Organizational Behavior: Understanding Power, Communication, Leadership, Motivation, and Culture

This article discusses various topics related to organizational behavior such as sources of power, communication process, leadership behaviors, conflict resolution, motivation theories, group development, and cultural dimensions. It provides insights into the different models and theories that help in understanding the behavior of individuals and groups in an organization.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational behavior
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

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Question: 1
The six sources of power are reward, coercive, referent, legitimate, expert and
informational power. Providing incentives for good work is terms as reward power. Punishing
for not meeting job targets can be termed as coercive power. Creating examples and making
others follow is referent power (Anderson & Brion, 2014). Ordering subordinates by the
superiors is an example of legitimate power. Having expertise in a particular subject and guiding
is an example of expert power. Sharing secretes for success can be termed as informational
power.
Question: 2
Having more expertise in a subject and leading others with the knowledge will help to
become more influential. In addition, if others have the idea about this expertise then obviously
influence will get increased. This can also help in promotion in the workplace, which further
enhances the legitimate power by authority. Legitimate power will help to use reward and
coercive power according to the situation.
Question: 3
Channel richness of the mediums can be determined by their capacity to handle multiple
communication flows at a time, initiating rapid feedback and maintaining the confidentiality.
Email can transit more informative communication; face to face communication can transmit
more personalized information and company bulletin board can transmit generalized and short
notice to maximum number of audience (Klitmoller & Lauring, 2013).

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Question: 4
The four leadership behaviors according to path goal theory are directive, supportive,
participative and achievement. Directive behavior refers to the process of directing subordinates
without asking for any feedback. Supportive behaviors refer to the friendly approach of the
leaders where jobs are being done in cooperative manner (Demirtas & Akdogan, 2015).
Participative behavior refers to the consultative approach where all the stakeholders are being
involved in taking decisions by the leaders. Achievement behavior of the leaders refers to the
setting of targets for the subordinates that they have to meet. This behavior focuses more on
enhancing the sense of achievement among the employees.
Question: 5
The seven elements of the communication process are sender, ideas, encoding,
communication channel, receiver, decoding and feedback. Person who is starting the
communication process is sender by sending the message. Ideas refer to the subject matter of the
communication process. Encoding refers to conversion of the subject matter or the thought in
symbols such as words and pictures (Pesina & Solonchak, 2014). Communication channel refers
to the medium through which the subject will pass on such as telephone and letter. Receiver
refers to the person who is receiving the message from the sender. Decoding refers to the process
of extracting the message from the symbols in accordance to his understanding. Feedback refers
to the process of accepting the message of the sender and replying the same to the sender ending
the communication process.

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Question: 6
Transactional leadership refers to the leadership approach that uses the rewards and
punishments in motivating the employees. For example, leaders with having the result oriented
approach are motivating the employees by reward and coercive reward. On the other hand,
transformational leadership refers to the process of leading by examples where employees are
motivated by the personal enthusiasm and visionary power of the leaders (Dumdum, Lowe &
Avolio, 2013). For example, leaders with having higher expertise and knowledge will be able to
motivate the employees by influence. Charismatic leadership refers to the charm and personal
charisma of the leaders that helps in motivating the employees. In this case, leaders create a
separate brand value of themselves. For example, Steve Jobs is a charismatic leader. He was
having same brand value as his company Apple.
Question: 7
The five barriers are use of jargon, cultural barriers, noise in communication channel,
physical barriers and difference in perception. In some cases, senders use difficult words and
jargons that cause difficulty for the receivers. If the sender and receiver are from the different
social backgrounds then they will have different approaches that will cause issues in
communication (DA, 2013). If the communication channels are wrongly selected then added
noise will be generated that will dilute the subject. Physical barriers such as geographical
distance will lead to time consumption in communication process. In some cases, senders and
receivers are having different perceptions from same subject. Thus, the core objective of the
communication process cannot be served.

