Qualification - Higher National Diploma in Business Administration
Unit Name - Organizational Behavior
Unit Number - BUS 501
Assignment Title - Understanding and Implementing Organisational Behavior Theories and Concepts in the Organisational Context
Learning Outcome 1: Analyse the influence of culture, politics, and power on the behaviour of others in an organizational context
Learning Outcome 2: Evaluate how to motivate individuals and teams to achieve a goal
Learning Outcome 3: Demonstrate an understanding of how to cooperate effectively with others
Learning Outcome 4: Apply concepts and philosophies of organisational behaviour to a given business situation
Looking For Quality BUS 501 Organizational Behavior - Higher National Diploma in Business Administration Assignment Help Services? Hire Our Prolific Stalwarts For Unmatched Assistance On The Go
Your work as an organisational behaviour specialist assistant in Google. You have been selected to join an international business forum about the implementation of the organisational behaviour concepts in an organisation.
You are assigned to prepare a case study handout about Google or any other organization (it can be your own organization where you work or any company of your own choice) regarding importance of understanding and applying organizational behaviour approaches and concepts in achieving organizational goals effectively and efficiently considering the importance of organizational culture and cultural- diversity, power and organizational politics, motivational theories, and the influence of organizational behaviour on individual and team performance.
Furthermore, this case study handout should include the importance of cooperating with others to achieve organizational goals, overcome challenging problems the barriers to effective team performance, considering the importance of working within groups and teams, applying team development theories and concept such as Belbin theory, improving teamwork by applying leadership theories such as path- goal theory, and soft and hard skills.
Introduction
Analysis of organisational behavior of a company can help to identify issues facing by the company and various solutions to resolve those issues can be planned by following different models and theories. This report contains cultural, political, and power distribution of the selected organization that influences individual and team behavior and performance. Explanations of two behavioral motivations such as Maslow's hierarchy of needs and McClelland needs theory are discussed for a better understanding of team management. Tuckman and Belbin's theories will help in the understandingof the core concepts of team and group development theory. Types of leadership and different types of teams are discussed. Impacts of theories and philosophies of team development and various recommendations are provided at the later part of the report. The chosen organisation for this report is Google Company.
Critically analyse how the culture, politics and power influence individual and team behavior and performance.
Solution:
Power, politics, and culture on Individual and team behaviour and performance enables teams and organisations to succeed
Google follows a philosophy of not planning anything loud. Constant experimentation followed by further improvement helps in achieving the success of the organisation. A successful company runs on the backbone of its great people. One method of catching the attention of such people is by making their work more exciting. The culture of Google focuses on innovation and it is considered to be the important factor for achieving the success of the Google business.
Google has a matrix organizational structure in which all the employees have the right to freely express themselves during the meetings with the managers. But in 2018 a video was leaked by one of the employees to Breitbart during the time of the meeting while Google employees were opposing Trump's agenda, relating to immigration (The Verge, 2021). Several hearings were conducted by the lawmakers who embarrass the concerned company. After this Google CEO Sundar Pichai introduced a new set of guidelines for the communities banning disruptive behaviours such as name-calling, political debates, in order to not to spend time debating about non-work topics during the working time (Inc.com., 2021)
According to Charles Handy, any power culture can be described as a spider's web where the key spiders will be positioned at the center of the web. This type of culture may give an organization a fast response time in any situation but the organization becomes heavily dependent on the spider in the middle like the CEO. Power culture like Google is not team-based rather individual-based. From the above discussion in the politics section, it is evident how an individual can influence an organization both in negative and positive ways. Applying appropriate measures like the introduction of new community guidelines keeps the firm integrity intact.
A strong corporate culture, minimalistic political misbalance, and presence of power culture separate them from other companies. Their unique way of corporate structure helps the company to stay on top.
Critically Evaluate how the organization can achieve its goals and influence the behaviors of others through application of content and process theories of motivation and motivational techniques.
Solution:
Theories of motivation and motivational techniques
Maslow's hierarchy of needs
Maslow's hierarchy of needs model can be used to motivate the employees. Employee's job satisfaction dependent on salary is only about 20 percent (Essounga and Hughes, 2018). Nowadays companies are using certain benefit packages rather than salaries and wages by keeping the needs in mind. Maslow's hierarchy of needs explains, five different needs such as physiological needs other than monetary bonuses, workers'need subscription-based or free food at work, various fitness centers at work, and vacation time. Google is already offering free food to their employees and free gym memberships and yoga programs. Safety is the second need like, health insurance, financial planning like 401(k).
