Organisation and Behaviour

ORGANISATIONS AND BEHAVIOUR

LO1

1.1, 1.2

This essay aims to identify the key elements between organizational structure and culture

Organizational structure can be described as the framework in which an organization operates. There are three main types of organizational structure: functional, divisional and matrix structure.

A functional structure is set up so that each portion of the organization is grouped according to its purpose. In this type of organization, for example, there may be a marketing department, a sales department and a production department. The functional structure works very well for small businesses in which each department can rely on the talent and knowledge of its workers and support itself. However, one of the drawbacks to a functional structure is that the coordination and communication between departments can be restricted by the organizational boundaries of having the various departments working separately.

A divisional structure typically is used in larger companies that operate in a wide geographic area or that have separate smaller organizations within the umbrella group to cover different types of products or market areas. For example, the now-defunct Tecumseh Products Company was organized divisionally--with a small engine division, a compressor division, a parts division and divisions for each geographic area to handle specific needs. The benefit of this structure is that requirements can be met rapidly and more specifically; however, communication is inhibited because employees in different divisions are not working together. Divisional structure is costly because of its size and scope. Small businesses can use a divisional structure on a smaller scale, having different offices in different parts of the city, for example, or assigning different sales teams to handle different geographic areas.

A matrix structure is a hybrid of divisional and functional structure. Typically used in large multinational companies, the matrix structure allows for the benefits of functional and divisional structures to exist in one organization. This can create power struggles because most areas of the company will have a dual management--a functional manager and a product or divisional manager working at the same level and covering some of the same managerial territory.

Organizational structure is closely related to culture. Culture refers to the deep-seated beliefs, values and norms that represent the unique character of an organization and also the shared goals and visions for the people in the organization. Organizational structure and culture are difficult to separate as they are intertwined and dependent on each other. Arguably, Greenscape operates a matrix structure.

1.3

Organizational structure can be described as the framework in which an organization operates. How its tasks are delegated and its leadership structure i.e. its lines of authority and communication. ‘Organization structure determines how information flows between different levels of management and employees. How roles, power and duties are delegated controlled and coordinated.” The structure an organization chooses is dependent on its objectives and the strategy employed to achieve them. Pre-globalization most organizations had a centralized structure where the power was concentrated at the top. With globalization we has seen a shift in many organizations to a more decentralized structure where decision making is more participative and decision making is power is shared and more autonomy is given to divisions and departments. The motivation of the individual's goals and aspirations, needs met in one, and not the organization: what drives us in life and in business in particular, managerial tasks to recognize the individual motivations and management tools are linked to organizational goals with individual can move resources to achieve organizational goals.

Lawler (1981) argue that the factors determining the balance motivation the efforts and expectations concerning performance relationship and the perceived attractiveness of reward. These factors are simply related links to each other, where each link is irrelevant. If an employee receives a job, which is calculated as a challenge to your skills, and be able to complete this task successfully with very nice rewarded, so trying to maximize the performance. If, however, the challenges we face are too big or too small, it will not sufficiently able to feel, or to solve the problem for the reward is not attractive enough, and it will not be effective enough. You'll be motivated and do not feel the job is important it is not going to make an effort to get the best out of the employee.

LO2

2.1

Leadership is the backbone for the success of an organization. Normally there are four types of leadership styles, which are Autocratic, Participative, Delegative and Free Reign. These leadership styles have different effectiveness in different circumstances.

Differences and similarities between the leadership styles of Max Worthy and Brenda Hogan

We can argue that Max Worthy was operating in a free reign/autocratic leadership styles where everyone had to mind its own business. Brenda Hogan was a manager using a participative management approach. The participative approach will promote integrity, great observation skills and high emotional intelligence. It also promotes openness to effective communication. Hogan wanted to involve everyone in taking part at the formulation of decisions that affected them. She created the environment for the staff to learn from each other and acquire new skills, especially managerial. In contrast, Max Worthy dictated what needed to be done to staff from a distant office. Employees became accustomed to his practices and were reluctant to adopt the new approach from Hogan. Hogan leadership style can inspire her entire team to achieve excellence by example. Her hard work and caring nature set an example for all her coworkers.

