Influence of Culture, Politics and Power on Employees' Behaviour

This report discusses the influence of culture, politics, and power on employees' behavior in organizations. It explores the impact of these factors on employee motivation and performance. The report also provides insights into the ways organizations can motivate their employees to achieve organizational goals.

ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................3
Influence of culture, Politics and Power on the employees' behaviour.......................................3
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................7
P 2 Content and process theories of motivation and motivational techniques for effective
achievement of goals....................................................................................................................7
LO 3.................................................................................................................................................9
P 3 Factors that make an effective team different from an ineffective team...............................9
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................12
P 4 Applying the concepts and philosophies of organizational behaviour within organization in
a business situation....................................................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................14

INTRODUCTION
Organizational Behaviour mainly deals in the ways people behave within the groups of
the organization. The companies focus on improving the behaviour of the workplace by
implementing certain actions, reorganizing groups or bring changes in the approaches of
performance evaluation (Turner, 2020). The main aim of these practices is to improve the
performance of employees, increasing their satisfaction, promoting innovation and motivating
the leadership.
The report will shed light on the organizational behaviour of a well-known retailer company in
UK Marks & Spencer which deals in selling of own labelled clothes, home and food products. It
has many stores in UK and worldwide and also facilitates most of its customers by providing
online services (Toms and Zhang, 2016). The report below will evaluate the influence of culture,
politics and power on the employees' behaviour along with mentioning the ways to motivate
them in order to achieve organizational goals. It will further describe the ways in which
employees can co-operate effectively with each other along with application of certain
philosophies regarding the M&S behaviour.
LO 1
Influence of culture, Politics and Power on the employees' behaviour
Organizations are generally the organized bodies of the people and systems. So, there are
many factors which influences the behaviour of the organization. The main factors which have a
greater impact are the culture, politics and the power. M&S, performing its operations worldwide
must analyse its influence and strive to improve in order to achieve the goals and objectives.
Culture
Culture can be described as the set of beliefs, values and behaviours which distinguishes
one body from another whether it is an organization or a group. Organizational internal culture
mainly deals with the behaviour of the workforce, the leadership and the individual behaviour of
all the employees. The main influence of the culture is on employees' creativity and enthusiasm,
solidarity and cohesion along with the economic efficiency of the organization (Davies, 2018).
According to Hofstede Model of Organizational Culture, there are basically 5 factors which
impacts the culture of the workplace and are as follows:

Power Distance: Some organizations believes in appointing leaders and managers who are
responsible for their respective team. They focus on extracting the best out of each member in
order to reach the goals of the team and the members also respect the leaders and follow their
advice. On the other hand, there are other organizations which do not appoint any special person
but all the employees have their ownership and are the only one to be accountable for their
performance. Everyone is treated equally in the organization (Ugrin, Pearson and Nickle, 2018.).
This decided the culture of the respective organization. M&S must follow the culture where there
are leaders and managers to assists the team and it becomes easy to achieve the organizational
goals.
Masculinity vs. Femininity: In many organizations, the females are dominated by the males and
both follow different policies while in other the females have a major say in the decision-making
process and are never assigned the works which are difficult to be performed by them making the
culture of both the organizations completely different. M&S must follow the culture where the
responsibilities are given according to the gender and the females must have the same
opportunities as the males reducing the discrimination in the workplace.
Individualism: There are some organizations where employees work individually whereas in the
other they work as a team. M&S must adapt the culture in which the effective teams are formed
making the tasks easier to perform to generate comparatively more output. In this, more
innovative ideas can be accumulated with a healthy relationship between the employees.
Uncertainty avoidance Index: The situations never remain same in the organizations so the
employees must be ready to face the worst. M&S must try to avoid such situations and also
prepare its employees to tolerate the bad situations whether comfortable or uncomfortable.
Long term orientation:There can be organizations which tries to make healthy relations with its
employees and there are some who does not try to think about long-term objectives with the
employees. M&S must try to retain its employees so that they will try to achieve the long-term
goals rather than thinking of their own profits and targets.

