Analyzing Organisational Culture, Politics, and Power

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ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Assignment 1...................................................................................................................................4
Assignment 2.................................................................................................................................11
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................18
Reference List................................................................................................................................19
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Introduction
Organisational behaviour is the study of the collective behaviour and individualistic behaviour of
individuals in an organisation and in this study, there is focus on the concept of organisational
behaviour and the various aspects power, culture politics and how individuals react to such
factors (Wood et al., 2016). The motivational and behavioural theories and their impact on
organisational goals have been studied in this study and organisational relevance is drawn from
the case studies provided. Organisational policies have been studied in depth and there is strong
focus on organisational policy implementations on the behavioural patterns of individuals within
the organisation. Organisational behaviour deals with studying of human behaviour as they
conduct themselves within the organisation and this is associated with different aspects of
relations that exist in the organisation. Team development theories and practices along with
various motivational techniques that are used to enhance team and individual performance are
studied as well. There is also an effort to analyse the various factors that make a team effective
or ineffective and there is the need to understand different ways that are associated with
motivating employees and understanding the influence of philosophies of organisational
behaviour on the organisational context that have been provided.
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Assignment 1
Introduction
In this part of the assignment, the effort is laid on to establish proper relationships between the
organisational politics, power, and culture on the employee performance and the team
performance in the organisation. Further, the same topic will be critically evaluated and the
effect of the same will evaluated through the context of Waitrose. Moreover, this section will
discuss about the types motivational theories used by the organisations to motivate their
employees. One content theory and process theory will be evaluated to gain more knowledge
about this topic.
P1 Analyse how an organisation’s culture, politics, and power can influence individual and
team behaviour performance
Effect of Organisational Culture:
Individual Performance: A healthy organisational culture efficiently improves the employee’s
performance in the organisation. This further increases his involvement in the organisation and
towards his work. The loyalty of the individual towards the company is enhanced. A proper
organisation culture also helps the employees to identify and acknowledge the goals and
objectives of the company. On the other side, a negative work culture may alienate the workers
in the organisation and they may feel left out. The employees will get de-motivated and the work
quality of the company will fall by its standards.
Team behaviour performance: The organisational culture directly affects the performance of
the team. An inefficient working culture leads to higher chances of inter organisational conflicts.
These conflicts disturb the working environment and the quality of work is degraded. A proper
working culture helps in the collaboration between the different members of the team. The
members are able to understand the values and views of each other and operating as a team
becomes easy. Failure of the organisation in establishing a rigid proper culture leads to the
increase in employee turnover because the employees tend to leave the company. Moreover,
inequality among the employees will lead to their dissatisfaction
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Effect of Organisational Politics:
Individual Performance: The motivation of an employee is highly dependent on the scale of the
organisational politics. The positive approach of an employee is developed based on the
approach and behaviours of the other members in the organisation. High organisational politics
has a negative impact on the job satisfaction of an individual and the individual’s work stress is
increased. This leads to the tendency of the workers to leave the organisation, which further
increases the employee turnover rate. Due to this, the productivity also gets affected and is
reduced.
Team behaviour performance: The organisational politics corrupts the environment and
ambience of a group. Due to corrupt ambience, the attitude of the employees gets affected. The
internal politics leads to inefficiency in the work of the employees, which directly affects the
productivity of the company. In a politically driven organisation, the efforts of an individual in
the group go unnoticed and this de-motivates him. Moreover, wrong information in the groups
become more frequent and the works are delayed (Gilling, 2014).
Effect of Organisation Power:
Individual Performance: The proper allocation of organisational power leads to the increase of
an individual’s motivation, performance, and ability to identify the goals of the organisation.
This helps the individual to improve his skills and develop his abilities. Further, negative use of
power can have a huge negative impact on the individual. In addition, negative use of power
manipulates the psyche, decreases creativity, reduces the career development, minimizes the
ethical practices, and reduces the motivation. Further, a good leader with entitled power in the
organisation can motivate and improve the organisation’s employees.
