Influence of Organisational Power, Politics and Culture on Marks and Spencer’s Operations

This report analyzes the influence of organisational power, politics, and culture on Marks and Spencer’s operations. It examines the impact of organisational culture, politics, and power on employee behaviour, performance, and job satisfaction. The report also discusses the content and process theories of motivation and their relevance to Marks and Spencer. Overall, it provides insights into the organisational behaviour of Marks and Spencer.

Unit 12 Organisational
Behaviour

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................4
LO 1.................................................................................................................................................4
Influence of Organisational Power, Politics and Culture on Marks and Spencer’s Operations. .4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................9
Content and Process Theories of Motivation...............................................................................9
LO 3...............................................................................................................................................11
Effective and Ineffective Organisational Teams of Marks and Spencer...................................11
LO 4...............................................................................................................................................13
Philosophies and Concepts of Organisational Behaviour..........................................................13
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................16

INTRODUCTION
Organisational behaviour is the strategic study of employee behaviour within a business
organisation. Organisational behaviour also assesses the interlink between the business
organisation and its employee and human behaviour in order to assess its influence and impact.
The primary goal of organisational behaviour is to create a better conceptualisation of
organisational life and to revitalise the organisational theory in a business organisation (Wood,
and et.al., 2016). This report analyses organisational behaviour in Marks and Spencer. Marks and
Spencer Group Plc, is a global retail business organisation that was founded in 1884, an
astonishing 136 years ago and operates from its headquarters in London, England, UK. Marks
and Spencer specialises in selling clothing, food items and home products to the customers
within retail sectors of UK. Having successfully operated within the retail industry of UK for
such a long and sustained period of time has allowed for Marks and Spencer to grow and expand
tier business operations to international markets, in an attempt to diversify their operations and
effectively increase their market share, customer base, productivity and profitability within the
global retail industry. As of now, Marks and Spencer operates around 1500 distinct
establishments across the globe, with 960 stores operating in UK’s retail markets itself. Such
expanded operations have allowed for Marks and Spencer to become the first retail business
organisation in the UK to generate over 1 billion pounds sterling in pre tax profits. For all of its
operations to be conducted successfully and efficiently within the retail markets, Marks and
Spencer employees around 80,000 distinct individuals at various operational positions within its
dedicated hierarchical organisational structure.

MAIN BODY
LO 1
Influence of Organisational Power, Politics and Culture on Marks and Spencer’s Operations
Organisational culture, power and politics of Marks and Spencer have an immense
impact on the operations of the retail business organisation and also come to significantly impact
the individual and team behaviours of employees working within Marks and Spencer.
 Organisational Culture:
Organisational culture comes to represent the shared beliefs, values and assumptions which
collectively govern the behaviour of employees within Marks and Spencer. Organisational
culture has a significant impact on the performance, efficiency, productivity and job satisfaction
metrics of the Marks and Spencer’s employees and is also consistently changing within the
business organisation. The influence of organisational culture on Marks and Spencer can be
better analysed by making use of Charles Handy’s Organisational Culture Typology, which is a
strategic business model that is used to analyse how an organisational culture impacts and
influences the employee behaviour within a business organisation such as Marks and Spencer
(Chumg and et.al., 2016). According to Handy’s model of organisational culture, there exist four
main types of culture within a business organisation that have different impact on the employee
and team behaviour of the organisation in addition to impacting the operational productivity and
profitability of the business organisation. These four types of organisational cultures for Marks
and Spencer as per Handy’s model are as follows:
Role Culture: Business organisations that possess role culture place significant emphasis on
organisational policies and rules in order to have a healthy and productive organisational culture
that is able to productively influence the employee and team behaviour within the organisation.
In role culture, workplaces are highly controlled, with all the employees of the business
operating as per their role within its strategic long type organisational structure. The roles and
responsibilities of all employees as per their organisational role are clear to them. This type of
culture requires the organisational structure of the business to be long as opposed to flat type.
This type of organisational culture results in all decision making operations of the business

