Analysis of Team Dynamics and Motivation at Ryanair

Desklib offers solved assignments and past papers to help students succeed.

Organisational Behaviour

Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................................................... 3
Task 1................................................................................................................................................................. 4
a. Its organisational culture and the nature of power and political behaviour of its
management................................................................................................................................................. 4
b. How the culture you identified in (a) have affected the feelings and behaviour of staff and
ultimately performance of Ryanair.........................................................................................................6
Task 2................................................................................................................................................................. 8
a. Evaluate how content and process theories of motivation could be used to enable individual
and team performance and help Ryanair to succeed..........................................................................8
Task 3............................................................................................................................................................... 10
a. Identify and explain the different types of teams which operate within Ryanair and why
this range of teams is important to the success of organisation.....................................................10
b. Using relevant team theory, such as Belbin’s team types and Tuckman and Jensen’s group
development models, analyse what would make the teams at Ryanair more effective.............11
c. Evaluate how the use of path-goal theory could improve team performance and
productivity in Ryanair........................................................................................................................... 13
d. Identify and explain what you think will be the main barriers to implementing a new
organisational structure in Ryanair.....................................................................................................13
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................... 15
References....................................................................................................................................................... 16
2

Introduction
The organisational behaviour could be described as the study of the behaviour of the
employees who are working in the organisation. Basically, the behaviour of the employees
describes the organisation behaviour as the responds of the organisation towards the
situations of the markets is totally depends on how the employees of the company responds to
that. The organisational behaviour of the company includes two other concepts i.e.
organisational structure and organisational culture. It is the organisational structure that helps
the employees in knowing their responsibilities in the organisation and the organisational
culture helps them in analysing the situations and responding them. The current assignment
describes the different concepts of the organisation behaviour which could be used by the
company in maintaining their response to the market. To get the clear view of the concepts of
organisation behaviour, the company Ryanair is taken as an example and the different
theories and concepts of the organisational behaviour would be interpreted through Ryanair.
3

Task 1
a. Its organisational culture and the nature of power and political behaviour of
its management
The organisational culture could be defined as the value and behaviours of the employees that
helps in creating the social and psychological environment of the company. Maintaining and
effective organisation culture is very important for the company especially in achieving the
goals and objectives of the company.
Deal and Kennedy Model of organisational culture:
This is very popular model of the organisation culture where degree of risks and speed of
feedback are analysed to describe the culture of the organisation. Deal and Kennedy Model of
organisational culture could be described with the help of the diagram given below:
Figure 1: Deal and Kennedy Model (Aswathappa and Reddy, 2014)
1. Work hard-play hard culture: In this organisational culture, the organisation believes
in assigning the tasks to the employees with high expectation and on the basis of that
the responsibilities are provided to them (Aswathappa and Reddy, 2014). Here due to
high expectation, the employees of the company try to fulfil those expectations so that
they could get recognition and rewards. Here, an immense pressure is put on the
employees to achieve the results.
2. Tough guy or Macho culture: In this type of the organisation culture, all the major
decisions of the company are taken by the top management and the employees of the
4

company are instructed to follow and apply the decision in the processes and
operations of the company. Ryanair follows same culture where all the major
decisions till date have been taken by CEO Michal O’Leary.
3. Process culture: In this type of organisational culture, no matter what the situation is
in the market, the organisation always follows the process which has been followed
since years (Buelens, Kreitner and Kinicki, 2016). This culture is not so effective
especially in today’s highly volatile market.
4. Bet-Your- company culture: In this organisational culture, the company decides to put
all the resources of the company on bet in order to enter in new segment or business
or idea. Here, the main focus is put in taking innovative decision. The “Low fare
decisions” of Ryanair could be put under this category.
Power could be described as the ability of the organisation in influencing the behaviour of the
employees who are working in the company. Here, French and Raven's Power Model is
described.
French and Raven's Power Model:
This model describes that in an organisation the behaviour of the leader could be described
through the powers he has in the organisation also how he uses these powers in making the
work done.
Figure 1: French and Raven's Power Model (Cole, 2018)
5

