Organization Behaviour

Organization Behaviour

You should fill in the correct missing word/s to complete the sentences below:

1. Social organization is the study of the structure and management of organizations, their environments, and the actions and interactions of their members and groups

(1 mark)

2. An organization is a social arrangement for achieving controlled performance in pursuit of collective goals.

(1 mark)

3. The term employee-centered behavior, found in the Michigan studies, is the equivalent of delegating decisions and helping followers satisfy their needs by providing a supportive work environment (from the Ohio Studies).

(1 mark)

4. The term job-centered behavior, found in the Michigan studies, is the equivalent of:

issuing tasks and instructing followers on how to do them (from the Ohio Studies).

(1 mark)

5. An employee is called in for a disciplinary meeting is an example of reinforcement and punishment, in operant conditioning.

Part B (20Marks)

1. What do you think Martha’s leadership style is, according to Goldman’s theory? Explain your answer.

Martha’s leadership style, according to Goldman’s theory, is the commanding leadership style. Martha is a commanding leader because she gives instructions to her team, and she expects that the day’s work should be done. She noticed that the team members were not happy after she gave the instructions, and she suggests to them what can help cheer their mood. Martha did not bother to ask the team how they would have preferred to work but just proceeded with the instructions. She did not also bother to ask what would help cheer the team up, and when her method failed, she just continued with the work schedule. She has structured her type of leadership in a way that the team cannot ask any questions, and they are expected to do precisely the task what they have been told.

 (10 marks)

2. Why do you think Martha’s current leadership style has been less successful with her level 2 crew?

The current leadership style has been less successful with her level 2 crew because this team consists of older members who are more aware of the work environment, and they have more experience from previous tasks they performed. This could have had better suggestions for completing the job with more ease, but she did not give them the chance to express themselves. Martha should have, therefore, provided room for discussion because there was no urgency in the organization and because there was no strict way of how the procedure should have been executed.

 (5 marks)

3. How can Martha improve her leadership style to better suit her new crew?

Martha can improve her leadership style by trying to be a more collaborative leader. She should start by involving the team members in the discussion of how the job should be done in cases where there is no strict way of performing the task. She should also let the crew air out their views of the functions to be completed and try finding out what excites them most so that she can be able to choose a reward to that will best motivate then. She should also make an effort and evaluate herself to find out if she is more emphatic about the feelings of others or whether she only focuses on herself. Besides, Martha should also learn to exercise patience for her to understand that she will encounter situations she did not expect, and she should opportunities like that as stepping stones. She should be patient in learning the new team to identify their strengths and weakness and later support them through their transition.

(5 marks)

PART C

Q2. Elements of the PESTLE Analysis

PESTLE analysis is a tool that focuses on analyzing an organization’s external factors and their effect on the organization. The elements of this tool are sociological, economic, environmental, political, technology, and legal.

Political- for a company to establish a business in a particular country, political stability for that nation is crucial in the company’s decision. While some countries are corrupt and thus, causing difficulty for firms to establish and operate in their lands, bureaucracy also plays a vital role for the firm to stably grow and achieve the benefits. Therefore, the rise of a coronavirus which has affected the country’s taxes, consumer protection policies, trade, the tariff will impact the change of many countries to change their stability thus, making many companies hardly settle investment in those nations.

Economical- Openness, economic growth, and status play a crucial role in a company’s strategic decision. Coronavirus thus will affect many organizations because each country will be aiming at increasing the cost of labor and raw materials which will make it difficult for many companies to establish themselves in such environments. Instead, the organization will be looking for cheap labor countries to establish.

Sociological- these are factors that are related to the demographic characteristic which influences many nations. These include age range, attitude, education, work habits. Due to coronavirus pandemic, some of these factors will directly influence the economic factors such as the sustainability of an organization compared to if there was no pandemic.

Technology- Adoption, and awareness of technology correlate with a firm desire to invest. But due to coronavirus pandemic, the technology will affect the organization’s infrastructure such as technological innovation, regulations, internet connection, research, and electronic laws because the firm will be aiming at using every possible strategy to earn profits.

Legal- Clear laws and regulations ensure that a firm gets its rights and protection from a country to ensure its sustainability. These include employment las, company protection laws, and regulatory bodies. The rise of coronavirus will see many countries, especially the corrupt nations using all means to generate income, by failing to protect firms under the umbrella of law in their states. 

Environment- the environment is essential in international regulation. Most companies do not provide this kind of ecological care, protection, and this becomes a trap for many organizations. The coronavirus pandemic will force many of these firms to lose their profits because they will be producing items that are not accepted in the outside environment.

Q3. Organizational culture of Google, according to Schein’s three levels.

