Organizational Behavior: Influence on Individuals and Teams

This report analyzes the organizational behavior of 4Com Plc. and explores how organizational culture, politics, and power influence individual and team behavior and performance. It also discusses the application of content and process theories of motivation to achieve organizational goals.

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ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational behavior
Organizational behavior can be defined as the study of human behavior at the work place.
It involves the combination of various activities that attempt to recognize, explain and predict
employee behavior. This is achieved by studying the different factors that influence how

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employees think, feel and react at the work place. In this report, I shall attempt to make an
analysis of the organizational behavior of 4Com Plc. and how it can possibly be improved. 4Com
Plc. provides telecommunication products and services. The company aims to grow its business
on a large scale and achieve success in the market place by outcompeting other firms. In this
report, I shall analyze how organizational culture influence the success and performance of
individuals and teams.
How does organizational culture, politics and power influence the behavior and
performance of individuals and teams.
Culture, power and politics are three key elements of any firm’s organizational behavior
that have major influence on individual and team behavior and performance. In this modern age
where businesses are increasingly competitive, organizations have focused largely on how to
gain a competitive edge against competition in the market. This competitive edge is mainly
concerned with how organizations will satisfy their customer’s wants by providing them with
high quality goods and services that will meet their expectations.
Organizational culture can be best interpreted with the help of Handy’s culture typology
that effectively evaluates organizational culture. Handy’s typology has various components,
these are: power culture, role culture, task culture and person culture (Driskil, 2018, p. 22).
According to Treven, Mulej, and Lynn (2018, p.28), 4Com is essential as it makes
organizations to become a benchmark for various competitors through giving total satisfaction
towards the consumers as well as constructing the atmosphere in which the individuals are
motivated to advance, participate, and share in the outcome. 4Com as an organization should aim
to apply process and content theories to encourage their workers. 4Com may choose to use
Maslow’s needs hierarchy theory under the content theory, Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene

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theory, and Alderfer's ERG theory. On the other hand, 4Com may apply, Vroom’s expectancy
theory as well as Adman’s equity theory under process theory.
The structure of the organization is a vital element of daily activities concerning business
operations. A company is advantaged from organizational structure due to all it encompasses.
Also, it is applied in defining the ways the undertakings are grouped, coordinated, and divided.
Six components should be addressed at the time of designing of the structure organizational.
These include departmentalization, spans of control, chain of command, specialization of work,
decentralization, as well as centralization (Treven, Mulej & Lynn 2018, p.28). These elements
directly reflect the organization’s culture, politics, and power.
In this context, teams play a significant role in the carrying out of an organization’s
operations in an organized-coordinated and planned manner. They achieve this through the
creation of effective management of activities amongst the workers and juniors. 4Com Plc.
should endeavor to divide its work between its different departments in which employees work
towards accomplishing the administration's objectives. 4Com Plc. as a medium sized group can
expand its efficiency and the effectiveness of its actions by carrying out its events through the
use of teams that are properly organized (Mark 2018, p.5). These organizations can be evaluated
as effective or ineffective.
Power culture is one of the most crucial components in this typology and has diverse
contributions to an organization’s working environment. Business organizations tend to have
their main focus on becoming leaders in their respective markets by providing their customer’s
with a variety of goods and services that satisfy their wants and needs. 4Com Plc. has various
departments in it and each has its assigned role that it sets out to achieve. In the department’s
quest to meet these goals, power is assigned to the managers or supervisors of the respective

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departments for the purpose of ensuring that decision making is effective and contributes to the
organization’s growth and success. By using power culture in 4Com Plc., its overall
effectiveness and efficiency can be improved and business processes can also run in a smooth
manner. This will improve the performance of employees in this enterprise as the managers and
supervisors will guide the workers to achieve business goals which will improve their work
performance and they can perform in an appropriate manner in a team also.
Role culture is another key component in Handy’s culture typology. Each department in
the organization performs its own unique role in the firm. In organizations, individuals higher in
the rank of authority are responsible for assigning roles to their subordinates in accordance to
their capability and knowledge. 4Com Plc. as an organization ins largely focused on expanding
its business on a large scale and to do this it is necessary that roles are properly assigned to
various employees in accordance to their capability and this will ensure that resources are
properly allocated and utilized: this will consequently lead to 4Com achieving its set goals. It
will also improve the overall performance of workers towards achieving business goals as they
will be assigned various tasks and responsibilities in an effective manner by their seniors who are
more experienced. It will also improve the team performance when workers are guided properly.
Task culture prescribes that various tasks are categorized and assigned to their
appropriate departments as assigned by managers or supervisors. This ensures that the firm’s
goals and objectives are systematically organized and accomplished. Thus task culture will
enable 4Com to attain a higher competitive edge against its competition in the market and
consequently achieve its goal. Due to this systematic form, the individual will work in a
systematic manner towards attaining their business goals and the team will also be able to
achieve their targets within a specified period of time.

