Organizational Behavior Case Studies

This assignment delves into the crucial field of organizational behavior through the lens of three compelling case studies: Boston Plastic Company, Greenscape, and Right Boss & Wrong Company. Students will examine how organizational structure and culture influence productivity, as well as the importance of appropriate leadership styles for employee satisfaction. The report concludes by emphasizing the significance of studying organizational behavior for business success.

ORGANIZATIONS
And
BEHAVIOR
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
CASE STUDY 1..............................................................................................................................3
CASE STUDY 2..............................................................................................................................4
CASE STUDY 3 .............................................................................................................................6
CASE STUDY 4..............................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8
REFFERENCES .............................................................................................................................9
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INTRODUCTION
Organization behavior refers to the study of evaluating the factors that influence the
behavior of individuals and groups within the organization (French, 2011). In addition to this, it
also involves organization structure and culture that determine the behavior of employee within
the business entity. In this report, various aspects of organization behavior will be explained.
Learning will be focused on the provided case scenarios that explain the impact of structure,
culture, leadership and motivation on the behavior of employee.
CASE STUDY 1
The relationship between organizational structure and culture
Overview
According to the provided case scenario of Bosco Plastic Company, management of
organization is suffering from declining productivity. Further, as per the case study, there is lack
of proper rules and regulations in the organization. In addition to this, there is no fixed time for
entering and exiting. Therefore, employee enters organization anytime between 8-10 am and
leaves anytime between 5-7pm. Further, performance evaluation process was also inappropriate
as managers were asked to keep monthly note about the employees performance and make yearly
recommendations regarding, hike in salary, promotion, bonus and retrenchment. Further, there is
no fixed time for lunch break. Due to liberal rules and regulations, employees are not working
effectively within the organization (Koster and Sanders, 2006). All these factors are resulting
into declining productivity of manufacturing department. Likewise, in research department, time
card and other methods used for calculating the working hours which were very inappropriate.
Further, creative ability of researchers and other employees was confined due to inappropriate
use of motivation and performance evaluation methods. Therefore, these factors are resulting
into declining research output and manufacturing productivity. Hence, considering the provided
case scenario, it is clear that organization structure and culture have direct impact on the
performance and productivity of Bosco Plastic Company. Due to inappropriate working culture,
performance of individuals within the business entity has been impacted (Hosie, and Smith,
2009).
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Comparison of organizational structure and culture
In the present case study, Person culture is adopted in Bosco. Therefore, individuals
consider themselves superior than organization. Furthermore, organizational structure refers to
the hierarchical arrangement of authority, rights and responsibilities within Boston. It further
involves two type of structure, organic and mechanistic. In organic structure, organizations
exposed to dynamic business environment are required to adapt the changes in order to survive
in a long run (Koh and Boo, 2004). Therefore, tasks and roles are flexibly defined. Also, decision
making power is decentralized and atmosphere is friendly. Further, in mechanistic structure,
organization structure is well defined and more formal in nature. Decision making power is in
centralized as well as roles and responsibility of members are clear. Therefore, Boston is having
mechanistic structure.
Furthermore, decentralization will be effective for company as rigid rules and
regulation are affecting the performance of Boston. This will further help business entity in
reducing employee turnover (Higgs and Rowland, 2005). However, decentralization will
facilitate the respective department head to take action against unproductive and non-
punctual workers. Manufacturing department should be more formalized and there must be
fixed time for employee within which they can enter and exit from the premises of Boston.
Further, lunch hours should also be fixed and workers should be asked to stay within the
premises only. In this aspect, organic structure will be adopted in Boston as it is more
appropriate and will facilitate decentralization.
CASE STUDY 2
Describing the organizational culture at Greenscape
Organizational culture refers to the system that regulates the shared value, assumptions
and beliefs that impact the behavior of individual in a business enterprise. Culture stimulates
people to work effectively within the organization. Basically, there are four types of culture
including clan, adhocracy, market and hierarchy (Hosie, and Smith, 2009). In clan culture,
relationship between organizational members is family like. There is strong interpersonal
relationship among members and individuals that are believed in working together for the shared
organizational goals. The adhocracy culture is based on dealing with the dynamic environment
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by adapting changes as well as making innovation and taking risk. Main objective of this culture
is related to use innovative techniques to do things first and get first mover advantage.
Thereafter, in market culture, individuals are competitive and their behavior is goal directed.
