Organizational Culture, Power & Politics: Hilton Hotels Case Study

This case study analyzes Hilton Hotels' organizational behavior, focusing on how its employee-centric culture, power dynamics, and politics contribute to its business success. The study examines Charles Handy's theories on culture and how Hilton's approach fosters team integrity and positive employee experiences across 380,000 team members globally. It explores the influence of organizational politics and power structures, including reward, referent, expertise, legitimacy, and coercive powers, and how these impact employee motivation and performance. The case study also discusses the application of Maslow's hierarchy and Vroom's theory in motivating employees and achieving business objectives, highlighting both the strengths and potential limitations of these frameworks. The analysis emphasizes how Hilton's focus on employee experience enhances service levels and overall efficiency in the hospitality industry.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Document 2
Charles Handy’s theories on culture are based on the principles and collective beliefs
within the organizational environment that produce active participation of the employees
guided by certain behavioral patterns. The organizational culture is the pivotal factor in the
dynamics of influencing individuals and the team’s behavior. Following it, Hilton’s
organizational culture pours an immense contribution to the general understanding of
achieving goals provided with organizational integrity among the structural members. Many
organization faces issues in the work environment culture (Cacciattolo, 2014). However,
Hilton hotels hold consistent positive results of team integrity provided with progressive
coordination of every individual. They embrace this culture with the involvement of 380,000
team members across the globe; therefore, the cultural influences fuel the organization to
achieve its business success. Hilton’s performance remains crowned in the industry of
hospitality due to its increasing profitability and firm performance in the stock market.
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Organizational politics is held by certain individuals whose influence helps the
organization maintain integrity. The power culture is primarily maintained by certain rules
and regulations. However, the politics at Hiltons may face legal punishments for using
organizational politics.
Controls the environment from the core of
the power authority.
The power culture of Hilton hotels is
concentrated among a few.
Few rules and little bureaucracy is
maintained
Swift decisions are possible.

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Document 4
Organizational power is the major factor that influences individual and team
associations towards the understanding of how one should achieve their goals. The
organizational culture of Hilton initially faces a negative impact due to the assessment of
Reward power. Reward power is the power that identifies the best efficiency of an individual
in the organization. Such powers did gain encouragement to the reward gainers but on the
contrary, the system discouraged the other employee. The majority of the employee is in the
learning process (Cacciattolo, 2014). Therefore, it is time-consuming for them to gain such
rewards in comparison to experienced and high skilled employees. Apart from this, the
referent power is always appreciated due to the effective leadership at all the positions of the
organization. Besides, powers related to expertise and legitimacy are always in check
provided with an application of coercive power when necessary.
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Through the organizational influence of culture, power and politics, Hilton has
reached the peak of leading industries. Moreover, the fact that the economy is profitable only
because of the coordination and understanding among the employees and team members. It
the behavioral pattern that is marked by the organization to develop the service levels and
efficiency of the employee. Therefore, in the industry of hospitality, every employee counts.
Document 6
The hierarchy program of Maslow is the major factor in motivating the employees at
Hiltons. It provides the physiological needs, safety needs, esteem needs and also the self-
actualization needs that create new experiences for the guest. The Vroom theory at Hiltons is
the basis of the organization as it provides standard performance with innovations (Scott,
2016). With the facilitation of the instrumental idea, the Hilton provides transparency and

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clarity that further develops a better relationship among the individuals. However, the
application of Maslow's theory creates a disadvantage as it narrows down the customer base
that follows specifically the hierarchal needs. In addition, the expectation strategy does not
always work well such as in the assessment of reward power it discourages the other
employees and their capabilities.

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References
Cacciattolo, K., 2014. Understanding organisational cultures. European scientific
journal, 2(1), pp.1-7.
Scott, M.E., 2016. Strategies for retaining employees in the hospitality industry.