Uber: Power, Culture, and Politics in Organisation

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Uber's organizational behaviour, exploring the intricate relationships between power, culture, and politics within the company. It begins with an overview of Uber's mission, vision, and aims, followed by a critical evaluation of how power dynamics, cultural influences, and political maneuvering impact individual and team behaviour. The report delves into the influence of these factors, particularly the 'bro culture,' and its effects on the workplace environment. Furthermore, it examines various motivational techniques, including content and process theories, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Mintzberg's managerial roles, and Mayo's theory, assessing their potential to enhance employee effectiveness and contribute to the achievement of organizational goals. The report concludes with justified recommendations on how to improve motivation levels to achieve organizational goals.

Organisational Behaviour

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
1Uber, mission, vision & aim ................................................................................................3
2Critically evaluate relationship between power, culture &politics .....................................3
3Analyse influence of politics and power according to culture at uber.................................6
4Motivational techniques that can lead to improve of effectiveness in Uber........................7
5Improve motivation level can help in achievement of organisational goals. Justified
recommendations....................................................................................................................9
6: How will improved levels of motivational will help Uber in achievement of their laid
goals?....................................................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Organisation behaviour is a individual and group study that is related to functioning of
organisation. Present report is based on individual study affecting the environment job structure,
diversity and leadership in a organisation (Bernard, 2017). Present report is based on Uber case
study that is that is a international ride hailing brand offering different services that includes peer
ride sharing. There is discussion of different aspects of a internal environment at workplace on
team and individual performance level. There is evaluation of motivation theories and way such
process & content theories can lead to positive outcomes at workplace and achievement of
organisations objectives.
1Uber, mission, vision & aim
Uber technology incorporation, generally known as Uber, offers ride hailing services,
food deliver (uber eats), freight transportation, package delivery and so on. Uber is a technology
platform that connects consumers with driver -partners and riders. Company mainly is in
transportation services and founded in the year of 2009. It is based in San Francisco and has
expanded its business in nearly 750 metropolitan areas worldwide. Dara Khosrowshahi who is an
American businessman is the current CEO of Organisation.
Vision: “To provide wide range of services in order to get higher customer satisfaction”
Mission: To make transportation services reliable, offer the services at customer's convenient
place(everywhere for everyone)”
Aim: To get diversification and to formulate such kind of a workplace that demonstrate
diversities of countries as well as areas the company offers services.
2Critically evaluate relationship between power, culture &politics
Organisation politics, power and culture posses a influence on individual and team behaviour.
There are some factors that lead to both negative and positive impact on organisation growth.
Influence on individual and team:

 Reward power: It is a power that is assigned to different individuals according to their
level of performance.
 Coercive power: This power is related to managing daily functions of organisation.
 Informational power: It is a power that is posses by individuals with an ability to manage
different types of reports and information (Paulson, 2017).
 Referent power: It is a power that is assigned and it has a influence on individual
behaviour in organisation.
Influence of politics on individual and team behaviour:
Politics is regarded as individual behaviour to validate decisions. In Uber there are some
decisions that are taken for managing political aspects. Some factors affecting political behaviour
are mentioned below: Changing attitude: Politics in organisation lead to spreading of rumours that may result
in to changing employee attitude. Employees may not posses much interest in further
performing job roles (Bigo, 2016).
 Organisation culture: If the impact on organisation culture is high then the politics may
result to creation of a negative environment at marketplace. It may lead to affecting
present motivation level of employees in a negative manner.

Impact of culture on individual & Team:
It is a factor that leads to affecting the organisation values. In Uber culture consist of employee
and employer contribution. Culture can be explained by use of handy's cultural model:
 Power culture: It is a centralised power that is exercised by organisations. In Uber all
such decisions are made by CEO in the organisation.
 Role culture: It consist of roles and responsibilities of managers that are working in
various functional departments in Uber.
 Task culture: Task culture related to different teams that are working for achievement of
a common objectives, vision, mission and willing to solve different conflict types.
 Person culture: It is a culture that includes subordinates and members who are crucial
part of business organisation. In Uber person culture is adopted for enhancing the
organisation productivity.
Hofstede's dimension culture theory
It is a theory that is depicting the culture according to top management of organisation.
Power Distance Index- It includes high and low power culture. High power is reflecting to
down power that has to be accepted by society & low power is where people are following the
rights to deal with situations of inequality (Collective, 2018).
Individualism/collectivism- Individualism is where in society people are having individual
approach. Collectivism is depicting group thinking & group behaviour.
Masculinity/Femininity- Masculinity is related to attributes such as femininity, competition
and jealousy. Femininity is practised where there is high coordination for society welfare that has
to be considered.
Uncertainty avoidance- It is the degree at which society may accept or reject tolerance or
uncertainty. If uncertainty avoidance index is high then it may reflect rigidity in people's nature
and low uncertainty is depicting people who are ready to accept changes easily.
Time orientation- It is regarded as s fort or long term association that can be used by a society
according to situation type. Long term orientation is reflecting focus & short teem goals that
have to be achieved.

