Organisational Behaviour: A Case Study of Dr. Martens' Transformation

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Organisational Behaviour
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Contents
Introduction:........................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...................................................................................................................................................4
a) Identify and discuss Dr Marten’s recently defined organisational culture, using Handy’s
cultural typology (1986), or an alternative academic model. To what extent do you think these
behaviour and beliefs have affected the organisation’s ability to turnaround its business?......4
b) Explain how power and political behaviour has influenced individual and team behaviour
and performance, whilst undergoing the recent structural changes in Dr Marten. Please refer
to relevant theories to support the points that you make here (e.g. French and Reven's power
types, chanlat's characteristics related to political behaviour).....................................................6
Task 2...................................................................................................................................................8
Bearing in mind no single motivation theory explains all aspects of people's motivates or lack
of motives, evaluate how certain aspects of different motivational theories helped Dr. Martens
during its restructuring and relocation to London, the same time it decided to define its
culture...............................................................................................................................................8
Task 3.................................................................................................................................................11
Explain what makes an effective team in Dr Martens. You should refer to appropriate theory
such as Tuckman and Jensen’s model of team development and /or Belbin’s team roles in
your answer....................................................................................................................................11
Task 4.................................................................................................................................................14
a) To what extent do you believe that managers within Dr. Marten adopt a path-goal theory
leadership style? Provide evidence from the case study and any other additional research to
support the points which you make..............................................................................................14
b) Explain why there was very little evidence of resistance to changes implemented within Dr.
Martins. You should apply relevant theory, supported by evidence from the case study and/or
additional research to support your answer................................................................................16
Conclusion:........................................................................................................................................17
References:.........................................................................................................................................18
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Introduction:
Organisational behaviour is known as the study of academics which includes the behaviour of
the people within their organisational group. It is applied within the organisation to know
how an employee is acting with its team members who will help a company to work with
better efficiency. The study of human behaviour in an organisation is really important to
understand the employee and skills of the employees of handling colleague. In this study,
there is Dr Martens who has heritage-wedging from the Second World War. It is a family-
owned company from its establishment. The Verwoert joined this company in 2013 for
helping the company to grow rapidly and sustainably on a large scale. When Verwoert joined
the company, the HR department of the company had eight people and now it is increased to
30. Verwoert wants to hire those types of employees who are talented in the acquisition and
can bring change in the company. The relocation of the head office of Dr Martens from
Northampton to the location of an original shoe factory situated in London is the biggest
change in the company.
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Task 1
a) Identify and discuss Dr Marten’s recently defined organisational culture, using
Handy’s cultural typology (1986), or an alternative academic model. To what extent do
you think these behaviour and beliefs have affected the organisation’s ability to
turnaround its business?
The culture of Dr Martin's organisation is that they want skilled employees in their company
who can make their company grow. Here is Handy’s cultural typology which is used by Dr
Marten’s organisation to discuss the organisational culture (do Carmo Silva and Gomes,
2015).
1. Power culture: Dr Marten's organisation should use the power culture with their
company. Power is controlled by a few people who can spread the influence all over the
organisation. Power culture is also bound with some rules and regulations. What an
individual decided within the organisation will happen in the company. Employees in a
company are examined on their achievements rather than what they are doing or how they
are behaving. The consequence of power culture is that it can help in instant decision-
making for Dr Marten's company. It doesn't matter whether those decisions taken could
help the company in the long-term (Sułkowski, 2013).
2. Role culture: Dr Marten's company should make their organisation as rules-based
company. They are controlled highly by all the people who work in the organisation
having knowledge about the roles and responsibilities of an organisation. Role cultures
are developed with the help of a detailed structure of the company which exist with the
long chain of command. A problem in Dr Marten's company is that decision-making can
be extremely slow and the company is least into the risk rate. The company will become
very bureaucratic is if the role cultures are included in an organisation (Gallo and Gonos,
2014).
