Analyzing Organizational Culture and its Impact on Employee Behavior

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Organisational Behaviour: Cultures, Workforce Motivation
and Team Dynamics

Executive summary
Organizational behaviour is an important subject, which is concerned with what
employees should know about and maintain in their working area. It is practiced to
maintain a well mannered structure of an organizational culture and help to reach the
organizational objectives in a professional manner. This increases the potential of the
business practices. To highlight some light on this, this present work is done on Elite
Business Magazine, UK. This will cover various aspects related with the subject.
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Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3
LO1 Analyse the influence of culture, politics and power on the behaviour of others in an
organisational context Influence of culture :.....................................................................3
LO2 Evaluate how to motivate individuals and teams to achieve a goal Motivational
theories:........................................................................................................................... 9
LO3 Demonstrate an understanding of how to cooperate effectively with others..........12
LO4 Apply concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour to a given business
situation Concepts and philosophy:................................................................................16
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 17
References.....................................................................................................................18
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Introduction
To practice organizational behaviour, it is important to study the individual performance
of the employees of an organization to come to a conclusion and then make further
amendments to make better approaches to the company. This has a potential effect on
the job structure, the efficiency of the workers, production, leadership and team
management (Coccia, 2015). This also creates a good image of the company to the
outside person and forms a good brand image. The present work has been done on
Elite Business Magazine, UK, to understand all theories, aspects, practices by the
company and its impact on this famous business magazine.
LO1 Analyse the influence of culture, politics and power on the behaviour of
others in an organisational context Influence of culture
Classifications of culture (power, role, task and person)
According to Charles Handy (1999), there are four types of organizational culture that
are widely used in big companies. These are:
1. Power Culture: In this structure the power of the company is handled by a few
potential and influential people of the organization. This model practices that the
decision is always made by the higher authority and the subordinates only follow them.
They are also judged by their performance and achievements (Tian et al., 2018). This
structure is helpful; for an organization in relation to make quick decisions but has many
negative impacts also. This bossy organizational structure raises conflicts and toxic
internal environment. This sometimes results in complete collapse of the company as
seen in Lehman Brothers.
2. Role Culture: In this type, the roles and regulations are made clear to the employees
and they are supposed to follow the practices so that everybody can make their own
work neat and precise. The role determines what power a person has in an organization
(Booth et al., 2018). The superior instructs which is carried by the subordinates.
Generally this structure is seen in a lengthy command chain organization such as
bureaucratic system. Therefore the results could be slow which may affect the efficiency
of the company work. This structure is followed by the UK public sector bodies
3. Task Culture: This culture is practiced when work is done by a team, not in individual
basis. To meet any specific target or to solve a problem, a team is formed and the
power is equally distributed among them (Balzer et al., 2018). The members work to
make the process dynamic and under a good leader a good mixture of skill and
personalities develop. This type of culture practice is very productive in nature. UK
Space Agency is a good example of this practice.
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4. Person/Support Culture: Tin this type of culture, the person, and working for an
organization puts his own interest before the company, and works for own performance.
The person considers themselves as unique and superior than the organizational
needs. Organization becomes a place where these people come to execute the work.
Different types of freelancing are an example of this practice (Abualoush et al., 2018).
Figure 1: Handy's Model of Organisational Culture
Source: (Abualoush et al., 2018)
The importance of cultural-difference awareness
In any business, people come from different backgrounds working for the company to
meet the organizational objectives. On the other hand, companies while expanding its
business and making deal or interaction with others, faces different culture practice.
Therefore it is important to be aware about the cultural difference and work according to
that so that no one becomes hurt (Mullins, 2016). Developing understanding and
appreciation may take some considerations as follows:
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Cultural Stories: There are different beliefs and practices along with history and
tradition that influences a culture. Therefore understanding of this can make it easy to
negotiate with a person of a different culture.
Communication: Communication through verbal and non verbal approaches bears
immense importance as the body language and use of words make a great effect on the
impression of that person, or the company the person is representing. Use of offending
or embarrassing words therefore should be avoided.
Decision Making: There are practices in much culture that people make community
decision, which may take some time. Therefore patience on the other party is expected
for a good future partnership.
Time Perception: In some culture practices, maintenance of strict deadline is
important, while for others quality comes before time. Therefore good understanding
and planning is needed before working in this background.
