Organisational Behaviour Case Study: UBER and Corporate Strategy

This case study examines UBER's shift towards corporate responsibility, prompted by ethical breaches and negative publicity related to its business practices within the sharing economy. The introduction outlines the organizational behavior principles and the issues faced by UBER, including disputes with taxi drivers, worker rights claims, and tax regulations. The analysis explores how UBER's strategic changes, aimed at improving its brand image and financial performance, impact marketing, human resources, operations management, and finances. The study emphasizes the importance of ethical and sustainable practices, highlighting the need for companies to address potential negative impacts on various departments and ensure long-term success. It also emphasizes the importance of pre-planning and the challenges of sudden strategic shifts. The conclusion reiterates the significance of ethical operations, positive brand image, and the benefits of adapting strategies to meet corporate responsibilities.

Organisational Behaviour
& Management

Table of Contents
Case Study background: Uber and the Ethics of Sharing – Exploring the Societal Promises and
Responsibilities of the Sharing Economy........................................................................................1
Scenario 1: Uber aims to become a brand that is recognised for their high level of Corporate
Responsibility..............................................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
How the change of strategy will impact Marketing, Human Resources, Operations
Management and the finances within the organisation...............................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

Case Study background: Uber and the Ethics of Sharing – Exploring the
Societal Promises and Responsibilities of the Sharing Economy
Scenario 1: Uber aims to become a brand that is recognised for their high level of Corporate
Responsibility.
INTRODUCTION
Organisational behaviour can be defined as the comprehensive study of human behaviour
within an organisational context, the communication between humans and the company, and the
company itself. The case study on UBER presents 3 main defaults executed on the part of this
organisation. The first one is identified to be riots done by taxi drivers within Paris as a
subsidiary of UBER was acknowledged to be stealing their business without taking into due
account the regulations and rules of trade. The second default took place within London whereby
the UBER drivers sued the organisation, insisting it to pay them the minimum wages and to
abide by the same safety regulation like other employers (Uber and the Ethics of Sharing:
Exploring the Societal Promises and Responsibilities of the Sharing Economy, 2020). The third
case witnessed the tax office crashing down within Australia demanding the UBER drivers to
pay national business taxes upon every fare.
All the 3 cases were ethical breaches on the part of the company in direct or indirect
sense. However, UBER put forth the argument that it was not the prime responsibility of the
company to look into those matters. The reasons behind stating the same was declared to be that
the responsibilities related to transportation regulations, labour rights, business tax, safety are
deferred by the entity to its wide range of driver partners, out of which some are just normal
individuals who pick passengers by way of their personal vehicles (Uber and the Ethics of
Sharing: Exploring the Societal Promises and Responsibilities of the Sharing Economy, 2020).
The company stays adamant upon one statement that it just gives an online platform which
connects customers with the independent contractors who are acknowledged to be drivers that
are in business with them. The company is proposing to change its strategy in order to make sure
that no unethical or illegal activities get conducted under its jurisdiction. This is aimed at
improvement of the brand image and financial performance of the corporation in the global
market place. The current report seeks to gain an insight into the impact of change of strategy of
UBER upon marketing, operations management, human resources and finances of the company.
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How the change of strategy will impact Marketing, Human Resources, Operations Management
and the finances within the organisation
In the present era, acting in an ethical and sustainable manner is the prime concern of
each and every organisation. In this relation, it has been noted that many companies in this hyper
competitive world is induced by rivalry to get engaged in unethical or illegal business operations
and practices. One of the biggest examples of unethical or illegal practices carried out by a
company is UBER. Over the course of time, this company has been publicised in media
negatively for a number of cases. The overall case scenario mainly explores the changes wrought
on society via the “sharing economy” by examining the innovations and controversies
surrounding UBER (Mishra, 2020). It provides a unique overview of the challenges posed by
new business models, like UBER’s, which use the internet to link individual providers of goods
and services to customers. Raising significant economic, social and environmental sustainability
issues, it questions about the responsibilities of “sharing economy” companies like UBER. The
main enquiry being whether these companies are just “technological platforms” facilitating
transactions for private, individual business people or these are real-world companies with the
same responsibilities as transportation companies, hotels and employment agencies (Amankwaa,
Gyensare and Susomrith, 2019).
Now, in this relation, UBER is striving to become a brand which is recognised for its
high extent of Corporate Responsibility. For this purpose, it is executing a change in the strategy
whereby it will be executing ethical business operations (Muchiri, Shahid and Ayoko, 2019).
This is aimed at development of a positive brand image of the company in market place. Now, it
is well known that a change in the strategy of a company tends to have an impact over the
different aspects of a business entity. In this relation, it has been identified that the main aspects
which will be affected by this change of organisational strategy of UBER are marketing,
operations management, finance and human resource (Miao and et. al., 2020). It is important for
the management of the respective organisation to take into due account the effects upon all these
functions or departments in order to make sure that there is not much negative impact of the
change in strategy over the corporation.
Whereby an entity facilitates a change in its strategy, the change is carried out for the
betterment of the company as well as its brand image (Maio and et. al., 2020). Now in the current
case, UBER is striving to enhance its level of Corporate Responsibility. This change in strategy
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will have a positive impact over the market department of the organisation. This is so because
the marketing department will emphasize in the marketing campaigns and marketing plans upon
the initiatives taken up by the organisation to act in an ethical manner. This will provide
assistance to the entity in creating a positive image of the organisation in the eyes of the
customers and making them stay connected with the organisation in the long run (Collins and et.
