Organisational Behaviour and Practice Essay: Tesco, Gender, and OB

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of organisational behaviour and practice, focusing on the case study of Tesco. It begins with an introduction to the concept of organisational behaviour, emphasizing its importance in understanding employee behaviour and developing a positive organizational culture. The essay then delves into the application of the radical humanist paradigm to Tesco, exploring its relevance to the company's operations. Furthermore, it examines the interplay between gender identity and culture within the organisation, discussing the impact of these factors on employee interactions and overall workplace dynamics. The essay also covers the concepts of freedom and rationality in organisational behaviour, providing theoretical frameworks and models, such as Elton Mayo's human relation theory, behaviourist learning theory, and social learning theory, to support its arguments. It highlights how Tesco utilizes these theories and practices to understand human behaviour and manage its diverse workforce. The essay concludes by summarizing the key findings and offering insights into the significance of organisational behaviour in fostering a productive and inclusive work environment.

Organisational Behaviour
and Practice
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Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
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INTRODUCTION
For every organisation it is necessary to analyse behaviour of employees so that positive
culture can be developed. Organisation behaviour is studying of individual as well as group
behaviour within work (Alblas, Wijsman & van Noort, 2019). It analyse how human behave at
workplace and its impact on his or her performance, job, communication, relationship, etc. There
are many factors due to which human behaviour is impacted. They are organisation culture, job
role, etc. However, there are 4 elements of OB such as structure, technology, people and
environment.
This essay will describe about organisational behaviour of Tesco via radical humanist
paradigm. Also, it will be explained about gender identity and culture and also freedom and
rationality in organization behavior. Besides that, the theories, models and practices related to
gender identity and freedom and rationality will be discussed.
Tesco is a British public limited retail company operating in all over the world. It was
founded by Jack Cohen in 1919 where he opened his first store in 1931. There are total 6800
stores of company in different countries. Also, there are various types of products and services
offered by organization such as clothing, electronic, furniture, financial services, etc. however,
the company is majorly dependent on UK for its revenue. Moreover, there are total 450, 000 staff
working in Tesco (Balwant, 2018). As per 2019, the revenue generated by them in £63.911
billion. Along with it, company is known for its low cost retailer by offering variety of products.
It is having a market capital of £18.1 billion on 2015.
MAIN BODY
In present time, it is important to understand the nature of organisation. It is because it
enables in analysing human behaviour. However, nature of organisation consists of culture,
employee behaviour, structure, policies, etc. which are followed by staff. Moreover, there is a
great impact of various external as well as internal factors on nature of organisation. This highly
influence employee behaviour. Organization behavior is termed out as application and study that
has knowledge about how individuals, people and groups acts within the enterprise. It is termed
out as the academic study that defines the ways people act within groups. Therefore, this has the
principles that mainly applied in relation to make the operations of business in more accurate and
effective manner (Bigby, Beadle-Brown, & Iacono, 2019). Organization behavior is termed out
as area that examine behavior of human in work environment and this leads to determines the
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impact on performance, job structures, motivation, communication and leadership etc. In
addition to this organization practices are termed out as behavior and action of employees that
deals with the five P of the enterprise. Thus, Five Ps are as purpose, philosophy, priorities,
practices and projection. In order to make the effective use of organization behavior and practice,
the entity uses wide range of organizational theories that mainly focuses on dimension as level of
enterprise formalization, standardization, specialization, complexity, plan of action and goals of
business activities. This leads to successful organization change performance by enhancing the
profitability and productivity of the enterprise (Blake & Lloyd, 2020).
Radical humanist termed out as to prioritising the welfare of human from all the kind of
circumstances. They seek transformation, emancipation and undertakes critical analysis of modes
of domination. Thus, radically humans demand revolt against reality. Also, this can be stated that
the radical humanism is the integral scientific humanism that can be called out as neither
materialism nor idealism. Thus, the scientific philosophy of this terms mainly insists upon the
freedom in which the individual brought in new dimension to political philosophy. In addition to
this, it can be stated that the theorist in the paradigm are mainly concerned with releasing the
social constraints that has impact as to limit the human potential. The new humanism state that
freedom is enjoyed only by individual (Chang, Nguyen & Lee, 2016). However, he said that
main human behaviour is freedom. Thus, the social progress is measured through freedom that is
available to individual. Roy said that there is role of ideas in social evolution. The ideas are
formed which is physiological process and they are governed by our own laws. Hence, active of
ideas are parallel with social evolution. It means that any change in one will directly influence
the other. Along with it, patterns of culture, ethics and values are not enough to define structure
of economic relation.