The concerned company has doctors and nurses on-site as well and also coverage for health care is also provided. The third need is love or belonging, in order to fulfill this need concerned company is also allowed to bring their pets with them in the office, this helps to keep the energy of the employees at peak. The fourth need is esteem, unless an employee breaks a serious policy of the concerned company majority of the employees are respected in the work environment. Self-improvement is the fifth need of the employees, concerned companies always encourage their employees to be updated with the latest information, for this various lectures and presentations of tech talks are made accessible to the employees. Benefits and perks provided by this company motivate the employees in all five phases of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Critically evaluate and provide justified recommendations as how the relationship between culture, politics, power and motivation enables teams and organisations to succeed.
Solution:
McClelland's Theory of Motivation
David McClelland developed the acquired needs theory in order to explain human motivation. According to McClelland, based on experiences humans' needs are acquired over the course of their lifetime (McClelland, 2005). He divided them into three categories. First is the need for achievement where Google makes available many opportunities to achieve. According to Inc. Google introduced the 80/20 rule. This rule allows employees to serve 80% of their time to their main job and the remaining 20% time on their projects out of passion which may help the company in the future (D'onfro, 2015). Ideas that are generated by the employees in this 20% of the time prove to be an important asset to the organization. As an example, Gmail was created by one of the employees in this 20% time (D'onfro, 2015). The second need is the need for power. The concerned company also offers workers an environment to achieve a position in which the particular employee has power. Power over employees by the higher-level employees or managers is one of the examples. Employees who do not hold these positions always have the opportunity to be advanced into these positions based on merit. One example of power given to all levels of employees is in Google's TGIF programs in which the organisation conducts weekly meetings where the company's issues can be directly discussed with the organization's top leaders (D'onfro, 2015). The last need is the need for affiliation. This organization empowers its employees to consider themselves as a group of people united together by their extraordinary and their skills.
Expert Business Writers At Your Service To Get Guaranteed Top Grades With Business Assignment Help!
Identify the mix of knowledge, skills and experience necessary for teams such as cross-functional team, problem solving team, or/ and self- managed team to fulfil their functions in Google or any other organization
Solution:
Identification of mix of knowledge, skills, and experiences required for teams
Cross-functional team
Groups, that consist of people from different functional divisions of the company like the product, marketing, customer success, and sales. Each member belongs to their functional team as well as their cross-functional team.
These are temporary teams focused on solving specific issues. This consists of various workshops with the existing team like the management team in order to discover solutions to specific work-related problems and develops an implementation plan as well.
Self-managed team
A group of employees is accountable for and responsible for producing a product or delivering a product. Unlike traditional organisational structures that assign tasks based on employee specialist skills, a self-managed team works on supporting tasks like scheduling and planning the task flow. Technical responsibilities and management are generally rotated among the members of the team. This team tends to be less costly and often more productive than the traditional team structure.
Apply theories such as Tuckman and Belbin theories and leadership styles of the leaders to support the development of dynamic cooperation and influence behaviour in a positive and negative way in Google business context.
Solution:
Applications of Team and group development theories along with leadership styles
Tuckman theory of team management
Bruce Tuckman in his paper Developmental Sequence in small groups in 1965 introduced 5 phrases that describe the path for high performance. In the forming stage, the beginning of a new team takes place, this period is to clearly understand the team's objectives, knowing the team leader and colleagues. The next stage is storming where employees push the boundaries of the organization to some extent causing a conflict between team members. In this stage, authorities are challenged by the team members. Followed by this is the norming stage where team members resolve their issues, start respecting their leaders and eventually respecting each other's weaknesses and strengths. Next in the performing stage team performs to its full potential. Well-organized processes with hard work help an organization to achieve its goals. The last stage is the adjourning stage where the purpose for this team is finally achieved and the team is discontinued (Johnson et al.,2020)
Belbin theory of team management
Belbin acknowledged nine team roles categorized into three groups action-oriented, people-oriented, and thought-oriented. Under action-oriented three roles are shapers who challenge the team to improve and enjoy energizingothers;they see hurdles as a challenge. Their weakness is that they are argumentative in nature. The second is implementer, these are the people who complete their given tasks at any cost by practicing the team's ideas and practice. Their weakness is most often they act rigid, inflexible towards change. The third is the complete finisher, who monitors the completion of projects and also keeps eye on errors. Their weakness is unnecessary worries. Three roles under people-oriented roles are coordinator referred to as the chairmen and take on as the traditional team leader role.