Main aim of market culture is to sustain competition to a higher extent as well as enhance the
market image and productivity. Further, hierarchy culture states that behavior of employees
should be formal and governed by rules and regulations (Types of organizational culture, 2013).
Therefore, main objective of this culture is to enhance the efficiency of performance by
controlling the behavior of employees. In the present case of Greenscape, clan culture is
prevalent in the organization. The founder of enterprise, Ong takes effective care of the needs
and preferences of its employees. Thereafter, it also considers the problems and issues faced by
employees in their personal life. Therefore, family like culture is prevalent in Greenscape. For
instance, Ong remembers the birthdates of all the employees and even their children. Further, she
also knows that Emily, one of her effective employee is going through depression due to issues
in her personal life. Therefore, Ong nurture her with care and boost her morale. Likewise, she
also takes care of other employees by taking personal interest in their life apart from work.
Thereafter, it makes flexibility in its organizational functioning so that employees can meet their
personal goals inclined with the organizational goals (French, 2011).
Need for changing organizational structure and culture
With the growing size of organization, it has become difficult for Greenscape to operate
under clan culture. Thereafter, Ong is taking too much interest in the personal lives of its
employees due to which less attention is given by her towards its work duties. Therefore,
organization is going through downturn and it is facing threat of liquidation. Therefore, in order
to sustain in a long run, it has become important for Greenscape to make significant changes in
its culture. In this aspect, clan culture is effective if the number of employees is limited upto 10-
15. While with the growth in number of employees, it becomes significant for business enterprise
to make changes in its culture (London, 2013). With the increase in number of employees, it is
important for organization to modify its culture. Change in culture will facilitate Ong to take
appropriate business decisions. Further, owner will be able to concentrate more on the needs of
organization and ensure its sustainability. In this respect, Greenscape can adopt market culture
which will assist company in improving its market image. Further, enterprise will be able to keep
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an edge with its market rivals. Major benefit of changing culture will be regarding the
improvement in the productivity of organization. By changing culture, company can sustain
competition and also survive the hard times. Further, change in culture can cause dissatisfaction
among senior employees as they are habitual of clan culture. Further, it can also result to increase
in employee turnover (Cohen, 2001). Therefore, major difficulties Greenscape faced in
implementing the market culture will be related to resistance of employee. Further, Ong is also
required to change its behavior and take more interest in functioning of business rather than
personal lives of employee.
CASE STUDY 3
Factors that should have alerted Hogan to the problems that came up at Fancy Footwear
According to the provided case scenario, the right boss and wrong company it is
important for organization to adopt appropriate leadership. Further, any change in leadership is
likely to cause dissatisfaction among employees. As per the provided case, earlier the Fancy
Footwear was controlled and managed in Autocratic leadership style. Therefore, the former
manager Max Worthy had centralized the decision making authority and their was minimal
direct supervision on worker. Further, there was no direct communication between manger and
workers. Meanwhile, the Hogan took the management of Fancy Footwear in her hands and
changed the leadership style from autocratic to participative (Mendes and Stander, 2011).
Therefore, Hogan ensured that workers work in direct supervision and there should be close
watch on the activities of employee. Thereafter, she also modified the communication system
and ensured there is direct communication between her and employees. In this respect, she use to
meet the employees in lunch hours and assured that senior employees give their valuable
feedback that will result into the betterment of Fancy Footwear. However, this has lead to the
dissatisfaction among employees and resulting into resignation from relation management
committee (London, 2013). Further, before making change in leadership and management style,
Hogan should have discussed with the management committee. This could have avoided the
unfruitful business decision taken by new manager.
Hogan could have introduced new changes in the functioning of Fancy Footwear without
causing negative reaction from worker. For this aspect, proper feedback should have been taken
by Hogan from workers. Thereafter, before implementing the proposed changes, the functioning
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of Fancy footwear should have been studied. Further, flexibility should be provided to workers
so they could perform their task without too much interference. Thereafter, the workers and
management is resistant to change and also they don't have habit of making decisions on their
own (Humbert and Drew, 2010). Thereafter, if Hogan also adopted the autocratic leadership style
and averted direct communication between her and workers, the problem of negative reaction
from workers could be avoided.