2.2, 2.3

Management takes place within a structured organisational setting with prescribed roles. It is directed towards the achievement of aims and objectives through influencing the efforts of others. Below is a discussion of three well known management theories.

Classical management theory:

It puts emphasis on structure and prescriptive what is good for firms. One of the advantages of the classical management structure is a clear organizational structure with distinct management levels. Each management group has its own objectives and responsibilities as there is division of labour. Projects are broken down into smaller tasks that are easy to complete and employees' responsibilities are clearly defined. This approach allows workers to specialize in one specific area and leads to increased productivity. Employees are motivated by monetary rewards (‘a fair day pay for a fair day work’). The leadership style is autocratic. Managers direct the employees and all decisions are made at the top level and communicated down. This is the case for the management style adopted by Max Worthy.

Human Relations Theories:

Classical theorists were concerned with structure and mechanics of organizations. But human relation theorists were concerned with the human factors at work. This was undoubtedly the management style adopted by Brenda Hogan. The human relations theory focus is on motivation, group motivation and effective leadership. At the heart of this theory is the relationship between employer and employee. According to the Human relation theory people's needs are decisive factors in achieving an organisation's objectives. Individuals cannot be treated in isolation, but function with group members.

Contingency Theories

From the late 1950s, a new approach to organisation theory was developed which became known as contingency theory. According to this theory, there is no one best way to structure an organisation. When deciding on how it should be structured, how it should be organized and how it should be managed, an organisation will face a range of choices. Successful organisations adopt appropriate structures in response to a number of variables, or contingencies, which influence both the needs of the organisation and how it works. Theorists in favour of the contingency approach recommend a diagnosis of people/ task/ technology/environment - then suggest the development of appropriate solutions (e.g. Pugh).

2.3 (some aspects of this question were discussed in 2.1 and 2.2)

From the above discussions on leadership and management styles, we can see from the case study that Max Worthy is an autocratic leader practicing some aspects of the classical management style. Brenda Hogan in contrast uses a participative approach to leadership and applies some elements of the human relation school of thought

LO3

3.1

Leadership may be defined as: the influence that particular individuals (leaders) exert upon the goal achievement of others (subordinates) in an organizational context.

Participative Leadership

Participative leadership ranges from total involvement of subordinates in planning, implementation, and evaluation to simple requests for assistance where such participation is a necessary ingredient for success. Given this fact, we can easily see that participation will not be successful in all situations. While public or community involvement will provide much better results in compiling a strategic plan for the community, you would not apply a public participation model if you were trying to escape from a burning building. Participative leadership motivates in such a way as to contribute to identifying and establishing group goals and how they can be accomplished. It can also contribute to intrinsic motivation by enriching subordinates jobs through variety, autonomy, and empowerment.

Participative leadership can also create problems. For example the time and energy spent in calling meetings, soliciting ideas and training participants may affect deadlines. The involvement of subordinates may be perceived as a loss or sharing of power, thus creating resentment at the leadership level. This may affect the performance of leaders which in turn, may affect subordinate performance. Some workers may not want to be involved in the decision-making aspects of jobs. When the leader is distrusted or when a poor labor relations climate is present, subordinates may see their participation as “doing management’s job”.

3.2

There are a number of different views as to what motivates workers. Arguably, the most commonly used and widely popular theory of motivation is Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. In this theory, basic needs are fulfilled before a higher level need becomes a motivator for the employee. Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation". Maslow subsequently extended the idea to include his observations of humans' innate curiosity. His theories parallel many other theories of human developmental psychology, some of which focus on describing the stages of growth in humans. Maslow used the terms Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem, Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence needs to describe the pattern that human motivations generally move through.

Physiological needs include pay, good working conditions (temperature, ventilation, seating and dining breaks), increased performance incentive bonuses. Safety needs include job security, safe working conditions, costs and benefits (social) benefits. Social needs include good working atmosphere, and friendly boss directly subordinate relation, fostering cooperation between people. Esteem needs include public recognition of good performance, good sounding titles, ranks donation, promotion, self-reliance and responsibility increasing. Self-actualization needs include self-employment, job enrichment, training and development, creativity, high results are encouraging.