Indulgence vs. Restraint- It is degree according to which society has to focus on requirements.
Indulgence is regarded as adjusting according to needs of a position or status. Restraint is
regarded as enjoyment without any type of worries.
All factors posses impact on team and organisation behaviour along with special references to
politics, culture and power. In Uber there is prevalence of different cultural dynamics such as
there is focus on bro culture that leads to high amount of practising of discriminatory practises
against women employees (Liu, 2018). It is leading to dissatisfaction level and internal
conflicts.
3Analyse influence of politics and power according to culture at uber
In recent years there has been multiple situations of issues like “Sexual harassment”
where there are questions related to “stop at nothing” approach that can be used for expansion
purposes. There is use of illegal technology that is leading to law enforcement. There is a “Bro
culture” that has affected individual behaviour in Uber in terms of creating a toxic workplace
culture, in past several years. “Bro culture” consist of preferential treatment where there is
preference of young men over others (Uber and the problem with “bro-culture”, 2017). This is
following of masculinity culture of men. The bro culture leads to perception of dominance of
man.
Impact of masculinity culture on Uber:
In Uber there has been lack of women at leadership roles that is leading to creation of a
male dominated field. Lack of female leadership lead to women having positions are at upper
echelons of organisation. It lead to impact on individual performance and there has been impact
on creation of a negative workplace environment (Nightingale, 2017).
UBER has successfully expanded to different parts of the world such as there has been
expansion across 450 plus markets all over world. Further there has been expansion to all major
countries like Asia, Africa, south America & Australia. But the forward looking technology
community is stunningly backwards when there is discussion of gender relations.
Uber has been involved in legal turmoil & embarrassing exposes that are leading to a
situation of continuous mistreatment of their employees and evading of law enforcement,
collection of taxes and other government agencies.
The culture has consist of acquisitions in terms of workplace harassments that are followed by
legal charges and confidential medical records of women being assaulted by uber drives.

4Motivational techniques that can lead to improve of effectiveness in Uber
Content theory: this theory emphasis on the elements that motivate a person to perform
a specific task. It focus on the need and requirements of employees in order to encourage them to
do work for the growth of company (Ryan and Deci, 2017). In context of UBER, Mangers of
company apply the content theories to motivate their workforce an d to increase their efficiency.
Process Theory: This theory deal with the process to motivate employees. It consist
factors that assist the managers to know how to motivate human resources in order to increase
their productivity (Menard, Bott and Crossler, 2017). Top management team of selected
company applies these theories to encourage the human resources to work towards attainment of
organizational goals and objectives in an efficient way.
Maslow' s theory:
It emphasis on the accomplishment of unsatisfied needs and requirements of personnels
to motivate them. Satisfied need is not encourage a person to perform a task as per this theory.
Stages of Maslow's theory are elaborated below:
 Physiological needs: It refers the basic requirements that are essential for survival of
human being . It consist needs like food, clothes, shelter and many more other essentials
for life of a human being. In uber manager has to initially identify such basic
physiological needs of their employees as it is crucial for their basic survival.
 Safety need: it involves factors that is related to health, wealth, prosperity, financial
stability of a person. It is necessary to live long and healthy life. After fulfilment of basic
survival needs are being focussed then there has to be focus on future safety needs that
are crucial for ensuring safety of employees.
 Social needs: It includes need of friendship, belongingness, love, acceptance from
society, and many more other factors. Each employee in uber is willing to have a feeling
of social belongingness that is necessary for social satisfaction of employees and that has
to be timely ensured by management to have a satisfied workforce.

 Self- esteem: Respect from others, appreciation, acknowledgement in society is self
esteem that motivates a person to work efficiently. These needs have to be satisfied in
Uber from point of maintaining the motivation level of employees.
 Self – actualization: It is to understand self credibilities and skills that make the person
different from others and give them an edge. These needs are going to motivate
employees in Uber to realise their actual potential and then work according to such higher
level of their present contribution towards their responsibilities and roles.
The managers of Uber has been adopted this theory to motivate the work force. It assist
them to know the unsatisfied needs of employees and to encourage them in an efficient way.
Mintzberg' s theory :
As per this theory there are some predefined managerial competencies as well as skills
should be present in an employees to perform the assign task effectively. There are ten specific
roles which has been divided into three categories , that are given below:
Interpersonal Category: In this category, three roles have been included. The roles are to work
as Figurehead, leader and liaison with internal as well as external parties.
Information Category: It refers that managers in Uber have to monitor the environment,
disseminate information with others and at last act as a spokesperson on behalf of organization
(Keshavar and Karami, 2016).
Decisional Category: According to this category managers In Uber need to posses some
specific roles such as an entrepreneur, disturbance handler, negotiator and resource
allocator in order to make effective decisions. It is going to lead towards achievement of higher
proficiency in Uber.
In UBER, Higher authorities of company apply above stated theory so that, they can enhance
managerial skills of human resources. It help the managers to enhance capabilities of employees
simultaneously motivate them to work with full efficiency.