CASE STUDY 4
The importance of team and team building on Britannia home manufacturers
From the provided case scenario of Britannia home it has been identified that team and
team building plays an important role in the functioning of organization. Further, the efficiency
of Britannia Home manufacturers cannot be ascertained on the basis of single individuality
approach. The grouping of individual, group and organizational behavior determines the overall
efficiency of organization behavior (Fargus, 2000). As per the provided case scenario, the
workers are learning English together in team developed by Gibson. This has resulted into
improvement in learning and skills of workers. Further it also resulted into, improvement in
productivity of Britannia home manufacturers. The improvement in the learning is causing
positive impact on the workers and also enhancing their satisfaction level. This has further
reduced the employee turnover and lead to the career growth of floor workers as there are finding
themselves eligible for supervisors post. The training and development needs are properly met
by Gibson newly developed team. Overall, there is positive impact of team and team building
activities to Britannia home manufacturers(Cohen, 2001).
The implication of team dynamics on Britannia home manufacturers
Team dynamics refers to the interpersonal relationship between members of team that
are working for the common goal of organization. Further, it states that team dynamics have
direct impact on the productivity and performance of organization (Team dynamics, 2009).
However, the team dynamic is important factor that determine the actions of organizational
members. For instance, initially most of the workers avoided training except from 2-3 workers
who wanted to get rid of their work for sometime. Therefore, the individuals who shared
common thoughts joined the training session conducted by Gibson. However, rest of the
employees continued with their work until the members felt the need of training for ensuring
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their career growth. It states that team dynamic plays a crucial role in determining the behavior
of employees.
The positive and negative impact of technology
The technology will assist Gibson in improving the productivity of workers. Further, it
also help in Gibson in conducting the training sessions smoothly. Therefore, he can use digital
technology that will assist Gibson in giving training after the working hours also (Mendes and
Stander, 2011). In addition to this aspect, videoconferencing can be used to give training to
employees who could not attend training due to some reasons. Further, mobile applications can
be used to enhance learning of workers. The workers can stay connected to each other by using
mobile applications. Therefore, they can share their doubts regarding previous training sessions,
give viewpoints and make suggestions for building their team skills. This will further result into
development of team cohesiveness within the training sessions of Gibsons. Thereafter,
presentations can be used to train employee’s effectively. However, the workers of Britannia
manufacturers are not well educated therefore they may resist the use of technology. Further,
they may not understand the technology that can result into deviation of their interest from
training sessions.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that it is very important for business entity to
study organizational behavior. According to the case study of Boston plastic company it has been
identified that organization structure and culture have direct impact on the productivity of
organization. Further, in Greenscape case study, the organization is functioning under clan
culture which is impacting the overall performance of organization. Thereafter, by considering
the case study of right boss and wrong company it has been identified that Hogan to ensure
satisfaction among employee it is important for executive to make right selection of leadership
style.
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REFFERENCES
Books and Journals
Cohen, D., 2001. Motivational appeal in normative theories of enterprise. Emerald Group
Publishing Limited. 3.pp. .3 – 26.
Fargus, P., 2000. Measuring and Improving Employee Motivation. Financial Times Prentice
Hall.
French, R., 2011. Organizational Behavior. John Wiley & Sons.
Higgs, M. and Rowland, D., 2005. All changes Great and small: Exploring Approaches to
change and its Leadership. Journal of Change Management. 5(2). pp. 121-151.
Hosie, P. J. and Smith, R. C., 2009. A future for organizational behavior?. European Business
Review. 21(3). pp. 215–232.
Humbert, L. A. and Drew, E., 2010. Gender, entrepreneurship and motivational factors in an
Irish context. International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship. 2(2). pp. 173–
196.
Koh, H. C. and Boo, E. H. Y., 2004. Organisational ethics and employee satisfaction and
commitment. Management Decision. 42(5). pp. 677-693.
Koster, F. and Sanders, K., 2006. Organisational citizens or reciprocal relationships? An
empirical comparison. Personnel Review. 35(5). pp. 519–537.
London, M., 2013. How people evaluate others in organization. Psychology Press.
Mendes, F and Stander, M. W., 2011. Positive organisation: The role of leader behaviour in work
engagement and retention. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology. 37(1). pp. 1-13.
Online
Team dynamics. 2009. [PDF]. Available through: <http://www1.wfh.org/publication/files/pdf-
1245.pdf>. [Accessed on 21st December 2015]
Types of organizational culture. 2013. [Online]. Available through: <http://artsfwd.org/4-types-
org-culture/>. [Accessed on 21st December 2015]
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