Moreover, radical democracy means extension of equality and liberty. It is also included in
radical humanism as an individual freedom is related to it. When each individual gets enough
freedom then it leads to extension of equality and liberty within society. This result in providing
freedom to all individuals within society. Hence, automatically radical democracy is attained
(Cherry, 2017).
Gender identity refers to personal conception of a person about himself. It reflects role of
gender either in men or women. A person can easily differ sex or gender at birth. It is a self
identified manifestation and integration of environmental factors. Besides, it also include other
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factors like behaviour and appearance. Here, an example can be taken that if individual call
himself a male than he is defining his masculine traits to society. This state that his gender is
male and the characteristics are dress, behaviour, etc. likewise, it is applied for female.
Henceforth, there are various dimensions of gender which helps in differentiating sex. They are
body. Identity and social. The body reflect that how society identify body and how other interact
with our body. Identity means self identity or name which present out gender. This falls into two
category that is men and women. And last is social which state that how we present ourself to
world and society (Gilmour, Simpson & Reynolds, 2017). Also, how society, individual, etc.
interact with us. In this gender norms are followed.
However, culture refers to social norms and behaviour which is found in society. Also, it
consists of knowledge, belief, customs, etc. that is followed by a particular social group. The
culture of a person defines way in which he or she behaves. It shows their way of communication
and behaviour towards others.
It is evaluated that gender identity and culture are related to each other. This is because
there is great influence of gender identity on culture. The degree to which a person behaviour
and emotional characteristics is accepted by this is identified that how he or she interact with
other. Alongside, gender identity is defined by society (MacKie, 2017). In order to determine the
perception of gender masculine and feminine traits are taken into consideration. Moreover,
culture has set some standards in terms of individual to match sex, role, etc. this resulted in
creating a new structure that is known as gender schemas. They are mental network which is
linked with behaviour of men and women. Apart from that, it is identified that children
belonging to different ethics and social groups possess different ideas about meaning of a boy or
girl. So, it is stated that gender norms differ as per ethics and social groups. Furthermore, it has
been determined that behaviour differ among men and women due to cultural implication.
Usually, it occurs across home and work place along with communities. Furthermore, it has been
observed that gender is identified with process of socialisation and cultural process. For instance
– in many culture, boys are considered as more dominant so they are allowed to take part in role
play. They display traits of being a male. Besides, children get to know about gender from birth.
They inherit behaviour from parents that how to behave with others either it is male or female
(MacLachlan, 2016)
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However, in every culture and society biological sex is used as criteria to differentiate
gender. This makes it easy to find out who are male and female. But there are some culture who
do not agree on differentiating gender from one another. They found a little variation among
them. The division of labor between the sex is explained by gender, but because reproduction is
based on a universal biological difference between the male and female sex, societies use this as
a basis for allotting other tasks. These tasks are allotted according to convenience and precedents
in the particular culture, and determine masculine and feminine roles (Nicolini & Monteiro,
2017).
It is identified that in Tesco there are diversified people working at different levels. They
organisation is having a specific structure and well defined policies and laws. With help of it,
they are able to maintain positive culture and environment. Moreover, employees likes to work
in team and behave in proper manner to each other. Tesco evaluate employee behaviour to find
out what an individual conception is about to other. There are various theories of OB which is
has been applied by Tesco at work place. This has enabled them in understanding the human
behaviour and how it is impacting on their performance. In addition, there are many practices
which are taken or implemented by Tesco management. It has given them insight about how
employee behaviour is influenced by culture implications. Besides that, with help of concept and
model they are able to interrelate culture with gender identity (Nuckcheddy, 2018). Therefore,
there are various theories and models of these both topics. They are defined as below :
Elton Mayo human relation theory- this theory study behaviour of people at work. It states that
people desire to become a part of team which support growth and development. Thus,
organisation productivity depends on relationship between people working in it. However, Elton
state that manager must interact with employee so that effective relationship is developed. This
will enable in achieving goals and objectives. Besides, it is required for manager to possess
knowledge about human behaviour in every context. Apart from it, high productivity can be
attained only with strong human relation. However, management must analyse various concepts
of behaviour such as sociology and psychology. Thus, it is necessary to enhance social relation
as well within organisation.
