Analysis of Organisational Culture, Politics, and Power at Ryanair

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Organisational Behaviour
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................4
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................7
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................13
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................22
References List..............................................................................................................................23
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Introduction
Organisational behaviour refers to a study, which deals with the operational performance of the
members of an organisation. The evaluation of organisational behaviour is attempted in terms of
both individual as well as team execution. This study is crucial regarding the development of
organisational functioning and member performance. Every organisation should develop the
employee behaviour in order to achieve business objectives successfully and effectively. The
report will focus on various behavioural functions performed in organisational premises. The
roles played by politics, culture and power within workplace will be discussed. The report will
provide comprehension of the process through which the employee behaviour can be improved
by analysing various motivational theories.
The report has chosen the Irish airline institution Ryanair, established in the year of 1984. The
institute is head quartered from Ireland but the primary operations are done at Dublin airports.
Michael O’Leary chiefly executes the airline business at present. The business is operated with
over 400 aircraft. In 1997, the European aviation industry has experienced deregulation, this has
made the business expand rapidly, and the business objectives were successfully achieved being
modelled as low-cost. The chosen institute is operated under the Ryanair Holdings PLC. 37
countries under its route network services belong from Middle East, North Africa and Europe
(ryanair.com, 2019).
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Task 1
Analyse the influence of culture, politics and power on the behaviour of others in an
organizational context.
Organisational culture refers to the values, beliefs, interaction process as well as assumptions,
which make organisational environment unique by contributing to psychological as well as social
aspects of the employee behaviour. The employee behaviour is guided by experiences within and
expectations regarding organisation. The culture has been shaped always by rules, customs,
attitudes shared within members who considered the validity over the developmental period
(Elsmore, 2017).
According to the argument of Edgar Schein, the organisational culture poses many difficulties at
the times of defining and making changes. He developed a model of organisational culture
having illustrations of different cognitive stages. The proper understanding of these stages will
clear the idea of organisational culture. The first stage of the organisational culture refers to
various organisational physical attributes or artefacts including dress code, credits as well as
rewards, furniture, offices, amenities along with communication process of stakeholders,
employees and others.
The second stage of the organisational culture refers to the apparent values possessed by the
stakeholders and the espoused culture practiced within organisation. The organisation, in this
stage, makes employees aware of the beliefs, philosophies, goals, strategies, statements of
mission behind the business functions. The third stage of organisational culture refers to the
inmost implications of hypothesis. The cultural factors in this stage are invisible and nor
mentioned by the institutions. The elements include implicated rules that are eventually
understood by the employees unconsciously. These rules may not be stated, have deep routes
regarding the understanding of an explanation behind the reasons of particular happenings
(Coleman, 2017).
Proper research and surveys should be done by taking interviews of the workers to enhance these
elements regarding organisational culture. The organisations should additionally require having
therapeutics rapport achieved through several clinical sessions with the employees.
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Organisational behaviourists often miss out these basic elements for having dynamic culture
within organisation.
The organisational culture practiced within Ryanair is corporate culture. FonsTrompenaars
have stated that standards and model of corporate culture influences employee behaviours. The
corporate culture consists of four ideal kinds, which are incubator, guided missile, Eiffel Tower
and Family. The power-based family culture is hierarchical focusing on people. The powerful
employee leader acts as a father figure. The employees are committed to senior members. The
task oriented Eiffel tower is also hierarchical. The labour structures are important here. The
employees within the culture of guided missile motivated to perform better and obtain objectives.
The employees within incubator culture can develop and demand authority with innovative ideas
(Trompenaars and Greene, 2016).
The chosen organisation possesses a mixture of all these types of corporate culture within its
functioning. The organisation has corporate history regarding foundations, which is connected
with its culture made by interacting with different groups. The Chief Executive Officer of the
company acts as a dictator of operational functions. His Irish background has influenced the
culture within the organisation. His psychological learning has shaped the organised culture on
which the employees as well as customers can rely. The brand image gained reputation by
concerning about the brand perception. The stakeholders are aware of the elements of marketing
mix. The members are committed to their tasks of providing all-affordable services. The brand
image caters to the customers’ psychology by establishing better relation. The employees are
motivated as well as rewarded for being distinctively passionate about their job. Their business
strategies have broader market scope (Trompenaars and Greene, 2016).
Organisational power can effectively influence the behaviour of members working within.
Several resources are controlled to influence the subordinate behaviour with the exchange of
transactional power among employee relationship to achieve business objectives.
The organisational power structure within Ryanair is operated by autocratic control. The higher
authorities give threats regarding firing and lowering retributions in order to motivate employee
behaviour and stimulate their activities. The organisational managers are the origins of power as
they practice autocratic leadership type. The managers administer the organisational interactions.
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The recruiter administers the procedure of decision-making, conveying of process as well as
policies to obtain goals, the kind of relationship, tasks and amount of compensations. The
emphasis on labour divisions and status with specific hard tasks assigned to employees to
achieve efficiency has made the power culture unacceptable for them. The management of
Ryanair deploy strict control by leaders. Therefore, the productivity is higher, with committed as
well as problem solving interactions. Though the communication amount is least, they possess
mutual respect. However, departments lack communication among them creating issues of
efficiency and conflicts. The employees are mainly dependant on leaders and fear them. They
have no personal satisfaction, possess low self-esteem, for which they lack internal motivation
and show less loyalty, growth, innovation and creativity (Macdonald et al., 2017).
