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Introduction

Background information

Organisational behaviour has become one of the most important areas of research as scholars seek to find its relevance in improving the performance of organisations. Several scholars have defined organisational behaviour in various ways. Singh (2010, p. 78) defines organisational behaviour as The study of human behaviour in organisational settings, the interface between human behaviour and the organisation, and the organisation itself. This scholar observes that the way an individual would behave as an independent entity is very different from his or her behaviour when acting within an organisation (Chaitanya & Tripathi 2001, p. 220). When acting on behalf of a group or acting within a group, there are some factors that would have a sharp influence on ones behaviour. This would make the behaviour different from that when one is acting as an individual and when is with the family or friends. According to French (2011, p. 39), organisational behaviour defines the organisational performance. It is suggested that the manner in which members of a given organisation behave will always define the way they address their duties (Mills 2007, p. 93). With the current competitive world market, most organisations are forced to find ways of developing the appropriate organisational behaviour that promotes teamwork, innovation, and the desire by the employees to push an extra mile whenever they are addressing their assigned duties.

The airline industry- and many other industries- are faced with numerous challenges, top of which are stiff competition, rising fuel cost, and the unstable market. Hong Kong Airline Limited has suffered from these problems as it seeks to gain ground in this fragile industry. However, sometimes the management finds it very challenging to address some of the pertinent problems because of the contrasting needs of the employees. According to Perkins and Arvinen (2013, p. 119), employees are very important part of any organisation. Their role in any firm will be directly reflected in the performance of that firm (Ranganayakulu 2005, p. 39). When the top management develops policies that are meant to address some of the challenges identified above, the employees are always expected to implement them in order to obtain the desired results (Aquinas 2006, p. 48). This can only be possible if there is a positive organisational behaviour that will strongly bind the employees to act in a specific way when addressing specific issues (Bissell & Dolan 2011, p. 38). The researcher suggests that the three elements of organisational behaviour of teamwork, innovativeness, and commitment are highly desirable in the current competitive business environment.

Hong Kong Airlines Ltd has been keen on offering quality services to its employees. It has achieved success through concerted effort of its employees to attract customers from China and other neighbouring countries. However, there has been a problem when it comes to managing some elements of organisational behaviour within this firm, especially when it comes to teamwork. The firm has not been able to come up with an effective organisational behaviour that can address the issue of how the employees should relate amongst themselves, and with the management unit. It is because of this that the researcher considered it necessary to investigate organisational behaviour at this firm to determine how it can be improved to address this problem at this firm.

Research problem, objectives and questions

The overall aim of this research is to determine the impact of organisational behaviour on organisational performance. The researcher seeks to determine how organisations can influence the performance of their individual employees by inculcating a positive organisational behaviour within the firm. To determine this, the researcher chose Hong Kong Airline as the organisation to base the research. The following are the specific objectives that the research seeks to achieve.

To determine the relationships between elements of organisational behaviour and organisational performance
To determine how the leadership of this organisation can influence the elements of organisational behaviour.

Based on the above objectives, it was important to develop research questions that would guide the process of collecting data. Walker (2011, p. 62) observes that when collecting both the primary and the secondary data, a researcher will always encounter massive information, some of which may be irrelevant but very interesting. The questions give a clear focus of the information that should be gathered both from the primary and secondary sources (Chis, Kemp & Legge 2007, p. 91). The research questions describing the process of data collection must reflect this (Randhawa 1997, p. 340). The following are some of the specific questions that the researcher seeks to respond to in this study.

1. To what extent does organisational behaviour influence organisational performance?
2. To what extent does the management of the firm under investigation try to inculcate positive organisational behaviour in their organisation?
3. What is the impact of teamwork on increasing the employee productivity
4. What is the impact of teamwork on organisational performance at the firm under investigation?

Importance of the research

Hong Kong Airlines Limited is operating in an industry that is highly sensitive and very competitive. A team of self-motivated and innovative employees can be valuable for this organisation in order to achieve success (Robbins, Odendaal & Roodt 2003, p. 74). The employees who directly interact with the customers should always maintain a positive attitude when handling the customers (Chand & Sethi 1997, p. 456). This will boost their level of satisfaction. Other employees in other areas must also maintain a positive workplace environment in order to promote teamwork when addressing various tasks. This can only be achieved when there is a sound organisational behaviour based on strong organisational policies (Parikh & Gupta 2010, p. 93).