Guide the team to achieve the team's objectives. Their weakness often consists of being manipulative and discharging away too many personal responsibilities. Second is the team worker whose job is to ensure that people are working together effectively. They are the negotiators in the team percept, diplomatic and flexible in nature. Their weakness is having indecisive tendencies and miss-committing their team members.
The third is resource investigators, they are curious and innovative; they help in developing contacts and negotiates for resources on behalf of the team. Their weakness is in the loss of enthusiasm rapidly. The last three roles under thought-oriented roles are planted; these are the innovators discovering new approaches and ideas. Their weakness is ignoring given constraints and parameters. The second is a monitor evaluator whose work is evaluating and analysing ideas that other people come up with. Their weakness is the lack of motivational factors. Last is the specialist whose specialized knowledge keeps the team is going. Their weakness is the limit of their contribution (Flores et al., 2018).
Leadership types
Autocratic style- This type of leader is very ruler in nature and believes them to be the smartest people in the group. They try to make decisions based on their opinion and take little input from their team members. Best suited for in times when crucial for decision making and among new team members (Al Khajeh, 2018). This particular style is not suited the majority of the time in the context of Google as the organisation hires people for their mind and restricting to think can prove to be a disadvantage for the organisation.
Democratic style- This type of leader always takes opinions from their team members. This style harbours trust and boosts team spirit and eventually, employees start cooperating. This type of leader helps employees to develop and work creatively. Encourages employees to do what they want to be done in a way that leaders want to do. Google is a company whose innovation is the priority should hire leaders of this particular style for the wellbeing of the company.
Explain what makes an effective team as opposed to an ineffective team and assess the benefits of working in a team
Solution:
Effective VS ineffective team
Effective groups support to the point discussions on which the group disagrees, this introduces healthy conflict to implement any change in ideas before making the final decision. Whereas an ineffective group defends any new idea and very soon agrees to their viewpoint. Though this way task completion becomes faster the issue is never solved. Moreover, working in any team proves to be beneficial, which reduces workload, boosts productivity, and increases the level of creativity.
Critically apply, analyse, explore, and evaluate the relevance and importance of team and group development theories in organizational context.
Solution:
Mix of team models to fulfil the functions in Google
The cross-functional team can also work as a problem-solving team; this can save the cost of creating an individual team. Self-managed teams are needed when a product is already designed and all the problems are already solved in order to keep the flow of supply to meet the demands. A cross-functional type of team existence is beneficial for a company like Google where the company has a lot of functions. Different perspectives of people working together can improve problem-solving abilities and help to make the sustainable decision making. Rather than competing for resources these teams often collaborate to enhance the use of money, time and to improve customer satisfaction.
Turn Your Assignment Nightmares Into A Pleasant Reality With Our Diploma Assignment Help Service!
Critically analyse and evaluate the impact of theories, concepts, and philosophies of team development to improve performance and productivity in the workplace.
Solution:
Impact of theories, concepts, and philosophies
Recommendations for Team development
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs though being old still proves to be the best method in motivating employees for achieving the goals of the company, but during this COVID-19 situation, the company issued an updated policy stating employees of Google will not be able to take advantage of the perks that they were getting at the office because now most of the workers are working from home. According to the report, Google did cut half of its budget and stop hiring new employees as well (Cnbc, 2021). The solution for this problem can be the addition of more health benefits so that it can help employees in this pandemic while maintaining the satisfaction of them as well. But in the esteem phase, a little tighter guideline in the freedom section is necessary for further avoidance of political debates.
- Tuckman and Belbin's theory can be used both while creating new teams. Tuckman provides a guideline for the formation of the team and Belbin for the guidelines of choosing the right people according to their behavioural characteristics.
- Democratic style of leadership is largely accepted than autocratic in order to maintain the constant flow of innovation.
The cross-functional team can also work as a problem-solvingteam; this can save the cost of creating an individual team. Self-managed teams are needed when a product is already designed and all the problems are already solved in order to keep the flow of supply to meet the demands.
Conclusion
From the study, it can be concluded that Google is already an established company that applied various theories and models to achieve the company's goals, like following Maslow's hierarchy of needs and McClelland need theory. This helps in keeping the motivation of the employees in place. This organisation has a strong corporate culture and is politically stable as well. Tuckman and Belbin's model showed guidelines on the formation of new teams and characteristics to look for while hiring. Under the hands of democratic leader chances of a boost for the company are expected. Establishing severalself-managed teams can keep up with the supply and demand needs.