Exploring Organizational Culture, Power, and Motivation at Dr. Martens

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments. This report analyzes Dr. Martens' organizational behavior.

Organizational Behavior
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Company Overview.........................................................................................................................4
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................5
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
behaviours and beliefs have affected the organisation’s ability to turnaround its business?..........5
b) Explain how power and political behaviour has influenced individual and team behaviour and
performance, whilst undergoing the recent structural changes in Dr Martens. Please refer to
relevant theories to support the points that you make here (e.g. French and Raven’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 motives 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.............................................................................................................................................10
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............................................................................................................................................10
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................13
a) To what extent do you believe that managers within Dr Marten adopted a path-goal theory
leadership style? Provide evidence from the case study and any other additional research to
support points, which you make....................................................................................................13
b) Explain why there was very little evidence of resistance to the changes implemented within Dr
Martens. You should apply relevant theory, supported by evidence from the case study and/or
additional research to support your answer...................................................................................14
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................15
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Reference List................................................................................................................................16
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Introduction
The study of organisational behaviour refers to the specific research areas committed to enhance
overall job performance, escalating job satisfaction and motivating leadership. In this assignment
of “Organizational Behaviour” with reference to the case study provided, the purpose is to
provide the learner with the demonstration of the influence of politics, power and culture upon
the behaviour and attitude of individuals across the organization. Organisational behaviour
theories inform the real world with the evaluation and management of individuals. In the first
section of the assignment, the organizational culture, politics and power will be explained and
discussed to justify how they affect the potential of the organization to turnaround its business. In
the second section, different theories of motivation will be evaluated to assess how it helped the
organization to restructure. In the third section, a model of team development will be referred
and explained to provide an understanding regarding an effective team. In the last section, some
concepts and theories of organizational behaviour will be demonstrated.
Company Overview
Dr. Martens is famously known as the leading footwear and clothing brand across the UK with
the headquarter located in the UK. The organization’s footwear is differentiated by its air-
cushioned sole and upper shape. The organization was founded by a partnership between Klaus
Martens and Herbert Funck and soon it exploded into a massive success by the year 1952. The
organization sells its products and services under its trade name “AirWair” and it comes in
different styles and looks. In the year 2004, the organization introduced a new range of apparels
and accessories in order to attractively appeal to the wider markets of UK (drmartens.com,
2019).
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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 behaviours and beliefs have affected the organisation’s ability to turnaround its
business?
The growth of the organization during 2013 was the most appropriate time to define the
organizational culture that was not based on the aspect of values. The newly defined Dr Martens
organizational culture is not just about the values and ethics but it prides itself on the aspect of
individuality. Handy’s Model of Organizational Culture defines the four different kinds of
culture as power, role, task and person (Mihaela and Bratianu, 2012).
 Power Culture – In an organization that holds a power culture, power is held by some certain
individuals whose considerate impact spreads like a wildfire across the whole organization.
In power culture, the employees and staffs working are judged based on their performance
rather than their actions. This is considered as a strong culture.
 Role culture – The organization that maintain a role culture simply abide by rules. The
power in a role culture is predicted by the role of the individual in the organizational
structure.
 Task culture – The task culture is developed when an organization assembles various teams
and groups in order to address and cater to the specific issues. The concept of task is
considered as the major thing, hence the power prevailing within the group frequently shifts
relying on the mix of the individual team members.
 Person culture – In person culture, the workforce of the organization view them as superior
and innovative in accordance with the organization. An organization having a proper person
culture, it is all about an amalgamation of different individuals who tend to be performing for
the same organization.
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Dr Martens consider role culture and task culture in the organization because the main key was
to have the employees and staffs take an active role. A team of volunteers known as Culture
Vultures were assembled by the organization to uphold the longevity of the work. This group
addresses the specific areas consisting of well-being, growth and development and many more
(elainegrix.com, 2018).