The organisation has not been able to find appropriate policies that can help it address this problem because of some erratic organisational behaviour (Dayal & Adhikari 1970, p. 478). Conducting this research on the firm- and other related organisations- is justified because it seeks to find a way through which the current problem can be addressed (Rangnekar 2009, p. 372). It is expected that by the end of this research, the policy recommendations will be able to address some of the existing problems in managing the employees at this firm.

Scope of the study

According to Zsóka (2007, p. 31), it is always vital to clearly define the scope of the study in order to make the consumers of its content to understand its relevance under different contexts. This will eliminate cases of wrong application of the contents of this document. The secondary data in this research was collected from journals, books, newspapers, and other reliable internet sources (Dwivedi 2001, p. 410). Most of the secondary sources of data were based on varying environmental contexts and in different companies across the world. It has captured information from various companies in different countries from different perspectives (Rastogi 1996, p. 540). However, the researcher confined the process of collecting the primary data to a single company and in a particular country. All the primary data were collected from the employees of Hong Kong Airlines Limited in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Airlines Limited was appropriate because it was close enough to the researcher, and regular visits could be made without any strain. When using the information in this report based on the primary data, this fact should be considered in order to avoid a wrong application.

Chapter outline

It is important to discuss the outline of this dissertation at this stage. In chapter 2, the academic context is identified and discussed. A framework for this research is developed from the review of the literature. In chapter 3, the methodology for sampling, data gathering, data analysis, validity and reliability is explained and justified. In chapter 4, the findings from primary and secondary research will be analysed and discussed.

In chapter 5 the summary of the findings from all the chapters are clearly discussed and the implications are given.

Literature Review

The field of the organisational behaviour has attracted massive attention from scholars as they try to find the best ways through which organisations can achieve the best performance using their human resource. According to Yong and Altman (2009, p. 102), Organisational Behaviour is the study and application of knowledge about how people, individuals, and groups act in organisations. It seeks to determine how people relate among themselves and with the entire organisation in the process of undertaking their duties. Employees form an important resource in helping firms to achieve their strategic objectives. The individual output of a person has a direct impact on the final output of the organisation.

According to Willis and Hunt (2004, p. 638), employees cannot exist within an organisation in isolation. They need to interact, and find ways through which they can address some of the challenges they face during their work. This is what the study of organisational behaviour entails. Dwivedi (2002, p. 265) says, Organisational behaviour interprets people-organisation relationships in terms of the whole person, whole group, whole organisation, and whole social system with a view of building a better relationships by achieving individual, organisational, and social objectives. From this definition, it is clear that organisational behaviour is a broad field that encompasses various topics. As Dwivedi (2006, p. 536) notes, some of the important components of organisational behaviour include elements, social systems, organisational development, work life, change, and models, some of which, will be discussed in this section.

Organisational behaviour has been considered one of the areas that play an important role in improving organisational performance. Three main elements have significant impact on organisational performance. The type of leadership that is used in an organisation will define the ability of a firm to be successful. A leader who understands the needs of the employees and is able to balance the interests of all the stakeholders within an organisation will make an organisation successful in its operations. Group dynamics is the second element that defines how well employees can work as a unit to address common problems within their working environment. Finally, communication strategies are important in the normal coordination of employees and other stakeholders within a firm. All these elements can be understood adequately through organisational behaviour studies. These elements are critically analyzed in the section below.

Elements of Organisational Behaviour

In every organisation, it is important to understand the elements of organisational behaviour and their effect on the quality of life at work for the employees. According to Farnham (2004, p. 430), understanding the organisational behaviour starts with a proper understanding of its goals, vision, and values which are the fundamental elements. The elements are important in defining an organisational behaviour, especially the manner in which employees undertake their duties within a given firm. In turn, Finlayson (1975, p. 36) says that organisational behaviour directly influence the type of leadership, group dynamics, and communication strategies that an organisation uses in its normal operational activities.

These three elements determine the quality of work life for the employees within an organisation. The motivation of the employees in an organisation will depend on their perception towards the work life as presented by the above three elements. If they consider their work life to be of high quality, they will be motivated, and this will be reflected in their output. If they feel that they are ignored, and that the system is unfair, their level of motivation will be very low, and this will be reflected in their output (Gandhi 1992, p. 292). Excellence in performance by the employees is closely related to the way they perceive their level of satisfaction. It is clear, therefore, that these elements are interrelated, and depending on how one it is treated, it may have a positive or negative ripple effect with the final output affecting the organisational performance.

Organisational Behaviour Models

According to Gaper (2002, p. 24), in order to understand the concept of the organisational behaviour, it is important to analyse its models, and their relevance in different contexts. The four models include autocratic, supportive, custodial, and collegial systems (Garial, Singh & Chattered 2007, p. 450).

