Organisational Behaviour: Culture, Power, Motivation and Leadership

This report delves into the intricacies of organisational behaviour, using Amazon as a case study. It examines how culture, politics, and power dynamics influence individual and team performance within the organisation. The report explores the impact of different cultural classifications (power, role, task, and person), the importance of cultural awareness, and the application of Hofstede's cultural dimensions. It also analyses the influence of globalisation and digital technology on organisational culture, along with the application of network and systems theories. Furthermore, the report investigates the role of organisational psychology and the impact of organisational politics and power structures on employee behaviour. The report also evaluates content and process theories of motivation, including extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and their implications for management and leadership. Finally, it touches upon behavioural psychology, emotional intelligence, and the significance of soft skills, and the application of task vs relationship leadership and the psychodynamic approach to behaviour.

ORGANISATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR
Contents

1
INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................1
P1. Firm’s culture, politics and power can influence individual and team behaviour and performance.1
Influence of the culture:.....................................................................................................................1
Influence of politics...........................................................................................................................4
Influence of power.............................................................................................................................5
P2. Content and process theories of motivation.....................................................................................6
Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation......................................................................................................6
Theories of motivation.......................................................................................................................6
Implications of motivational theory...................................................................................................8
Behavioural psychology....................................................................................................................8
Task vs. Relationship leadership........................................................................................................8
Psychodynamic approach..................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES......................................................................................................................................9

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INTRODUCTION
Any organisation need to understand the organisational behaviour of the stakeholders.
Understanding of organisational behaviour helps management to make decisions and policies
that are according to the demands of an individual. Three factors politics, culture and power
has a deeper impact on the way an organisation or individual’s performs. Since all these
factors differs from organisation to organisation. Amazon is one of the biggest online retailers
in the world and has large numbers of employees and other stakeholders attached with it. This
report will analyse the way in which culture politics, culture and power is going to have
impact on Amazon. It also analyses the way in which content and process theories of
motivation and motivational techniques helps in effective achievement of goals within an
organisational context.
P1. Firm’s culture, politics and power can influence individual and team behaviour and
performance.
In any organisation, the organisational behaviour gets impacted by different types of factors.
Some of these are culture, politics and power which are having impact on the way in which
they behave within the firm.
Influence of the culture:
Classification of culture
There are different types of cultures. The classification of culture has been done in different
terms. These are known to be as the Charles culture:
 Power culture: This is a culture that defines that there are different people sitting in
the organisational web or at different positions at the organisational structure. In
Amazon also there are certain people who have higher influence in the organisation.
The employees that are close to these people having certain amount of power usually
get influenced by these power holders. Since people tries to have more power base
which gives them the control of the resources and hence a negative environment
sometimes starts to get emerged. Amazon has little power culture as employees whose
impact can be seen by the fact that there is higher turnover in the organisation as
people are unsatisfied about the way in which people are utilising their powers. This

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sometimes has a negative impact on the team behaviour (Huczynski, Buchanan and
Huczynski, 2013).
 Role culture: In Amazon the culture that is dominant is role culture. In this culture
people are assigned with different types of roles and these have been distributed
according to the positions they hold. It ensures that organisation has more
formalisation. Role culture allows firms to ensure that their objectives are achieved
easily. This has impact on their behaviour of employees as they know what they have
to do and they will enhance their skills accordingly.
 Task culture: This is a project oriented culture and is used by Amazon in their various
projects. This culture has impact on the team and individual behaviour because all the
team members and individual knows what they have to do. This culture improves the
performance of the employees as following this culture Amazon provides rewards to
its people on completion of their projects (Malek and Budhwar, 2013).
 Person culture: This is another culture but it is utilised not utilised within Amazon.
Since in this culture an individual becomes the focal point hence the overall
performance of the individuals and team gets affected by this. If that person uses
wrong strategies or takes decisions inappropriately then the chances that overall
performance of the individuals and team within the organisation gets affected
negatively.
Importance of awareness about cultural difference
In any organisation of the scale of Amazon there are people from different cultural
backgrounds. In such an environment, it is critical that employees remain aware about the
cultural differences that are present. It is critical that employees remain aware about what are
the basic differences that exist among both the cultures. This is critical for improving the
relations among the employees which again plays a critical role in shaping the environment
of the firm. This is going to have impact on the individuals and team performance as in
coordinating things the role of this aspect of culture becomes essential (MacIntosh and
Doherty, 2010).
Hofstede’s dimension of culture
This is a critical theory that helps an organisation to understand the dimensions of culture
which is having impact on the performance and operations of an organisation. Dimensions of
culture are power distance index, individualism versus collectivism, masculinity versus

