Organisational Behaviour Analysis: A Case Study of McDonald's

This report provides an in-depth analysis of organisational behaviour within McDonald's, exploring the influence of culture, politics, and power on individual and team performance. It examines motivational theories, including Maslow's Hierarchy and Vroom's Expectancy Theory, to understand how McDonald's motivates its employees. The report also compares effective and ineffective team dynamics, using Belbin's Team Development theory to suggest strategies for building high-performing teams. Finally, it discusses key concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour, such as integrity, respect, and responsibility, within the context of McDonald's, and suggests effective leadership approaches to enhance business outcomes. This comprehensive analysis offers valuable insights into the management practices and organisational dynamics of one of the world's largest fast-food chains.

ORGANISATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR
Contents

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1 Culture, Politics and Power influencing individual and team performance...........................1
P2 Content and process theories of motivation...........................................................................2
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................4
P3 Demonstration on Effective Team as compared to Ineffective Team....................................4
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................5
P4 Concepts and philosophies of Organisational Behaviour within McDonalds........................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Organisational behaviour is determined as a process that enables company in
understanding the behaviour of an individual working within the firm. Most of the enterprises
look out for the same so that effective working environment can be provided to employees
(Coccia, 2014). This will ultimately improves the sales and profitability along with the better
customer satisfaction. This assignment is based on the organisational behaviour followed in
McDonald. Therefore, influence of culture, politics and power on the behaviour of others. On the
basis of this, motivational theories are included in order to understand which will be best of the
company in order to encourage workers. At last concepts and philosophies are included in this
assignment which are related to organisational behaviour.
TASK 1
P1 Culture, Politics and Power influencing individual and team performance
Organisational behaviour assist a company in understanding the nature and behaviour of
a person who is working in an organisation (Kitchin, 2017). Therefore, implementation of
organisational behaviour can provide both positive and negative aspects of a company which can
further assist firm in maintaining a better relationship amongst workers.
Organisational Culture: In relation with McDonald, their organisational culture prioritizes the
needs and development of employees. Their managers and superiors are cooperative as they
assist workers in enhancing the process of activities they are performing in the organisation. As a
result, it aid employees in providing quality products to its customers with effective services and
facilities. In addition to this, McDonald's offers opportunities to individual through Hamburger
University internship (Gabriel and et. al., 2015). Therefore, organisational culture adopted by
McDonald's motivates employees and give a chance of learning new things. Further culture can
be divided into four categories and these are:
Task Culture: Every individual in McDonald is during its work according to the task for
which they are employed. For example: Employees involved in marketing department perform
their activity of using effective marketing strategies for influencing customers in large number.
Role Culture: In relation with McDonald every person has their own responsibility and
according to this they are assigned with roles. For example: they have a separate billing counter
where all the orders are placed by customers and food processing department is different.
1

Power Culture: In McDonald power culture is enjoyed by few peoples and they take all
the decisions for the betterment of the company. For example: managers take all the decisions in
order to implement new strategies and other activities.
Person Culture: This is the kind of culture is generally found in professional partnership
and people who believes that they are superiors with regards to others.
Therefore, on the basis of all the factors of culture, McDonald in its business environment
has incorporated task and role culture. As a result, it is helping company in performing their
activities in an effective manner.
Politics: With the word politics, there is always a negative factor comes into the mind but
not all politics is negative. Some can be done for providing benefits to a person or the
organisation. In relation with McDonald’s managers had to determine whether any kind of
negativity is not performed as it can puts an impact on the business environment of the company.
Power: This is basically related to the ability of an individual of influencing other
persons in relation with feelings, thoughts and behaviour. Power can be both positive and
negative depends upon situation and circumstances. For example: If superiors of McDonald’s
using power in a positive aspect like for providing justice to an employee than it can act as a
good gesture and ultimately enhance the morale of employees. But on the other hand if it is used
for getting benefits for themselves than it can be considered as a negative impact for a person
and a company as well. Therefore, it can be said that impact of power on an individual can
ultimately have to do with performance of the company. Positive can improve the sales and
profitability whereas negative can increase employees’ turnover for the company.
P2 Content and process theories of motivation
Maslow Hierarchy Theory: This is a basic theory of motivation that defines the basic needs and
requirements of an individual in order to live the life (Wilkinson and et. al., 2014). Maslow
Hierarchy Theory includes five stages and these are explained below for better understanding:
Physiological needs: This is the first step that state about the basic needs of a person i.e.
shelter, food, clothes, etc., thus, in relation with McDonalds, managers of this company is
considering these entire requirement and providing employees accordingly.
Safety Needs: In relation with McDonald, company is providing and concerning all the
security measures like giving job security, health care facilities etc., as a result, it is assisting firm
in sustaining its employees for a longer period of time.
2