Autocratic

In an autocratic system, the power rests with the manager whose authority cannot be questioned by the employees. The employees are expected to be very obedient to their boss who issues instructions on how tasks are to be undertaken by different individuals. This authoritarian approach to management is slowly fading away in competitive organisations (Reddy & Gayathri 2000, p. 65). According to (), autocratic leadership has negative impact on teamwork and employees commitment. It creates the impression that employees are just tools to be used by the leader to achieve personal gains. This in turn will affect their productivity in the firm.

Custodial

According to Helmut, Anheier and Ben-Ner (1997, p. 95), this model emphasises on the relevance of using economic resources to control and motivate employees within an organisation. This model holds that every employee is always interested in working for an organisation that pays well. For this reason, they feel that the organisation is the custodian of their monetary needs if such an organisation pays well. An organisation should take advantage of this and pay its employees at competitive rates as a way of boosting their performance. Custodial model is very appropriate when it comes to encouraging innovativeness among employees. As () notes, when employees are comfortable with their working conditions, they tend to be more innovative. This will boost their performance at work.

Supportive

The managerial orientation of this model lays on the need for the leaders to offer relevant support to the employees in their respective duties (Jain, Jain & Dhar 2004, p. 330). Sometimes it may be necessary to offer some kind of guidance to the employees, especially when they are addressing tasks that are relatively new to them. In this model, the focus is on the job performance. The need for the employee at this stage may be recognition out of exemplary work or status within the firm. This model seeks to encourage commitment among the employees as a way of booting performance results of the employees.

Collegial

The fourth model seeks to motivate partnership between the management unit and the employees, or among the employees themselves. The model holds that teamwork is very crucial for the overall success of an organisation. Sometimes the management may ignore the force of working as a team, and this may negatively affect the overall performance of the organisation (Reddy & Gayathri 2000, p. 340). The model also seeks to instil self-discipline as employees learn to interact positively with others in order to coexist peacefully.

The first model of autocracy was majorly used during the industrial revolution when there was a massive distrust between employers and employees. It is based on McGregors Theory X, which holds that employees are always lazy, and for them to work as per the expectations there is need for the leader to make regular supervision of their work (Saiyadain 2003, p. 10). This explains why this model gives the leader absolute authority over the employees. For a leader to direct a group of lazy employees looking for excuses that can make them abscond their duties, he or she needs such kind of authority that would make him or her revered.

The other three models have more inclination towards McGregors Theory Y, which states that employees are self-motivated individuals who are always willing to deliver the best results even without direct supervision (Sayeed 1992, p. 350). The Transformational Leadership Theory has supported this modern approach. This new system seeks to empower the employees and take the supervisory tasks from the managers to the employees themselves. In this approach, individual employees are expected to evaluate their performance and determine if they meet the expected standards. With the use of the right motivational approaches, this has been determined to be the most effective strategy that can help individual employees to change their perception of being mere employees, to being active members of their organisation (Sharma & Joshi 2001, p. 210). They will assume the responsibility of making the organisation successful in its operations.

Social Systems, Organisational Culture, and Individualisation in the Workplace

According to Jyotsna and Sheetal (2005, p. 468), A social system is a complex set of human relationships interacting in many ways. In an organisational setting, the behaviour of an individual may have a direct or indirect impact on other members of the organisation. It means that in this system, a given behavioural pattern of an individual cannot be considered to affect just that one individual (Sharma & Mohapatra 2009, p. 440). They system will get affected by such behaviour in one way or the other, and for this reason, it is important to define how individual should behave while in the organisation. Through consistence, the leadership of an organisation should make an effort to create an organisational behaviour that will define how employees are expected to behave.

Kang and Singh (2006, p. 201) say that developing practices, customs and beliefs within an organisation may need high level of consistency and communication because some employees may resist change even if they are aware that it is necessary. People will depend on the set-up structures to define their behavioural pattern while in a firm. Katuwal and Randhawa (2007, p. 244) define individualisation as A situation when employees successfully exert influence on the social system by challenging the culture. This is very common when working with a team of innovative employees who are always interested in challenging the existing system. This approach is always core in maintaining a competitive environment within an organisation. The diagram below shows the way individualisation may affect different firms.

Impact of Individualization on an Organization — Source: (Mangham 1998, p. 318).