Organisational politics refers to the persuasion of self-interest as well as individual agendas. The
members care less about and give less effort regarding performance to obtain organisational
goals. Employees in Ryanair do not have much scope to fulfil their interests because of strict
work culture and leadership of powerful authorities and managers. Therefore, they find less
motivation and the organisational behaviour is not enhanced though employees.
The organisational power, politics and culture have interrelations and they have combined effect
on the organisational behaviour regarding employee performance and decision-making. The
business environment in contemporary times has become competitive (Argyris, 2017).
Therefore, organisations have to investigate all these aspects and their impact on organisational
operations as well as atmosphere. According to Hofstede, the employee values and beliefs affect
individual as well as group behaviours. The behaviours and their effectiveness, legitimacy and
acceptability should be considered after analysing this correlation. These aspects demand an
effective balance among them for making it beneficial for the organisation. Power imbalances
will make the work culture sour as it is within the organisation Ryanair (Wiengartenet al., 2015).
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Task 2
Evaluate how to motivate individuals and teams to achieve a goal.
Motivation includes the various internal and external factors that influence the working of
company. Ryanair should formulate plans that should include theories to achieve the desired
goals of the company. The motivation to the employees helps them to work efficiently. The
working and management of the organization can be evaluated two ways – Content theory and
Process theory (Peters, 2015).
Content theories explain the reasons for which the needs of the customers changes with time.
This theory explains the factors that motivate the employees of the company. The content
theories can be explained with the help of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and McGregor’s
Theory X and Theory Y.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs
Figure 1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs
(Source: Mcleod, 2019)
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It is motivational theory that is physiological in nature. Maslow stated that motivation is needed
by the employees to improve the working condition of the company. The theories are divided
into different types of needs, they are as follows:
Physiological needs – These are the natural needs of every human being like water, air, food,
shelter, clothing, etc. If these needs are not satisfied then the human body cannot work. This is
the most important factor that needs to be fulfilled and is the foundation of the framework.
Safety needs – The fulfilment of the physiological needs then steps towards the safety needs that
become dominative. These include law and order, protection of the employees and the
customers, freedom, economic safety and stability of work.
Love and belongingness needs – The third most important need is the need of belongingness.
Human beings need love and care. If this need is not fulfilled then the humans suffer from social
anxiety, depression and loneliness.
Self-esteem – This term stands for status needs or ego needs. It is the habit of the people to get
recognition, a name and respect from the other people. It is a desire to gain recognition and value
from people.
Self-actualization – It is a value-based system, which plays a major role in motivation. It is the
way of realising your self-valuation. It includes parenting, utilizing talents, pursuing goals and
seeking happiness.
McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y
It is a theory based on management and human work motivation, created by Douglas McGregor.
The importance of supervision, job rewards and penalties are explained in the Theory X. The
Theory Y focuses on the satisfaction of job and encouraging the employees to achieve the target
goals with complete motivation (Lawter, 2015).
Theory X
This theory works based on assumption and assumes that the worker has less ambition,
individual goal oriented and avoids responsibility. The management thinks that the operation is
processed on self-interest. The managers believe that the actions taken can be traced, so the
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rewards are based on individuality and not on teamwork. The process encourages and motivates
the employees due to the rewards.
Figure 2: McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y
(Source: created by the learner)
Theory Y
In this theory, the leaders treat their employees as the most precious belongings of the
organization. In return, the workers themselves take up responsibilities of the work. The workers
can carry out the work after the permission of the manager. In this way, the work is done on
time, the employees become efficient, productive and they work according to the formulas laid
down by the company.
The Process Theories of motivation relate to the processes through which employees can be
motivated along with their performance can be enhanced. The process of employee motivation
and performance enhancement has to be sustainable through time. Various factors are there that
decide their level of effort within any task assigned to them, how long the task will be continued
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with full effort and how their efforts can be modified with better motivation analysed by
theoretical help. Main process theories include:
Equity theory
This theory by Adam helps the organisation in assessing the employee effort level continuously
in comparison to other employees and they receive rewards if the effort is efficient enough to be
beneficial for the organisational operations. This process will make their endeavour utmost as
they will try to be equally effective in terms of effort. Measurements should be taken to adjust a
equal level of work effort. The reward provided therefore also should be of fair and equal
importance. The managerial authorities behind organisational behaviour should look after these
matters and monitor the process throughout. Inequities should be identifies as well as adjusted
immediately by formal as well as informal performance administration.
Employees will think that if they give personal sacrifice, soul and heart, reliability, commitment,
integrity, flexibility, tolerance, loyalty, ability, effort and time, they will get in return enjoyment,
responsibility, praise, reputation, development, interest, recognition, security, benefits, perks,
bonus and good payment from their job. The employees will be automatically motivated in terms
of their better performance as well as work behaviour.
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Figure 3: Adam’s Equity Theory
(Source: Osabiya, 2015)
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
This theory depicts the employee expectations, which they desire as an outcome after better
performance and behaviour. Their expectations are processed through three elements, such as
valence, instrumentality and expectancy. In the expectancy factor, the employees analyse any
task and decide the amount of effort needed. In instrumentality, they improve their effort and
alter behaviour to gain better outcome. Finally, in valence, the employees assess the desirability
of the determined outcomes. This outcome motivates their decision-making procedure
highlighting and representing the values and importance of rewards to determine involvement
level.
Figure 4: Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
(Source: Lăzăroiu, 2015)
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After studying present condition regarding employee behaviour, Ryanair should implement and
analyse the Equity Theory to motivate and enhance the employee performance and behaviour
within organisation.
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