Psychologist Edgar Schein in 1980 in the School of Management developed a model of analyzing and understanding organizational culture. Edgar Schein divided the organization culture into three different levels, namely: Values, assumptions, and artifacts.

Artifacts- artifacts are the obvious and the overt elements that make an organization, they are things such as office layout, furniture, inside jokes, dress norms, and mantras that an outsider can see. These are things that are easy to see but are difficult to be understood, especially when the analyses of the culture go any deeper.

Espoused values- these are the values and norms that a company declares. These values affect how the organization’s members interact and represent the firm. They are mostly reinforced in a public declaration, such as in the aptly named list of core values, but also in the norms and common phrases members usually repeat themselves. For instance, in an organization, an employee can be famous in responding to a variety of proposals from other colleagues with the phrase of low-cost airline which, reaffirms the espoused value of affordability.

Shared basic assumptions – Shared basic assumptions are what make the bedrock of organizational culture. These are the beliefs and conducts that are deeply embedded and, sometimes are unnoticed in the firm. The basic assumptions are the plumb line, and the essence of the culture in which artifacts square themselves against. These assumptions manifest themselves in many ways and are sometimes reflected in the artifacts and espoused values and sometimes not.  But in case the assumptions in an organization do not align with espoused, trouble usually arises. Therefore, it is in a firm to examine the quirky artifacts and mistake them for being basic assumptions. For instance, there is nothing magical about the free food program, but instead of a culture free food program is a basic assumption that contains the value of collaboration, and sharing it in an organization enhances the creative output of a firm by providing meals over which ideas are shared.

Q5. Everyone is born with their unique personality

Each person is born with a unique personality. For instance, some people are born left-handed while others are right-handed. Most people are born preferred to one hand, his is why we are born with a different type of personality that is unique. The personality is what makes us feel comfortable doing some things than others. Therefore, life only allows us to solely rely on the traits that we are born with naturally.

Q7. Problems between formal and informal status clash.

If a clash occurs between the formal and informal status, the following problems are likely to arise:

• The members can averse to change- the members of the informal status can averse change to formal status. Their social interaction with each other will change and result in the creation of new cultures, conventions, and lifestyles because other people do not respond positively to changes easily thus causing a conflict. For instance, if an organization decided to ban some meetings, it is likely to face resistance because of the changes that other members will not accept.
• The members are likely to conform to a set of togetherness- the togetherness that will result due to a clash between the formal and informal status will lead the members to turn away from larger goals of an organization. In turn, conflict of tasks and roles might arise which can be detrimental to the firm.
• Negative Attitude of Informal Leaders– informal members might result in being troubleshooters to the firm. And because the informal members might want to increase their influence, they may work against the organization’s management policies, that will manipulate the behavior of others, and this can result in a conflict between the employees and the management.

How the leader will deal with the problems.

The leader cannot prohibit or create informal organizations, but they can resolve the problems that might arise due to clashes between the formal and informal sectors. To do this, the leader will first acknowledge and accept the existence of informal status informal organizations. Next, the leader will strive to be part of the stats, to assert its influence over the members. Furthermore, the leader will try and streamline the goals of the informal status with those of the formal status, and with those of the management.

Q8. How to resolve a high degree of “social loafing”

If managers realize a high degree of “ social loafing” in their teams they will use three essential strategies to resolve the issue and increase accountability of the members and reduce or discourage social loafing in the team. These three strategies are:

Keep the team small- the potential of social loafing is high when a team grows beyond three to five individuals. If a manager wants the team to grow and expand beyond these parameters, it is better to break the team into small groups of no more than three team members. Then the manager will assign each of the group a given subject that can be broken down between each member. The strategy will enable the manager to obtain the same results as if the manager had simply limited the team to three to five members. The strategy will discourage fungible of individual tasks, and the members not fully participating because their energies are being replicated elsewhere.

Develop the rules of engagement- The manager will obtain less push back if the manager sets ground rules for the team conduct at the outset.  When the members are working closely and cohesive the manager will achieve the expected results, thus the manger should buy-in. The manager will do this best by thinking about the importance of accountability, deadlines, and deliverables to the project in hand. The manager should ensure the parameters are communicated often and early, and ensure they are enforced. It will enable the members to realize the manager’s credibility and avid bluffing.

Assign separate and distinct contributions of every team member- the manager should make tasks and divide them separate and distinct to make the team’s tasks not to become fungible. If the manager assigns tasks to the team members this way, no member will rely on another team member. Each member will have to work hard using their efforts. The best way to ensure this, the manager will have to classify the project components into various specific buckets such as, communication, oversight, financial and R& D. These factors not only will resolve the issue of social loafing, but also will enable the team to construct a clear roadmap that will assure best results and ensure no aspects is ignored in the task.