Analysis of Tesco's Organisational Culture, Politics, and Power

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Organisational Behaviour
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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................. 3
Part A.......................................................................................................................... 4
Part B.......................................................................................................................... 9
Conclusion................................................................................................................ 13
Reference list............................................................................................................ 14
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Introduction
The first part of this study will analyse the influence of power, politics and culture of
an organization. For this Tesco is chosen. Tesco is an organization based on UK.
The research will focus on the impact on the behaviour of the employees of Tesco by
politics, power and culture and how it will change individual and team behaviour.
Discussion of various process and content theories of motivation and how it is
impacting on Tesco is also a part of this discussion. The second part will consist of
various group and team forming theories in context of Tesco. The last part will
consist of discussion of various concepts and philosophies of organizational
behaviour.
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Part A
Introduction
The particular section will only consist of a case study report on the influence of
power, culture and politics in a chosen organization. For this TESCO is chosen as
the company for the purpose of this research. Explanation of three factors that affect
an organization and the people working in it will be a part of this discussion. Content
theory and process theory is very significant and it will be a part of this case study.
P1 Analyse how an organisation’s culture, politics and power can influence
individual and team behaviour and performance.
Culture
Organizational culture in TESCO can be defined as corporate culture. It consists of a
few norms and values. It also consists of some few other rules, which are not written.
These things basically help the employees to create an environment, which helps
them to communicate and make proper decisions for the company. Employees of
Tesco found their organizational identity through this. They feel that they are
together working for a common mission for their organization. A common purpose
can be harvested from a shared culture. This enables Tesco to have strong
commitment towards their goals. They are also able to share feelings of same
pattern and it enables the company to bring out the behaviour out of employees,
which are good for the company. A concept called little helps plan is very effective
for Tesco. They believe that every little help can make huge social and
environmental changes by helping customers, colleagues to overcome their
problems by talking to them and helping them (tesco-careers.com, 2019).
Organizational culture can be very beneficial. It provides stability to Tesco.
Encouraging an identity and commitment, which is same for each and every
employee in the organization is helping Tesco to achieve more. It also helps in
creating integration plus cooperation amongst employees. Culture in Tesco also
provides boundary to employees. It creates a distinction between employees and the
company itself. This helps them to think about the company even before themselves.
Therefore, it is evident that the practice of having an organizational culture in Tesco
is helping them in the market and it is also what making them different from its
competitors (Driskill, 2018).
Power
Power in Tesco is based on official positions. These powers are held by individuals
and can vary from position to position. It can be derived as the ability of an individual
to achieve a target by getting things done. Tesco follows few power bases. Reward
is a type of power which controls resources such as payment and promotion. It also
consists of various perks and recognition. Coercive power in Tesco can punish and
reward an employee and it is wielded by managers. There are few sources of power
also. Knowledge is one of the main sources of organizational power. Information is
absolutely important for taking decisions at a top management level to take
decisions, which helps Tesco to gain significant advantage on the market. Therefore,
people who are controlling that power contribute to the company like this. Decision
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making is also an important source of power. This power is generally wielded by the
head of Tesco. Making the correct decisions in critical situations helps Tesco to
eliminate competitors (King and Lawley, 2016).
Delving more into various bases of power will reveal more. Legitimate power is
based on the rules of Tesco. This power comes from rights of employees, duties of
them, obligations. Referent type of power depends on the skill of an individual or the
charisma in them. It also depends on the source from which, he or she is getting the
power. Another type of power comes from the expertise. It is gained by working for
several years in Tesco. Another type of power comes from gaining information about
people and events, which will help the employee to predict the future. Power centres
are very much noticeable in an organization like Tesco.
There are many people in here who desire to gain more power. They want other
staffs to depend on them. It can be said that these people are specialists with
particular type of powers to make, hold and delay decision. Dependency of
employees on the power holder increases the strength. It will also increase the
influence of him or her to fellow employees. This type of power comes from two
sources. One is given by the organization and another comes from the personality of
the power wielder. Organizational power is allocated in two ways in Tesco. Structural
power deals with the hierarchy. Granting of more authority is not sufficient to make a
person powerful. That person should know how to wield it properly to showcase the
power (Ocasio, 2017).
Politics
Politics in Tesco is directly connected with power. The organizational structure
enables people to use power and higher position means bigger power. Therefore,
people play politics to reach higher positions in Tesco by eliminating competition
amongst fellow employees. Political influence always plays a part in distributing
resources. It can be harmful for the company if the person playing politics have ill
intentions. People also play politics to bring a decision in their favour during any kind
of organizational change. It can be evident during launching of a new scheme or
product in market and during the process of appointing a person in charge of it.
