Organisational Behaviour Theories and Concepts for Organisational Success

This report explores the role of organisational behaviour theories and concepts in achieving organisational success. It discusses topics such as organisational communication, organisational culture, performance management, and employee motivation. Examples from real-life organisations are provided to illustrate the application of these concepts. The report emphasizes the importance of understanding and implementing OB concepts for business managers.

Student Name
INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATION(S) |
Human Resource
Management

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Organisational communication for organisational change and productivity.............................2
Organisational culture and organisational effectiveness............................................................4
Performance management..........................................................................................................6
Employee motivation and job satisfaction.................................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................11

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Introduction
The traditional filed of organisation management is referred to as a process comprised
of four basic steps: planning, organising, leading and controlling individuals, financial
resources and material present within the organisations. Business managers are the
individuals who achieve intended business objectives through the process of selection and
deployment of activities in correct order and at correct time. Most of the successful
organisations human resource departments emphasises on the role of advocating, coaching,
tracking, mentoring and integrating within organisational performance which explains
individual’s behaviour within organisations (Dailey, 2012). There are many challenges faced
by today’s managers while using organisational behaviour (OB) concepts that focuses
collaboratively on improving organisational productivity, reducing absenteeism, employee
turnover and culture, workplace behaviour along with increasing job satisfaction and
organisational citizenship behaviour. Frederick (2014) states “Organisational Behaviour as a
systematic study of the actions and attitudes that people exhibit within the organisations.” (p.
564). With this note, this report proposes to apply and integrate OB theories and concepts
from OB course to examine how OB factors contribute in bringing successes or failures in
real-life organisations. This report will use academic sources and published journals articles
along with company reports and other relevant sources to analyse current literature related to
OB concepts and its application in contemporary workplaces.
Organisational communication for organisational change and productivity
Organisational communication in OB concept is defined as a process in which
organisation’s HRM gather pertinent data concerning their organisation and changes that
occurs within it. Organisational communication consists of two basic objectives i.e. to inform
workforce about their work policies and tasks that fulfils organisational objectives and to

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construct a community for effective organisational atmosphere. Furthermore, organisational
change has become most widely approach adopted by present businesses and despite many
growing research and literature is been found in change management field, many
organisations fails to generate effective changes. According to most of the researchers, more
than half of change programs fail due to poorly managed organisational communication
during change phases and thus communication is considered as a key driver for enabling
organisations with successful organisational change (Husain, 2013).
Figure: Effective change communication model (Husain, 2013)
According to (Sadia, Salleh, Kadir & Sanif, 2016), “Communications describes what
organisations are and do” (p. 35). Effective communication between organisation
management and staff is very significant to realise organisational success. Whenever critical
situations arise in organisation like legal and ethical challenges, organisations that pays
careful attention to its internal and external communication process shows to perform more
critically based upon range of principles than the ones who follows poor communication
process. Management without employee engagement and communication cannot perform
responsible strategic alignment as communication is the only way that can ensure that
employees comprehend their role in execution of business plans, thereby contributing in
achieving effective organisational behaviour. Furthermore, effective communication is often
connected with employer’s statuses and brand. However, the authors state that most of the

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organisations fail to unlock the full potential of their businesses through its people by
neglecting importance behind organisational communication thereby hampering overall
organisational productivity (Sadia, Salleh, Kadir & Sanif, 2016),
Example: Communication has played a significant role in Walmart successes that have
helped the organisations in propelling their current position of largest retail leaders globally.
Be it through digital means or store visit, open and clear communication in Walmart stores
have been key to Walmart success. Furthermore, the change initiatives adopted by the
company gained much prominence in successful change procedure examples. At present,
Walmart collaborates with all its suppliers effectively that allows the firm to manage internal
inventories as well as predictable planning, production and shipping of products. This saves
organisation in saving lots of money from faster replenishment in product mix that is further
used to serve the purpose behind local customers and employees, thereby increasing overall
organisational productivity (Mohamed, 2014).
Organisational culture and organisational effectiveness
In present and increasing competitive business world, achieving organisational
efficiency (OE) has become prime objective that has made many OB researchers and
business practitioners take much interest in it. Factors influencing OE are examined due to its
high demand in competitive environment, considering organisational culture as a significant
element that can potentially effect OE. The detrimental effect of organisational environment
is getting more complex regarding organisational strategies which make HRM play critical
role in connecting organisational culture with OE and OB. The individual’s effects upon
organisational leadership generates strategies that are viewed in terms of value and thus most