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Person culture attempts to analyze how the human resource contributes to ensuring that
the firm attains its goals. In this culture individuals are assigned to various tasks by their
managers or supervisors and their main objective is to see that they meet their set goals and
targets in the desired time period. In this person culture, employees tend to be more goal oriented
in nature.
Politics and power play a crucial role in the developing plans in the organization and also
influence the measures and steps taken to actualize these plans. Politics play a crucial role in the
establishment of relationships within the organization. Within the organization, politics will
determine the nature of relationships that employees form and consequently this relationships
will influence employees’ attitudes at the work place and how they perform their duties.
Consequently, employees’ performance will affect the organization’s performance. Therefore
4Com Plc. should aim to ensure that organizational politics do not negatively influence the
relationships between its employees as this will affect the performance of the organization
(Driskil, 2018, p. 37). In any kind of decisions such as type of machinery adopted, financial
resources involved, etc., there are certain choices which are required to be made. These choices
and decisions includes some sort of politics while an individual who is making such decisions or
choices utilizes some power to make sure that their decisions and choices should be accepted.
Therefore, power's influence organization's politics represents a political analysation of
organizational relationship under which playing power and politics is quite normal.
In an organisation, it is very important that there is positive flow of politics within
business processes of an enterprise. It is very significant for an enterprise to use the politics and
power in a better way and not misuse them. If there is negative use of politics by employees and
managers in an organisation than it will have negative impact upon the behavior of both

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individual and team. Employees will not able to concentrate upon their own work and will be
busy in leg pulling of their co-workers, which will reduce the overall performance and
productivity of individual as well as team members. The team will not able to form coordination
among them and it will negatively influence their team behaviour. Due to which, work will be
delayed and the enterprise will not able to meet its objectives. Those employees who are indulge
in negative politics, will manipulate the information and it is not passed in a desired way.
Therefor, politics has negative impact upon an enterprise and upon both individual as well as
team behaviour. 4Com Plc. makes sure that its employees and managers do not misuse politics
and power to achieve business objectives in a desired manner.
How power in the organization is put to use by superiors such as managers and
supervisors in the organization can positively or negatively influence organizational politics.
Power should be allocated to the managers within 4Com who should then responsibly use it to
further the agenda of the firm.
Conclusively, in a business organization, authority plays a critical role in the analysis of
employee behaviors to guide the following individual attitudes. Also, teams play a significant
role in organizations as they contribute to the achievement of its objectives and targets.

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How do content theories and process theories of motivation and motivational techniques
enable the effective achievement of goals within an organization.
Motivation can be described as one of the most effective ways of encouraging employees
at the work place to grow their skills and capacity in the performance of their tasks and duties in
the firm. In any organization, managers and supervisors are responsible for the motivation of
employees for their critical and creative application of skills and knowledge in the performance
of their duties. Motivating employees to effectively perform their duties is one of the sure ways
to help any firm gain that competitive edge against competition in the market (Miner, 2015, p.
36).
Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation is considered as one of the most effective theories
applied by organizations to motivate their employees. Extrinsic motivation is an external form of
motivation that aims to motivate employees by providing them with some form of reward or
prize for the effective performance of tasks. Intrinsic motivation aims to provide employees with
a form of self-encouragement that aims to create a personal interest to want to perform tasks
effectively and this way employees are self-motivated to continuously achieve the organizations
goals (Miner, 2015, p.24).
4Com as an organization should aim to apply process and content theories to motivate
their employees. Under content theories, 4Com may choose to apply Maslow’s needs hierarchy
theory, Herzberg’s motivation hygiene theory and Aldefer’s ERG theory. Under process theories,
4Com may apply, Vroom’s expectancy theory, Adman’s equity theory.
Content Theories
Maslow’s needs hierarchy theory is based on the idea that people have varying wants and
needs. Large and small business are concerned with providing the essential needs and facilities

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of its employees and providing for the safety and security of its employees at the work place.
This theory aims to push individuals to not only fulfill their basic needs but also to pursue their
own self-actualization. In this theory, there are 5 needs that must be fulfilled in order to motivate
workers at workplace. The first is physiological needs that includes basic needs like food, air
water, etc. , the second is safety needs which means job security, freedom from fear, and so on.
The third one is love needs which implies friendship, trust, acceptance, in a workplace and fourth
is esteem needs that is achievement, dignity, respect, at workplace. The last need is self
actualization which determines to achieve which can be achieved by an individual. This theory
will help the individuals of 4Com to enhance their performance by providing them high amount
of satisfaction. By this individual will work effectively in a team which will help in achieving its
business objectives.
Herzberg’s motivation hygiene theory aims to motivate employees by focusing on key
factors that affect the employee such as salaries, company policy and relationship within the
organization, just to mention a few. These factors are considered to be more effective at
motivating employees as they help employees achieve higher levels of satisfaction. This theory is
considered to be more effective at improving employees’ skills and capacities by providing
adequate guidance and assistance. By applying this theory, 4Com can provide high level of
satisfaction to its employees, this will result in improving the performance and satisfaction level
of an individual and due to positive relationship between workforce will enhance the
performance of overall team.
Aldefer’s ERG theory is based on three different types of needs: growth, existence and
relatedness needs that are considered to play a crucial role in an employee’s personal and
professional growth and development. Existence needs are the basic needs of employees that an

