Organisational Behaviour Report: Culture, Power, and Politics in UK

This report provides an in-depth analysis of organizational behaviour, focusing on the case of Virgin Media UK. It explores the impact of culture, power, and politics on team and individual performance, examining how these factors influence employee behaviour and organizational outcomes. The report delves into specific aspects such as coercive, reward, legitimate, expert, and informational power within the company. It also investigates the effects of political dynamics, including decreased productivity, a negative work environment, and shifts in employee attitudes. Furthermore, the report evaluates different cultural dimensions using Handy's typology and Hofstede's cultural model. Finally, the report assesses content and process theories of motivation, including Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, in the context of Virgin Media UK. This comprehensive overview provides valuable insights into managing organizational behaviour to enhance employee performance and achieve business goals.

Organisational Behaviour
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Table of Contents
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INTRODUCTION
Organisational behaviour can be defined as study of the behaviour and relation of the
individual within and with the organization (Yuryna Connolly and et. al., 2017). It evaluates the
relationship between individual person and organisation he is working in. Effective and efficient
Organisational behaviour also reflects the positive and progressive growth of the company.
Majorly there can be two variants of working styles of individual person in the business i.e.
efficient working and inefficient working; these both working styles can have both positive and
negative implications respectively on business growth in their own considerable manner. In order
to assure success every business needs to have such organisational behaviour and environment
the provide positive reflection and motivates a healthy relationship between the employee and
top management personnel. This idea of preparing this report is to understand and analyse
organizational behaviour concepts and theories with context of Virgin Media UK. Virgin Media
UK is a leading British telecommunication provider company headquartered in United Kingdom.
This study comprises impact of power, culture, politics on organisational enactment, Strategies
and policies concerned with organizational behaviour.
TASK 1
P1 Impact of culture, power and politics on team and individual performance
There are various factors in an organization that directly or indirectly effect performance
and behaviour of team and individuals, out of those some of the key factors that can influence the
team performance and behaviour in both positive and negative manner are culture, politics and
power. These policies can help organization to achieve their organisational goals and visions in
an effective manner. In context of Virgin Media UK, Manger has the power of same.
Influence of power on individual and team
Power in an organization generally lies with top and middle level management of the
organization and along with power their comes responsibilities. Every manager should exercise
their powers in such a manner that motivates and improves their employee’s performance that
would help an organization in accomplishing business goals and objectives (Kuruppu and et. al.,
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2019). As in concern of Virgin Media UK, there are various theories and policies of power used
company-wide by which influence on individual and organisation can be drawn by the power
holders. Some of the theories are listed as below:
Coercive power: Coercive powers includes punishing and terminating employee from
their working positions. In Virgin Media UK coercive power lies with upper level management
i.e. managing director and their reporting managers. This is type of negative power that is
sometimes tough to exercise and is implement at minimum possible frequency to create a
negative motivation among working employees.
Reward power: It is a basic expectation to get rewarded if something great delivered.
This power lies with a certain group of performance measurement team in Virgin Media UK who
rewards employees with monetary or non-monetary benefits based on their extraordinary
performance in a period. This helps to create a healthy competition among the employees which
will ultimately lead to efficient and effective organizational performance (Đurišić-Bojanović,
2016).
Legitimate power: It is a form of decentralized power that is spread among various
employees in the organization based on their job positions. It is helpful in delegating and
distributing workload among various employees to get the work done within a particular time
frame. Like other business organization this power is spread organization wide in Virgin Media
UK as well.
Expert power: This power lies in hands of certain person and managers who has a
certain expertise and specialization in a subject matter. This power is given to certain skilled
employees and managers to handle the complex situations and problems through their expertise
in an appropriate manner. In Virgin Media UK this power is given with idea of overcoming
complex problems and providing satisfaction to concerned entities in desired manner.
Informational power: This power is delegated to certain trustworthy persons in the
organization to maintain the confidentiality and mitigate the risk of leakage of crucial and
valuable data and information. With context of Virgin Media UK this power is handed and
exercised by Finance persons who later on delegate it to their trust worthies so that any material
misstatement and leaked can be avoided.