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of the studies conducted reveals that organisational culture is highly related to OE (Bitsani,
2013).
Figure: Competing Values framework of OE (Aktas, Cicek & Kiyak, 2011)
In literature, many organisational culture typologies like Hofstede, Schein, Schwartz,
etc. are present that demonstrates OB within organisations. Out of all, Competing Values
Framework proves to be the most influential that creates a theoretical foundation for the
organisation culture development as it confirms whether the organisation focuses critically
upon internal and external factors or not and whether it faces challenges related to
individuality or flexibility, stability and control. This framework is based upon 6 major
organisational dimensions along with four dominant culture types like market, clan, hierarchy
and adhocracy. Nevertheless, most of the OB concepts relies upon one basic factor i.e.
organisational efficiency that helps organisations in achieving its business-related goals and
is called as organisational effectiveness in OB concepts. Organisational effectiveness can also
be defined as an extent under which companies accomplishes their objectives. This topic in
OB emphasis upon information management, process control and goal setting. Measuring
organisational effectiveness is a significant step in the development of organisations as

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present literature reveals that OC has direct impact over job satisfaction, decision making,
cooperation and employee commitment (Aktas, Cicek & Kiyak, 2011).
Example: IKEA follows a distinctive and effective organisational culture due to which the
company maintains cost-effective businesses and sustainable cost leadership strategy. The
annual report of the company reveals “humbleness in approaching tasks and simplicity in the
way of doing things are also cornerstones of the IKEA culture”. The organisation gives
utmost value to the teamwork accomplishment and believes that diversified group of people
are more straightforward, down-to-earth and filled with passion to do their work effectively.
IKEA believes in gender equality also and consider it as human right which is the reason,
they work upon gender agenda since decades (IKEA, 2019).
Performance management
Performance management (PM) is one of the pervasive factors that are used by
organisations to manage and measure employees work. In contemporary workplace, PM
refers to a set of integrated system guidelines that helps HR managers in evaluating and
directing workers performance (Tweedi, et al., 2019). According to Aguinis & Pierce (2009),
it is been documented by many authors that there is a science-practice gap within OB and
other related field and that entire body of research remains neglected by organisational
decision makers and HR managers most of the times. One reason behind such behaviour is
lack of relevant knowledge from scholarly and practical world that makes business managers
view OB concept as an abstract instead of useful, practical and readily applicable to their
organisational needs. Therefore, it is argued that PM practices can highly benefit
organisations emanating from OB fields since it is prevalent to contemporary organisational
practice which helps them in bridging the existing science-practice gap.

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PM, if implemented well can provide organisations with many benefits like formal
and systematic employees performance valuation that can likely provide enhanced financial
outcomes including increased customer satisfaction, reduced turnover, employee retention
and other metrics. For example, Maslow’s needs hierarchy states that employee performs
according to the motivational needs fulfilled by performing their job role. In organisation,
Maslow’s theory is highly used while evaluating employee’s motivational factors that further
helps in HR managers in formulating performance related frameworks and guidelines that
provides most efficient way in measuring individual competencies and job needs.
Furthermore, performance appraisals help organisations in focussing upon individual
performances through which feedback and coaching is exchanged between HRM and
employees that helps in documenting what is been performed for fulfilling organisational
goals and whether individual needs are satisfied ( Toppo & Prusty, 2012).
Example: Performance management practices has always been in practice in General Electric
(GE) firm. However, lately firm started facing failures due to it as the traditional PM
management procedure followed by them showed more system driven, formal and typically
top-down process. With time and identification of issues, the management of the firm decided
to adopt changes in their PM plan that considered more upon employees’ development than
merely rating them according to performances. This new perspective is been given a name of
PD@GE that made the organisation look-forward in more actionable conversations on daily
basis. The performance reviews are based upon coaching and insights along with delivery
impacts and results. This new PM system in GE resulted in developed and inspired workforce
who focuses more on work and organisational development (Workopolis , 2016).

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Employee motivation and job satisfaction
Motivation in workplaces and organisational psychology refers to those energetic
forces which originates from within and beyond human’s that influence the direction,
duration, initiation and intensity. Modern view concerning motivation typically portrays it as
a time-linked guideline of reciprocal and recursive affective, cognitive and behavioural
actions and processes which are managed and organised around individual’s goals. Individual
goals can be defined as psychological representation of expected outcomes that do not exist
in isolation, rather is found within hierarchical and organised network developed over the
time due to the result of consistent interplay among individuals, situation and other forces
(Singh, 2017). Research examines that social influences upon motivation focuses more on
individual efforts while working in the presence of others. In fact, research made on OB and
individual development theories provides empirical evidence stating the extent to which
individuals prefers in getting allocated as they perform in group setting. Social setting or
group goal theory suggests that working in collective manner can lead to various motivational
related issues especially while individual lacks responsibility or accountability for significant
outcomes. However, the OB research also signifies that group setting, under certain
conditions can also increase organisational competitiveness and provide individuals with
enhanced resources that can accomplish their tasks in desired way (Kanfer & Chen, 2016).
Expectancy theory of Vroom is arguably the most influential employee motivation
theory that predicts individual choices in tasks, effort levels and job role as a function to
integrate three basic psychological perspectives. Expectancies concerning relationship
between performance and individuals, instrumentalities or people perception regarding
relationship between second-level outcomes and individual perception in the form of
promotion, reward and pay. Valence is the third perspective that anticipates attractiveness of
secondary outcomes. In contrast to expectancy theory, Locke launched a new Goal setting