There are also few methods for political plays. People cultivate proper allies, which
helps them to gain advantage to climb the corporate ladder in Tesco. It can also be
seen, that employees often compliment higher authorities and show positive attitude
towards others. This helps them to create a positive outlook, which becomes an
advantage during promotions (Landells et al., 2017).
Organizational politics is not a simple issue. By studying more about it, it is evident
that decisions, which are not programmed plays a part in Tesco when it comes to
politics. By using swift political manoeuvres, skilled political players solve them. They
try to manoeuvre decisions in their favour to gain advantage or rewards. External
environment also plays part in organizational politics. Due to its high mobility and
unpredictability it is difficult for Tesco to keep up. Therefore, to tackle this situation,
they change environmental factors and technology. These changes are not always
unbiased. They are often rooted with deep politics and preferences (Wilson, 2018).
P2 Evaluate how content and process theories of motivation and motivational
techniques enable effective achievement of goals in an organisational context.
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Content theories
Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs
Maslows’s hierarchy of needs theory is one of the most famous content theories,
which is used by Tesco. It consists of five parts, which is often viewed as a pyramid.
Maslow believed that by completing the needs at lower level only, a person tries to
achieve needs at higher level. The first level of the pyramid consists of physiological
needs. This is the basic foundation for the rest of the motivational pyramid. These
are the basic physical requirements of a human being for surviving. These are food,
shelter, water and others. After this need is satisfied, and then comes the safety
needs.
Economic safety gaining and to keeping the job permanently is important. People
working at Tesco will try to outperform their fellow peers because of this. They will try
to satisfy the company and higher authorities. The second need is the need for love
in this pyramid. They want to feel belongingness after achieving the previous stage.
This stage includes friendship amongst employees, trust, affection and many more
things. People will try to gain self esteem. Employees will try to gain recognition,
status in Tesco and also become respectable in the organization. The last stage is
known as self-actualization. After working for a long period at Tesco, employees will
try to see what they have achieved during this period. They try to seek self fulfilment
and growth during this stage (Velmurugan et al., 2017).
Table 1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
(Source: psychologytoday.com, 2019)
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Alderfer’s ERG theory
Alderfer’s theory is basically a continuation of Maslow’s theory. ERG stands for
existence, relatedness and growth. Existence deals with the material requirements of
humans, which are basic needs. It consists of physiological needs and safety needs
proposed by Maslow. This section consists of basic needs for a human such as
water, food, air and rest. The safety needs consist of security needs and social
security comes first. Therefore, staffs of Tesco know that they have to perform up to
the mark or else they will be terminated from the job for, which they will lose their
social security. Relatedness deals with social needs of people. Employees try to
maintain healthy relationships with peers of the organization and also they search for
friendship, affection in here.
Although Alderfer isolates the growth need from Maslow. He includes the intrinsic
components from Maslow and combines them with the self actualization needs.
Therefore, the employees of Tesco try to fulfil their needs by redoubling their effort in
their job. Alderfer believed that when higher order needs do not gets fulfilled;
employees give more effort to lower order needs. The mangers of Tesco knows that
employees have different needs and those must be fulfilled to achieve higher goals
for the companies because if staffs are not satisfied, then they will not perform.
Therefore, they always try to maintain a higher satisfaction rate in Tesco (Mangi et
al., 2015).
Process theories
Vroom’s theory
Vroom’s theory is known as expectancy theory. It says that some employees of an
organization like Tesco will behave in a different way than others because they are
motivated. The journey from E to P comes under the expectancy part. E stands for
effort and P stands for performance. It says that an employee of Tesco will be able to
convert his or her effort to performance. This is usually based on a person’s
experience and confidence. Self efficacy is a stage where an employee will assess if
he or she has that kind of knowledge to achieve their target or goal. If the goal or
target is not realistic and too high then the employee will feel low expectancy. This
phenomenon occurs when a person thinks that they cannot achieve their goal. If the
employee thinks that he or she cannot control the outcome then the confidence
becomes low and motivation also becomes very low. This stage is known as
perceived control.
The second stage of this theory is the instrumentation stage. Vroom believed that a
good performance can be converted into a necessary outcome. The outcomes for an
individual are getting an outcome according to the performance. Valence is defined
as the value an individual gives to rewards of any outcome. Therefore, motivational
factor can be defined as the product of expectancy, instrumentality and valence. This
is one of the main theories that are motivating the employees of Tesco (Miner et al.,
2015).
Cognitive evaluation theory
Cognitive theory suggests that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation systems are working
as main motivators. The source of intrinsic motivation is the actual task or job.
