Organizational Behavior Theories and Practices in Contemporary Workplace

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Introduction
This report aims at discussing five selected topics which were learned during
weeks five to twelve. The purpose of preparing this paper is to integrate diverse
organizational behavior (OB) theories and practices to apply them in problem-solving
and enhance critical thinking abilities. This paper will focus majorly upon motivation,
group behaviour and the team at work, leadership, conflict and negotiation and
culture to demonstrate how these concepts are used in the contemporary workplace.
This paper will use credible sources for analyzing the concepts to develop an
alternative OB approach in the workplace.
Motivation
Most of the employers in contemporary organizations desire their employees
to be motivated and effectively perform their work but hardly comprehends what
motivates human beings. According to Dobre (2013), “motivation is an internal drive
to satisfy an unsatisfied need and to achieve a certain goal" (p. 54). In most of the
countries like Europe and the UK, companies make great investments to create
interest among employees alongside implementing various motivation theories to
keep the employees motivated and perform expectedly. Among all, the most
commonly used OB theories are Herzberg's two-factor theory, Aristotle seven cause
and Maslow's needs hierarchy as each of the theories relates human factors that are
needed by employees to be motivated in the workplace. Since every individual
belongs to different stages in life, management strategies require adopting different
motivation techniques to motivate their employees (Shoraj & Llaci, 2015).
Integrating theory into practice not only helps in investigating and describing how
employees can be motivated but also helps in influencing employees to remain self-
motivated and perform effectively.
According to Shoraj & Llaci (2015), there are two types of motivation that
impact employee performance in the workplace: financial and non-financial.
Motivating employees financially includes means like promotions, incentives,
bonuses and paid leave. Non-financial motives include motivational gains like
rewards, performance feedback, social recognition, etc which creates a positive
influence on employees' motivation. Furthermore, increased motivation in employees
results in job satisfaction as both of them are often closely connected in
organizational behaviour context in which job satisfaction is considered as an
emotive consequence resulting due to the accomplishment of duties. Accordingly,
job satisfaction can be associated with employee motivation, cooperation,
engagement and work performance that makes it necessary for companies to keep
motivating their staff for increased organizational productivity. Motivation through
influential leadership control is also considered as a motivating factor which signifies
that gaining employees trust and making them follow is very important to motivate
them for completing tasks appropriately (Dobre, 2013).

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Group behaviour and the team at work
In contemporary workplaces and community, people are focussing more upon
achieving occupational goals and purposes in the workplace rather than focussing
more upon the teamwork concept. Remarkably, in spite group behaviour is
measured as an indispensable device in management systems, it is ignored by most
of the employees as well as the employers that have led most of the workplace face
deficit in organizational productivity and poor performances. According to Sanyal &
Hisam (2018), creating the teams at work is the only way which can help
organizations accomplish efficient and quality economic growth under a controlled
supervisor. Many companies does not like to hire such individuals who are unavle to
work with teams for achieving task outputs or solve conflicts which proves the
significance behind group behavior as a necessary skill in OB context. Effective
intragroup collaboration and leadership are becoming increasingly significant since
the workplace are becoming more information-sensitive and complex than before,
thereby making teamwork a valuable asset (Sohmen, 2013).
From the case study read in week 7, it can be assumed that few trends that
influence success or failure of team-based projects depends upon the moment
teams are introduced in the workplace. In this sense, it can be said that building
strong and effective groups require long-standing techniques such as stages in team
development, the role of individual members, size, norms, cohesiveness, and
statuses. Teams can also be developed following effective team development
strategy like forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. Such guiding
principles help teams develop regulations to guide and regulates member behaviour,
however, any inequity seen in statuses leads to frustration and inadequate
performance. Size of team specifies the intensity of the project requirements while
cohesiveness influences the team's productivity based on norms developed for team
performance (Lunenburg & Lunenburg, 2015).
Leadership
Effective leadership is regarded as one of the essential components in
organization’s that help them sustain business processes in spite of facing issues
caused by changing business dynamics. According to Hao & Yazdanifard (2015)
influential leaders are those who take charge and control business operations
whereas good leaders are ones who set optimistic objectives and business goals
while steering operational procedures towards goals through efficient strategies.
Other than this, good leaders also influence employees by motivating and inspiring
them through positive organizational cultures and various employee benefits
programs like compensation, rewards, and recognition. In literature, the definition of
leadership entails various terms such as behavior, traits, role, relationship and
administrative work pattern of the leaders (Aalateeg, 2017).
Among all, trait theory in leadership has gained many criticisms lately as a
trait approach places no importance between leaders-follower relationship. Without
followership, leadership becomes meaningless and if trait theory were still valid, it
could arise a situation in which individuals will exhibit extroversion,
conscientiousness, and open-mindedness. Or else, it can be questioned, why would
a group of individuals follow a person who displays a multitude of traits which are
commonly believed to be negative concerning leadership (Aalateeg, 2017).