Organizational Behavior Report: Culture, Power, and Teamwork Analysis

This report delves into the multifaceted field of organizational behavior, examining key aspects such as organizational culture, team dynamics, and leadership principles. The report initiates with a discussion of organizational culture, its characteristics, and significance, illustrated through a detailed analysis of Toyota Motor Corporation's culture, its strengths, and the causes of its failure in certain instances. The analysis extends to the comparison of organizational cultures, power dynamics, and political landscapes in two distinct organizations, highlighting their impact on employee motivation and overall performance. Furthermore, the report explores the stages of team building according to Tuckman's theory, factors influencing effective teamwork, and strategies for achieving team objectives. It also investigates the role of a team leader and characteristics of effective teams. The report provides insights into the benefits of teamwork and its effectiveness in achieving workplace goals, and the impact of culture, power, and politics on different organizations. The report concludes with a critical evaluation of the lessons learned from Toyota's experience and its implications for organizational success.

Organisational behaviour

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Task 1.........................................................................................................................................3
Characteristics and Importance of Organization culture........................................................3
Culture at Toyota Motor Corporation....................................................................................4
Culture analysis and significance of culture to carmaker......................................................4
Cause of failure of Toyota’s culture.......................................................................................5
Lessons learned about organizational culture........................................................................6
Points to be marked from Toyota’s experience......................................................................6
Task 2.........................................................................................................................................7
Culture, power, politics in organisation A & B.....................................................................7
Choice of selecting the Organization.....................................................................................8
Challenges in motivating employees.....................................................................................8
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.................................................................................................9
Vroom’s Expectancy theory...................................................................................................9
Task 3.......................................................................................................................................10
Stages of team building as per Tuckman theory..................................................................10
Factors and skills that assist or hinder effective teamwork..................................................11
Factors which are instrumental in teams effectively achieving their objectives..................11
Aspects that threaten successful achievement and cohesive group work............................12
Benefits of working in a team..............................................................................................12
The effectiveness of teamwork in achieving goals in the workplace...................................13
Perspective regarding job type.............................................................................................13
Task 4.......................................................................................................................................13
Running up team quickly.....................................................................................................13
Role of a team leader............................................................................................................15
Characteristics of effective teams........................................................................................15
References................................................................................................................................18

TASK 1
Characteristics and Importance of Organization culture
Organization culture is the established set of key understandings shared by the
members of an organization like values, beliefs, norms and attitudes. These values have a
strong influence on work environment and govern the people behaviour in an organization
(Schein, 2010). Each organization has its own unique character just like individuals do. This
unique character of the organization is known as culture formed by the group of individual
working within that organization. There are multiple characteristics that may help an
organization define their best culture such as stability, innovation and risk taking, structure
etc.
The organization culture helps in directing its employees the manner in which they
interact at its workplace. It is the culture of the organization, which helps in extracting the
best out of each employee as they develop a habit of work without any force. Further, the
importance of it is also in uniting the employees from different backgrounds to promote a
healthy competition at the workplace. Thus, a culture helps in promoting healthy relationship
among its employees.
Culture at Toyota Motor Corporation
Toyota indeed has a distinct set of its own organization culture, which encompasses
true values and characteristics of its people (Benn, Dunphy and Griffiths, 2014). The
characteristics of Toyota organization culture portray a sense of own identity, enhancement
of its people commitment and strengthening of their behaviour. The key notions of its
organization culture are:

These 7 characteristics of Toyota’s culture have helped it in the long run for creating a
valued brand image. Its characteristics enable the company to continue growing. Innovation
is formed through continual enhancements by way of Learning's (Sosnovskikh, 2016). The
attention to detailing and team orientation has helped it in improving its quality and problem-
solving techniques.
Culture analysis and significance of culture to carmaker
In a world as complex as ours, each of us is driven by multiple factors. One of the
most powerful forces that define our act is culture. It is the culture that distinguishes one
organization from another. Toyota culture has strong values that unified employee
relationships (Shook, 2010). The employees relentlessly pursued goals. The different features
and characteristics of Toyota have been formed after a cautious approach in facilitating
organization learning. The culture of Toyota highlights the significance of developing a
significant culture to encourage globalised business success.
The international competition is turning fierce day by day in the automotive industry.
This makes it imperative for companies to optimize their culture to meet the major challenges
across the globe. Corporate culture portrays everything concerning a company like its
policies, regulations, procedures and employee behaviours to overall customer experience
(Dahlgaard and Mi Dahlgaard-Park, 2006). The culture is an important facet to carmakers as
it helps in directing companies to respond to data breaches, auto recall as well as other issues.
The Automotive Company is expected to attain success internationally by establishing a
Innovation and risk taker
Attention to details
Outcome oriented
People oriented
Aggressiveness
Team oriented
Stability