organisation to take much longer, as all employees within the organisational structure need to be
considered for the decision making operations, making the employee feel valued. Role culture
increases the job satisfaction and motivational levels of the employees and influences their
operational behaviour to operate with increased performance and efficiency in order to get
promoted within the hierarchical structure of the business organisation and further their
professional career.
Power Culture: Business organisations possessing the power organisational culture have all their
power reside in selected individuals within the business organisation, with the influence of these
select individuals extending all along the business organisation. These select individuals within
the business organisation are responsible for creating and enforcing all the organisational rules
and policies of the business organisation without ever having to consult their workforce. These
powerful individuals also make all the operational decisions of the business organisation all by
themselves (Hosain, 2019). This results in fast and efficient decision making operations for the
business organisation as not many different individuals need to be considered for the decision
making process but also results in the employees feeling undervalued and demotivated as they
are not consulted for any of the decision making operations of the business organisation, which
can also adversely affect their operational performance, efficiency and productivity.
Person Culture: Business organisations possessing person culture observe their individual
employees to be more significant and important than the business organisation itself, with the
business organisation operating simply to facilitate the individual operations of its employees.
Though this type of organisational culture is not suited to all types of business organisations,
especially ones that require discipline, coordination and team work from its members of its
workforce, person organisational culture grants tremendous freedom, creativity and autonomy to
its employees to conduct their individual operations as they see fit. Such creative freedom and
autonomy increases the employee’s motivation and job satisfaction metrics, however the impact
on their operational performance and efficiency can be both positive or negative depending on
the type of business organisation in which person culture is implemented in.
Task Culture: Business organisations that possess task organisational culture place immense
emphasis on the operational task of the business, with the business making use of dedicated
organisational team consisting of varying numbers of the organisation’s employees to achieve

and complete this dedicated task. As the task is given paramount importance in business
organisations operating under task culture, the power resides with the individual team members
and leadership respectively. Such task culture require achievement of the task by the
organisational team through effective cooperation and teamwork (Pastra, Gkliatis and
Koufopoulos, 2017). The success of task culture within business organisations depends entirely
on the team dynamics of the business, the skills and experience of its workforce and their ability
to cooperate cohesively with each other. Task culture increases the motivation and job
satisfaction metrics of the business’s employees as this culture allows for the employees to
operate creatively towards accomplishing the task and also allows for the employees to create
meaningful interpersonal relationships with other members of the business organisation.
Marks and Spencer is recommended to implement the role culture in its business
organisation as per the Handy’s model of organisational culture, as role culture effectively allows
for the Marks and Spencer’s employees to feel motivated and satisfied towards operating with
increased performance and efficiency in order to get promoted within the organisational structure
of Marks and Spencer and further their professional career (Kitchin, 2017). Though role
organisational culture would result in all decision making operations of Marks and Spencer
taking longer as many different employees along its dedicated chain of command need to be
considered, role culture would be immensely effective towards motivating and satisfying the
employees of Marks and Spencer to operate with increased efficiency and performance for the
benefit of the retail business organisation.
 Organisational Politics:
Organisational politics also have significant influence on the operational behaviour,
performance, efficiency, motivation and job satisfaction metrics of the Marks and Spencer’s
workforce. In order to analyse influence of organisational politics on the individual and team
behaviour within Marks and Spencer, we can make use of the Chantel’s model of organisational
politic. According to Chantel’s model of organisational politics, there exist mainly two different
types of politics within business organisations both of which tend to have an adverse impact on
the operational performance, behaviour, motivation and job satisfaction metrics of the
organisation’s workforce. The two types of organisational politics as per Chantel’s model are as
follows:

Organisational Politics: These relate to politics within a business organisation that occur due to
misuse or selective application of the organisational rules and policies towards a select section of
the business’s workforce. Organisational politics can occur within a business in various
situations such as when a high ranking official makes unethical and immoral use of his powers to
tamper with standard organisational policies in relation to rewarding or promoting the employees
that they like, instead of rewarding or promoting the employee that deserves it. Such
organisational politics within a business organisation demotivate their workforce, decrease their
job satisfaction metrics and also can result in decrease of their operational performance and
efficiency.
Individual Politics: Individual politics within a business organisation relate to politics that can
arise in a business owing to the difference between culture, nationality, gender, race, religion or
other such factors amongst the different employees working in the business organisation (Mia
and et.al., 2020). These can also occur due to the business organisation promoting competition
amongst its employees in an effort to increase their operational efficiency and performance, with
the employees coming to see their co-workers as competitors, making employees turn on each
other in order to become successful. Individual politics also has immensely negative impact on a
business, resulting in its employees feeling demotivated and unsatisfied with their jobs.
The management and administration of Marks and Spencer need to ensure that no type of
organisational politics occur within its operational environments, in order to ensure that their
employees remain motivated and satisfied. Failure of Marks and Spencer to curb organisational
politics within its operational environments can have negative impact on its operations and its
employee behaviour.
 Organisational Power:
Organisational power also significantly influences the operational behaviour, motivation,
satisfaction, performance and efficiency metrics of the Marks and Spencer’s workforce. The
impact of organisational power on the operations of Marks and Spencer can be better evaluated
by making use of the strategic model of French and Raven’s Five Forms of power, which states
that there exist mainly five different forms of power within a given business organisation, which
are as follows:

Reward Power: Management and leadership of business organisation showcase their power by
providing valuable incentives and rewards to employees who operate with optimum performance
and efficiency metrics (Majumdar, 2018). This form of power motivates employees to operate up
to optimum standards and increases their job satisfaction metrics.
Referent Power: This form of power stems directly from a leadership’s personality,
characteristics, charisma, image etc. Sporadic use of referent power can motivate employees but
excessive use within business organisations can result in brainwashing of employees which
decreases their job satisfaction and motivation levels.
Coercive Power: In this form of power, leadership or management penalise or punish their
employees in order to increase their operational performance and efficiency to optimum
standards. This form of power reduces an employee’s motivation and job satisfaction metrics and
also makes them fear the management and leadership of the business.
Legitimate Power: This type of power is granted to an individual on the basis of their position
within the hierarchical structure of the business organisation. Individuals higher up the chain of
command of the business organisation can exercise greater power that their subordinates. This
form of power increases motivation and hob satisfaction metrics of employees and makes them
operate at optimum standards in hopes of getting promoted themselves.
Expert Power: This form of power is granted to individuals within an organisation who possess
some specific expert knowledge on key operational areas, that the rest of the workforce does not
(Maio and et.al., 2020). This form of power encourages the employees to continuously develop
themselves and learn new skills in order to professionally develop.
Marks and Spencer should implement reward and legitimate forms of power within their
operational environment in order to effectively motivate and satisfy their workforce while also
increasing their operational efficiency and performance metrics.

LO 2
Content and Process Theories of Motivation
Motivation relates to enhancing the morale and confidence of Marks and Spencer’s
employees so that they are able to operate at optimum performance and efficiency for the retail
business organisation to operate successfully within the retail markets of UK. There exist mainly
two broad types of motivational theories that Marks and Spencer can make use of in order to
motivate their employees effectively- content and process motivational theories.
Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory of Motivation:
Herzberg’s two factor theory of motivation is a content motivational theory that states
that there primarily exist two types of factors present in a business organisation’s operational
environments that impact the motivation levels of its employees. For a business organisation
such as Marks and Spencer to have highly motivated employees who can operate at optimum
standards, it needs to possess both these factors in its operational environments (Pereira, Malik
and Froese, 2017). These two factors are the following:
Motivating Factors: These are factors present in the operational environments of business
organisations which encourage employees to operate with increased performance and efficiency.
Such motivating factors include sense of achievement, challenging and fulfilling work,
recognition by leaders and superiors, responsibilities, growth and promotions etc., all of which
are factors that inherently motivate employees of business to work hard.
Hygienic Factors: These are factors present in the operational environments of business
organisations, without which an employee would not be able to be motivated to perform their
operations to optimum standards. Such hygienic factors include fair and ethical implementation
of organisational rules and policies, supervision of tasks, interpersonal relationships between
employees of the business, fair and incorrupt salary structure, healthy and safe operational
environments etc.,
For Marks and Spencer to effectively motivate their employees as per the Herzberg two
factor theory of motivation, it needs to implement both motivating and hygienic factors in its
working environments. The advantage of this motivational theory for Marks and Spencer relates