In the first quadrant marked A, there is very low level of individualisation and socialisation which results into isolation. This happens when employees try to avoid free interaction with other employees or members of the organisation. It is not healthy for the overall performance of the organisation. In the second quadrant marked B, there is little socialisation with a high level of individualisation. This means that employees have a strong urge to change the current system that they do not believe in, but the system does not allow them to socialise in order to change the existing system (Sharma 1997, p. 209). This would lead to rebellion among the employees as they struggle to make themselves heard by the relevant authorities.

In the third quadrant marked C, there is high level of socialisation, but low rate of individualisation. In this quadrant, employees interact freely, but they are not able to challenge the existing systems because of various factors. For this reason, they are forced to conform to the existing system even if they are not comfortable with it. In the fourth quadrant marked D, there is high level of socialisation and high rate of individualisation (Singh & Warrier 1985, p. 340). This is the most desirable quadrant both for the employees and for the employees. In this system, employees are at liberty to socialise freely with the fellow employees or seniors officers. They also have strong urge to develop new ways of addressing various tasks within their workplace. Their innovative thoughts will be supported by an enabling environment, which would result into creative individualism. According to Michael (2004, p. 96), very few firms are able to achieve creative individualism because of a number of reasons. It is not easy to have a system that not only allows for close interaction among employees and between the employer and the employees. This in effect, will always frustrate the innovative minds of the employees, a fact that may lead to rebellion.

Organisational Development

Ketola (2006, 160) defines organisational development as A systematic application of the behavioural science knowledge at various levels, such as group, inter-group, and in organisations to bring about the planned change. Organisational development seeks to promote the working environment of the employees, the productivity of the organisation, its ability to adapt to the environmental forces, and efficiency in its processes (Singh 2005, p. 217). A comprehensive process addresses all the systems and stakeholders in order to promote satisfaction and performance. To achieve this, it focuses on transforming attitude, values, behaviour, strategies, structures, and procedures within an organisational system in order to match the changing environmental forces (Michie & Williams 2003, p. 8). This way, the stakeholders within the organisation will be able to realise that the positive change they desire starts with them. They have to embrace the emerging technologies and be ready to address environmental forces that may affect their operations in different ways. As Kothiyal (2005, p. 120) says, organisational development is humanistic in nature. It lays emphasis on the potential of the employees to deliver success to an organisation. It embraces change, focuses on problem solving strategies, and employs experimental learning as ways of managing the changing environmental forces.

Quality of work life

It is always a general belief that employees would be interested in organisations that offer attractive remunerations. However, this is slowly changing with the emerging group of workers who prefer working in less stressful organisations. According to the research by Leach (1999, p. 285), most organisation have failed to reinvent their workplace environment to reflect the current needs of the employees. The employees themselves solely determine quality of work life, and the remunerations offered is just a fraction of what it constitutes. Employees, being human being, always prefer working in an environment where they are treated with respect. They want their leaders to be considerate when addressing various issues. This means that the management approach used in an organisation may play a pivotal role in determining the quality of work life. Having work programs which are regard and non-responsive to the changing systems in the environment may be very stressful to the employees (Strunk, Schiffinger & Mayrhofer 2004, p. 504). The management must ensure that they are responsive to the environmental changes, and be ready to listen to their junior employees and address their concern whenever they arise.

The approach used in assigning duties may also affect the quality of work life. Lysons (2004, p. 288) notes that employees enjoy doing what they have the best knowledge in so that they can celebrate their success. When employees are assigned tasks that are unique to them, they may be frustrated as they undertake their duties, and this may have negative impact on the quality of work life. Promoting teamwork and high level of interaction among the employees may be another strategy of improving the quality work life (Tripathi & Tripathi 2002, p. 170). Sometimes it may be necessary to allow employees to interact freely in order to promote a scenario where employees are able to help one another in case of difficulties (Blunt 1995, p. 112). A junior manager should find it easy to visit a mid level or a senior manager to help him or her address a problem in her tasks. Both will be able to learn new things in their management roles. Maintaining a high quality work life will help in maintaining a team of motivated employees, which in turn will boot the performance of the organisation (Nilakant 2001, p. 111).

Change

Change in an organisational context is unavoidable, yet the most complex task that organisations always struggle to implement in their system. Conformity is always popular among many employees and even managers (Omer & Jain 2001, p. 244). People want to work with systems they are well aware of so that they avoid making mistakes. However, when presented with new systems that may require them to re-evaluate their skills and competence, they developed a feeling that their capacity to hold their current offices is put in question or under investigation (Cassematis & Wortley 2013, p. 620). This creates some discomfort even among some of the best performers. It is the discomfort that most employees are scared of, making them reluctant to accept change.