strong corporate culture among its employees. Fostering values, vision or mission that is
shared by all can largely help in forming a successful corporate culture.
Cause of failure of Toyota’s culture
Toyota mechanical failure led to the corporate crises of epic proportions. Though it
had a strong basis of culture yet, it failed to influence the employee’s behaviour and actions.
Toyota always had a model of organization and culture that other companies wanted to
replicate. The culture of Toyota Way had been one of the most prominent competitive
advantages of the company. Toyota’s esteem image so cautiously framed over the 50 years
by continuously focusing on improvement and serving the best to their customers was
severely damaged.
The crises began in United Stated wherein the company couldn’t expediently handle
the regional problem for long, and it soon became global crises. Toyota planned to enter US
market in 1950’s, and by 2000 all expected it to become the world’s leading car company.
But as years went by everything turned out to be sinking (Kotabe and Murray, 2004). As per
the NHTSA (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration) report, they had received
more than 100 complaints regarding the brake performance of Toyota vehicles. The
complaints were about how the car brakes did not respond immediately on bumps or slippery
surfaces. For decades Toyota worked hard to create it remarkable reputation of esteem quality
and highest value in the world. The key problem was not the public announcements that were
made, but it is the concerns of the customer. It is the time company realised that Toyota
culture was not well prepared to respond to customers feedback filled with questions and
accusations. The Toyota culture was alive and strong but was not well directed and required
to be raised to a higher level.
Lessons learned about organizational culture
The corporate culture is an intangible strategic trait that comprises of shared values
and beliefs. The organizational culture of Toyota is known for the respect it pays to its people
and continuous improvement (Hill, 2008). An additional aspect that an organization needs to
embrace in its culture is the consideration of customers and communities associated with
their business. The growth is assured when company’s culture is able to facilitate
organization flexibility and reduce problems. A culture must be created where managers are
guided to think more about customers than their own interests. Customer orientation should
be a part of organization cultural provision wherein employees are acknowledged about the

basic objective to provide customers before and after sale services. The culture must
comprise of Qualified and trained technicians as well as service advisors should be there to
provide customer service and help.
With all the allegations from the media and public the companies’ reputation had
collapsed and question was raised from customers that endangered its quality. On 23rd of
February, 2010, Mr Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s owner, came to testify himself before the
congress to present the facts and apologise for the losses. Mr Toyoda strategy was of
apologizing and taking the responsibility towards the works in the long run and not blaming
others. This gesture was to assure its stakeholders for the actions and addresses the concerns
of customers. Also, it is a Japanese way which states that Toyoda’s gesture of bowing down
is a way of publicly expressing his regret and directing the company stakeholders to continue
restoring their faith in companies’ brands.
Points to be marked from Toyota’s experience
With the massive recalls the company spontaneously looked forward to responding to
a customer complaint. Bigger role was assigned to regional executives to issue a recall on the
basis of local customer complaints. This shows that actions are required to be taken fast to
restore the positioning. Also, it is important to note that customer orientation is a prime
characteristic of organization culture and must not be overlooked in any circumstances
(Sosnovskikh, 2016). The quality and continuous improvement factors are of no significance
if proper addressing of customer complaints are not made. In order to respond to the crises, a
company must build a strong culture to withstand and positively embrace the crises. Toyota’s
experience shows that with robust values governing culture over decades it is possible to
exhibit positive results even after the worse crises.
TASK 2
Culture, power, politics in organisation A & B
Organization culture can be defined as principles of shared beliefs values,
assumptions based on which people work in companies. Culture has a strong influence of
employees, and it motivates them to work with full efficiencies (Maanen, 2015). From the
case study of organization A and B, it can be analysed that thought both the organizations are
manufacturing firms but their internal workings are way different. In organization A, market
culture is followed where the work was done is completely result oriented and no risk is