Impact of politics on individual and team
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Politics can be termed as application of formal and guided strategies in the organization
so to have positive effects on business performance as well as market goodwill (Adebayo and et.
al., 2020). With the idea of having effective decision making, manager of Virgin Media UK is
controlling internal environment and relationship in a manner that any sort of such political
policies do not have negative implications on overall productivity and instead it should be
improved and enhanced. Some of the political factors which are elaborated as under:
Decrease in productiveness: Those employees who instead of concentrating and
focusing on their own duties engage themselves in business politics to achieve success through
short cuts will eventually notice that this will lead to decrease in their productiveness. This will
ultimately effect organization behaviour and relationships in an adverse manner.
Spoilage of ambience: To perform with high efficiency their needs to be and positive
work environment and this work environment can be turned adverse and negative as the result of
selfish political practices. This will lead to a mismanagement and negative impact on
interpersonal relationships and communications.
Change in employee attitude: Another bad implication of politics in organizational
behaviour is that it results into change in employees’ attitudes. This politics can cost business of
losing their skilled and talented employees. With respect of Virgin Media UK small informal
groups part of politics can be formed and seen due to this which will be combined and try to
supersede everyone else in the organization with their politics and will result into ultimate
decrease in overall productiveness of the organization.
Influence of culture on individual and team
Culture is beliefs, ethics, practices, ideas etc of the organization or an individual. They
can be categorised as those values through which every employee and organization gets the
direction and way of doing things to achieve their organizational goals and visions (Buranakul
and et. al., 2017). Those are recorded as guidelines in a handbook that strictly needs to be
followed by every individual. The working culture and environment of Virgin Media UK can be
understood and described with the help of Handy’s typology approach, which is defined as
under:
Power culture: Power culture is the way of delegating power within the organization,
generally, these are distributed to upper level of management. In context of Virgin Media UK as
well there is a culture and practice to delegate power of decision making to upper management
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and employees responsible completes the tasks assigned to them based on guidance provided by
their managers having the power.
Role culture: Organization consists of number of individuals and each individual is
assigned with a specific role and responsibility defining the expectations from the employees.
This role keeps promoting based on their performance measures which ultimately enhances their
responsibilities as well as confidence level. In Virgin Media UK each person has a specific role
assigned to them by their managers after critical analysis.
Person culture: Organization following this culture provides promotions and recognition
to the person based on their ideas and creativeness (Inuwa, 2016). In this individual is measured
in terms of utilising the opportunities and apply his skill set towards the same. This helps
growing both the individual career as well as sustainability and stability of the organization itself
making sure the skills and ideas or resources are appropriately utilised, and they kept motivated.
Task culture: Within this culture employees are motivated to complete the short term
expectations of organization in efficient and effective manner that leads towards increasing
overall profitability of the company as well as individual. This culture is used by Virgin Media
UK to get the best output from their employees by rendering high benefits to them as the result
of same. It influences employees to work with their full efficiency
Cultural dimensions
Hofstede cultural model
CATEGORIES IMAPCT
Power Distance Index In this cultural dimension index is considered
as tolerance of power and inequality. In the
context of Virgin Media UK low power
distance index is existed due to which
participative leadership style is used by the
organisation.
Collectivism vs. Individualism Individualism is associated with emphasise
over personal goals whereas collectivism is
denoted as attainment of overall goals. For
Virgin Media UK collectivism culture is
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followed in order to unite the whole
organisation.
Uncertainty Avoidance Index This is denoted as the level at which
uncertainty and ambiguity can be tolerated.
Femininity vs. Masculinity Masculinity is defined as distinct gender role
whereas Femininity is defined as fluid gender
role. In the context of Virgin Media UK
femininity is being followed by the company.
Short-Term vs. Long-Term Orientation Long term orientation is defined as associated
gratification to attain long term success
whereas short term orientation is defined as
short term gratification. In the context of
Virgin Media UK the company is associated
with long term gratification.
Restraint vs. Indulgence Indulgence is defined as allowance of society
in which freeness can be inhaled whereas
restraint is defined as suppress gratification by
society.
M1 Impact of politics, power and culture over individual and performance of team
FACTOR Individual performance and
enactment
Team performance and
enactment
POWER In case the roles are
responsibilities are not
appropriately delegated among
the individual there might be
some negative implications
such as hindrance of work and
decrease in performance
effectiveness and efficiency of
In a scenario where business
exhibits inappropriate power
among the employees the team
performance can be negatively
impacted by lowering resources
productivity whereas if the same
is properly delegated the
employees will be motivated
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individual whereas the same can
be mitigated if there is an
appropriate delegation and
distribution of power among the
individuals
and work with proper
collaboration.