al., 2020). This means that the strategy change executed within the bounds of UBER is in the
favour of the organisation if seen from the perspective of marketing function or department.
Besides this, another department that is affected by the change in strategy of UBER is
identified to be human resources. This consists of the management as well as the staff which is
engaged in decision making process as well as execution of business operations. Whereby the
organisation take measures to carry out operations in an ethical manner, the employees as well as
the management likes to be retained in the firm for a long period of time. Thus, the change in
strategy of the company would facilitate the organisation to increase the motivational levels of
employees (Erjavec and Trkman, 2020). This makes the employees work with their full potential
towards the tasks of the entity so that the goal and objectives of the corporation can be achieved
in the predefined course of time.
It has been evaluated from the given case study that business organisation objectives may
fail due to lack of strategies, this is being determined that UBER is facing many allegations thus
in order to overcome negative impact of allegations management is looking forward to
implement and execute ethical strategies as well as practices. It will lead entity to gain significant
successful outcome (Roth and Rosenzweig, 2020). However changes in strategy can have impact
upon entity finances and operations management. In terms with finances it has been evaluated
that change of strategy will increase short as well as long term expenses of company. In addition
to this, it has been signified that it also increase current liabilities of companies. As it has been
determined that change in strategy will lead towards exceed of current liability than current
assets which is signified as negative working capital. This will lead entity to struggle to
effectively meet their end objectives. Along with this, it is essential for company to ensure that
they implement change with prior planning, as negligence of this may lead company to rely upon
stock issuances and borrowing as to effectively finance their working capital. Thus, organisation
must assure that they preplan implement of change in order to measure positive impact of them
of organisation functioning (Sartal, Rodríguez and Vázquez, 2020). With the help of this
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company finances can have positive cash flow that mainly stated towards that liquid assets of
company is increasing. With the help of this entity can effectively able to settle down their debts
in a well define and effective manner. For instance positive cash flow allow company to return
money to their shareholders and pay other expenses. Negligence of planning prior implement in
changes lead entity to face issue related to negative cash flow.
In addition to this, it has been signified that impact of strategy of change upon operations
management will lead entity to face issues that are related to proper scheduling of facilities
management, management of material, effective scheduling of quality management and more.
This has been identified that if entity execute sudden changes then it will have significant impact
upon overall profitability and productivity of organisation (Gaspar and Julião, 2020). Thus, it is
essential for UBER management to ensure that they formulate proper plan in order to implement
changes in a well defined and effective manner. Thus, as per according to the above mentioned
analysis it has been evaluated that in order to have positive impact of change it is essential for
management of company to undertake advantage of significant strategies and policies. With the
help of this they can assure positive end outcomes. It has been evaluated that in order to
implement change UBER management can face challenges as well as issues upon their finances
and operations management that can further affect their profit generating capabilities and
competitiveness in marketplace. So to overcome this, prior planning is required to be made by
entity management in order to make sure that their operations management and finances does not
go through with negative influences.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion, it can be said that operating in an ethical and
sustainable manner is the major cause of concern for the companies in the modern era. Carrying
out business operations ethically is important as it provides assistance to the corporations in
instilling a sense of trust within the employees as well as the customers to which the company is
accountable. There are many companies in today's time that get engaged in unethical and illegal
practices. This tends to dampen their brand image in the long run. In addition to this, it also leads
to diminution in the market value of the company. Thus, it becomes important for a corporation
to change its strategy if recently its unethical activities have been having negative impact over
the operations of the business entity. The change of strategy to the one which reinforces ethical
behaviour into the organisation would have positive impacts upon the firm in the form of
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augmentation of revenues and profits, development of strong brand image and increment of
market share of the entity.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Amankwaa, A., Gyensare, M.A. and Susomrith, P., 2019. Transformational leadership with
innovative behaviour. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.
Collins, C., Earl, J., Parker, S. and Wood, R., 2020. Looking back and looking ahead: Applying
organisational behaviour to explain the changing face of work.
Erjavec, J. and Trkman, P., 2020. Behavioural operations management-identification of its
research program. International Journal of Services and Operations
Management, 36(1), pp.42-71.
Gaspar, M. and Julião, J., 2020, April. Impacts of Industry 4.0 on Operations Management:
Challenges for Operations Strategy. In 2020 IEEE 7th International Conference on
Industrial Engineering and Applications (ICIEA) (pp. 82-87). IEEE.
Maio, G.R., Hanel, P.H., Martin, R., Lee, A. and Thomas, G., 2020. Setting the foundations for
theoretical progress toward understanding the role of values in organisational behaviour:
Commentary on “Values at work: The impact of personal values in organisations” by
Arieli, Sagiv, and Roccas. Applied Psychology, 69(2), pp.284-290.
Miao, Q., Eva, N., Newman, A., Nielsen, I. and Herbert, K., 2020. Ethical Leadership and
Unethical Pro‐Organisational Behaviour: The Mediating Mechanism of Reflective
Moral Attentiveness. Applied Psychology, 69(3), pp.834-853.
Mishra, M., 2020. Organisational behaviour.
Muchiri, M., Shahid, S. and Ayoko, O., 2019. And now for something completely different:
Reframing social processes of leadership theory using positive organisational
behaviour. Journal of Management & Organization, 25(3), pp.370-373.
Roth, A. and Rosenzweig, E., 2020. Advancing Empirical Science in Operations Management
Research: A Clarion Call to Action. Manufacturing & Service Operations
Management. 22(1. pp.179-190.
Sartal, A., Rodríguez, M. and Vázquez, X.H., 2020. From efficiency‐driven to low‐carbon
operations management: Implications for labor productivity. Journal of Operations
Management. 66(3). pp.310-325.
Online
Uber and the Ethics of Sharing: Exploring the Societal Promises and Responsibilities of the
Sharing Economy. 2020. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-024-1144-7_27>.
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