Unit 3 Organisations and Behaviour Assignment Sample

Introduction

Organization behavior is one of the important concepts for the human resource management team. With the ever changing human behavior, it becomes more and more difficult for HR team to introduce new policies in the company. Thus, it is important to understand the various factors which affects human behavior within the organization. In this report, based on various case studies, focus will be on to how to apply theoretical concepts into management practices so as to provide better work conditions to the employees and improve their efficiency.

LO1 Understand the relationship between organizational structure and culture:

1.1 Briefly define different types of organizational culture. How would you describe the culture at Greenscape? Under the different types of culture, what type of culture, do you think, is evident in Greenscape?

Organizational culture can be classified into four main categories based on the organizational structure adopted by the company. These organizational cultures are (Moorman, 1995):
Hierarchical Culture: Hierarchical culture is one in which there are various levels of hierarchy within the organization. The flow of information is systematic and hence stability is one of the key aspect of hierarchical type of organizational culture. However, the culture has its own disadvantages as well.
Market Culture: In case of market type of organizational culture the main focus of the company is to complete the task. The company focuses more on individual, team and company’s performance which is essential for the high performance of the company in highly competitive market.
Clan culture: This type culture treats everyone equal and respects everyone. The whole focus of clan type of organizational culture is to treat every colleague as family, understand their emotional aspect, give them enough space to deal with things, etc.
Adhocracy or Ad hoc culture: This type of culture generally prevails for short term period when the company is developing at a rapid pace. The key attributes of this type of culture is the ability to take risk, dynamic approach which results in new and innovative ideas.
As per the case study provided, Greenscape as a company has not been able to make lot of money but it respect its colleagues. The main characteristic of the company is that the owner of the company knows each employee at personal level and respects the feelings of each employee. It can also be seen that the company has very less number of employees and the organizational structure is very flat.
Thus, it can be concluded that Greenscape follows Clan and Adhocracy type of organizational culture. The owner of the company, Lita Ong, clearly proved that she believes in team work and doing things together. Also, the company is quite dynamic in its approach and was even ready to work without getting salary shows the adhocracy type of organizational culture that prevails within the company.

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1.2  How does the relationship between structure and culture impact the performance Greenscape?

Being a flat organizational structure, it becomes easy for the company to adopt clan and adhocracy type of organizational culture. Since the number of employees in Greenscape is less, the company can adopt ad-hoc type of culture which is dynamic in nature. Moreover, the owner of the company, Ong, made sure that all the employees are taken care off. Therefore the culture of the company focuses more on the welfare of its employees and believes in working together as a unit to attain synergy.
The flexible approach adopted by the company also helps in making quick business decisions. According to the case study, it is also clear that there is no hierarchy as everyone is considered equal. Even the owner is being called by her name by other employees.
One of the main feature of Greenscape Company is that it did not focus on making profits as most of the companies tries to accomplish. The company realizes that it’s the employees who are the most important resource of the company and it’s important to make sure that proper working conditions are provided to each employee so as to motivate him work better.
Another important feature which is important in case of the flat organization is trust. Since flatter organization are more unstable compared to organizations with hierarchical structure, it becomes important for the management to gain the trust of its employees. Ong instead of hiding the news of their failure to set up their mall plant, called its employees and share the news with them. This helped in gaining the trust of the employees as the employees felt responsible towards the company and thus decided to work together to overcome their past failure.
Thus, it can be seen that the leader of the company implemented the culture which complemented the structure of the company to attain desired result which was beneficial for the performance of the company.

1.3 What factors might have influenced the behavior of management and employees at Greenscape?

Trust: One of the most important features adopted by Greenscape which influenced human behavior is the transparency maintained by the leader of the company to gain the trust of the employees.
Leadership: As can be seen from the case study, Ong proved to be a great leader. It is important that a leader should motivate its employees to work hard. Ong made sure that she knew each of its employees not only professionally but personally too. This kind of attitude influenced the behavior of the employees in positive way and motivated them to work even harder.
Communication: Communication is one of the most important factor which influences human behavior at work. Flow of information in a company like Greenscape which has a flatter organizational structure is fast. Moreover, as a leader, Ong made sure that all type of information was shared among all the employees which help in affecting their behavior in positive way. All the employees were aware of the situation and faced it together instead of leaving the company, even when they knew they won’t be paid for some time.