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organization is expected to fulfill. Growth needs are based on an employees’ individualistic
needs. Relatedness needs are related to the social needs of an individual and are important for the
formation of relationships with fellow employees at the workplace. By using this theory, an
individual can be highly satisfied and motivated which will enhance its overall performance and
individual can also perform in various team activities which will help 4Com in achieving
business goals and objectives.
Process Theories
Vroom’s expectancy theory holds that every business bases it activities on its goals and
objectives. This enables the organization to carry out its activities and operations in an organized
and systematic manner and every organization plans its activities in its own unique way since
their goals and objectives are different. This theory holds that having goals is important as they
play an important role in motivating their employees to perform their tasks efficiently and
effectively. This theory aims to enhance employee performance by improving their skills and
knowledge of employees at the work place. By applying this theory, an individual working at
4Com will improve its performance for the purpose of receiving certain rewards. The team
members will also motivate to perform in a more effective way for as they will receive rewards if
their project will meet its objectives.
Adman’s equity theory is based in the importance of maintaining equality within the
organization among all employees. Equality prevents vices such as discrimination from
occurring at the work place and works to motivate employees by fostering an environment where
superiors show appreciation for a job well done by subordinates. Appreciation may be in the
form of incentives such as bonuses or salary increases. When 4 Com uses this theory in its
business processes than it will have positive impact upon both individual as well as team

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members. It will motivate an individual to perform better as it is considered as an important
component of an organisation. When equal opportunities and chances are provided by 4Com to
its team members, than it will give an opportunity to all members of its team to express their
views and opinions regarding major decisions relating to a specific project. This will help in
reducing any kind of conflicts that can arise among team members which will enhance the team
performance and help in achieving business goals and objectives. Moreover, when all the
workers are treated equally than it will increase their comfort zone and they will perform in more
appropriate way.
4Com should focus on adopting several of these motivational theories so as to encourage
employees to improve their quality of work and thus enable the organization to meet its goals
and objectives.
Evaluation of how process and content theories helps in achieving organisational goals
4Com is requires to apply motivational theories in order to achieve various objectives of
its business process. By using these motivational theories, this enterprise can easily motivate its
employees which will result in enhancing their overall performance. In content theories of
motivation, the most suitable one in context of 4Com is Maslow's hierarchy need theory as it will
help in fulfilling all the needs of an individual which will enhance the individual as well as team
performance in an enterprise. When this theory will be applied in 4Com than it will motivate an
individual to perform in a more appropriate manner as they will feel comfortable in a working
environment. It will also improve the overall performance of a team which will result in
achieving business objectives within a specific time period. In process motivational theories, the
most suitable one which must be adopted by an individual is Adman’s equity theory as it will
enable to maintain equality and sustainability at workplace. This will have positive impact upon

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an individual as they will get equal opportunities and chances in an enterprise which will
motivate them to achieve business goals. It will also improve the overall team performance of
4Com as all the team members will get equal fare chances to participate in decision making
procedure. Both process and content theories will help in enhance the employee's motivation by
fulfilling their various requirements as well as by giving them equal opportunities to achieve
business goals and objectives.

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What makes an effective team
Teams play a crucial role in the carrying out of an organization’s activities in a well-
coordinated and planned manner. They achieve this through the establishment of effective
coordination of activities between employees and subordinates. 4Com Plc. should attempt to
divide its work among its various departments in which employees work towards achieving the
organizations goals. 4Com Plc. as a medium sized organization can improve its productivity and
the profitability of its activities by carrying out its activities through the use of teams that are
well coordinated. These teams can be evaluated as effective or ineffective.
An effective team is one that works to effectively perform its roles at the work place. The
purpose of this team is to accomplish the duties and tasks assigned to it within the stipulated time
period. In this team, the organization tends to place employees with the highest level of
education and those equipped with the best skills to accomplish the tasks (Mark, 2018, p.7).
An ineffective team is considered to be of less importance and is formed for the purpose
of attaining some easy goal within the organization. This type of team is not concerned about the
conflicts or problems at the work place and their impacts on the organization’s performance.
There also tends to be a lack of appreciation for the efforts of team mates within the team (Mark,
2018, p.9).
There are different theories that put forth the best approaches to use when forming
teams. The Tuckman model is considered as the most suitable model from which teams can be
modelled. This model can be categorized into the following components: forming, storming,
norming, performing, adjourning (Siregar & Pane, 2018, p.3).