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femininity, Uncertainty avoidance index, and long term orientation versus short term
normative orientation as well as indulgence versus restraint. Since these dimensions differ
from country to country hence it is critical for the multi-national organisations like Amazon
to check the differences in the cultural environment between the two nations. This is essential
for improving the culture that is followed within the firm and hence having impact on the
performance of the individuals and the whole team (Furnham, 2012).
Rise of globalisation and digital technology impact on the organisational culture in 21st
century
There is a rise in the globalisation hence more numbers of people are crossing borders for
work. This is enhancing the cultural mix at different workplace. This is having impact on the
organisational culture. Rise of globalisation enhances the cultural mix at different levels of
organisational structure which is again having impact on the overall organisational culture.
Most of the firms are losing their originality in terms of the cultures they have (Burnett and
Huisman, 2010). Since organisations are adopting the cultures of others hence it is getting
shaped in a more common type of culture.
On the other hand technology has become the most essential aspect in the modern day era.
This is forcing the firms to adopt culture that has flavours of technology. Firms are
demanding that all their employee work with the help of technology only. This is shaping all
the type of cultures that is present within the firm such as team culture is facilitated by
technology; communication culture is facilitated by technology (Erkutlu, 2012). With huge
investments done by different firms in the technology, management is forced to shape their
organisational culture in a manner that they can easily incorporate technology in their
different work processes.
Network theory and system theory as framework
System theory is a framework that helps understanding the complex nature of the
organisation. This framework allows firms to investigate about the group of people that
works together for producing some results. This is helpful for the managers in understanding
organisation as they will know how the people are performing (Mele, Pels and Polese, 2010).
This is because the way in which people behaves and performs within the group plays a
critical role in their performance. This also shapes the team performance of an individual that

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works within the firm. Employees are also able to know organisation’s complexity hence they
get adapted to it accordingly.
Network theory is a framework that helps employees to understand the network within the
firm and also lets them know the way in which one level of the organisational system gets
influenced by the other level of the organisational system. This is more of a social network
perspective that clearly overlays the ways in which the stakeholders especially employees
have to handle their relation with the upper and lower level of the employees or management
(Borgatti and Halgin, 2011).
Organisational psychology
Organisational psychology is another crucial aspect that a firm should look at. By
understanding organisational psychology an employee is able to understand the way in which
they will have to deal with different people (Furnham, 2012). This is critical for improving
the performance of the employees as well as helps in coordinating with other staffs in an
appropriate manner.
Influence of politics
Politics also has influence on the way in which employees of the organisation perform as well
as it also has impact on the behaviour of the personalities. It is seen that people who generally
gets involved in the politics also tends to seek for their control in the organisation. These
people starts taking higher numbers of risk and do not rate security on the higher side. A
person who gets involved in the politics tends to lose focus on their work and always in surge
of power. This brings negativity in the workplace as every tried to be better than their
colleagues. This is usually seen in the case of management group (Hsiung, Lin and Lin,
2012). Organisational politics tends to have impact on the way in which one person interacts
and respects other persons especially the position they hold.
There are different types of changes that exist within the organisation. Personal changes are
those that are required by the individual according to the requirements of the organisation.
Personal changes are critical to improving the performance of the organisation as well as that
of the individual. Decisional changes are something that has impact on the larger set of
people. Decision changes are usually done for improving in areas for which decisions have to
be made.

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Structural changes are those in which structure of the organisation is changed on the basis of
the requirements of the firm. This also has impact on the performance of the people because
organisational structure defines the power and role of individuals. On the other hand
organisational change refers to the changes in terms of strategies and organisational aspects
such as different operations.
Influence of power
Power as a property viewpoint
As discussed in the above section that power culture has negative impact on the behaviour of
the people. Many individuals within the organisation start understanding power as a property
which they have received from the organisation structure. This has an impact on the
individual and relationships of the individuals. Power is embedded in organisational
structure. Power is undistinguishable and most of the time it is an embedded property of the
organisational structure. It is also the property of the individuals or property of relationship
(Haslam, Reicher and Platow, 2010). When an individual own powers it is embedded
property of individual. On the other hand when a person gains powers from any relationship,
the power is said to be embedded property of relationship.
Bases of powers
 Coercive power: This is also used in Amazon where managers force their employees
to comply with an order through the threat of punishment. It leads to short-term
compliances.
 Legitimate power: It is the power that is enjoyed by an individual due to the position
they have achieved or are at in the organisational structure.
 Reward power: It is an ability of the manager to provide some sort of rewards to the
workers. This is enjoyed by managers of the company.
 Referent power: This is power in which manager leads by example and rests heavily
on trust. Amazon wants their managers to follow this kind of power as it has a direct
impact on the performance of the individuals (French, 2011).
 Expert power: This power rests on the belief of workers where a person has
particularly higher levels of knowledge and has higher skill set.
Power controls and power sources