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LO2 Understand different approaches to management and leadership:

2.1. Compare the effectiveness of leadership styles of Max Worthy and Brenda Hogan and how they affected the employees.

The leadership style followed by Max Worthy was autocratic leadership style where the decision making lies in the hand of the top management and the major workforce is expected to carry out tasks as per the goals being set up by the management (Eagly, 2003).
On the other hand, Brenda Hogan introduced what is known as participative leadership style which involves each employee to participate in the decision making of the company. Methods like meeting, forums, surveys, etc. are used to take valuable feedback from the employees and use those suggestions to introduce new and innovative ideas. Obviously, with more people giving suggestions, there are ample ideas at the company disposal to choose from (Eagly, 2003).
However, the employees of Fancy Footwear were habitual to work under autocratic leadership of Max Worthy. They were contented with doing what was demanded by their manager from them. Since, no one was given responsibilities of the company in the past, the employees were not willing to learn new skills and take up the responsibilities of the company. Participative leadership style offer power into the hands of employees to take business decisions for the company which helps and motivate the employees as they feel responsible towards the company. However, the participative leadership style introduced by Hogan is one of the effective leadership styles in case of flat organization. It can be seen that Fancy Footwear was hierarchical in nature and demanded autocratic leadership and not participative leadership.

2.2 What managerial practices, from a theoretical perspective, are evident in the case study? Relate such concepts as scientific management, human relations, functions of management, contingency approach etc.

According to the Taylor’s scientific theory, the various operations of an organization should be calculated based on scientific tools like analysis, efficiency, work ethics, standardization, etc. and based on the result the management takes various action to increase the efficiency and labor productivity of the organization (Taylor, 2004). It can be seen that Worthy approach was managerial practices was based on Taylor’ scientific theory as he use to set up targets for its employees based on the data available from past. The employee’s performance was then evaluated based on the targets achieved.
On the other hand, when Hogan became the head of the company, she took approach of human relations. According to human relation theory, human resource are considered as most important resource for the company and hence it becomes the main responsibility of the company to look after the welfare of the company, provide them better conditions to work, motivate them by sharing equal responsibilities, etc. However, employees of Fancy Footwear were accustomed to the ways Worthy used to operate which involved les of team meetings, lesser involvement and interaction with the leaders, etc.
As a new leader, Hogan should have adopted the contingency approach to management practices. According to the Contingency approach, there is no particular theory or concept which can be adopted while carrying out managerial practices. Contingency approach demands that the management should work according to the situation after understanding the work culture and behavior of the employees (Van de Ven, 1984).

2.3 How, in terms of managerial and leadership approaches, did Worthy and Hogan differ in running Fancy Footwear?

As discussed above, Worthy followed autocratic leadership style where all the decision making was carried out by him. Based on the new business strategies, Worthy used to set up the goals of his employees. The employees before the start of the cycle knew their goals and work hard in that cycle to achieve those goals. With more levels in between Worthy and the workforce, communication was very less. The employees like this style as there was less interference from the top people.
On the other hand, Hogan tried to introduce what is known as participative type of leadership. Hogan believed that interaction and increase level of communication will increase the motivation among the employees. She also thought that taking feedbacks from the employees will motivate them as they will feel more responsible towards the company. However, she soon realized that the employees do not demand responsibilities and preferred old ways which were used by Worthy.

References

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Herzberg, F. 2005. Motivation-hygiene theory. chair in human resource at the State University of New York–Buffalo and was faculty director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership there. Previously he was Research Professor of Management at Georgia State University. He has written over fifty books and over 135 other publications., 61.
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Taylor, F. W. 2004. Scientific management. Routledge.