Impact of the behaviors and beliefs
The specific behaviours and beliefs have provided the organization with the opportunity to make
their employees and staff acknowledge their active role because the organization considers its
product and people to be the main reason behind its success. Dr Marten won’t be able to sell its
products unless it’s every individual employee and staff start believing and abiding by its culture.
The human resource department of the organization also went through some customization, with
candidates highly skilled in talent and culture were retained, and employed (case study. Dr
Martens by successfully defining its culture improved the active engagement of the employees
and staffs. This enforced the various assembled teams and group to work as a single unit towards
a common purpose. The framework has provided the new candidates to scope the insights into
the organization formalising the required traits and characteristics. Dr Martens also had a strong
and profitable financial year with leadership growth and employee engagement contributing its
part (Awadh and Alyahya, 2013).
b) Explain how power and political behaviour has influenced individual and team
behaviour and performance, whilst undergoing the recent structural changes in Dr
Martens. Please refer to relevant theories to support the points that you make here (e.g.
French and Raven’s power types, Chanlat’s characteristics related to political behaviour).
Power and politics are termed as the most primary aspects of an organization. This is because
they both play an important part in the industry and administer how to make effective decisions,
make strong and healthy relationship with other employees (Furnham, 2012). The impact of
politics highly depends on the individual possessing the power and decides whether the overall
workplace culture supports productivity or not. In parallel, the organization underwent some
changes in structure with the devolvement of greater responsibilities to the regional staffs and
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directors in order to ensure that the employees and staffs both feel supported during the
expansion strategy.
French and Raven’s bases of power are divided into two specific groups’ i.e. positional power
and personal power (Yahaya et al., 2011). These two groups are as follows:
Positional Power Sources
 Legitimate power – This type of positional power is usually changeable and unsteady. A
manager in an organization has the legitimate power. If an individual loses the position, the
legitimate power associated also disappears because the people tend to be more influenced by
the specific position rather than the individual holding the position.
Personal Power Sources
 Expert Power – Sometimes it is important to possess the appropriate knowledge and skills in
order to understand the circumstances or situation properly and then make decisions or
consider solutions to outperform others. The individual possessing expert power gains more
value and others look the individual as a leader in that specific area (Reed, 2012).
The positive power in the organization includes motivating and encouraging competence. This
includes providing the employees and staffs with the opportunity to take effective decisions, use
their reward power to reward the employees for exceptional performance. It has helped Dr
Martens to develop employee confidence and motivating the workforce to work even harder and
faster. Dr Martens owes its success to its two major factors and aspects i.e. people and product.
The organization provides its workforce with the power and approval to express their different
concerns and views together. The organizational politics includes the utilization of the power and
influence for the aspect of personal gain or profitability. During the structural changes, the
organization also strengthened its HR department in order to create a pool of talent and retain the
skilled and highly trained employees (Pettigrew, 2014).
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Task 2
Bearing in mind no single motivation theory explains all aspects of people’s motives 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.
There are some different theories of motivation that develops encouragement and motivation at
the workplace (Petri and Govern, 2012). The aspect of growth and development in Alderfer ERG
Motivation theory explains that internal esteem and self-actualization impels an individual or an
organization to incorporate creative and innovative effects on the business environment, for
example, restructuring and relocation of the Dr Martens central office to London (Caulton,
2012). The organization’s self-actualization to get effective marketing and design talent in
London and the realization to move other various functions there as well motivated the brand to
relocate to London. The satisfaction-progression principle influences expectations and demands
as the organization move upward the stream of requirement hierarchy as an outcome of
satisfying lower order requirements.