CULTURE When the culture in
organization is not properly
followed or the policies are not
appropriate the work
environment might be
inappropriate to keep the
employees boosted and work
with dedication. Therefore, it is
necessary to have an industry
and employee friendly culture
within the organization
(Globocnik, Rauter and
Baumgartner, 2020).
A team is consist of number of
individuals and each individual
can have variation of cultures
and values that might lead to
conflict among the team as a
whole therefor it is the
responsibility of mangers to
manage and balance the culture
in the team and organization in
most fruitful manner.
POLITICS When employees associate
themselves in the internal
politics to gain the undeserved
by themselves and harm the
opportunities of others it leads
to the conflict among
employees and tarnish the
individual performances and
also create a negative image and
impact of organization and its
performance
When employees are engaged
in politics individually its
negative impact gets spread to
the team’s performance. The
team efficiency is decreased
which leads to de-motivation
and dissatisfaction among the
individuals, therefore such
politics must be eradicated so
that there is no dissatisfaction
among the team and
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organization.
TASK 2
P2 Evaluation of content and process theories of motivation
Motivation is one of the most vital parts in boosting performance of individual and
organization. It can either be monetary as well as non-monetary. It is provided as incentive or
reward or confidence that has high positive impacts on performance of the individual which
overall boosts the performance of the organization (Bachkirov, 2019). It is very important for
organization to keep their employees motivated as that plays a key role in success of the
organization and achieving business goals. Motivational theories are elucidated as beneath:
Content theory: Content theory can be described as composition of all those factors
which are changed or adjusted to motivate the employees with regards to demands and objective
of employees. With respect to Virgin Media UK all those motivation factors can be examined
and rendered to their employees in various occasions are enumerated in detailed as below:
Maslow’s need hierarchy approach: Maslow’s model of motivation majorly includes
five factors which are helpful in analysing the individual’s demand and needs on priority basis.
This theory helps organization to analyse the needs of their employees and come across the
factors that needs to be changed as per there employees to keep them boosted and motivated. It is
the generally human tendency that gives rise to new need as soon as the old need has been
fulfilled, therefore it is important to keep analysing the same and making the necessary changes.
Substances of Maslow’s need theory are described as under:
Psychological needs: This need includes the basic needs and demands of employees such
as food, water, shelter etc. Before having any other need’s, these are the primary requirements
that is required by every employee of every organization (Nguyen and Hooi, 2020). With context
of Virgin Media UK as well it is mandatory and necessary for them to analyse and recognize
basic needs of their employees and do the needful to fulfil the same so that overall performance
of the employees can be enhanced.
Safety and security needs: Once the basic needs of employees are fulfilled next needs
that arouse in the mind on employees generally are their safety and job security. Every employer
should properly analyse and evaluate the job security policies. With respect to Virgin Media UK,
manager is required to give all the safety and security to their employees so that they can gain
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trust and loyalty of the employees towards organization. This trust in the mind of employees can
directly impact business efficiency. This will have a positive impact on overall performance of
the organization.
Social needs: Needs that are associated with social interaction and beliefs are part of
social needs. It is necessary for Manager of Virgin Media UK to maintain effective and clear
communication with their employees and make the employees aware of policies implemented by
them to fulfil and meet social needs of their employees (Griffin and et. al., 2020). This is having
effective impact on increasing performance of the organization and helps the business in
achieving overall goals and visions in most effective and efficient manner.
Esteem needs: Needs to get recognised and appreciated for their work in the business
organization for their performance towards the organization. The management of Virgin Media
UK is dedicated and influenced on inspiring their employees to work hard by giving them proper
appreciations and recognitions for their extraordinary performance. With the fair distributing of
rewards, promotions and appraisals to employee there might be increase in overall efficiency of
the employees and this efficiency will benefit organization in achieving their goals in an
effective manner.
Self-actualisation needs: These categories of needs consist with those needs by which
internal mind satisfaction of employee can be enumerated. These needs are boosters for
individual performance in which individual goal is considered parallel to the path of achieving
organizational goals and which gives an employee an additional motivation to work with
complete dedication and focus towards the organizational goal.