Behaviourist learning theory – this theory is based on psychology. It means that behaviour can be
identified without any inner mental stress. Also, behaviour is determined by environment or
association. In this there are 4 variables that are drive, stimulus, response and reinforcement.
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Here, drive is hunger, stimulus is response to drive and reinforcement are occurrences that makes
response stronger (Peñarroja, Sánchez & Zornoza, 2019).
. The theory state that people learn by analysing their experience which increase their ability.
They are able to understand environment. Thus, in this learning is dependent on behaviour of
person.
Social learning theory – this theory was proposed by Bandura which state that new behaviour are
acquired by observing others. He also said that learning is not based on behaviour but it is a
cognitive process which occurs in social context. Other than this, a person learns by observing
behaviour of others that how decisions are taken. However, reinforcement play significant role in
it but it is not entirely involved in learning process. Therefore, cognitive, environment and
behaviour are highly influenced with one another (Pereira, Malik & Froese, 2017)
The spectrum model of sex- it reflect the way in which an individual identity, sex, does not exit
as opposite endpoint. It only exist as in combination of it. However, further concept is as
Sex spectrum – it states that intersex people are born with sex markers. This means they are
neither male or female. Thus, the concept shows that continue in people with sex range in two
types that is male physiology and female one.
Gender identity spectrum – it identify gender in two category that is men and women. Basically,
gender identity apart from it is known as non binary it may include categories that are
transgender, agender and queer.
Gender expression spectrum- in this as well there are some other categories as well which is
butch, feme and androgynous (Salt, 2018).
Orientation spectrum- in this the people are placed together who are having interest of same
gender. Also, they are romantic oriented people such as Gay, lesbian, etc. who love one another.
Alongside, individual who are attracted towards both men and women are non binary. They are
known as middle sexualities.
Behavioral theory of gender- the theory state difference between sex and gender. Here, sex refers
to biological difference between men and women which include chromosomes and hormones.
Whereas gender is a cultural difference within a society that differentiate on basis of sex.
Moreover, a person sex is not changed from birth but gender can be. Thus, gender is determined
by biological approach:
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Hormones – it is chemical substance produced by glands in the body. It occurs same in both men
and women (Taylor, 2018).
Chromosomes – it is a long structure of genes that are biochemical unity of heredity. They are
denoted by X and Y.
Apart from it, there are some concepts and modes of culture which is followed in Tesco.
It has enabled in focusing on culture aspect of individual. Through it, manager is able to analyze
culture of staff and how it influence on behavior. Also, it is applied within practice of OB. This
has made it easy to maintain positive culture and environment within organization. They are
described as : (Model of culture, 2018)
Onion model of culture – this model breaks down culture into various layers. By that it becomes
easy to understand culture in effective way. Here, outer layer shows cultural artefacts and
symbols like flags, clothing, etc. the next layer is known as heroes layer. It shows ethics and
beliefs of culture (Alblas, Wijsman & van Noort, 2019). The next layer consists of tradition and
rituals. It shows that what practices are followed by people in their culture that is how they eat,
get married, etc. moreover, the central layer contains assumption and values through which all
other layers can be influenced. However, in order to understand culture norms, beliefs, etc. it is
necessary to analyze all layers in depth. This gives insight on how each layer interact with one
another. There are various cross culture programs organized by Tesco to understand one’s
culture. This allows employees to get better understanding on each layer of culture.
Iceberg model – this model is used by manager to analyse it in depth. Here, iceberg image is
used which is divided into two parts. One is below the water and one is above it. So, pat inside
water is small which indicate values, beliefs, etc. moreover, part above water is big which
indicate language, food, music, etc. followed within culture (Bigby, Beadle-Brown, & Iacono,
2019). Thus, it is stated that it is difficult for identify culture value and beliefs which most of
time remain invisible. furthermore, it is evaluated that behavior of different culture appear to be
less foreign as compared to world wide religious beliefs, ethics, etc. So, it can be stated that there
are several concepts, models of gender identity and culture which is applied in context with
radical humanist. It has enabled in understanding employee behaviour in Tesco. The managers
are able to evaluate how men and women perception in influenced in their social context. The
culture also plays vital role in it. Through that, it has become easy to maintain OB in company.