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Employees of Tesco want achievement and responsibility and that is why they
perform hard. This has got nothing to do with real rewards. Extrinsic motivators
consist of salary, promotion and perks. An employee cannot directly control these
factors. Higher authorities in Tesco control these motivational factors rather. The
theory says that intrinsic motivators work because they love the nature of their job
more (Kuvaas et al., 2017). They do not work to get higher perks or promotions.
Completing the work and maintaining finesse actually motivates them to perform
harder than the rest. If they start to think about getting a higher salary, they will lose
motivation.
The theory also states that a presence of strong external motivator weakens the
effect of internal motivator. The theory states that even there is lack of extrinsic
motivational factors; employees will still feel motivated during the intrinsic factors.
But in real life scenarios extrinsic motivators are much stronger and that is why
Tesco management tries to maintain higher salaries, perks and promotion
(Hennessey et al., 2015).
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Part B
P3 Demonstrate an understanding of what makes an effective team, as
opposed to an ineffective team.
Effective Group and Ineffective Group
An effective group states a bunch of people working together in an organised
manner. Employee relation is a key to form up an effective group. Apart from that,
open discussion followed by a logical argument also leads to the formation of an
effective group. An effective group always follows the strategy of situational
leadership and the whole cluster is driven to the organizational goal (Butchibabu et
al., 2016). On the other hand, a group lacking all the above factors is said to be an
ineffective group. The name only depicts that an ineffective group lack by efficiency.
There is always a harsh relationship shared by the employees and always a scope of
conflicts.
Effective Group vs. Ineffective Group
However, a group should always listen to a task carefully and then accept it to avoid
the chance of any mishaps. Apart from that, every member of the group should
contribute effectively to remove the tag of ineffective group from their forehead.
Every member of a group should posses a good listening skill to make the group an
effective one. On addition, there should be a presence of smooth conflict resolution
to make a group work effectively (Bartz and Rice, 2017). An ineffective group fails to
come to a conclusion even after multiple attempts. There is always a trial and error
process going on which delays the work and finally it is not completed within a
stipulated time. When it comes to leadership, an effective group is always led by a
situational leader. Whoever the leader is, at any circumstance he/she will be driven
towards organizational goal. On the other hand, there is always an absence of a
situational leader in an ineffective team. There is always presence of individuals who
tries to lead the whole team from the front at every circumstance but fails to do so.
Belbin’s Team Role
Dr. Meredith Belbin laid focus on the term ‘team-work’ for years. Then he came up
with a model which is generally known as Belbin’s Team Role. He declared that
there are nine team roles which fall under three groups. These groups are named as
Action Oriented, People Oriented and Thought Oriented (Lynch et al., 2018). Each
and every role should be acquainted by the team members, to bring out the best lot
of productivity. Henceforth, an organisation like Tesco will never miss out an
opportunity to abide by the theory.
Application of Belbin’s Team Role
Team leaders can determine potential strength and weakness of a team and sort out
conflicts easily if he/she carries the knowledge of Belbin’s Team Role. A larger group
should be bisected further in sub groups of five to six individuals for implementing
the theory. There is no need of splitting up if the group is a smaller one. Each
member of the team should draw up a circle and segregate it into three parts stating
three different roles of Belbin. A person should identify on his/her own where the
person belongs to. Every team member should be aware of their strengths and
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weakness and the same of their co-workers. Last but not the least, based on the
above information the entire team should come up with three action points on which
they should work upon to bring the best out of a team. Companies like Tesco have a
strong market share along with high competition. Practices like this don’t pull in
ample amount of time & capital but reflects with a lot of output in terms of production.
This is the very reason why Tesco should abide by Belbin’s Team Role.
Tuckman’s Team Building Theory
Dr. Bruce Tuckman was a citizen of United States who gave a valuable contribution
in the field of team dynamics. His main aim was to build up an effective team with
maximum amount of productivity. The most efficient part of a team is said to be team
leader and Dr. Bruce Tuckman concentrated on that part only. He declared that there
are four essential stages to build up an efficient team. These stages are named as
Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing (Kiweewa et al., 2018). Established
MNC’s like Tesco generally follow this team building strategy, whenever it becomes
necessary to build up a new squad of efficient employees.
Forming
This is the initial stage of constructing a new team. In this phase, the leader has to
play a key role. Personal aspects and obligation generally remains unclear in this
stage and there remains a huge chance of conflicts. Hence, the leader stays
prepared to solve a lot of queries. Companies like Tesco already have a lot of
experienced leaders who can handle this type of situation.
Storming
After a team is successfully formed, the first thing that comes into play is employee
relationship. In this stage, clarity of liability increases in the team but enough
ambivalence persist. The leader plays the role of a coach in here. He drives the
entire workforce towards organisational goal which is the first priority of an
organization like Tesco.