3.3

The motivation of the individual's goals and aspirations, needs met in one, and not the organization: what drives us in life and in business in particular. Managerial tasks to recognize the individual motivations and management tools are linked to organizational goals with individual can move resources to achieve organizational goals.

Lawler, E. (1981) argues that factors determine motivation is associated to the efforts and expectations concerning performance relationship and the perceived attractiveness of reward. These factors are simply related to each other, where each link is irrelevant. If an employee receives a job, which is calculated as a challenge to your skills, and be able to complete this task successfully with very nice rewarded, so trying to maximize the performance. If, however, the challenges we face are too big or too small, it will not sufficiently able to feel, or to solve the problem for the reward is not attractive enough, and it will not be effective enough. You'll be motivated and do not feel the job is important, it is not going to make an effort to get the best out of himself. That's why the conscious leaders to pay attention to the significance of this.

LO4

4.1

Groups and teams are a major feature within an organization. Salas et al. (1992, P4) argue that “Teams can be conceived to fall on a continuum. At one extreme fall highly structured, independent teams, at the other extreme fall teams, whose members interact minimally and perform individual tasks in a group context. The placement of a team is probably moderated by the task demands imposed on the team”. They then focus on the more highly structured independent teams: For our purpose, a team is defined as a distinguishable set of two or more people who interact, dynamically, independently and adaptively toward a common and valued goal/objective/mission, who have each been assigned specific roles or functions to perform, and who have a limited lifespan of membership … The central point of the definition is that task completion requires: (a) a dynamic exchange of information and resources among team members, (b) coordination of task activities (e.g., active communication, back-up behaviours), (c) constant adjustments to task demands, and (d) some organisational structuring of members. The work organization and its sub-units are made of, are groups of people. Most activities of the organization require at least some degree of co-ordination through the operation of teamwork. Therefore an understanding of the nature of groups is vital if the manager is to influence the behavior of people in the work situation. Groups are an essential feature of the work pattern of any organization. Members of a group co-operate in order for work to be carried out and managers themselves work within the groups. People in groups influence each other in many ways and may develop their own hierarchy and leaders.

Also, group pressures can have a major influence over the behaviour of individual members and their performance. The activities of the group are associated with the process of leadership. The style of leadership adopted by the manager has an important influence on the behaviour of members of the group.

4.2

An effective team requires cohesion and coordination that is held together by several factors. In order to understand how to assemble an efficient team, you first need to know the factors affecting effective teamwork. Teams are driven by a common goal. In order to have effective teams, common goal needs to be specified in advance and understood by team members. One of the factors affecting team work is compensation.

A team works well when the members understand what they will be compensated for their efforts and are rewarded accordingly. However when people have their compensation expectations laid out before they sign an agreement to join the team, compensation can be removed as an obstacle to effective teamwork. If all team members feel they are being compensated fairly, that can help lead to maximum productivity. Another hindrance to team work is communication. Communication in developing an effective team happens on two levels: communication between team members and communication from management to the team. Encourage open communication among teammates so they can learn how each other communicates. According to online business resource Business Town, this means informal communication as well as professional communication. Encourage interaction between team members outside of the office to develop better communication. Managers should hold regular meetings to keep a team updated on important information and to offer training. These are the kinds of tools a team needs from management and the company to be effective. Conflict is the widely known disadvantage of teamwork. It tends to throw a team off of its main objectives. However, by learning to tackle conflict immediately, a team can remain effective at all times.

4.1

The use of new technologies can improve the functioning of a team or can hinder it. As technology changes constantly teams must keep their knowledge abreast in order to function effectively. Technologies which have improved team functions include e-mail, mobile phones and computers.

E-mail allows communication among team members which means team members do not need to be in the same place all the time to communicate effectively. Mobile phones allow teams to communicate orally even when team members are out of the office, on the road or unavailable in another country. Personal computers allow team members to carry out various tasks and communicate more effectively. Laptop computers allow you to do this anywhere. They are now lighter, more powerful and a longer battery life. Personal Digital Assistants (PDA) now have much of the same functionality as their bigger cousins, but are smaller, more portable and have a longer battery life. Many PDAs now have wifi as standard and some are also phones (and some phones have many PDA features).