3. Task culture: task cultures are created when the group of teams in an organisation are
developed to find out the specific problems existed in a company. The most important
part of an organisation is the task, so powers in the group may shift related to the mixture
of the team members and the problem's status of Dr Martin's organisation. The
effectiveness of the task cultures is depended upon the dynamics of the team.
4. Person culture: The person cultures should be excluded from Dr Marten. An individual
in an organisation sees themselves as the unique and higher from a company. The
company exists simple in order for working people. In a company consisted of the person
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culture is only the accumulation of individuals who are working in the same company
(DeCelles, et. Al., 2012). In person culture, the employees who are working in an
organisation starts thinking that they are superior from the organisation they are working
for.
These behaviour and beliefs have the ability to change the business of an organisation
because these cultures can help a company to increase its business at a high rate. These
cultures can affect Dr Marten's organisation because the work done by the employee are not
big from the organisation so these cultures help companies to bring them in their limits and
make them work for their organisation with full efficiency. The main goal of Dr Marten's
organisation is that they wants to recruit those types of employees, who are hard-working,
dedicated and want to make the company grow or who thinks about the growth of the
company. An HR has to perform the same type of activity whether they are dealing with one
employee or 1000 employees, the procedure will be the same for all of them.
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b) Explain how power and political behaviour has influenced individual and team
behaviour and performance, whilst undergoing the recent structural changes in Dr
Marten. Please refer to relevant theories to support the points that you make here (e.g.
French and Reven's power types, chanlat's characteristics related to political
behaviour).
Politics and power play an important part in an organisation. It plays a very crucial role in the
industry, holds the power of decision making and communication between employees. Both
the concepts fundamentally interfering an individual’s and group behaviour and help them
out in solving the problem in the setting of the organisation. In businesses, the effect of the
power related to workers which use their power in positive or negative to interfere with other
employees in an organisation (Hussain, et. al., 2016).
Here are some of the power and political theories given by French and Reven’s:
Source: (Author, 2019)
1. Referent power: the referent power is originated from the other’s desire to satisfy an agent
for whom they feel affectionate strongly, admire and loyal towards that person. This is
something kind of a thought which are in the form of charm, charisma, admiration, appeal.
2. Legitimate power: legitimate power is the power with the leader to default exercise
because the leader has that authority and position in the company.
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R e fe re n t p o w e r
L e g iti m a te p o w e r
E x p e rt p o w e r
C o e rc iv e p o w e r
R e w a rd p o w e r

3. Expert power: expert power is the power which comes from the member of the group.
They assume that the authorized holder of the company has the maximum skills and ability.
Knowledge and skills help a leader to understand the circumstance in a better way.
4. Coercive power: coercive power is vice versa of reward power (Sułkowski, 2013). It
means the ability of the person who is holding the power to excreta something from an
individual or to give them punishment for not accepting with a request.
5. Reward power: reward power can be achieved with the help of the capacity of an
individual to compliance reward. It is utilized in order to provide legitimate power support.
Rewards can also be given out by the people who are in power.
The interference of the power and politics in an individual’s life present an analysis on a
political issue in an organisational relation in which the power play is included and politics in
normal. The accountability of politics happens in organisation politics and power. The
organisational politics need to be understood which requires the power for conducting
analysis and joining them with employees. The power of relationship is a contest for the
actions may be political or social and should involve the basic problems in organisational
politics.
The interference of the power and politics in an individual’s life present an analysis on a
political issue in an organisational relation in which the power play is included and politics in
normal. The accountability of politics happens in organisation politics and power. The
organisational politics need to be understood which requires the power for conducting
analysis and joining them with employees. The power of relationship is a contest for the
actions may be political or social and should involve the basic problems in organisational
politics.
The employees in Dr Marten's company take active participation in the identity processes.
Two things which need to be changed in the business without which a business cannot run are
product and people. Verwoert believes that a company cannot run if the people who are
working there are not skilled and talented (Albrecht, 2012). If they are not included in the
business organisation then the company will not be able to make their product reach. It is
really important to increase the reach of the customer because an increase in customer will
lead to increase in profits and the amount of profit of any company defines the level of profit
it will earn and it will make an employee of the company believe in them.