Team behaviour performance: Power can play a very crucial role in a team in the business
organisation. This introduces a sense of hierarchy and makes way to discriminations. The
discriminations further lead to efficient work being unnoticed in the management. The
organisational power leads to major politics in the organisations and the decisions are often
biased. This leads to major conflicts and the team is unable to work efficiently. The total
performance of the group is delayed and further affects the productivity of the organisation.
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P2 Evaluate how content and process theories of motivation and motivational techniques,
enable effective achievement of goals in an organisational context
Content Theory:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: This is a primary psychological motivational theory that
describes the different needs of an individual in form of pyramid representation. Maslow
proposed the theory in 1943. According to him, people are motivated through certain factors and
aspects in life. These factors were termed as needs by Maslow. This technique is used by an
organisation to identify the ways to motivate an employee in their organisation. There are five
levels in this theory, they are:
Physiological needs: These needs are the basic biological factors that are important for the
survival of a human being. These include air, food, shelter, water, sex, sleep, etc. For an
individual to function optimally, these needs are required to be satisfied. According to Maslow,
this the main level of the hierarchy and all the other levels are the secondary stages.
Safety needs: The safety needs highly influence the behaviour of an individual. An individual
needs safeguarding from two types of threats. The first one is the physical threats that are the
wars, racism, family disturbances, etc. Another type is from economic safety like unemployment.
Proper safety against these factors will lead to the motivation of the individual (Yan, 2016).
Love and Belongingness needs: The personal relationships motivate the behaviour of the
individual. This third level of the theory consists of friendship, trust, love, acceptance, etc. These
relationships bring stability in the individual’s life and effects the emotions of the individual.
Esteem Needs: Maslow divided this need into two different sections. They are the self-esteems
and reputation from others. The self-esteems include different factors like self-recognition and
personal achievements. Status and prestige in respect to the others are also important for an
individual. The recognition is the most important aspect in this level. An individual needs this
factors to stay motivated and dedicated towards his work.
Self-Actualization needs: These are the needs of the individual to reach the maximum potential
that can be reached by him. This includes identifying personal potential, achieving experiences,
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and aiming at personal growth. These needs are required by the individual to provide the best
service he can provide to the organisation.
Process Theory:
Expectancy Theory: Victor Vroom developed this motivational theory. According to him, the
choices and decisions made by an individual in the different situations in life directly affect the
individual’s personal motivation. These choices made by the individual increase or decrease the
level of motivation. In addition, Victor Vroom suggested that all the individuals can be brought
on a mutual ground and can be motivated in form of a team. To successfully formulate this
approach, the individual’s efforts need to be linked with the work done by him. Moreover, based
on the quality of the individual’s work, appropriate rewards and benefits must be provided. This
will furthermore, motivate the employee and increase his dedication. The benefits and the
allowances are termed as the most effective technique to increase the motivation of the
employees. These reward systems will enhance the dedication and involvement of the individual
in the organisational work. These demands of the employee increase the urge to improve his
quality of work. Further, the individuals should be provided with proper sense of the rewards,
which will help them to increase their dedication towards work (Kiatkawsin, 2016). The main
benefit techniques for employees are flexible working shifts, promotions, and cash rewards.
M1 Critically analyse how the culture, politics, and power of an organisation can influence
individual and team behaviour and performance
According to Abubakar (2014), the organisation culture, politics, and power have a huge impact
on the employee and team performance in the organisation. Roberts (2014) stated that, the
working culture directly deals with the employee’s motivation and dedication towards the work
in the organisation. The same goes for the performance of the team in the organisation. Further,
Boswell (2016) stated that a healthy environment helps to increase the loyalty of the individuals
at work and the teamwork collaboration is enhanced. The individuals are able to understand the
approach of the organisation towards the long-term goals and there are fewer conflicts in the
organisation. Further, Piercy (2014) noted that the working politics provide a major setback to
the employees and the various working teams in the organisation. The politics are the negative
and behind the scene activities among the employees. These activities lead to the good
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performances of the employees going unnoticed. This creates major setback to the motivation
and the development of the employees. The stresses of the employees are increased and the
employees in the team fail to work as a team and the collaboration is ineffective.