So, M&S must evaluate the factors of Hofstede Model in order to adapt the practice to maintain
its culture.
The culture of M&S gives a particular identity to the teams and the individuals. Therefore, it
must be well-maintained and reputed. Culture does not only deal in this but also the ways of
thinking of the employees, their values they present in the company etc. all these factors also
decides effectiveness of the culture. The focus of M&S to improve the culture is to analyse its
relationship with the employees so that they feel engaged and motivated because employees are
the biggest assets of the organization, and they will go on to provide much better services to the
clients and the consumers.
In order to improve the culture, M&S must implement an approach in which it gives respect to
all the employees regardless of the position, provides care and must engage all in each and every
process whether decision-making, performance appraisal, developing new strategies etc. This
will make the employees feel valued and motivated. This also helps the teams when there is a
need to share the ideas and opinions to draw certain conclusions to reach the target. The
employees must feel free to give their new and innovative ideas so that the teams and the
organization can bring in innovation to increase its customer base, productivity and the
profitability with all the employees satisfied. When the staff become happy and satisfied, then
the teams become engaged and which increases the productivity greatly. This will improve th
behaviour of the employees with each other resulting in a happy and calm workplace with
minimum chances of conflicts.
Politics
Politics plays a very important role in the progress of the organizations. All the
organizations exercise both good and bad politics which impacts the overall organization's
performance and productivity (Sarwar and et.al., 2020). Similarly, in M&S Politics has both
good and bad effects on the employees motivation and performance. The highly qualified and
skilled employees are sometimes ruined by the politics of the workforce. This hides the talents
and capabilities of the talented employees which creates a sense of biasness among the
employees resulting in more conflicts. This mainly affects the appraisal practice because the one
who deserves does not get the reward instead the other gets because of the implementation of bad
politics.

So, M&S must evaluate especially the bad politics exercised in the workplace which sometimes
ruins the abilities of some employees thereby making their performance inefficient. Mainly, the
politics is exercised by the people who secure a higher post in the organization because they have
to fear of the lay off and can exercise the practices in the way they want. So, the higher
authorities of M&S must keep a check on the actual practices and their impact and makes the
unbiased decisions. There must be a particular corporate channel of communication so that the
things can reach the higher authority in a channelized manner instead of the other employees
interfering and manipulating the things. It must be authenticated and completely confidential.
This will not allow anyone to exercise politics against anyone and destroys the smooth
functioning of the organization.
Power
The French and Raven Model can be used to analyse the impact of power and by whom
it is exercise (Kovach, 2020). The main bases of power are mentioned as follows:
Legitimate: Under this, the individual has the personal right in order to make the demands and
the power is shown when the others are expected to be in compliant and to become obedient in
order to fulfil the demand.
Reward: This is used when one person uses the ability to compensate the other for the
compliance.
Expert: This is exercised by a person who has high level of skills and knowledge which forces
dominating other who lack those skills and talents.
Referent: This is implemented when the person uses the attractiveness and the worthiness among
all which forces others to respect irrespective of the skills and the talents.
Coercive: This becomes unethical sometimes as an individual can punish the another for non-
compliance or it can be the misuse of the position or designation.
These above mentioned bases of power can benefit some individuals while harming the others.
Bases on this, power can have both positive and negative impacts at M&S.
The role of power begins when the employees at the higher designation tries to dominate the
ones at lower position. This demotivate the employees in a greater way as they sometimes cannot
express their opinions and feel much pressurized under the seniors (Akhtar and et.al., 2020).
M&S observes both the good and bad impacts of the power. The employees who are not much

experienced can be supported by the employees who exercise more power. This makes the
employees encouraged and guided which increase their performance and improves their
behaviour towards the leaders. This will develop a sense of trust and loyalty among the
employees and the individuals in a team.
On the other hand, it can impact the employees at M&S negatively as the superior who has more
power sometimes have more influence on the followers or subordinates. They can give the
punishments, terminate the promotions which can demotivate the employees, and they don't get
what they deserve which result in the conflicts. So, power mostly had a bad impact on the
employees of M&S so the company must distribute the particular roles to the employees
according to the position and must not discriminate anyone. There must be effective
communication between the subordinates and the leaders so that the followers can also take part
in all the activities of decision-making and appraisals.
So, culture, power and politics has a great influence on the employees behaviour and these
factors can be interlinked to either benefit the employees or can result in their loss. As the people
with higher power will exercise more politics and will destroy the culture of the organization. So,
M&S must keep a tab on all the practices going on in order to improve them and to enhance the
satisfaction of the employees which can lead to efficient performance, larger customer base and
the overall progress of the company.
LO 2
P 2 Content and process theories of motivation and motivational techniques for effective
achievement of goals.
For effective achievement of goals, organization should make efforts to motivate their
employees. There are various motivational theories and techniques like content and process
theory of motivation. Marks and Spencer also realized the need of motivation in the organisation,
so they adopted the following theories in their organization too.
Content theory:
This theory generally focuses on the “what” aspect of motivation. As they are associated
with determining the needs and wants that motivate the employees. There are various theories in