Social Needs: This is the next stage and it is also taken care off by McDonald as they are
providing effective working environment where employees are having better mutual
understanding in order to perform any kind of activities. As a result, it is helping workers is
having better inter-relationship.
Esteem Needs: Respect is something for which every individual do work and for this, a
person performs the activities. Therefore, in relation with McDonald provides rewards and
appreciate their deeds because of which morale of workers remains boosted.
Self-actualisation Needs: In this last stage, an individual after indentifying the
capabilities tries to enhance skills and knowledge. Therefore, McDonald on the basis of this
provides effective training and development skills so that it can be improved.
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory: This theory is basically related to the choices a person made
while doing any particular task and this theory depends upon three components which are
explained below:
Expectancy: It is related to the expectancy of a person while doing any kind work for
instance: if an individual in order to do tasks show some kind of efforts that they can achieve
success.
Instrumentality: This can be linked with the company in relation with achieving goals
and objectives. For example: superiors to attain targets give rewards to employees so that
workers can be kept motivated and better outcomes can be gained in return (Burrell and Morgan,
2017). Therefore, on the basis of performance managers give awards.
Valance: This shows the likeability of person towards the rewards provided by the
company. Thus, in relation with McDonalds it is crucial that managers after analysing the
performance give rewards according to the skills and knowledge.
Therefore, in context with McDonalds they are using Maslow Hierarchy Theory which is
assisting superiors in knowing the basic needs and requirements of an individual working within
the organisation. Other than this, for motivating its employees managers are implementing new
programmes for example: employer of the month under Olympic Champion Crew (OCC) won
the most Employment Benefit Award, 2013 for its innovative concept.
3

TASK 3
P3 Demonstration on Effective Team as compared to Ineffective Team
McDonald is considered as one of the largest global chain hamburger fast food restaurant
in UK. It operates business in all over the world and offer products on amazing price rates
(Norton, Zacher and Ashkanasy, 2014). But due to increase in competition, companies like
Burger King offer same products in affordable price rates and on various discounts. Therefore, in
order to gain profitability, McDonalds wants to enhance its sales performance in upcoming six
months. For this purpose, sales and marketing managers are required to engage workers in group
activities. This would help in achievement of goals and objectives in set period of time. But
before engaging workers in team, it is essential for managers of this company to understand the
concept of effective and ineffective team.
Effective Team: This kind of team can be defined as perfect as perfect team where every
member has right to participate in decision making activities. To reach on any conclusion for
meeting a common goal, views of every person has taken (Bester, Stander and Van Zyl, 2015).
This would help in reducing the chance of conflicts among team-members and develop positive
relationship among them as well.
Ineffective Teams:- In his type of team, decisions are taken on the basis of voting where
only few people have got chance to participate in group activities. Therefore, chance of
occurrence of conflicts and issues among team-members is more as compared to effective team.
Difference between effective and ineffective team:
Effective team Ineffective team
 Under this kind of team, open
discussions are made to get feedback
and opinion of each team member.
 All people are work in collaboration to
reach common goal in specified period
of time
 No open discussion is made in this type
of team.
 Every member works in own manner to
complete assigned duty therefore, no
collaboration is seen under this type of
team.
Therefore, to build effective team, managers of McDonalds have adopted that concept of
Belbin Team Development theory. This theory can be explained in following manner:-
4

Belbin theory describes pattern of behaviour which mainly characterizes a person’s
behaviour of relationship to another. This theory was developed by Dr. Meredith Belbin. It is
basically a team role model which is created to test behavioural approach of a person. There are
five steps include in this theory which would help McDonald’s leaders to make effective team
which includes designing and facilitating teams, developing coaching with the help of Belbin
theory of team roles, recruiting and selecting team and administrating reports. It is very
important for every individual who are performing in a team to contribute and interrelate with
team members (Mitchell and Schmitz, 2014). By implanting this theory in benefit company
leaders to create more balanced teams. It also help leader to potentially improve all the weak
areas in their team culture. Belbin examined total nine team roles that are categorized in three
groups that are action oriented, people oriented and thought oriented. Each and every role is
linked with interpersonal strength. With the help of this theory company leader will able to
improve their team and sharpen their skill to stimulate others for better performance. This theory
will aid team leader of this company to recognize organizational values and guide team in order
to generate more productivity. This theory provides benefit to team leader to identify strength
and weaknesses and make effective strategies to overcome conflicts in team.
TASK 4
P4 Concepts and philosophies of Organisational Behaviour within McDonalds
Organisational behaviour of a company reflects the way people interact with each other. In
context with concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour, it includes area of
improvement such as job satisfaction, promoting innovation, encourage leadership etc. In this
regard, culture, politics and structure of business influence behaviour of workers both in negative
and positive manner (Carlos Pinho, Paula Rodrigues and Dibb, 2014). Therefore, in order to
increase effectiveness as well as efficiencies of organisational behaviour, it is essential for
managers of McDonalds to concern on some main concepts as given below:
 Integrity: To enhance sales performance within next six months, managers of
McDonalds needs to formulate effective marketing strategies. Respect: To get high commitment of workers and motivates them to work hard, this
company requires to provide healthy working environment
5