taken. There is focus on competition and getting the job done whereas the Organization B
follows the Adhocracy oriented culture in which focus is given to entrepreneurship and risk
taking the initiative. Employees are motivated to find the ideas which are unique so that
company can get competitive advantages in the market.
Organizational power refers to the way in which leaders have the authority and the
manner in which they influence employees. Organization A follows the power which is called
as coercive power as employees in the company are influenced in terms of threats,
punishments and sanctions (Cheese, 2016). Total controls of employees are in the hand of
top management and staffs have no flexibility to do work in their own manner. On the other
hand, Organization B follows referent power in which interpersonal relationships are being
cultivated with other employees in the company. People in organization B have trust in each
other, and they have been motivated by the top management to work hard.
Organizational politics can be defined as informal and unofficial ways in which
people in organizations are influenced to increase power or get tasks done. From the nature of
Organization B, it can be assumed that politics definitely must be followed here where the
managers influence top management for power. Proper growth is not provided to employees
and because of that politics plays a part and affect people. Organization B, on the other hand,
might not support the culture of politics and as soon as it is seen arising, proper actions must
have been taken (Schein, 2016). All the employees are given fair chance to perform and get
higher positions, so chances of politics are very less. However, where there are people, there
is politics, but it all depends on the organization to remove it or adopt it.
Effect of culture, power and politics on both the organizations is very different like in
Organizations A, employees are not motivated to do work, and they are forced to work. The
level of motivation is totally low and because of that employees feel they are working in a
negative environment with no efficiency. There is no future growth, and because of that, the
company will definitely perform poorly (Fairholm, 2010). Whereas in organization B,
employees are highly motivated and work very hard to achieve all the goals and objectives
set by leaders. They are told to be innovative which also helps in their career growth and
because of that company will definitely perform well.
Choice of selecting the Organization
If I was given a choice to select the organization, then I will definitely choose
Organization B because this is the company which can help me to get growth in my career.

The working environment of this company is innovative, and employees are motivated to
work hard without thinking of failure. There is learning environment which will help me to
learn a new skill and also develop the ways to handle problems. With proper work, I can get
good growth and become a manager soon. Organization A, on the other hand, is totally
opposite as work will be given to me, and I will have to follow every rigid set of rule and
function, There is no growth, support from managers and there are lots of politics which
decrease the level of motivation to work.
Challenges in motivating employees
Employee motivation is one of the most important parts of the company that not only
increases the performance of company but it also fulfils all its goals and objectives. However,
motivating employees is not so easy, and there are many challenges that are faced by
managers in doing so. One of the main reasons which make this task difficult for managers is
that workforce is changing (Farrell, 2012). Employees in the company join with different
needs and expectations and all their values, beliefs, needs; expectations are entirely different.
It becomes very difficult to understand all these traits and fulfil them. Other than this,
everyone in the company has a motivational energy but this energy, often gets blocked at the
workplace because of sudden change at their home or some frustrated dreams or broken
promises, etc. It becomes very difficult to understand these personal problems of employees
because they are not being often shared. Other than this, the work-life pressure is another
issue that cannot be understood by managers, and it becomes a major hurdle in motivating
employees.
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
In order to motivate the employees, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a theory that can
be followed by managers. This theory is based on a very simple principle which says that all
humans have hierarchal needs and some of these needs are basic, and in their absence,
nothing else matters. The most common need for employees as per this theory is
physiological needs which refer to the need for water, food and other biological needs. Once
these needs are satisfied, employees start looking for safety needs which say that these should
be free from any kind of danger, pain and uncertain future (Rakowski, 2011). Next types of
needs are social needs which mean that employees should be allowed to bond with other
colleagues, be loved and form good attachments as it motivates them to work hard. All the
social needs make esteem needs more relevant which means that employees feel to be
admired and respected by the people they work with and work for so that they can feel