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Task 2
Bearing in mind no single motivation theory explains all aspects of people's motivates or
lack of motives, evaluate how certain aspects of different motivational theories helped
Dr. Martens during its restructuring and relocation to London, the same time it decided
to define its culture.
Motivation is the process that helps to guide, and to initiate the goals. Well, motivation is
defined in many ways like to gain knowledge while reading a book or to get water to reduce
thirst. Simply motives are the behaviour like question ‘whys' and to explain that what we do.
Nobody will know what exactly the myth behind any motivation that we instantly act. The
psychologists say that there are different types of theories of motivation exists that includes
instinct theory, drive theory, and humanistic theory. But there are many other forces guides to
direct our motivation. There are aspects through people motivate:
 People motivated by the leadership style like how people feel about their company
and how motivated they are to achieve their task. When any company tries to change
the leadership the psychological climate also to turn and the performance of the
employee improves. Everyone has their own leadership style that focuses on the
success of the long term of the company. The leadership style focuses on the
objectives and goals of the organisation.
 Every work in the company has to be rewarded and also work environment is
characterised by reward structure that differs from department to department and
employee to employee. If the company wants more from his employees then simply
offer greater rewards for their behaviors (Sanyal, et. al., 2018).
 Organisational climate also effects in the motivation of the people who are working
there. Organisational climate is maintained by management. It starts with the leaders
who able to inspire and set the pace for the rest of the organisation. The leader has the
main influence on the company culture.
 Motivational works that involve interacting and communicating with other people to
gain their work to get the job done at a fast level and carry out the best energies of the
people. The good and respectful organisation always try to give structure to the work
according to the nature of the work and match with the nature of the employee so that
work becomes enjoyable and interesting (Shahzadi, et. at., 2014).
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There is also lack of motivation occur while doing work in the company or in any area of a
field. The lack of motivation is well now common in depression. Like there is some work that
is so important and must be done as soon as possible but due to some depression, the lack of
motivation has occurred. It is seen that the people who are unmotivated this is happening due
to depression usually they do other things. There are 3 ways from which you overcome
through depression.
1. Identify the Essentials
2. Breaking up the large task into smaller ones.
3. Always be positive even there is only a small victory.
At the time of restructuring Dr. Martens come with the greater responsibilities. There are two
things in the business without which business cannot be done. Those two things are product
and people. Dr. Martens think if I am unable to get right people and with right talent for our
business then we won't be able to sell the products and from this, the employee will start
believing in the culture. When the organisation undergoes to structural changes, greater are
the responsibilities coming in the hand of regional directors to ensure that the staff of the
company fully supports during this expansion. The company has also a small team of
generalist who always did an awesome job for the company. But when Dr. Martens and their
team go with the new phase of development, then they need to bring new experts in to help
scale who supports us on the new development phase.
Verwoert is the helping drive of the Dr. Martens rapid expansion. Verwoert says that there
are may be only five to six employees present in some of the region but from the HR point of
view same treatments needs to be done whether the number of people to deal with are six or
six hundred. This situation motivated Dr. Martens to make changes in the current working
process. The biggest change is that which come with the relocation of central office of Dr.
Martens from Northampton (the site where the original shoe factory situated) to London. And
best part is that in 2016 a two-storey flagship store is going to be opened at the heart of
Camden market which includes a build-in music space. Verwoert also says that if they
require to get talent for marketing and designs it would happen in London, then they realize
they need to move with other functions. On this relocation of the company, there is also the
biggest challenges arise because they did not have the space to relocate everyone at once this
all is to be done in a period of time. So EMEA and retail team relocate in September 2016
and rest of the team of Verwoert move in June 2017. So there was also some new issue arise
that is lack of communication throughout this whole process.