Process theory: This theory is helpful in analysing psychological manners and needs and
behaviour processes. In addition to these the theory is associated with utility to distinguish needs
of individual and inclusive requirements of employees and also evaluate those factors by which
their performance can be impacted. With context to Virgin Media UK their managers are putting
continuous efforts to accelerate high density and extent of motivation among workers so that
they can meet necessities and demands of workforce (Shahbaznezhad, 2018). For the purpose of
this evaluation, they implement Vroom expectancy theory which is effectively described as
under:
Vroom's expectancy theory: This theory is focused towards recognising those multiple
motivation factors which play key roles in obtaining motivation and enhancing individual
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performance of employees. This theory runs with an assumption that needs and expectations of
each individual and employee is highly dependent on various factors including personality, skill
and individual knowledge. This assists employee in staying motivated and enhance their working
efficiency. With context of Virgin Media UK they have considered various aspects such as
expectancy, instrumentality to keep the employees motivated so that organizational goals and
objectives can be accomplished successfully in expected manner.
M2 Impact of motivation on team and individual
Motivation is one of the most important factors in providing the employee with
satisfactory environment. This helps employees to enhance their working efficiency and with the
help of that organization can achieve their objectives in most appropriable manner (Sinha, 2018).
Like every other organization it is important for Virgin Media UK as well to understand the
employee requirements and fulfil the same in most appropriate manner. To gather and analyse
the same there are various concepts and tools listed above that can be used. In case the
organization fails to establish and understand the same this would lead to decrease in
motivational and dedication level of employee and the team he is part of and that will impact the
financial and operational performance of the organization. Maslow need theory is helping the
team and individual to stay motivated and attain their desired objectives in appropriable manner.
As in reference of Virgin Media UK motivational theories are helping the organisation to impact
behaviours of others as after fulfilling of needs positivity can be rendered to the employees and
overall business.
D1 Interrelationship between culture, power and politics
Culture, Politics, Power and Motivation are all those factors and influencers which need
appropriate concentration and need to analysed and evaluated through various techniques in
appropriate manner to form the guidelines and policies in the organization that might have
positive impact over the performance of both individual and team. With context of Virgin Media
UK there are various persons and managers who are assigned with various roles to form and
maintain proper culture, politics, power delegation and motivation level in the organization.
They should keep evaluating these policies from time to time to make sure any of such policies
do not have any negative or adverse effect in performance of Individual, team and organization.
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TASK 3
P3 Factors of effective and ineffective teams
For every organization development and achievements can be enumerated by its most key
resource i.e. its workforce or employees. It is important to train, motivate, and provide with
appropriate competency to the employees to exploit all the available opportunities for the
business. Since those resources have to collaborate together and work towards organizational
goal, the team too should work with fruitful collaboration (Samsudin and et. al., 2020). With
context of Virgin Media UK, managers are having high focus on enhancing skillset of their
employees so that they can be flexible with different roles and form an effective team with a sole
focus towards organizational goals. Here are the a few dissimilarities among effective and
ineffective team:
Few Qualities which are requisite by Virgin Media UK to figure an effective team are
discussed as under:
Shared participation: Effective team is group of people where number of individuals
come together and work with their whole efficiency and skillset. Removing the communication
barriers and establishing effective communication are the most essential aspects to figure an
effective team. It is a key requirement to have participation from all the members of the team as
that will lead to a clear communication and also help to avoid any kind of conflict or confusion.
Therefore, mutual efforts are necessary to form an effective team (Castelli, 2016).
Balanced roles: Another important aspect of effective team is where workers are
assigned appropriate roles within organisation to clear them strategy path of implementation in
order to make the objectives achievement path more effective and efficient. Moreover, this helps
to avoid conflict between the employees among each other. This is also helpful for the
organization and individual to recognize their actual position
Better communication: Effective and clear communication is one of the most important
feature and sign of effective and successful team. It makes sure that every individual in
organization is aware of their roles and responsibilities and works with full efficiency towards
that. It also inspires people and brings mutual respect between each member of the team.
Above feature are those which marks a team as effective whereas for any of the above
characteristics are missing from the team or are not available in the expected manner it leads to a
team to be ineffective.
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