important. Last types of needs are self-actualization needs which mean employees love to get
growth and learn new things. So the company should provide this kind of environment where
employees can nurture themselves.
Figure 1: Maslow's hierarchy of needs
(Source: Rakowski, 2011)
Vroom’s Expectancy theory
This theory is based in the assumption that behaviour of employees arises from their
conscious choices with the main aim to maximise pleasure and minimize pain. The behaviour
of employees at work and their goals are not simple to understand. Performance of employees
is directly based on some skills like knowledge, experience, abilities, etc. As per theory,
managers can motivate employees if they believe that organization recognize their effort and
performance which results in some rewards (Koontz, 2010). The rewards should be such
manner that it satisfies their important need and makes them happy. An employee may
require money, promotion, benefits or they might also require training, coaching, and
supervision to do something.

Figure 2: Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
(Source: Koontz, 2010)
TASK 3
Stages of team building as per Tuckman theory
Tuckman theory starts with the formation stage where the trust is developed, and
mission is clarified to every person. All the uncertainties and issues are discussed to move to
the next stage. Proper roles are assigned, and available resources are evaluated. Next stage is
storming stage where the opinion of different team members are heard regarding the
situation, and they all are cleared to remove the negativity (Fiore and Georganta, 2017). The
third stage is called as norming stage, where team members are being motivated, and trust
gets developed. The team is improved with ethics, cohesion and spirit so that they can handle
every situation. The last stage is called as the performing stage where individuals are clear
about their roles, and because of that, they try to focus on work and try to handle it as quickly
as they can. People here support each other towards the attainment of a goal and avoid all the
disagreements so that main goal can be achieved (Barua, 2016).
Factors and skills that assist or hinder effective teamwork
There are various factors that can assist effective teamwork such as diversity,
communication and leadership. It is because; effective teams support and are comprised with
cultural diversity, skills and qualities. Diversity embraces innovation and creativity and

creates awareness that promotes effective teamwork. Lack of diversity will be rigid the
environment and reduce the scope for changes and improvement. It is significant for teams to
challenge one another in order to prevent grudges and encourage creativity, disagreement
among the team members can also hinder the effectiveness of team (Ellis and Bach, 2015).
For this aspect; there is a requirement of open and clear communication among team
members. They should have common goals regarding their responsibilities and target. Lack
of this aspect will create work barriers such as inappropriate coordination. In addition to this;
effective leadership is significant for teamwork. All the teams are benefitted from various
sources of direction and admiration, leader assists in supporting teamwork by organizing the
team efforts and encouraging them to share their ideas with the organization.
Factors which are instrumental in teams effectively achieving their objectives
The factors that are involved in teams to effectively achieving their objectives include
appropriate leadership; it is the primary factor to make a clear and common objective. It is
considerable because giving a clear picture of overall goal makes it easy for both the
members and organization to timely and effectively achieve it. There must be viable work
environment for the team to work effectively and productively; members must work with a
range of skills, experience for undertaking tasks (Block, 2016). Team commitment is
necessary for the team members to understand membership strength and goals sharing. A
proper and positive culture is significant for achieving desired goals and objectives. Members
must be motivated to share ideas and having risk bearing approach without the fear of
controlling, or disapproval. Next to getting things done at the right time, the setting of targets
and introducing ways in order to achieve the goals is essential. Teams are required to invest
their time and efforts in improving working techniques and process to reach the ultimate goal
in the best way. These techniques are inclusive of better decision making, and problem-
solving. The better relationship must be maintained between the team members, this includes
open contact, sharing of idea and helping each other. After all these factors are satisfied the
company will be able to achieve their targets over time.
Aspects that threaten successful achievement and cohesive group work
The aspects that can threaten successful achievement and cohesive group work is
when members give more priority to their personal interest instead of the work; ultimately the
team faces problems. For achieving high outcomes, members must take consideration of their
team and has to respect the decisions of teams. Secondly, when members are not clear about
the objectives, duties and responsibilities, it creates a problem in team building activities.