The achievement and acquired needs theory of McClelland describes three aspects such as
achievement, authority and affiliation motivation (Ball, 2012). This theory of McClelland
enables the shaping of the individual’s needs and expectations; training and development
programs and schemes can be used to customize the profile of an individual’s requirements. For
example, Dr Martens had assembled a small team of generalist in order to scale the business on
long-term. The organization utilized the bespoke application in order to help the individual
employee and staffs to stay connected and communicate throughout the whole relocation
process. The restructuring and relocation of the organization to London provided it with the
chance of inaugurating new stores and outlets that eventually helped Dr Martens to promote
identity and enhance brand awareness across the whole of Asia and UK. Dr Martens believes in
following the best practice, as they don’t want to do the things that other competitor does or
performs. This helped the organization to gain great and long-term sustaining momentum. All
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these theories also helped the organization to deal with the biggest challenge associated with the
relocation to London. The biggest challenge that the organization faced was to forcefully role out
the plan of relocating to London, as the organization didn’t had the time and the space to relocate
every function and person at the same time. There also aroused some communication gaps and
issues throughout the whole process, which the organization had to deal with the help of a
bespoke application. The Needs Motivational theories state that motivation is the potential or the
willingness to incorporate greater levels of effort towards the organizational goals and
objectives, conditioned by the potential or capability of the efforts to address and cater to the
organizational needs and requirements (Nuttin, 2014).
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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.
Tuckman and Jensen Model of Team development proposed a stage-theory model for the method
of group interaction emphasizing on the four development stages i.e. forming, storming, norming
and performing (ccconline.org, 2019). These four stages of development are mainly concerned
with the team growth and the four stages are as follows:
 Forming – This stage is concerned with the team members becoming acquainted with other
team members in order to agree on the aim and purpose of the organization. This specific
stage of team development is especially characterized by a greater degree of uncertainty as
the individual members of the team get to understand each other and predict the team’s goal
and objectives.
This stage is the first and the most basic stage of the development of an effective team. This is
because the individual team members generally perform as a single unit in order to accommodate
as a single unit and work with each other. The instructors and leaders of Dr Martens are very
directive during the forming stage as it helps promote the initial phase by delivering a specific
time or place to participate in various social interactions. A team that is in the process of
becoming effective undergoes this first stage and the completion or understanding of the stage
helps the individual team members to collaborate with each other and begin building trust and
loyalty with other members within the group.
 Storming – In this stage, the team members struggle for the specific position as they try to
develop themselves in competence to other members of the team. The storming stage
uncertainly depends on the clarity of the goal and objectives. It is characterized by the
surfacing of the different individual personalities or the conflicts and issues that tend to
disrupt the team (Fapohunda, 2013).
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A majority of the teams or groups freeze in this phase due to the emergence of power struggles
and team politics, as it tends to cause turmoil. This results in the challenging evolution of morale
and productivity. The team at Dr Martens focuses on its goals and objectives in order to ignore
the distraction caused due to affairs and emotional issues. It is very much important to
compromise in order to enable the progress or development of the team. The challenging morale
and productivity enforces the members of the team to work together as a single unit to achieve
the goals and objectives. An effective team is made when the familiarity and trust with the
process and other team members gradually evolves.
 Norming – During the undergoing of the third stage, the conflicts and issues prevailing
within the team are generally resolved and a strong relationship develops among the
individual members of the team. This norming stage of team development results in creating
harmony within the team. The basic norms and regulations that the team abides by is also
adopted or considered important in this stage. This is important because the setting of norms
and regulations helps in providing social clues and drive the behavior for the individuals or
the members of the team.
In this stage, the team members of the effective team regulate their behavior with each other and
become interconnected. The team accomplish its goals and objectives with the help of
establishing or setting implicit norms and regulations. Every individual team member of the team
at Dr Martens channelizes their special talents and skills towards the accomplishment of goals
and objectives (Yang, 2014).
 Performing – This stage of team development is generally categorized by the individual
members paying attention on the aspect of problem solving and accomplishing their allocated
tasks. In this stage, the team members become self-reliable and possess the potential to
manage the process of decision-making without the help of any administration or
supervision.
This particular stage is facilitated by motivating and empowering the different members of the
team. A team is bound to be effective at this stage as their social relationships have evolved,
roles and responsibilities have been defined and the effective team works even more hard to
accomplish the tasks related goals and objectives.
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 Adjourning - This final stage takes place when the individual team members disband their
role and job once their purpose and goals have been achieved. The focus in now inclined
towards the wrap up of the activities and progressing towards the new things.
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