Panda (2008, p. 425) warns that change is something that an organisation cannot avoid because environmental forces are not static. Failing to adjust the organisational systems to be in line with the current environmental forces is a sure way of planning to fail. Pandey (1997, p. 45) observes that Kodak was almost sent out of the market it once controlled because of its mistake of avoiding change whose time had come. Other firms have been eliminated because of avoiding change or being too slow in their change management to address the changing environmental patterns (Biswas 1998, p. 72). Any organisation that seeks to achieve better performance with its workforce must have a clear strategy that it plans to use when addressing the issue of change (Tripathi, Kapok & Tripathi 2000, p. 36). It is only through this that employees can remain relevant to the organisation.

Classical Organisation Theory

The classical organisation theory is one of the oldest theories that were very useful, especially before the First World War (Biswas, Srivastava & Giri 2007, p. 34). The theory held that the market is always self-regulated, and the most important thing that organisations should focus on is the production of goods (Tsahuridu & Vandekerckhove 2008, p. 110). This means that the system meant for the production of goods had to be protected at all costs. However, the theory ignored two important stakeholders who play pivotal role in a firms success. It never considered the interests of the customers or the employees. This theory could have been relevant during that period when major companies did not face any serious competition in the market (Panda & Gupta 2003, p. 155). It may not work in the current system. This is specifically so because it ignored the interests of the employees. It assumed that employees within an organisation have no alternative but to work within the firm to earn a living. This assumption may have been valid during that period, especially just before the industrial revolution. It is unfortunate that some organisations are still applying some of the concepts of this theory (Bhatnagar 2006, p. 54). This may explain why some of the giant firms are struggling to manage the needs of their organisations.

Neoclassical Organisation Theory

The Neoclassical organisational theory was a direct effort to address some of the misconceptions that were common in the classical organisation theory (Pattanayak, Misra & Niranjana 2003, p. 2002). Mayo was one of the theorists who came out strongly to challenge the classical organisational theories because of some obvious lapses it had. In defining the neoclassical organisational theory, Paul and Anantharaman (2001, p. 264) say, Organisation is a system of consciously coordinated activities, and the executive has an important role of creating an atmosphere where there is coherence of values and purpose. This scholar emphasises on the need for the leaders to find ways of managing their employees in a way that would enhance their satisfaction (Bhal 2005, p. 378). Sometimes management units tend to ignore some pertinent issues affecting their employees within an organisation. These issues may have a direct negative impact on the ability of a firm to achieve its objectives that rely on the output of the employees (Bhal & Gulati 2004, 15). The neoclassical organisation theory has been the bedrock upon which many of the current organisational theories have been developed.

Contingency Theory

The Contingency Theory of organisation has been seen as a superior model of managing the organisational problems than the above two theories. While classical and neoclassical organisational theories emphasised on the need to avoid conflicts as a way of evading their disruptive nature, the contingency theory focuses on how to address these conflicts because they are unavoidable. Prasad (1995, p. 335) says that conflicts within an organisation should not be avoided because it is always manageable. The important thing is always to determine ways through which such conflicts can be addressed to the satisfaction of all the involved stakeholders. This theory has been widely used to address the problem of managing change within an organisation (Rajeshwari 1999, p. 420). External environmental forces are dynamic, and this means that organisations need to find ways of remaining relevant despite this dynamism. The theory holds that it is the role of an effective management unit to adapt to the changing environmental factors (Bakacsi 1998, p. 189). Employees look upon the management to offer guidance on how to manage change within an organisation. It means that the managers should be well informed about the change and its impact on their organisation. They should also know how it should be addressed to avoid disrupting the equilibrium within the organisation.

Prayag (2000, p. 581) says that one of the best ways of managing change based on this theory is to allow the mid and low level managers to make independent decisions at the local level without the bureaucracy of having to receive all the instructions from the top management (Bhal & Gulati 2004, 15). They should have power to make independent decisions over their domains because this not only makes them become responsible for their actions, but also allows the organisation to be flexible in managing environmental forces (Unsworth, Dmitrieva & Adriasola 2013, p. 220). Making decisions contingent on the prevailing situation is vital in helping the mid and junior managers to remain relevant to the local environmental forces.

Systems Theory

According to Pravesh and Biswajeet (2000, p. 420), although system theory was developed as early as 1928 by Ludwig von Bertalanffy, its application in organisational setting was made in the early 1980s when it was finally reshaped by scholars such as Rosensweig, Kast, and Scott. This theory holds that an organisation operates like a large system with various components, which are closely interrelated. Any change on any of the variables or components of the system will affect other components directly or indirectly. One centr

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