Moreover, Gilling (2014), stated that organisational power could be both beneficial and harmful
for the employees and the teams in the organisations. According to him, a proper allocation and
distribution of power will provide sense of responsibility to the individuals and increase their
commitment towards work. This leads enhancing the individual’s motivation towards work and
his relationships with the employees in the organisation. Further, the power can have a negative
impact on the individual performance. Unbiased opinions are the most important outcome of this
and give rise to unethical approaches. Entitlement of power gives rise to a leader and further has
a impact on his approach. A good leader can be beneficial to the organisation and help the
employees to grow on their skill and ability levels. Furthermore, Piercy (2014), noted that
entitlement of organisational power plays a very significant role in the performance of a team in
the organisation. The most important part is assignment of roles in the team. An individual with
high power often tends to control the other employees under him and bounds their skills on
personal level. Unethical use of power leads to high level of discriminations in their
subordinates. This leads to the rise of organisational politics on general. This decreases the
efficiency of the performance of the team, as there is less amount of collaboration among the
individuals. Therefore Kiatkawsin (2016) concludes that the power in the organisation should be
handled and entitled to individuals in a delicate manner to ensure the most productive outcome in
the organisation.
M2 Critically evaluate how to influence the behaviour of others through the effective
application of behavioural motivational theories, concepts, and models
A major motivational of Maslow is associated with multi layered motivational needs of
physiological needs to self esteem needs and in Waitrose there is effort taken to keep the
motivation level high for employees of all tier in the organisation. Waitrose uses the Maslow’s
hierarchical motivation theory to ensure that there is effective motivation at every stage of
growth in the organisation. The positive affects of this are this that in Waitrose as long as there is
group insurance scheme in place the safety needs of the employees are catered to in terms of
health insurance for self and family. The negative aspect that can be related to this theory is that
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though love and belonging needs are satisfied due to peer comfort culture, this conflicts with the
esteem concept that is craved by many in the form of promotion. Waitrose being an employee
earned enterprise there is a sense of ownership that is there among the employees making it a
huge family unit (Waitrose.com. 2019).
The behaviour of employees can be considered a direct product of the expectancy, valence and
instrumentality if analysed from the viewpoint of the Vroom’s expectancy theory. As per this
theory, behaviour is a resultant factor associated with conscious choices that are taken by the
people in the organisation. The organisation Waitrose will have to provide standard parameters
of performance and thus by setting standards stimulate the motivational aspect of the employee
towards performance. There has to be an alignment with the organisational goals. In this
growing competitive market Waitrose, must set minimum targets achievements and key
performance indicator targets that will ensure that through effective training it will be possible
for the employee to perform and become an instrument to meet organisational standards. This
needs to be coupled with rewards that are the valence part of the deal. Monetary incentive and
promotional incentives are the major crucial ways in which motivation is achieved in Waitrose.
The positive impact of this is that there is a competition among the ground level staff to achieve
the numerical sales targets and earn incentives thus improving the bottom-line of the
organisation. The negative impact however that is in the case of promotions as all performers
cannot be promoted there is the chance of employees losing motivation and opting for other
competing firm for lateral hire.
D1 Critically evaluate the relationships between culture, politics, power and motivation
that enables teams and organisations to succeed, providing justified recommendations
Organisational culture and politics is associated with forming the basis of the motivational drives
that the employee has and Waitrose can use these to ensure that there is improved performance
of the employees in the organisational context. The ways to improve the organisational team
performance can be associated with managers developing a system of reward management in the
organisation by encouraging them to work towards the achievement of organisational goals. The
ways things are conducted in the group are associated with setting priorities and expectations
prior to employee induction (Scientiasocialis.lt.2019). However, in the opinion of Glisson
(2015), organisational culture is associated with the effectiveness of achieving a pattern of
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expected behaviour that is being derived from organisational need that is linked to the business
environment and its challenges. In the case of Waitrose there is a culture of partners of the
business being considered as co-owners and that is the reason why there is focus on corporate
social responsibility that is linked to reducing the expenditure and recycling waste and
contributing to community and health of its customers (Waitrose.com. 2019).