to its simple and effective nature and focus on employee problems. While its limitation relate to
its subjective nature which completely ignores external macro factors of Marks and Spencer.
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory of Motivation:
Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation is a process motivational theory that separates
operational performance, effort and outcome of the Marks and Spencer’s employees while the
Herzberg’s two factor theory focuses on the relationships between expended efforts and internal
needs of the employees. Expectancy theory assumes that behaviour of Marks and Spencer’s
employees results from conscious choice to maximise their pleasure and minimise their pain.
Expectancy theory emphasises on individual factors of the employees such as their skills,
personalities, experiences and knowledge, with the performance, effort and outcome of an
employee being directly linked to their motivational levels (James, 2017). There exist three key
variables in expectancy theory:
Instrumentality: Relates to the idea that better performance results in achievement of desired
outcomes, with this being affected by transparency of the process, relationship between outcome
and performance and trust in leaders.
Valence: This is the perceived value that an employee puts on the desired outcome. Positive
valence requires an employee to prefer attaining the outcome as opposed no not preferring to
attain it.
Expectancy: This relates to the idea that increasing the amount of employee effort increases their
operational performance and is affected by resources available, skills and experience possessed
and support available.
The advantage of Marks and Spencer making use of the Vroom’s expectancy theory of
motivation to motivate and satisfy their employees relate to the fact that expectancy theory
correlates an employee motivation and satisfaction metrics effectively, with the theory
emphasising goal achievement. The drawbacks of Marks and Spencer using expectancy theory
pertain to its complex nature when having to practically apply to business environments.

LO 3
Effective and Ineffective Organisational Teams of Marks and Spencer
Effective organisational teams are immensely important for the sustained successful
operations of a business organisation such as Marks and Spencer. An organisational team is a
collection of employees who come together and operate with the intention to accomplish a
shared objective for the business organisation. We can make use of Tuckman’s model of team
development in order to analyse how effective organisational teams are created and operate
successfully within a business.
Tuckman’s Model of Team Development: This is a strategic model of team development that
showcases the various stages every team has to go through in a business organisation and the
challenges and issues that they face at each phase of the team development. The different phases
of team development within Marks and Spencer is as follows:
Forming: Initial stage of where an organisational team is created, with the business segregating
employees for team on the basis of their individual skills and experiences. Members start to
engage and interact with one another. Individual roles and responsibilities of the members are
not clear with the leadership being dominant and specifying to each member what they are
supposed to be doing consistently (Balwant, 2018). The team leader is required to answer various
questions that the team members have with a lot of confusion for all team members.
Storming: Second stage of team development in which team members start to establish
themselves, with a lot of conflicts taking place amongst team members trying to dominate the
team. Frequent disagreements occur between team members in relation to the team’s objectives
and goals. Team members start to challenge authorities and may even refrain from undertaking
certain tasks. If the conflicts at this stage are resolved effectively then the team progresses on to
the next stage of team development.
Norming: Third stage of team development, at which team members start to agree with each
other and find consensus on the team’s overall objectives and goals. Individual roles and
responsibilities of team members are now clear, with the leadership now being less dominant and
more cooperative. All team members start to effectively contribute towards the team’s objectives
with them also being strategically aware of how their individual operations contribute towards

the team’s achievement of objectives (Kumari, 2020). All decision making operations of the
team are made collectively by the members with shared responsibilities.
Performing: All team members are now able to independently operate with optimum
performance and efficiency. Conflicts can still occur but are internally resolved without them
impacting the team’s performance and efficiency. Members start to create meaningful
interpersonal relationships with one another, taking interest in each other’s lives. None of the
team members need to be instructed by the leadership, with team members also looking after
each other in order to ensure that the team is able to achieve their objectives and goals.
Adjourning: Final phase of team development where the team has effectively achieved its
delegated objective and has to be adjourned. Members are sad, as by now they have grown
accustomed to working with each other and have also created meaningful interpersonal
relationships with each other.
There are numerous advantages towards working in a team. An organisational team is
better able to achieve challenging objectives which would be impossible to be done by a single
employee, as teams are made up of various members, all of whom bring with them their own
skills and experiences (Alblas, Wijsman and van Noort, 2019.). For a team to be effective and
able to accomplish challenging objectives for Marks and Spencer, it needs right mix of distinct
members who possess distinguished skills and experiences from one another. The main
differences between effective and ineffective teams at Marks and Spencer are as follows:
Attribute Effective Team Ineffective Team
Goals Effective teams possess a strategic
understanding of the objectives and goals
that the team needs to achieve and how
their individual operations contribute to
the team’s progress.
Ineffective teams are confused as to
the goals and objectives that need to
be achieved by the team and how this
is going to be done.
Contributions In effective teams, all team members
contribute towards the team achieving its
goals and objectives.
In ineffective teams, varying number
of members contribute towards the
team’s operations with other members
being unproductive.
Conflict Resolution Effective teams resolve conflicts in an Ineffective teams are not able to