This describes the base of power which is explained below:
1. Reward Power: If the leader of the company is able to provide the rewards to the
positive members in a team then he is able enough to get the desired outcome.
2. Coercion Power: If the leader of the company is able to threaten and punish the
members then he could use this power in getting the work done or achieving in set
goals and objectives (Jong and Hartog, 2015).
3. Expertise Power: If the leader is educated and have expertise skills and knowledge
then he could influence the members and achieve the desire goals and objectives.
4. Referent Power: Here, the charismatic personality works for the leader that helps in
creating the trust factor over the members. Here, the trust factor is enough to get the
work done.
5. Legitimacy Power: Here, the power is provided through the designation that leader
holds in the organisation. Michael O’Leary uses this power in taking the decisions in
Ryanair.
b. How the culture you identified in (a) have affected the feelings and behaviour
of staff and ultimately performance of Ryanair
When Ryanair started its business in the aviation sector, the condition of the company was
not good as the employees of the company were no skilled enough to provide the services and
on the other hand, the company also was not ready to provide the luxury services to the
customers who they were dreamt of. Later, the company Ryanair made plan to work on the
low margin basis, where the company decided to offer the services at low cost to gain the
competitive advantage (Einarsen, Aasland and Skogstad, 2017). Here, the company was
successful as the flow of the passengers have been raised but this decisions of the company
made the employees unhappy as the incentive margin for the employees also has been
reduced with the low fare. But still the employees were standing with the company and
provided all the services with full dedication. At some time, after gaining huge profit from
the market, the company Ryanair was not providing enough compensation to the employees
that have made the employees disheartened. On the other hand, the pressure on the employees
also was increasing as they had to provide the excellent services at short time which is
making the environment of the company more stressful. Other than this, while taking the
major decisions, the employees were not allowed in decision making process in Ryanair that
made the relation between the employees and Ryanair worst. Besides this, the tough guy
6

culture of the company Ryanair pressurise the employees to do more strikes and later Ryanair
has become the worst place to work. Low communication in between of management of
Ryanair and employees has created many problems for the company where the brand image
of the company Ryanair has been affected and the great impact of this has been seen on the
quality of the services as no employee want to join the company on seeing the conditions of
the current employees of the company.
7

Task 2
a. Evaluate how content and process theories of motivation could be used to
enable individual and team performance and help Ryanair to succeed
The term motivation is used by the organisation in inspiring the employees who are working
in the organisation. The studies show that the motivated employees of the company could
achieve the set goals and objectives easily and effectively. For the motivation, the different
theories have been introduced by the scholar that could be classified in content theory and
process theory. These theories are explained below:
Content theory:
The theories fall under this category believes that in order to keep the employees motivated
and also to motivate the employees, the organisation needs to focus on their need first as
these should be identified and then fulfilled (McKenna, 2014). Two theories believe in this
concept, which are Maslow hierarchy need theory and Herzberg two-factor theory.
Maslow’s Hierarchy Need theory: This theory describes that the needs of the
individuals could be divided in five parts, which are: physiological needs, safety and
security need, love and belonging needs, self-esteem and self-actualisation. The
diagram given below explains all these five types of needs.
Image 3: Maslow’s hierarchy need theory (McKenna, 2014)
8

This theory believes that first of all, the physiological needs of the employees should
be fulfilled by Ryanair. Once this need is fulfilled then the company needs to move
towards the safety and security needs. These two levels of needs keeps the employee
satisfied in the company. Later in order to keep the employee motivated, the love and
belonging needs should be fulfilled by Ryanair through providing a effective
environment to the employees where it could make friends and be social. Once it is
fulfilled then the self-esteem and self-actualisation should be fulfilled respectively.
Process theory:
The main focus of this theory is on the behaviour and the psychology of the individuals. As
per this theory, in order to enhance the motivation of the employees in the organisation, the
company needs to work on their behaviour and psychology and only then it could be
successful in motivating the employees (Mullins, 2017). The theory that fall under this
category is Skinner’s Reinforcement theory which is explained below:
Skinner’s reinforcement theory: This theory put focus on analysing the behaviour of
the employees. In order to apply this theory, Ryanair needs to understand and observe
the behaviour and reactions of the employees of the employees towards a particular
situation and the needs to categorise in the following categories:
1. Positive reinforcement: when the reactions and behaviour of the employees leads the
rewards in the company then they are needed to be put in this category only. These
people are already motivated and small efforts of Ryanair could make them highly
motivated (Ramsay and Wagner, 2015).
2. Negative reinforcement: If the behaviour of the employees is not good then rather
than giving them negative marking, the company could ask them for reason and
motivate them on the basis of the outcome of the conversation.
3. Punishment: sometimes, not giving the negative marketing does not put effect on the
behaviour of the employees, here the company Ryanair needs to punish them.
4. Extinction: the no action policy of the company Ryanair also could lead the de
motivation among the employees. Here, Ryanair needs to keep focusing on how the
motivation level of the employees could be enhanced.
9