Conclusion
The above section discusses about the effects of the organisational culture on the performance of
the employee and the teams in the organisation. The same relationship is established with the
organisational politics and power. Moreover, two type motivational theories, namely Maslow
Theory of needs and Expectancy Theory have been discussed in this section. For better
understanding of the topic, critical evaluation of the above topics has been done with reference to
Waitrose (Waitrose.com. 2019).
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Assignment 2
Introduction
In this section there is effort taken to analyse the influence of culture and effective teams and
group performance on the productivity enhancement of the organisation. Organisational culture
and politics is associated with forming the basis of the motivational drives that the employee has
and Waitrose can use these to ensure that there is improved performance of the employees in the
organisational context and ascertain the positive and negative effects of the application of
various philosophies associated organisational behaviour.
P3 Demonstrate an understanding of what makes an effective team, as opposed to an
ineffective team
An effective team is a team that is considered to communicate better and are co-ordinated
enough to ensure that all the members contribute to the growth of the team and the organisational
development. The willingness of a group of individuals to work in a cohesive and responsible
way to attain a common goal is known an as effective team (Ahmed et al, 2017). A competent
leader who is there in the team usually from the forming stage of the team and builds a stronger
team by fostering teamwork usually leads these effective teams. Effective teams are formed
based on set goals and through regular monitoring and reviewing of the performance that is
given by the team. The organisation Waitrose will have to provide standard parameters of
performance by the team members and thus by setting standards stimulate the motivational
aspect of the employee towards team –oriented performance. In the opinion of Wins borough,
(2018), whenever the organisation is able to achieve staff engagement through effective
organisational culture and policies then there are more and more chances of effective teams
being developed.
Ineffective teams on the other hand are a group of individuals who come together for the
organisational goal fulfilment but there is a lot of friction and conflict as well as unresolved
communication issues that are present among these people. Ineffective team lack unity and do
not approach the work in hand in an organised way. Another major reason why team tend to
become ineffective is due to the fact that there is the chance that there may be knowledge gap
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that hinders the performance of the group. Team also become ineffective when they are not
involved in the process of self-analysis and they become a team of people who are associated
with not having a transparent relation with manager of the group. This leads to poor performance
of the team as the lack of coordination leads to confusion and chaos among the members that
lead to conflict (Levi, 2015). In the case of Waitrose, there is a tendency that the conflicting
opinions may arise because there are many multi background employees who may face language
barrier in the organisational communication aspect. There is the need to ensure leaders who
provide guidance and ensure that the members are growing lead that team. Developing an
understanding is crucial to team performance in the case of the industry that is as labour
intensive as is seen in the case of Waitrose. It is usually seen that the ineffective teams break
away from the storming stage of team development and never reach the forming stage.
However, when these teams do reach the forming stage of the Tuckman’s theory of team
building. There is a lot of effort that is required to make this team effective and training is one
such tool that is used in this respect. Effective teams are crucial in today’s time to gain advantage
over competitors and hence organisational behaviour is associated with ensuring that ineffective
teams will grow into effective teams and eventually ensure that the team work helps in achieving
the organisational goals.
P4 Apply concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour to an given business
solution
In the words of Mullins (2016), organisational behaviour identifies the set of rules as to how the
individuals need to behave and represent themselves within an organisation. The particular
situations that will be considered in this case are the labour turnover issues that have recently
risen in Waitrose. It has been identified that in the recent financial year, the labour turnover rates
have increased greatly and it is estimated that there are some of the issues in the organisational
behaviour that have caused these. There are some of the significant concepts as well as the
philosophies that need to be followed by the organisations for instigating the practices of the
Organisational Behaviour in a much detailed manner.
Individual Differences in the organisation- The basic concept of OB points out that the
individuals differ not only in their physical appearances, but also in the perceptions and their
psychological abilities as well. In the words of McKenna (2018), there is always a strict
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