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Forming is the first stage in Tuckman’s model in which employees with similar skills are
appointed to form a team so that they can accomplish a set goal. It is founded on the idea of
orientation and employees mainly focus on creating good relationships amongst each other.
Storming is the second stage that focuses on trying to define the duties of the group and
members of the team try to come up with ideas on how they can accomplish their task.
In the norming stage, the members shift their focus towards practicing cohesive behaviors
and accept a common method of operating as a team to accomplish their assigned task.
The performing stage is based on the set plan to be followed by the team. This stage
involves the actual implementation of the plan in an organized and systematic manner to
accomplish the assigned task.
Adjourning is the final stage in the model that comes after the team has accomplished its
task and is being brought to an end.
4Com.plc. can use this model in order to formulate an effective team which will help in
achieving business goals and objectives. By applying this model in its business processes, this
enterprise can develop an effective and efficient team out of the ineffective team. It can provide
training and development to its employees which will help this team in improving their overall
performance and achieve various business objectives. By using this model, 4Com.plc can
formulate an effective team and distributive various tasks and activities. Then, it can guide and
supervise its team members regarding accomplishment of various tasks and business processes.
This Enterprise can also conduct various training and development programs in order to update
various skills of its employees.

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Concepts and philosophies of organizational behavior in an organizational context
Every business organization is majorly concerned with improving the performance of its
teams as this contributes toward the improved performance and development of employees at the
work place. By improving the performance of the team, the organization is able to achieve the
effective utilization of resources and achieve its goals. 4Com should aim to improve the
performance of its teams as this will lead to the effective and efficient use of resources and
consequently the organization will be able to meet its set goals and targets. To achieve effective
team performance, organizations such as 4Com may apply path goal theory in its organizational
structure.
Path goal theory provides an effective means of improving team performance in the
organization since the theory is majorly centered on the use of a specific leadership style.
4Com’s main aim is to enhance team performance by maximizing employee engagement in
activities at the work place (Anderson & Sun, 2017, 82). Path goal theory explains that the
behavior of employees is different as each individual employee has his or her unique attitude,
beliefs and norms that they employ for the sake of attaining their goals. There are several factors
that have an immediate and direct impact on the performance of teams namely communication
and managerial involvement.
In every organization, an effective communication channel plays a crucial role in
ensuring the proper coordination of activities between different departments. The establishment
of this effective communication channel is the responsibility of the superiors within an
organization. Proper communication channels are necessary for the proper flow of data and
information at the work place. Also an effective channel of communication plays a crucial role in
resolving conflicts that arise within the organization and creating an awareness of the policies of

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the firm. In context of 4Com, it is very essential for this organisation to maintain an effective
flow of communication within a business entity. As this enterprise is a telecommunication
company, so it has an effective communication flow within its processes. The effective
communication flow within business processes is a significant part of every organisation.
Without proper communication, an enterprise may not able to work in a desired manner. So, it is
an important part of a business process to form communication among the employees and
between the managers and workers. 4Com can use both oral and written communication in order
to facilitate the business process in a more effective manner. Moreover, it can also indulge its
workforce to express their views and opinions by providing them a platform to communicate
their ideas. This will bring new ideas and concepts in 4Com which will help in improving its
effectiveness as well as efficiency.
Managers are expected to actively participate in the activities of the organization as this
plays a great role in motivating employees to perform their work effectively. Managers play a
crucial role in overseeing the operations of the firm since they have the necessary authority and
control over how the organization’s businesses is conducted. A lack of managerial participation
in the organization’s activities tends to demotivate employees and consequently affects their
performance. In 4Com, managers involvement plays a vital role to achieve business targets,
objectives and goals. The role of manager is not limited to manage and control the activities of a
business as a whole and activities of employees. It is the responsibility of manager to involve in
all the business processes to make sure that these activities and processes are conducted in an
appropriate manner. The managers of 4Com helps in guiding and supervising workers so that
they work in an effective manner. They also generate various training and development programs
to enhance various skills of workers within an enterprise. 4Com's managers also communicate

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with its employees from time to time to make sure that they are not facing any kind of issue
relating to work.
Based on the analysis of the report it is correct to conclude that in a business
organization, authority plays a crucial role in the analysis of employee behaviors so as to provide
guidance in accordance to individual attitudes. Also teams play a great role in organizations as
they contribute to the accomplishment of its goals and targets. In 4Com, there is effective flow
of communication between superiors and subordinates by which they exchange their ideas and
opinions in an effective manner. Also, the managers are also involved in its business processes
and provide proper guidance and supervision regarding business processes.
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