 Responsibility: In order to increase productivity of business, managers of McDonalds
are required to assign roles and responsibilities to each employee as per skills of them.
This would help in getting best performance of workers to achieve set goals in defined
period of time.
As currently McDonalds wants to enhance its sales performance within six months,
therefore, managers are required to adopt effective leadership theories. This would help in
influencing sales marketing team towards current goals and objectives (Lee, Kesebir and
Pillutla, 2016). Therefore, they can adopt Path Goal Theory of Leadership whose concept is
given below:-
Path goal Theory of Leadership – This theory is based on Vroom’s Expectancy theory of
motivation which specifies a particular style of leadership. Therefore, to motivate workers for
accomplishment of certain objectives, managers of McDonalds are required to concern on
following main steps:-
 Determine characteristics of employees and environment where business operates in.
 Adopt unique style of leadership such as autocratic, action-oriented or people-oriented,
democratic and more. Concentrate on motivational factors which lead people towards success.
Employee characteristics: Workers generally interpret the behaviour of leaders on the
basis of needs like degree of structure, perceived level of ability etc. Therefore, by evaluating
desires and basic needs of employees, leaders of McDonalds can better understand how to
motivate them.
Task and Environment characteristics: To overcome from barriers is considered as main
concern of path goal of leadership (Goffee and Scase, 2015). As in completing the major tasks,
workers face various issues. Therefore, leaders of McDonalds are required to select a proper path
which helps employees in reducing the barriers. For this purpose, if task is ambiguous then
leaders must design a proper structure. Further, they should provide a clear instruction to sales
team so that they can enhance sales performance accordingly.
Leadership behaviour or styles: The main variable of path goal theory is leader’s
behaviour where they adjust their behaviour as per task characteristics. In this regard, according
to Coccia (2014), leadership styles can be defined in four components- Directive, Supportive,
6

Participative and Achievement. Therefore, in order to gain support of workers in increasing sales
performance, leaders of McDonalds are required to adopt participative style of leadership.
Contingency Theory of Leadership: This theory emphasizes both on personality of leaders and
situations of workplace (Tangaraja and et. al., 2015). Therefore, to motivate workers to give
support in enhancing sales performance, managers of McDonalds are required to concern on
three main factors. It includes employees relations, task structure and position power. This will
lead to achieve current mission in set period of time.
According to Gabriel and et. al. (2015), it has evaluated that in order to develop effective
team, a company requires to adopt the effective team development theory. As managers of
McDonalds have chosen Belbin Theory for developing team so this would help in accomplishing
its current goals and objectives more appropriately.
CONCLUSION
It has been concluded from this mentioned assignment that organisation behaviour of a
company shows how effectively workers cooperate each other. It reflects the way employees
help their colleagues and peers to accomplish common goals in a set period of time. In this
regard, behaviour of employees is affected by culture, power and politics in negative and positive
manner. Therefore, for this purpose, managers of a company adopt various leadership and
motivational theories to get positive respond of employees.
.
7

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Coccia, M., 2014. Structure and organisational behaviour of public research institutions under
unstable growth of human resources. International Journal of Services Technology and
Management. 20(4-6). pp.251-266.
Kitchin, D., 2017. An introduction to organisational behaviour for managers and engineers: A
group and multicultural approach. Routledge.
Gabriel, A. S. and et. al., 2015. Emotional labor actors: A latent profile analysis of emotional
labor strategies. Journal of Applied Psychology.100(3). p.863.
Wilkinson, A. and et. al., 2014. Handbook of research on employee voice: Elgar original
reference. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Burrell, G. and Morgan, G., 2017. Sociological paradigms and organisational analysis:
Elements of the sociology of corporate life. Routledge.
Norton, T. A., Zacher, H. and Ashkanasy, N. M., 2014. Organisational sustainability policies and
employee green behaviour: The mediating role of work climate perceptions. Journal of
Environmental Psychology. 38. pp.49-54.
Bester, J., Stander, M. W. and Van Zyl, L. E., 2015. Leadership empowering behaviour,
psychological empowerment, organisational citizenship behaviours and turnover
intention in a manufacturing division. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology. 41(1). pp.1-
14.
Mitchell, G. E. and Schmitz, H. P., 2014. Principled instrumentalism: a theory of transnational
NGO behaviour. Review of International Studies. 40(3). pp.487-504.
Carlos Pinho, J., Paula Rodrigues, A. and Dibb, S., 2014. The role of corporate culture, market
orientation and organisational commitment in organisational performance: the case of
non-profit organisations. Journal of Management Development. 33(4). pp.374-398.
Lee, S. Y., Kesebir, S. and Pillutla, M. M., 2016. Gender differences in response to competition
with same-gender coworkers: A relational perspective. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology. 110(6). p.869.
Goffee, R. and Scase, R., 2015. Corporate Realities (Routledge Revivals): The Dynamics of
Large and Small Organisations. Routledge.
Tangaraja, G., and et. al., 2015. Fostering knowledge sharing behaviour among public sector
managers: a proposed model for the Malaysian public service. Journal of Knowledge
Management. 19(1). pp.121-140.
8