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In order to make the effective use of organization behavior and practice, the entity uses wide
range of organizational theories that mainly focuses on dimension as level of enterprise
formalization, standardization, specialization, complexity, plan of action and goals of business
activities (Chang, Nguyen & Lee, 2016). This leads to successful organization change
performance by enhancing the profitability and productivity of the enterprise. This has made it
easy for Tesco to understand OB. If there occurs any change in behavior then it becomes easy to
find out impact on performance. Basically, in company radical humanism concept is followed. It
allows individual to work with freedom. Along with it, the theories of OB are applied which
helps in analyzing staff behavior in relation to their job role, structure, leadership, etc. then,
accordingly practices are followed. However, it is found that employees working in follow
various culture norms. So, they are able to find out gender identity and behave it accordingly.
CONCLUSION
From above it is concluded that OB is studying of individual as well as group behaviour
within work. It analyses how human behave at workplace and its impact on his or her
performance, relationship, etc. Radical humanist termed out as to prioritising the welfare of
human from all the kind of circumstances. They seek transformation, emancipation and
undertakes critical analysis of modes of domination. Gender identity refers to personal
conception of a person. It reflects role of gender either in men or women and culture means
social norms and behaviour which is found in society and knowledge, belief, customs, etc. that is
followed by a particular social group. Gender identity and culture are related to each other. This
is because there is great influence of gender identity on culture. The degree to which a person
behaviour and emotional characteristics is accepted by this is identified that how he or she
interact with other. Moreover, there are various theories of OB such as social learning, human
relation, etc. also, the spectrum model of sex is concept of gender identity and theory is
biological theory of gender. Along with it, various culture models practiced in Tesco are onion
and iceberg model of culture.
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REFERENCES
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context: Lessons from organisational behaviour. Journal of Further and Higher
Education, 42(3), 389-401.
Bigby, C. Beadle-Brown, J., & Iacono, T. (2019, July). Organisational structures and processes
associated with good Active Support. In JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY
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USA: WILEY.
Blake, H., & Lloyd, S. (2020). Influencing organisational change in the NHS: lessons learned
from workplace wellness initiatives in practice.
Chang, K., Nguyen, B. & Lee, I. (2016). HR practice, organisational commitment & citizenship
behaviour. Employee Relations.
Cherry, S. (2017). Transforming behaviour: Pro-social modelling in practice. Taylor & Francis.
Gilmour, D., Simpson, E. & Reynolds, M. (2017). Evaluating site induction practice efficiency
and effectiveness: an organisational case study.
MacKie, D. (2017). Connecting coaching and positive organisational psychology research.
MacLachlan, M. (2016). Promoting organisational justice in medicine and health science
research and practice. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 352.
Nicolini, D., & Monteiro, P. (2017). The practice approach: For a praxeology of organisational
and management studies. The Sage handbook of process organization studies, 110-126.
Nuckcheddy, A. (2018). The effect of personality on motivation and organisational
behaviour. Psychol. Behav. Sci. Int. J., 9(2), 1-5.
Peñarroja, V., Sánchez, J. & Zornoza, A. M. (2019). The influence of organisational facilitating
conditions and technology acceptance factors on the effectiveness of virtual communities
of practice. Behaviour & Information Technology, 38(8), 845-857.
Pereira, V., Malik, A., & Froese, F. J. (2017). Mapping the impact of Asian business systems on
HRM and organisational behaviour: Multi-level comparative perspectives. Journal of
Asia Business Studies.
Salt, J. (2018). Organisational labour migration: theory and practice in the United Kingdom.
In Labour migration (pp. 53-69). Routledge.
Taylor, S. P. (2018). Organisational behaviour, leadership and change. International Journal of
Housing and Human Settlement Planning, 4(1), 21-36.
Online
Model of culture, 2018. [online] available through : < http://www.culturewise.ie/onion-iceberg-
models-of-the-culture/>
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