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The company takes the help of Bespoke Application so that the staff is connected and can
share the stories from around the world. These all activity is captured through the internal
newspaper which covers everything from relocation, to launch of products in new stores. This
helps Dr. Martens to show his identity and improve the visibility of brand to the employee in
the United States as well as Asia. These all show Dr. Martens motivation and believes to
expand their organisation and brand visibility to all around the world his hard work and
determination.
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Task 3
Explain what makes an effective team in Dr Martens. You should refer to appropriate
theory such as Tuckman and Jensen’s model of team development and /or Belbin’s
team roles in your answer.
Belbin’s team roles make an effective team in Dr Marten’s organisation. Because Dr
Meredith Belbin has studied about team works for numerous years and has also absorbed that
different people in the team assumes different roles in team. Belbin define nine such team
roles according to his studies and Belbin’s define team role as behave, interrelate and
contributes with others. The team leader is often referring to Belbin’s model to create
balanced teams. It all depends on behaviour and interpersonal styles (Belbin’s team role).
According to Belbin’s studies team role is divided in nine parts that makes the successful for
a task.
1. Shaper (SH): these are those people who always provide the team a challenge for
improvement. The shaper tries to shakes the things to find out the all possibilities to
be considered and that the team not become pleased. The shapers are sociable and
dynamic people who always provocative others and find out the best solution for
solving problems. The bad thing in shapers are they are argumentative that why most
of the time they offend the feelings of peoples.
2. Implementer (IMP): these are those peoples who try to get things done.
Implementers are disciplined and very conservative people who systematically work
and are very well organised. Implementer tries to convert team’s ideas into plans and
practical actions. On the other side implementers can resist to changes and are
inflexible. (Mostert, 2015).
3. Completer Finisher (CF): These are those people who check the progress of the
project. Completer finisher always ensures that there are no errors in the project and
also pay attentions to each and every small detail. Completer finisher is like
perfectionist who guard each and every moments and want the appropriate work.
They are also very strict of deadlines and always try to push their team member to
complete the job on time. They were unnecessarily worried about their work.
4. Coordinator (CO): coordinators are like traditional team leader and also known as
the chairmen. Coordinators are the perfect listeners and are capable of recognising
the value brought by each member of the team towards the work. They always try to
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guide their team members. They are very calm in nature and to delegate task
productively.
5. Team Work (TW): these are the people who work and provide support and make
sure that the people working in a team are doing their work together and effectively.
They are very popular people who are capable in their own job and helping others
people to get along with the team. These people are very flexible, perceptive and
diplomatic. Their main weakness is maintaining uncommitted positions during the
decision making.
6. Resource Investigator (RI): They tries to explore available options in the team, and
they develop contacts and also try to negotiate resources in behalf of the team. They
are very innovative and curious. Resource Investigators are helps their team
members to identify the work with external stakeholders and support their team to
complete their objectives or tasks.
7. Plant (PL): They are the creative innovators who try to come up with the new ideas
and approaches. Plants mainly prefers to work apart from the team, because Plant’s
have very imaginary ideas and are impractical at the time of work. Plants sometimes
show poor communications and sometimes they forget the given parameters and
constraints.
8. Monitor Evaluator (ME): they are working as an analyser and try to evaluate the
ideas that other people came up with. These types of people carefully understand the
objectives and evaluate positive and negative value before coming to the decisions.
They are very strategic in their approach and they are very critical thinkers. Monitor
Evaluator are also the poor motivators.
9. Specialist (SP): they are very knowledgeable and have very specialised knowledge
to get the work is done. They are fully expertise in their area and they are fully
committed in their work. Specialist feels proud of the skills and abilities they possess
and always work for maintaining their professional status.
Dr Martens is the successful business man who always tries to work in a team and
always want the team with the right people and talent into their business for selling their
products and it all starts when the employees starts believing in the culture. First the six
employees from some regions, but from their view point of HR “same treatments needs
to be done whether the number of people you are dealing with is six or six hundred”.
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