Hofstede’s dimensions of culture theory and application
To understand the different dimensions of cross-cultural communication, Geert
Hofstede proposed a model showing six cultural dimensions such as:
1. Power Distance: Less powerful people in the society believe that the distribution of
power is always unequal and they accept this and this makes an impression on their
behaviour.
2. Uncertainty Avoidance: There are people who live their lives in anxiety and try to
control their lives in a predictable and controllable way. If any deviation from this path
occurs, they become restless. They always try to avoid the circumstances that may
raise this situation (Burgess, S 2018).
3. Individualism vs. Collectivism: This gives an insight that whether a person prefers
to work as an individual or feels comfortable to work in a team. This helps to secure
his/her place in an organizational context depending on the demand of a position.
4. Masculinity vs. Femininity: It a social perspective where masculinity stands for
heroism, assertiveness, material rewards and achievement, whereas femininity is
considered for cooperation, modesty and caring personality (Stamolampros et al.,
2019).
5. Long-Term vs. Short-Term Orientation: When the cultural practice searches for
the virtue, it leads long term virtue, and it the cultural practice is to establish absolute
truth results in short time orientation.
6. Indulgence vs. Restraint: The control over desires and impulses play an important
role, while communicating or understanding a person.
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Figure 2: Hofstede’s dimensions of culture theory
Source: (Stamolampros et al., 2019)
The rise of globalisation and digital technology and how they have influenced and
shaped organisational culture in the 21st century
With modernization of technologies in digital sector, many positive influences on the
organizational culture have been seen, such as:
1. ADAPTABILITY: This helps to make different processes cheaper, better and faster
with the help of digital technology, such as payroll maintenance, production design and
customer database management.
2. COOPERATION: Communication and cooperation could be maintained by using
digital technologies like using common communication platforms such as whatsapp
(Zhang and Zhang, 2018).
3. CONSUMER-ORIENTED: the production or performances are now more customers
oriented through use of different social media platforms such as Facebook and twitter
where company persons take feedback from the customers.
4. INNOVATION: Using digital technologies help to innovate different new ways to use
resources, design new products and channelling new opportunities.
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Principles of Network theory and Systems theory as frameworks to understand
organisations
If a set of elements are connected by a network and the whole system is working
towards achieving a particular goal sets the network theory. The elements are
connected with each other and impact is made on the performance (Shaw et al., 2018).
Communication improves and more innovative approach comes out as a collaborative
approach (Archer and Cameron, 2013). Shared information and fast delivery helps to
achieve the organizational goal very quickly.
This is another framework using which one can understand that the organizational
system should interact with the surrounding environment for survival. Any organization
needs to depend on the customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders who invest, and
governments that regulate and affect the processes related with the business.
Coordination should be made to make the business effective (Barile and Saviano,
2018).
Organisational psychology
Organizational or occupational psychology is a branch of psychological study which
deals with human behavior relating to work that may be applied for the organizational
profit. This helps to improve the organizational culture and improve the internal relations
among the workers (Heslop et al., 2018). This makes a driving factor for recruitment,
appraisal management, to deal with Workplace bullying, aggression and violence etc.
Influence of politics: Organisational politics and differentiation between personal,
decisional, structural and organisational change
To meet a business target, sometimes there are unofficial, informal and hidden
strategies applied by the organizational management to influence the organizational
situation to compete for better personal power in the company (Keller, 2018). This
influences the internal environment of a company and changes the practices of the
employers. This results in the following types of changes:
Personal Change: The human resource system is changed through mass recruitment
and layoff of inefficient people.
Decisional Change: to make the company profit in a larger scale, the decision making
is done in a more calm way keeping in mind the future consequences. The more future
proof the decision is, the more the change is done (Todnem and Burnes, 2013).
Structural Change: The design of products, their content or other things are taken care
of and new innovations are made.
Organisational Change: To make a great change in the organizational system,
changes are made in the organization's management systems, hierarchy, chain of
command, administrative procedures and job structure.
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Influence of power: Power as a property viewpoint: individual, relationships and
embedded in structures.
In any organization, there is an expression of power maintained through hierarchy. With
power comes great responsibility, using power the leaders and managers should
practice equality and direct that subordinates to make better innovations at work. Using
power one can influence the way of working and organizational behaviours of
employees (Gentina et al., 2018). Using power an impression is created by the
individual person who is applying that. Good use of it helps to bring people comfortable
and closer to that person. It helps to improve the personal relationship. The opposite
can cause great conflicts in the organization. This does not only depend on the
organizational structure but on the personality of that person.