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Power controls in any organisation lies with the people that lies in the upper level of the
organisational structure. The role that has been assigned to them acts a source of their
powers. People who have power controls and power sources are capable enough to influence
the behaviour of the people which also has an impact on the performance of the individuals.
P2. Content and process theories of motivation
Motivation plays a highly significant role in achieving desired goals whether at the individual
levels or the organisational levels. Since every organisation has different set of goals which
can only be achieved once the firm has motivated employees. It is the role of the management
to ensure that each of their employees remains motivated (Miner, 2015). This is usually done
by the companies with the help of the theories of motivation and motivational techniques.
Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation
There are different theories in regards to motivation. These theories are divided into two i.e.
extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Extrinsic motivations are the ones that come to an
individual from within i.e. when an employee remains motivated to perform or engage in an
activity in order to gain some rewards or for avoiding punishments (Reiss, 2012). On the
other hand intrinsic motivation involves engaging in behaviour that benefits an individual
personally. This is essential for performing an activity for own sake and not for getting any
external rewards. Such behaviour improves the overall effectiveness of the task done by the
individual hence it is itself a reward.
Theories of motivation
There are different motivational theories given by different theorists. They are content
theories and process theories.
Content theories
These theories looks for the factors within the people that cause sustain or stop behaviour.
The major focuses are according to the requirements that motivate people.
 Maslow theory: This theory suggests that every employee has a pyramidal hierarchy
of needs and the higher levels till which these needs are satisfied, the higher is its
motivational levels. Amazon ensures that all these level of needs are fulfilled.
 Herzberg's motivator-hygiene theory: This theory is also known to be two factor
theories that there are certain factors in the workplace which causes job satisfaction

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while a unique set of factors cause dissatisfaction. Two factors are motivators (such as
responsibility, achievements, challenging work and opportunity) and hygiene factors
(such as salary, work benefits, paid insurances, good pay, status, job security, fringe
benefits) (Yudhvir and Sunita, 2012).
 ERG theory: This theory reduced the Maslow five levels of motivational needs into
three levels i.e. existence needs (Such as food, water, safety, affection and love),
Relatedness needs (It encompasses social and external esteem) and growth needs
(internal esteem and self-actualisation).
Process theories
These theories are concerned with the way in which motivation occurs and the type of
process that can influence the motivation.
 Vroom theory: This theory suggests the fact that one’s level of motivation depends on
the attractiveness of the rewards that is sought by doing that task at the same time the
probability of the rewards obtained. If employees feels worthy about doing that work
then only they will do it. It is based on three major variables that are valence,
expectancy and instrumentality.
 Adam’s theory: It is a theory that illustrates that an employee remains motivated when
they have been treated better compared with the treatment given to the other
employees at the same organisational levels. It suggests that motivation is
significantly influenced by other’s rewards (Arifin, 2015).
 Latham and Locke theory: This illustrates that a person’s motivation towards any goal
depends on the factors such as specificity, commitment, goal difficulty and
acceptance. When the effort is supported by organisation then it results in higher
performance.
Implications of motivational theory
All the above mentioned motivational theory has different kinds of implications on the
leadership and management within any firm. These motivational theories justify the ways in
which a management should move to support their employees or on the other hand it also
illustrates the way in which an employee can be motivated. It guides the organisation about
the way in which they need to provide rewards to the individuals so that they remain
motivated (Dartey-Baah and Harlley, 2010). Motivational theory also helps in building better

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relationships with the employees which is very much critical in today’s time. It helps the
leadership in doing better management.
Behavioural psychology
Emotional intelligence is understood as the capacity of the individuals to find out their
emotions and those of the others, distinguish among different feelings and tag them in an
appropriate manner. It is also understood as the capacity to utilise emotional information to
guide behaviour and thinking as well as manage or adjust emotions to adapt according to the
environment for achieving their own goals. It is also important for the managers to have soft
skills as it helps them in controlling, directing and performing their job roles in an appropriate
manner. It is also essential for effectively motivating employees (Gu and Gu, 2011).
Task vs. Relationship leadership
Relationship oriented leadership is the ones that remains motivated by and concerned about
their interaction with other individuals. On the other hand task oriented leadership is the ones
who demands for higher performance from employees and also helps in accomplishment of
all tasks as getting job completed is their first priority (Rosenbach, 2018).
Psychodynamic approach
It is an approach that involves all the theories in psychology that see human functioning on
the basis of the interaction of drivers and forces within the individual, particularly
unconscious and among the different personality structures (Close and Raynor, 2010). This
helps the managers to understand the behaviours of others and hence accordingly motivation
can be provided.
Conclusion
From the above based report it can be concluded that there are different factors such as
culture, power and politics that is having impact on the individual or team behaviour as well
as their performance. Power culture, Role culture, Task culture and Person culture are the
four types of culture that is having impact on the individual’s behaviour and performance.
There are different types of motivational theories that help the leadership and management to
motivate their employees which is critical for their higher performance. A manager needs to
have soft skills so as to motivate their employees such as well communication ability.
Psychodynamic approach allows the firms to understand the behaviours of others.

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