Norming
During this stage, the team gets gelled up properly and starts stating big verdicts.
There remains less possibility of internal conflicts and fun and communal activities
starts to take place. A particular amount of leadership is being shared by the team
also. MNC’s like Tesco keep a close look on this stage as there remains a possibility
of birth of a new leader.
Performing
Finally, the team is ready to perform during in this stage. The team carries an
immense intensity of autonomy and becomes strategically aware. The entire
workforce is driven towards organisational goal. The leader only assign task and
minimal guidance is taken from him/her. There is a birth of a new leader which is
very essential for an organization like Tesco.
P4 Apply concepts and philosophies of OB within an organisational context
and a given business situation.
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Path goal theory
Tesco uses few concepts of organizational behaviour to achieve goals and target.
The theory is based on the style of a leader that fits for a particular organization and
employees. Here the leader chooses the appropriate behaviour that is suited for
Tesco. It consists of three parts. Employee characteristics consist of interpretation of
the leader’s behaviour. It is dependent upon the structure, affiliation and ability.
Therefore, a leader who provides excess structure than necessary, employees will
feel less motivated. The second part deals with the characteristics of task and
environment. Designing of a task requires support from the leader. Here the leaders
of Tesco are taking game changing decisions and designing tasks, which are cost
and time effective. This is one of the main reasons behind the success of Tesco
(Campaignlive.co.uk, 2019). The leader in Tesco can provide clear goals and also
can give control to employees if necessary. It all depends upon the situation and the
nature of the task.
If a team is not supportive enough, then the leader will have to be harsh and
cohesive to extract the work out of them. Leadership style is also a valuable entity of
this theory. The leaders of Tesco are capable enough to adjust their style of
leadership according to the situation. Here sometimes the leaders of Tesco use
directive leadership when they expect quick results. The employees are informed
about what is expected from them and the leaders tell staffs about the methods to
perform tasks (Storey, 2016). This helps Tesco to tackle situations where uncertainty
is evident. Supportive leadership is also used by Tesco leaders.
Leaders of Tesco behave with the employees in a friendly manner and try to
understand their problems. Tesco leaders believe in participative leadership and they
consult with fellow employees about it. Due to the highly trained employees of
Tesco, they are able to use this kind of leadership. In achievement type of
leadership, the leader of Tesco sets goals for employees, which are rather
challenging. This kind of path goal leadership is very much effective for Tesco
because it relies on sales and profits (Dinkmeyer and Eckstein, 2015).
This theory assumes that leaders are capable of changing theory leadership style as
they are flexible and Tesco proved it. It says that there are two factors, which are
variable. Characteristics of environment and employee and moderation of the
behaviour of leader comes under these two variables. Environment cannot be
controlled by the leader but it sets the type of leadership Tesco will use in future.
Therefore, capable leaders of Tesco use their ability to gather experienced staffs
who can control critical situations. It is absolutely clear that the path goal theory will
help Tesco to achieve much higher position in the international market by eliminating
all of their competitors.
Contingency theory
This theory of leadership can be very beneficial for Tesco. This theory will help
leaders of Tesco to be more effective because the style of the leadership matches
with the situation. Fiedler believed that there not any particular style of leadership
which is best. Therefore, the leaders of Tesco will be successful if only he or she
evolves their style. The working of contingency theory is very much unique. Here, the
leader will not adapt with the situation, rather the goal will match the style of
leadership. This makes leadership at Tesco much easier. To make this theory work
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perfectly, one has to determine the LPC score. LPC will reveal the kind of leaders
with whom the employees prefer to work with.
A higher LPC score means that the leader have higher personal skills and is
dependent on employees to complete tasks. Lower LPC score defines that the
leader tries to accomplish goals by focusing on tasks and power of his or her
position. Task oriented leadership can be very much helpful because Tesco often
sets higher goals when it comes to market profit and sales. An aggressive leader can
achieve those by applying pressure on employees to bring out their best
performance. People oriented leadership can also be very much effective for Tesco.
It will enable them to understand the problems of employees while performing a task.
It will also enable them to work with the staffs to achieve the target.
There is also an important aspect of this leadership style and this is called situational
favourableness. This thing is determined by three factors. First one is the
relationship between leaders and employees and here it possible to get a clear idea
about how these leaders will interact with staffs. The second point deals with the task
structure. Here leaders set the structure of tasks. The third point deals with the
positional power. Here an idea about the power the leader holds over his or her
employees is clear. Therefore, leaders of Tesco will be achieving bigger things for
the organization if they follow this theory.
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