Bases and types of power, power controls and power sources.
There are 5 sources of power in an organization, such as:
Legitimate Power: the role and position of an employee determines the extent of this
power
Reward Power: As per the performance, incentives and compensation are made which
motivate the employees.
Coercive Power: This is the fear of punishment or poor performance. Thus people
work in a threatening way.
Referent Power: By showing respect and admire others, a special power of influence
can be created in a short time.
Expert Power: The higher management people can gain this power by identifying
talents, abilities and give them scope to flourish more.
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LO2 Evaluate how to motivate individuals and teams to achieve a goal
Motivational theories:
Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation
To avoid punishment or to gain a reward, extrinsic motivation influences a person, and
there may be no satisfaction performing the work, though the outcome comes satisfying.
Intrinsic motivation influences a person internally and personal rewards like learning or
improving is given importance than material rewards.
Motivational theories:
Content theories: These theories explain change of human needs with time and how
influences organizational behaviour.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs: Human needs develop as they achieve the basic needs
first and then move to the next level of desires. This five level structure starts with basic
needs of food, water, shelter, then the need of job and health safety which leads to the
third stage of love and belongings. After achieving these, a person can focus on self
esteem and self actualization to start think and act differently to make own unique niche
Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory: This theory says that there are motivator factors such
as achievements, recognition that influences a person to work in a better way. There
are also hygiene factors such as company policies, remunerations, work environment,
which makes a negative effect if not satisfactory for an employee.
Process theories: These theories explain how ideas have an impact on the changes
and development of an organization.
Vroom expectancy motivation theory: This theory advices that management should
know about the expectancies of its employees so that the employees could be
motivated by recognition, prize money etc. to perform better.
Adams’ Equity Theory: It says about the balance between employees hard work,
enthusiasm, skill with his output such as salary, perks, recognition, reward etc. so that
the employee works with a positive attitude.
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The implications of motivational theory on management and leadership within
organizations
 At Elite, the company understands the basic needs of an employee and secures
him financially (Elitebusinessmagazine.co.uk. 2019). The company inspires every
employee for performing better and arranges workshops for innovative approach
application.
 The company has introduced several benefits and perks such as leave schemes,
monetary rewards, recognition in influence the working attitude of the employee,
as well as emphasized on fair working ethics, good working environment etc.
 The company understands the expectancies of employees and therefore different
appraisals, prizes based on performances are practiced.
 The authority of Elite recognized talented persons and therefore give them a fair
salary structure, so that the person becomes loyal to them.
Behavioural psychology: Definition of emotional intelligence and the importance
of soft skills for managers and teams
Emotional intelligence is the capacity to have a good understanding of others emotional
needs so that the person can handle other person carefully and inspire them by some
unique approach. This build interrelationship based on sympathetic approach. Soft skills
are these personal attributes of a person that helps to make effective and harmonious
relation with others. In a workplace, this is important as:
 Using soft skills, a manger can win his employees heart and they start depending
on him for his right guidance. This makes a good bonding between management
and employees and satisfies organizational goals.
 This helps to make things straight, easy and clear to deliver to others for better
understanding.
 This helps to sort the work ethics and make a set of regulation for that.
 This helps to build a good and free communication practice, so that the expected
outcome is achieved.
Task vs relationship leadership and psychodynamic approach to behaviour
Psychodynamic is a special type of study that emphasizes that understanding and
performing according to the human behaviour and their feelings can make a great
change on the performance of that person. This can be useful in organizational culture
using two types of leadership system
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Task-Oriented Leadership
This theory describes that leaders should be concerned with specific tasks given to the
employees and therefore helps to make policies and procedures according to that
(Henkel et al., 2019). The leaders inform the subordinates about these and make them
motivated to perform according to that.
Relationship-Oriented Leadership
This theory suggests the managers to make relation with the employees using soft skills
so that they perform better than before. This includes more interaction with the
subordinates (Kaluza et al., 2019).
Therefore Elite business magazine can follow all the suggestive theories of
organizational culture practices and different leadership theories to make the employees
happy so that they work systematically under a good leader. The company can give
those benefits and understand their emotional situation and give them enthusiasm to do
better in life. The leaders of the company have a crucial role to perform by managing all
the team members and guiding them in a positive way of success to achieve
organizational objectives.
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