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theory in OB motivation concept that focused more upon casual effects behind individual
goals for performance measurements. In his seminal work, Locke defined that goal is
expected to be achieved by every individual, provided they face effective relationship
between individual behavioural intentions and task level. He also stated that goals mediate
the impact of motivational variables like external incentives, competition, results knowledge
and verbal reinforcement (Kanfer & Chen, 2016).
Example: Disney is one of the finest examples that explains how employees can go beyond
duty hours to provide their organisations with global recognition. According to a report,
Disney creates emotional connections with its customers and ensures that every interaction
made delights its customers effectively. While doing so, the organisation believes that besides
creating great products, empowered and motivated employees plays a great role. Thus, the
organisation places its employees in first place by improving and implementing employee
engagement practices. In fact, “management by wandering around” has become a typical
practice in Disney that has made its leaders stay actively involved in teams with their
employees thereby motivating them through providing with both intrinsic and extrinsic
values (Jones, 2018).
Conclusion
Organisational behaviour theories, concepts and models plays a very important role in
today’s organisations as it enables success in them. The above report identified various OB
related studies that brings success to the organisations along with finding its role in
developing human behaviour while working in an organisational environment. Business
managers usually modifies their strategies to accomplish business goals and OB concepts are
regarded by them to manage modification or changes effectively. Therefore, it is significant

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to understand relationship between various OB concepts and theories before implementing
them in organisations. The above report discussed significant concepts within OB theories
and finds that literature have identified various roles played by OB while conducting
businesses operations and it is essential for the business managers to understand significance
behind key factors that can potentially bring success to their organisations.

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References
Aguinis, H. & Pierce, C. A., 2009. Enhancing the relevance of organizational behavior by
embracing performance management research. Journal of Organizational Behavior, Volume
29, pp. 139-145.
Aktas, E., Cicek, I. & Kiyak, M., 2011. The Effect Of Organizational Culture On
Organizational Efficiency: The Moderating Role Of Organizational Environment and CEO
Values. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, Volume 24, pp. 1560-1573.
Bitsani, E., 2013. Theoretical approaches to the organizational culture and the organizational
climate: Exploratory research examples and best policies in health care services. Journal of
Human Resource Management, 1(4), pp. 48-58.
Dailey, R., 2012. Organisational Behaviour. United Kingdom : Edinburgh Business School .
Frederick, P. R. H., 2014. Organisational Behaviour and its Role in Management of Business.
Global Journal of Finance and Management, 6(6), pp. 563-568.
Husain, Z., 2013. Effective communication brings successful organizational change. The
Business & Management Review, 3(2), pp. 43-50.
IKEA, 2019. IKEA vision, culture and values. [Online]
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Jones, B., 2018. How Disney Leaders Motivate Their Teams. [Online]
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employees-shoes.html
[Accessed 19 05 2019].

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Kanfer, R. & Chen, G., 2016. Motivation in organizational behavior: History, advances and
prospects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Volume 136, pp. 6-19.
Mohamed, K., 2014. Communication Methods Adopted by Walmart Official for its
Successful Operations. Asia Pacific Journal of Research, 1(18), pp. 72-77.
Sadia, A., Salleh, B. M., Kadir, Z. A. & Sanif , S., 2016. The Relationship between
Organizational Communication and Employees Productivity with New Dimensions of
Effective Communication Flow. Journal of Business and Social Review in Emerging
Economies, 2(2), pp. 34-38.
Singh, A., 2017. Employee Motivation: A Study On Modern Workplace Motivation.
International Journal of Engineering Sciences and Management Research, 4(4), pp. 68-77.
Toppo, L. & Prusty, T., 2012. From Performance Appraisal to Performance Management.
Journal of Business and Management, 3(5), pp. 1-6.
Tweedi, D., Wild, D., Rhodes, C. & Martinov-Bennie, N., 2019. How Does Performance
Management Affect Workers? Beyond Human Resource Management and Its Critique.
International Journal of Management Reviews, Volume 21, pp. 76-96.
Workopolis , 2016. How GE replaced a 40-year-old performance review system. [Online]
Available at: https://hiring.workopolis.com/article/ge-replaced-40-year-old-performance-
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[Accessed 19 05 2019].