his team (Honigsfeld & Dove, 2016)
Other conditions for Team management:
 Delegating individual responsibilities and making the members accountable for their job
functions.
 Team work activities to break any kind of culture barriers.
 Involve the members in decision making.

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 Trusting & empowering the team for important business decisions, and also motivating and
appraising the employees for their work (Schippers, Dawson & West, 2015)
Steps to be taken to avoid problems at the onset of team work:
 Start with team building exercises to break any kind of cultural barriers between the
employees.
 Assuring the team members about their individuality in the team and the importance of
their contribution to the team and organisational goals.
 Consistent mentoring and empowering the employees with business task will go long way in
building a strong culture of team work.
Week 8: Leadership theories
Difference between trait and behaviour theory:
Proponents of trait theory strongly believes that leaders are born, in their natural habitat, they are
defined by their characteristic such as charismatic & are driven, on the other hand , behaviour
theory says that leaders can be made, nurtured, made to taught and raised in an environment where
they grow as leader. Behaviour leadership is more about being democratic, a quality learning and
teaching can develop a person into an effective leader, proponents believe that right training of an
individual will develop into leadership, on the other hand trait theory simply believes that the
leaders are born and are not raised, they have characteristics inherent in them of a leader
(Northouse, 2015)
How can organisation choose and develop leader
As mentioned above, according to behaviour theory of leadership, leaders can be made by providing
them with effective training and an environment to learn. The right person can be choose on the
basis of few qualities like integrity, in all aspects of his life, great communication, an influencer, a
great team player, a strong public speaker, someone who practices good ethics, accepts
responsibilities and is a man of strong character and morale.

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Organisation conduct various leadership programs in the company where interested employees or
candidates, whom the company seems fit to be a leader and has shown the skills of his leadership
ability in the past, are picked and given extensive training essential for a leader (Hope, 2016)
Week 9: Delegate power or keep it close
Projects or parts of projects to delegate:
 New project has to be dealt by Samantha, projects on auto pilot mode can be handed by the
team
 Top 10 clients projects have to be dealt by Samantha (80/20 rule of business), rest the team
can take care off.
 Creative part has to be taken care by Samantha, as it lays the foundation for the entire
campaign, marketing & promotions then can be handled by the team, with supervision of
Samantha.
Giving up too much control: In the light of the case, Samantha can have an oversight of the project,
without being a source of interference, by making her intentions clear to the team members, also,
by considering their view points, feedback on the campaign or the project. Power is a virtual
concept, but it becomes absolute when it’s used to dominate rather than use it as a tool to develop
synergies and work together. Empowering the team and seeking their recommendation on various
decision making task will solve the plight of Samantha.
Executives taking control: Yes, the executives are completely allowed to take charge of the
projects and keep Samantha in loop of the same. All big companies have individual account
managers taking care of their individual accounts and are also responsible for their P&L. Also, this
would give the management some valuable time to expand the horizon of business. In my opinion
giving the control to the executives will only result in positives for the company.
Some tasks that top executives should never delegate to others:
 Performance appraisal has to be done by the management.
 Creating organisational policies and procedures.
 Analysing the financial reports and forecasting projections.
 Identifying new markets of expansion.

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 Identifying new avenue of business.
 Attending major business conferences for networking , with different CEO’s
 Making the sales forecast, projections, creating buffer for expected losses.
Week 10: Conflict & Negotiations
Discussion of contentious issues in workplace:
It’s really important to have a good discussion of contentious issues, as it helps to evade unnecessary
negativity from the system and bring harmony in the team. The contentious issues should be
discussed in a positive manner by doing away with the blame game and addressing the issue from
the point of view of the organisation rather than the individual and attaching the same to
fundamental values in the organisation. Managers have this onus on themselves by not making the
situation worse by being absolutely cordial during the entire discourse and extracting positive output
from the discussion (Burns, 2014)
Negotiators using conflict management to the advantage:
Negotiators can use one of the following conflict management strategies to their advantage, they
can pick from a number of strategies like, being accommodating, avoiding, collaborative, compelling
& compromising. This sure will negate the possibilities of dysfunctional conflict and the same will be
resonated among the team members, in turn creating an ecosystem of positive synergies without
disrupting the prevalent conditions of positive working environment (Toomey, 2017)
Open communication facilitating collaboration instead:
I faced a real life situation, wherein my project manager and I had a tussle on adopting pricing
strategy for product launch, the choice had to be made between skimming pricing and penetration.
Manager and I were at loggerheads and kept silence on what has to be done for almost 2 weeks.
After intervention of a senior manager the conflict was resolved, and the effort was collaborated by
first going with penetration pricing further followed by price skimming.

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Week 11: Organisational change
5 Sustaining innovations that have affected in the recent past
I can say for sure that a lot of technical advancement has taken place in the last days. The way in
which we interacted with technology has changed drastically. Some of the innovations I can think of
are Social media marketing & social media in itself, evolution of e-commerce websites which brings
the ease of shopping to consumers (Amazon), face id recognition smart phones, smart devices which
can do a lot of tasks for us and improved voice recognition.
3 to 5 disrupting innovations
In my opinion chat bots is one of the greatest disruptive innovations, along with Internet of things,
where all devices which needs internet can connect together, then comes Google’s AR & VR devices
and glasses, self-driven automobiles are some of the disruptions in terms of innovation.
Week 12: Culture
Explain the practices learned in OB and HRM practices being culturally
active
Organisational behaviour has spread its wings over the last few decades, where the companies have
become more open to different organisational theories and have started implementing the same.
Openness in communication, improved inter personal relationship, adoption of different
management styles to build a culture of leadership, continues trainings for betterment of employees
and use of motivation as an important facet to boost the employees confidence and get maximum
productivity out of them, these are some of the examples which established the belief that the
theories are culturally active in the system (Scott & Davies, 2015)

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References:
Burns, J.S 2014, Conflict and Negotiation.” Organizational Leadership: Foundations and Practices for
Christians, p.171.
Honigsfeld, A. and Dove, M.G 2016, Co-teaching ELLs: Riding a tandem bike, Educational Leadership,
73(4), pp.56-60.
Hope, J 2016, Offer comprehensive program to develop campus leaders, Dean and Provost, 17(11),
pp.1-5.
Northouse, P.G 2015, Leadership: Theory and practice, Sage publications.
Nuttin, J 2014, Future time perspective and motivation: Theory and research method, Psychology
Press.
Schippers, M.C West, M.A. and Dawson, J.F 2015, Team reflexivity and innovation: The moderating
role of team context, Journal of Management, 41(3), pp.769-788.
Scott, W.R. and Davis, G.F 2015, Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open systems
perspectives, Routledge.
Ting Toomey, S 2017, Face work and Face Negotiation Theory,‐ The International Encyclopedia of
Intercultural Communication.

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