Influence of Culture, Politics, and Power on Employee Behaviour

Organisational Behaviour

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................3
Influence of culture, politics and power on employee behaviour................................................3
LO2..................................................................................................................................................7
Motivational Theories .................................................................................................................7
LO3..................................................................................................................................................9
Effective and Ineffective Teams..................................................................................................9
LO4................................................................................................................................................12
Concepts and philosophies of Organisational Behaviour in Waitrose.......................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Organisational Behaviour is the process of evaluating, understanding and anticipating an
individual or group's activities, behaviour and performance within a business. This report
analyses the impacts of culture, power and politics on employee behaviour within an
Organisation and evaluates how employees, teams can be motivated to achieve their goals and
objectives. The report also determines the factors that influence cooperation between various
employees and applies philosophies and concepts of organisational behaviour to a business
scenario. The organisation through which all concepts in this report are evaluated is Waitrose, a
British supermarket retailer operating the largest employee owned businesses in the United
Kingdoms since 1904, established as Waite, Taylor and Rose.
LO1
Influence of culture, politics and power on employee behaviour
Organisational Culture is always changing within companies such as organisation and
these changes affect the functioning and productivity of companies such as Waitrose (Kappo-
Abidemi, Iwu and Allen-Ile, 2017). In order to evaluate the influence of culture upon the
organisational behaviour , it is imperative to have an understanding of Handy's Cultural typology
as it can be used as a model to gain information about the various cultural influences in a
company. As per Charles Handy, there exist four widely followed distinct types of cultures
within an organisation that can influence its productivity (Brenyah and Obuobisa-Darko, 2017).
These are as follows:
Power Culture: Organisations following this model have power concentrated between a few
select individuals whose control spreads throughout the company. All rules and regulations are
decided and implemented by those in power and employee's don't have any say in the matter
(Nazarian and et.al.,2020). Employees are evaluated and judged upon their performance rather
than their behaviour or method of achieving goals. Implementing and functioning by power
culture allows an organisation to make decisions quickly as only those in power have to make the
decisions and communicate them down the chain of command, even if decisions made quickly
may or may not be in the best interest of the organisation itself (Christy and DURAISAMY,
2016). In companies with power culture, employee's views and ideas are insignificant and
employees are generally made to follow superior's orders, without any personal input in decision

making, which can decrease motivation and job satisfaction levels of employees, and affect their
productivity.
Role Culture: Organisations implementing the role culture model primarily function based on
rules. These are highly controlled workplaces, with everyone in the company being informed of
their roles and responsibilities respectively (Subba and Rao, 2017). Power in an organisation
working on role culture is determined by the position of the employee in the company's
organisational structure. This type of culture is implemented by organisations having a long or
tall chain of command rather than a flat one . Decision making in a company working on role
culture can be very slow process for the administration as the entire chain of command has to be
prior consulted (Frangeskou, Vasilakis and Lewis, 2016). As most of the chain of command has
to be consulted first before making any meaningful decision, Role cultures encourage
bureaucracy within the organisation but also have the added effect of reducing the organisation's
chances of risk taking while decision making. This culture increases motivation and job
satisfaction levels in employees as their inputs are welcomed by the management but may end up
worsening an employees productivity as time spent in bureaucracy can be efficiently spent
elsewhere.
Task Culture: When an organisation creates teams in order to solve a specific issue or to make
advancements in a project or task, it uses task culture. In organisations working on task culture,
the task itself is of paramount importance and thus the power resides with the team members and
shifts depending upon the team dynamics and progress of the task or project (Farris, 2018). The
success of task culture is dependent entirely on the dynamics of the project team and can achieve
high productivity, creativity and efficiency if the team has the perfect mix of skills, leadership,
personality and creative flair (Elsmore, 2017). This culture increases creativity, cooperation,
motivation and job satisfaction levels of employees but the individual employee's productivity is
highly dependent upon the team's productivity and efficiency.
Person Culture: In organisations working on person culture, the individual employees and
workforce see themselves as important, essential and superior to their parent organisation. This
model believes that the organisation exists only to facilitate the workings of individuals and these
types of organisations are summed up mostly as a collection of individuals who work for a same
organisation (Wan and Wan, 2016). This culture improves creativity of employees and gives