Task 3
a. Identify and explain the different types of teams which operate within Ryanair
and why this range of teams is important to the success of organisation
Like every other organisation, Ryanair has team of individuals that perform different
operations in the organisation. Functional teams are very important for the execution of the
specific processes in Ryanair. These are the teams that are very big and frequently known as
departments in the organisation. Functional teams have individuals who have different
responsibilities but ultimately all of them serve the same function. Some examples of the
functional team in Ryanair are Finance, marketing, customer service etc.
Ryanair also has problem solving teams which are very important for the company. These
teams have the people from either the same department if the problem belong to a specific
department or members from different departments are included in the team for a wide range
of problem (Rollinson, 2016). For example, if fuel supply for the company aircrafts is
suddenly stopped for some reason, Ryanair has to create a problem solving team that would
arrange the fuel from alternative sources.
Project teams have limited scope when compared to the functional teams. A project is a task
which needs to be completed with a given deadline and a specific goal for the project is set.
For example, launching a new promotional campaign can be considered a project. Once the
promotional campaign is over, the goal of the project is achieved and project team is
dissolved.
The concept of virtual team has now become an important part of the organisations. In virtual
teams, the role of technology becomes very important. Using technology, people who are not
working in the same facility can also form a team. These team members use technology to
connect and communicate with each other. Conferences calls using group video platforms are
used for team meetings.
10

b. Using relevant team theory, such as Belbin’s team types and Tuckman and
Jensen’s group development models, analyse what would make the teams at
Ryanair more effective
Belbin Team Roles
According to Belbin, it is very important that the team members are given clear roles so that
they can concentrate on a specific task and their expertise in that task can be used effectively
by the team. These team roles are:
1. Shaper
The aim of shaper is to keep the team on the edge and not let it become complacent.
Shaper in the team keeps challenging the team members to make sure that team
members explore all the alternative solutions to a problem
2. Implementer
Getting the work done is the main characteristic of Implementer. Implementer could
be trusted by Ryanair for the delivery of the task given to the team.
3. Complete Finisher
Making sure that every objective, every goal of the team is achieved without any
problem and nothing is left to do is the responsibility of Complete Finisher
4. Coordinator
Coordinator is responsible for keeping the team together and guiding the team in the
right direction (Stuit, Szirbik and Snoo, 2018). Coordinator is also known as
Chairman.
5. Team Worker
Flexible people who support other members of the team and make sure that every
team member get along with each other. These are flexible people who are popular
among the team members.
6. Resource Investigator
Making sure that the team has all the resources it needs is the responsibility of the
Resource Investigator. Negotiation is the primary skill of these people.
7. Plant
These are the people with technical skills and bring innovation and creativity in the
team.
11

8. Monitor Evaluator
These people emphasize more on the proper evaluation of an idea before the idea is
implemented by the team. They have excellent research skills and theoretical
knowledge.
9. Specialist
A specialist is the individual who work as core of the team because of the excellent
knowledge of the core skill required to get the work done.
Tuckman Team Model
According to Tuckman, a team goes through the following 4 development stages:
Forming
This is the first stage of team development in which resources are identified to create the
team. Team members are not fully aware of the goal of the team. Hence, it becomes the
responsibility of the management of Ryanair to include the team members after proper
evaluation. At this stage, the team leader has to be very careful as team members might be
anxious at this stage.
Storming
This is the most difficult stage for the team leader to handle as team members might not be
able to work with each other and there are lots of conflicts among the different team members
(Sinha, 2016). Ryanair needs to have some standard processes that need to be implemented at
this stage for conflict management.
Norming
Conflicts are resolved and team members start to respect each other as their understanding of
each other’s background becomes mature. Every team member sticks to the role given to him.
This is the stage where Ryanair management could see the individuals developing into a good
team.
Performing
At this stage, the team members perform at their best and Ryanair could expect to see some
good results when team reaches at this stage. Team leader lets the team members make their
12