Mayo Theory of motivation:
According to this theory human resources are social person and they can be motivated by
another ample of non -monetary ways. The main outlines of Mayo theory are discussed below:
 There must be good communication at Uber so that all the persons who are working
together get a chance to know each other. It will lead to creation of positive working
environment at Uber
 Human resources working in Uber should involve in decision making process. It will
provide acknowledgement and respect to employees so that they can be motivated them
to work efficiently.
 As per the above sated theory there must good relationship between employees and
managers in order to formulate a friendly work environment at Uber.
In context of UBER, Top management of company adopt this theory in order to motivate
their work force. It assist them to create a healthy environment at workplace where all the
employees can grow and prosper.
5Improve motivation level can help in achievement of organisational goals. Justified
recommendations
Motivational theories described above are applied by the higher authorities of UBER to inspire
their employees to work efficiently (Babazadeh and et. al., 2017). As Maslow's theory emphasise
on the fulfilment of unsatisfied needs of personnels in order to motivate them to perform a
specific task. Company apply this concept to enhance the efficiency of staff by satisfying their
needs. To develop managerial competencies and to encourage employees to work with their full
efficiency organization adopt Mintzberg theory. Managers of organization apply Mayo theory to
create a healthy as well as friendly work environment at work place. Apart from the theories of
motivation stated above, there are various techniques adopted by UBER to motivate human
resources. These are given as follow:
Monetary Techniques: It refers to provide monetary benefits to staff to increase their efficiency
as well as motivate them to work for the success of organization. In context of selected company,
it has been monitor that employees are being motivated through incentives, extra pay, bonuses
and so on. Mangers of UBER provide financial rewards such as bonuses, gifts and other in order
to inspire work force to attain predefined goals in an effective manner (Howard and et. al., 2016).

Non monetary techniques: It is the compensations or benefit to human resource of an
organization that is given in non- cash form. In UBER, employees are getting ample of
opportunities to grow and prosper, to get recognition for their good performance. Top
management team of company give chance to workforce to participate in decision making
process to enhance their productivity. They acknowledge efficient work of employees and
appreciate their efforts.

6: How will improved levels of motivational will help Uber in achievement of their laid goals?
High level of motivation will help Uber in achievement of their laid objectives because of below
discussed justified recommendations:
 High level of employee motivation will lead to high employee engagement. Further there
will be proper employee engagement. This factor will further guide the level of
 Employee motivation is intrinsically linked to employee engagement and higher
motivation. It will help employees to be better problem solvers and increasing of
employee retention rates.
 In Uber there is prevailing of “bro culture” that can be solved by using a approach
where women drivers are provided equal opportunities to increase their level of
contribution. Because there has been a negative image of UBER that has been carted
because of news that female employees are sexually harassed & further discriminated in
Uber. There has been issues of fairness & equity that cab lead to poor performance
reviews.
 The new CEO of UBER now has to solely focus on improvement of its brand image that
has been affected badly because of biggest scandals, use of illegal technology, “stop at
nothing” situations. This has impacted the share prices of Uber in a negative manner and
thus there comes a need to enhance the positive environment at workplace by motivation
techniques according to motivational theories.
 A culture that comprises both of masculinity and femininity has to be adopted so that
there can be equal opportunities that are offered to both male and female employees it
will lead to higher satisfaction of employees. It may lead to development of intrinsic
motivation among employees as they will be able to maximise their contribution by by
feeling of joy, personal satisfaction, excitement and accomplishment. It will lead to
achievement of their aim that is high amount of diverse culture at workplace.

CONCLUSION
From above mentioned information it can be summarised that a organisation consist of
different aspects of culture, politics that has a affect on team and individual behaviour.
According to organisation needs there has to be analysis of different process and content theories
of motivation such as maslow need hierarchy theory, mintzberg theory so that there can be
development of effective motivation measures which can further help in maintaining the
employee motivation level. Team behaviour has to be studied as it is responsible for achievement
of laid organisational goals. Further recommendation can be developed for purpose of
understand different strategic measures that can be taken to achieve effectiveness in the
productivity of organisation.