efficient manner, with the conflicts not
impacting the overall performance and
efficiency of the team.
resolve member conflicts in an
effective and timely manner, with the
conflict having an impact on the
team’s performance.
Leadership The leadership of effective team is
supportive, consulting the team members
for all decision making operations of the
team.
Leadership of ineffective teams are
dominant, taking all decision making
operations of the team themselves,
with consulting members.
LO 4
Philosophies and Concepts of Organisational Behaviour
There exist various organisational behaviour concepts and philosophies for Marks and
Spencer to make use of. Marks and Spencer operates on the Autocratic model of organisational
behaviour, under which the final power rests with the ownership and management of Marks and
Spencer in relation to decision making operations. Through the autocratic model, Marks and
Spencer has a direct chain of command for its operations. This makes the employees of Marks
and Spencer feel undervalued and decreases their motivation and job satisfaction metrics
(Taylor, 2018). In order to increase the motivation and job satisfaction levels of Marks and
Spencer’s employees, they are recommended to make use of Path Goal Theory, which moulds
the leadership style of Marks and Spencer in response to its operational environments and
situations. Under PGT, there exist four main types of leadership styles:
Directive Leadership: Leadership explicitly instructs their workforce of all their roles and
responsibilities and guides them on how their individual duties are performed. The leadership
also supervises the performance and efficiency of the employees in order to achieve optimum
standards. This style of leadership is best suited to operational environments where the
workforce is not highly skilled and require guidance and supervision.
Achievement Oriented Leadership: Using this leadership approach, the leader creates
challenging objectives and goals for their employees and shows trust in their abilities to be able
to effectively achieve the challenging goals, without any need for being supervised. Such

leadership style is best suited to jobs where highly skilled employees are present such as
engineering, scientific research, entrepreneurship etc.
Supportive Leadership: Using this style of leadership approach, the leader shows care and
concern for their employee’s mental and physical wellbeing and also takes a direct interest in
their personal lives. This leadership approach is best suited to situations, which place stress,
pressure or danger to the lives of employees, where motivation and job satisfaction levels of
employees are critical.
Participative Leadership: Under this leadership approach, the leader cooperates and works
together cohesively with their employees, taking into consideration their ideas, inputs in all
decision making operations of the business organisation (Muchiri, Shahid and Ayoko, 2019).
This leadership style is best suited to organisational situations where the workforce is highly
skilled, trained or possesses special knowledge critical for the successful operations of the
business.
Marks and Spencer is recommended to make use of directive leadership approach as this
leadership approach provides the various roles within Marks and Spencer with a dedicated
structure and allows the managers of Marks and Spencer to share their skills and experience with
their employees, supervising them towards optimum performance and efficiency.
CONCLUSION
Based on the findings of the repot, it can effectively be concluded that organisational
behaviour and its various philosophies play a significant and huge impact on the operational
performance, efficiency, motivation, job satisfaction, productivity and profitability metrics of the
Marks and Spencer retail business organisation. This report analyses the influence of
organisational culture, politics and power on the operational performance, productivity and
profitability of Marks and Spencer in the retail markets of UK. The report also evaluates various
content and process motivational theories and motivational techniques in order to assess how
motivation of Marks and Spencer’s workforce can be improved in order to improve their
performance, efficiency and job satisfaction metrics. Further the report analyses strategic team
building models and theories in order to analyse what makes an organisational team within

Marks and Spencer effective as opposed to ineffective. Finally, the report applies concepts of
organisational behaviour such as Path Goal theory to Marks and Spencer to further improve the
performance, efficiency, productivity and profitability of Marks and Spencer within the UK’s
retail industry.

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