content such as Maslow's need hierarchy, Herzberg's two-factor, McClelland's theory of needs
and Alderfer's theory of needs. Marks and Spencer also realized that every employee is unique
and have unique needs and wants so the organization treats their employee's needs and wants as
the source of motivation (Verma. and Sharma, 2018).
Alderfer's ERG theory of needs: This theory is an extension of the Maslow's need hierarchy
theory and was given by an American psychologist Clayton Paul Alderfer. He proposed that each
need carries some value and it can be categorized into lower-order needs and higher-order needs.
Marks and Spencer also adopted this in their organization, he focused on three types of needs.
 Existence needs - These are the needs which are essential for existence or survival of
human beings. This consists of physiological and safety aspect. Marks and Spencer also
grouped both the physiological and safety needs into one head and provide their
employees with basic pay and basic facilities at the workplace like clean drinking water,
better sanitization and hygiene etc.
 Relatedness needs – These are the need which is related with the sociality of an
individual and looks for the social needs of the employees. Marks and Spencer also
realized that employees are social animal and the need to make better relationship with
their friends, family, colleagues and other employees. They believe that employees are
kept satisfied by fulfilling their social and status desires by allowing them to interact.
They grouped Maslow's interpersonal, love and esteem needs under the same head
(souders, 2020). Growth needs – These needs focus on self-development of the individual. This is the
intrinsic component of esteem and personal growth. Marks and Spencer also focuses on
fulfilling these needs of personal growth and advancement to their employees. They
believe that these needs influence employees to explore their enviroment and maximum
potential.
Process theory:
This theory generally focuses on the “how” aspect of motivation. As they are associated
with the process of motivation to motivate the employees. Mark and Spencer believes that
employees choices are based on preferences, reward factors, sense of accomplishment etc.
therefore they try to understand the process of motivation.

Vroom expectancy theory: This theory separates the performance, efforts and the outcome
which arises from motivation. This theory was developed by a Canadian professor of psychology
named Victor Vrom in 1964. Marks and Spencer also adopted this theory to distinguish the
efforts put in by employees, their performance and their final results. They mainly focus to
motivate the employees within the work environment. The following factors were taken into
consideration:
 Expectancy – This factor highlights that motivation party depends on the decision-
making of an individual. This theory is about what the employees expect from their own
efforts and it's relation with good performance. Marks and Spencer finds out various
factors that can motivate the employees to give their better performances like facilities,
training or support etc. they also believe that employees efforts will lead to attainment of
desired goals.
 Instrumentality – This factor focuses on the belief that if the performance is good then
desired outcomes can be achieved. And organization can stimulate this by rewarding
them. Marks and Spencer also provide their employees with increase pay, promotions,
recognition and sense of accomplishment if the performance which is expected is met.
 Valance – This factor determines that final results that employees attain is valued
differently by different individual. So Marks and Spencer makes efforts to identify what
an individual employees value and personal needs are (Patil, 2020).
Marks and Spencer applied the formula to determine motivational force,
Motivational force = Expectancy * Instrumentality * Valance. All these theories and efforts of
finding out different factors was made by so that goals of the organization can be achieved
effectively.
LO 3
P 3 Factors that make an effective team different from an ineffective team.
A team is a group of people, having differentiated characteristics come together to reach
at a common goal. The members of the team perform independent task to achieve a common
mission. When there is a strong sense of mutual commitment which creates synergy then it is
more than just a collection of people. Below are the differences between the two:

Basis Effective team Ineffective team
Meaning Effective team is a collection of
people which comes together to
achieve common objectives. It
helps to improve quality and
facilitate completion of projects
and increase productivity.
People in ineffective team come
together to achieve certain goals,
but they lack unity and cohesion.
The purpose of the team and
members are also not clear.
Clearing of goals The goals of the team are well
understood, clear and accepted
by all the members.
The goals of the team are unclear
and difficult to understand and
identify by the members.
Division of labour The task to be done and who has
to do which work is clear. Clear
assignments are made and
accepted.
The action decisions are unclear.
And none of the member knows
what work has to be done by
which member (Rucker, Rucker.
and Windemuth, 2019).
Conflict management Effective team fully accept the
conflict and do not try to avoid it.
They deal with important issues
even if they are unpleasant.
In case of ineffective team they
try to avoid conflict and
employees may be suppressed by
the leader and finds excuses for
not dealing with the issues.
Accountability The members and leaders of this
team holds accountability of the
work (Slagter. and Wilderom,
2018).
In case of an ineffective team nor
the members neither the leaders
takes accountability of the work.
There is a model for team development which was given by Bruce Tuckman in 1965. He
stated these five phases of team development and said all are necessary and inevitable in order to
form a team and grow it. Marks and Spencer also believes that all the stages are universal
irrespective of the team members, purpose, goals and culture.