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Question: 8
In the case of the distributive bargaining, interest of other party is not taken in to
consideration and only focused on own profit at the cost of loss of another. On the other hand,
integrative bargaining refers to the focusing on win-win situation for both the parties without
having preferences for one party over other.
Question: 9
According to the Thomas Killman Conflict styles, there are mainly five types of modes
emerges in respondng to the conflict. In case of conflict, competing can lead to further issue,
where everyone is fighting for own right. The next scenario can be the accomodating. This refers
to scarificing for other;s help and creating a win-win situation (Riasi & Asadzadeh, 2015). The
next situation is avoiding. In this case, no voice is being raised either for the conflict or against it.
Collaborating refers to the working in cooperative mode in resolving the conflict. The last mode
is the comprosmising. This refers to creating of mutually accepted resolution that involves
compromising interests of everyone.
Question: 10
Rational decision is being taken by facts, figures and numbers. For example, in initiating
a rational decision, a manager should first and define the problem such as reduction in
production rate. In the next step, he will identify the factors that should be considered in taking
decision such as employee number, average production rate and average time of working
(Grunig & Kuhn, 2017). The next step involves ranking the identified factors according to their
importance. In the next step, manager should come up with number of alternatives for resolving

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the issues such as employee engagement and providing incentives. In the next step he will
evaluate the alternatives and will come up with the final decision.
Question: 11
Organizational culture refers to the values, beliefs and approaches being maintained in
the workplace. This also refers to the approaches of managing the employees in the workplace.
Question: 12
Kurt Lewin’s change model is having three main steps that should be followed. In the
first step, the upper level management should identify the gap areas in the existing business
processes and aware the employees about the need for change and how they can be benefited.
This step is known as unfreezing. In the next step, the new processes should be implemented in
accordance to the identified gap areas (Cummings, Bridgman & Brown, 2016). In addition, the
change should be implemented with consulting all the involved stakeholders. This step is called
change. The last step is refreezing. In this step, all the organizational affairs should be made
stable after the change process. in addition, the upper level management should gain feedback
from the employees about the effectiveness of the new policy and rectify accordingly.
Question: 13
In having a effective team, the first factor that should be maintained is trust. If the team
members are not having trust among themselves, then team bonding cannot be created. The next
factor is conflict. If the team is having effective mechanism of resolving conflict, then the
teamwork will be more effective. The next factor is commitment. Commitment of the team
members in achieving the objective helps to make the team effective. The next factor is

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accountability. Team members should be accountable enough for their responsibilities in order to
have effective team management. The last factor is result orientation. This refers to the extent to
which, employees are attentive in achieving their results.
Question: 14
Organizational behavior refers to study of behavioral approach of the internal
stakeholders. This study is being done to make an efficient organization. It also helps to
determine the extent to which internal stakeholders will react against a certain business
environment (Podsakoff & House, 2013).
Question: 15
The five dimensions of personality are extroversion, agreeableness, neuroticism and
openness to experience. Extroversion associated with the success of the manager due to the
reason that extroversion will help the manager to be more open and communicate with others.
Openness to experience also associated with success of manager due to the reason that it will
enable the managers to learn new things (Zeigler-Hill et al., 2015).
Question: 16
Perception refers to the ability of hearing and seeing something and becoming aware
about that. The three main components of perception are stimuli, recognition and behavior.
Question: 17
Aldefer’s theory of motivation is the modified form of Maslow’s theory. The major
difference between these two theories is, Maslow’s theory refers to five basic needs that should
be met. On the other hand, Alderfer’s theory states about the mainly three needs. According to

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this theory, existence need included the basic and safety needs of Maslow are similar.
Relatedness needs refer to the esteem and love needs of Maslow. Growth need refers to the
esteem and self actualization need. Thus, the objective is same but the approach is different
between these theories.
Question: 18
The major difference between the need and process theories is that need theories states
from the perspective of the managers. This theory refers to the factors that should be fulfilled by
the managers in order to motivate the employees (Lester, 2013). On the other hand, process
theories states from the perspective of the employees. This refers to the factors that the
employees should consider in motivating themselves.
Question: 19
Two forms of social loafing are free rider effect and sucker effect. In order to reduce the
free rider effect, all the team members should be measures based on their individual performance
(Hall & Buzwell, 2013). In order to reduce the sucker effect, employee should be given
incentives for their good work. This will reduce the tendency of the team members of getting
influenced by the free riders.
Question: 20
The steps in group development are forming, storming, norming and performing.
Forming refers to the formation of the team, storming refers to the initiation of communication
and conflict among the members. Norming refers to the resolution of the group conflict and
performing refers to the achievement of team objective.

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Question: 21
The four dimensions are power distance, individualism vs collectivism, masculinity and
femininity, uncertainty avoidance and indulgence. Power distance refers to gap in the hierarchy,
individualism refers to the self orientation of society, masculinity refers to society driven by
success, uncertainty avoidance refers to openness to new things and indulgence refers to
importance of life.

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