Stage 1- Forming
It is the initial Stage of the team development. All the members are polite and cautious
about their behaviour. They do not want to have conflicts and controversies at this stage. When
Marks and Spencer makes team at this initial stage of forming, members are uncertain about their
roles, and they look for guidance from outside and there is uncertainty. They treat this stage as
orientation stage and members get to know each other.
Stage 2 – Storming
This is the most difficult stage of team development. All the conflicts, misunderstandings
tend to happen in this stage. Members may disagree with each other and there may occur
arguments. At this stage, the team members of Marks and Spencer resist the task demands and
look for reasons not to do it. They also believe that sometimes disagreements within the team can
make members more versatile, stronger and work effectively.
Stage 3 – Norming
At this stage of team development conflicts tend to resolve and there is some degree of
unity. Team performance increases and interpersonal differences tends to resolve. In case of
Marks and Spencer team members learn to cooperate and drive their energy for attainment of
goals. Harmonious and peaceful environment tends to build up (Mohiuddin, 2017).
Stage 4 – Performing
In this stage the actual works takes place and initiates on the basis of relatively stable
structure. The focus is on productivity, results team unification. In case of Marks and Spencer the
team becomes more matured and in a well-functioning condition. Now the team goals are clear
and there is stable structure. Problems and conflicts still arises, but they are constructively
resolved and members are committed to the main mission.
Stage 5 – Adjourning
This is the last stage of team development, in this the team is out to break and the task is
completed. At Marks and Spencer also members disengage with each other and wrapping of
work and tasks takes place.

LO 4
P 4 Applying the concepts and philosophies of organizational behaviour within organization in a
business situation.
Marks and Spencer follows consultative style of leadership which means leaders before
taking decision consult with others and their employees. Sometimes it uses combination of
leadership style which includes consultative and democratic management style. In case of Marks
and Spencer, this style draws more source of opinions and the leaders too have good listening
skills. In democratic style leaders give members chance to participate in decision-making
process. Team members are encouraged to share their ideas and opinions. There are certain
advantage of adopting this style such as : it brings more number of view point on the table, high
level of commitment from the employees, increase the morale of employees. It also leads to job
satisfaction.
Path Goal theory
This theory identifies the leadership style which best suits the work environment and fits
the employee. The goal of adopting this theory is to increase employee satisfaction, empower
them, so they add on to the organization's productivity. Marks and Spencer follow these steps to
apply this theory: first they determine the employees and characteristics of environment. The
second thing they do is to select a leadership style and the last thing they do is to focus on
motivational factors that help the employee succeed. They also believe that leader's behaviour is
contingent to motivation, satisfaction and performance of their employees. There are four types
of leader behaviour:
 Directive – Leader lets the employees know what is expected of them and only directs
them on how they have to do that task. Leaders of Mark and Spencer gives direction to
their employees on how to do a particular task and in what timings. If there is a need for
skill development of employees in the organization, then the leaders will arrange a
training session and authorities will make the schedule for them and the employees just
have to follow it.
 Supportive – In this type of behaviour leader makes the work environment very pleasant
and show concern for the needs and wants of their employees. Marks and Spencer's
leader also behave friendly, and they believe that it is most effective in situations where
tasks and relationships are physically and psychologically challenging. Like the

organization faces the problem of high employee turnover and employee are getting
demotivated, then leaders of Mark and Spencer makes efforts and interacts with
employees.
 Participative – In this, leaders take suggestions from the employees and consult them
before taking any decision. Marks and Spencer applies this when their employees are
well-trained and dedicated to work. If there is a situation of decreasing sales in the
organization then leaders also participate to accomplish that task and if any critical
decision is to be taken then suggestions of employees are also considered. Achievement- Refers to a situation where leaders set challenging goals for the
employees. Leader challenges the employees to perform at their highest level and leaders
also shows high level of confidence on the followers. Leaders of Mark and Spencer also
sets challenging goals for their employees, and they expect them to perform effectively
and also shows a great confidence in them. They set targets for their employees and
motivates them to achieve it (Farhan, 2018).
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that Mark and Spencer's organizational culture, politics and power
influences both team and individual behaviour and performances. Therefore, the organization
should be aware of culture at their workplace, make efforts to adopts the combination of it. There
are both good and bad politics and various powers that the people in workplace uses in the
organization but focus should be to enhance good one otherwise it will lead to dissatisfaction
among employees and ultimately employee turnover. It all these dealt properly then it can add on
to productivity and reduce frustration among employees. The organization also adopts various
motivational theories and techniques to motivate their employees so that goals can be achieved
effectively. Proper understanding of effective team is done and efforts are made to make the
teams in the organization effective by proper communication, conflict management etc. There
are various situations that occur in an organization for that also organization applies theories and
philosophies, Marks and Spencer finds path goal theory the best to deal with various types of
situations.

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