Organisation and Behaviour

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Relationship between organisational structure and culture
Strategy to management and leadership
Ways of using motivational theories in organisations
Mechanisms for developing effective teamwork in organisations
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

Organisational behaviour refers to the study of various persons working within an organisation together with their behaviour within the context of the operations of an organisation. Organisational culture refers to the values and norms that define the personality of a particular organisation.

There are different forms of organisational culture. Organisational culture of some organisations encourages bureaucratic and hierarchical forms of management while encouraging democratic forms of management in other businesses. The different approaches have merits and demerits.

This paper does not only focus on discussing organisation and behaviour from the context of the approaches of organisational management style. It also presents the two aspects from the context of the relationship between organisational structure and culture, approaches to management and leadership, ways of using motivational theories in organisations, and the mechanisms for developing effective teamwork in organisations.

Relationship between organisational structure and culture

Organisations are made of diverse people in terms of cultural affiliations. These differences may influence the success of an organisation in that they may create different organisational cultures, which are not consistent with the goals, objectives, and missions of the organisation employing them (Jacobides 456).

This challenge calls for managers to look for mechanisms of creating an organisation culture that appreciates the cultural diversities of all people through the development of an organisational structure that provides equal opportunities for all people working in an organisation amid their diversity affiliations.

Such culture is organised around the common organisational objective. In this effort, the top-down and bottom-up structure of organisational communication is imperative. With regard to Griffin and Moorhead, managers utilise about 75 to 80 percent of their total time in communication (15). In the context of the need to organise people in an organisation around a common culture, this finding is imperative since a lot of communication is required in the process of creation of a common culture.

Organisational culture is developed to ensure that an organisation achieves certain preset goals. One of the most important goals is gaining competitive advantage through fostering creativity and innovation. Gaining competitive advantage through innovation and creativity requires an organisation to give a room for the incorporation of employees in decision-making processes together with their involvement in design phases.

This requires the adoption of a democratic structure of organisation. It is based on the realisation that organisations such as Hawk Car Company (a Swedish car manufacturing company) considered changing their organisational structure to foster organisational culture to provide a room for creativity and innovation through knowledge and information sharing.

Before the implementation of change, organisational culture of Hawk Car Company encouraged bureaucratic and hierarchical management structures. This structure hindered the development of the culture of innovation and creativity since information only flowed from top to bottom.

A bureaucratic organisational structure is associated with Max Weber. Weber was immensely interested on how production firms could gain optimally from their labour resources. F.W. Taylor, a management scholar, also made enormous contributions in laying a fundamental background on how organisations could utilise their human capital resources in more effective and efficient ways.

He advocated for division of work within an organisation and then allocating the small divisions to persons depending on their abilities and skill levels. The effect was to encourage specialisation and divisions of labour.

These two models of organisational structure have influenced the operation of many production organisations across the globe for a long time. However, new paradigms in management and leadership approaches indicate how division and specialisation of labour will force people to engage in repetitive tasks that create boredom and reduced work morale (Chatman 460). This means that it is important for organisations to alter their work cultures to deal with these challenges.

Strategy to management and leadership

Studies in the strategies of management and leadership are rested on the platforms of organisational theory.Organisational theory is essential in the determination of the appropriate behaviours and appropriate organisational management approaches that would yield success of an organisation both in the short-term and long-term basis.

Organisational theory is “the study of organisations for the benefit of identifying common themes for the purpose of solving problems, maximising efficiency and productivity, and meeting the needs of stakeholders” (Armstrong and Daft 34). Topics such as environmental perspectives in enhancing organisational development, neoclassical standpoint, and classical perspectives in the approaches of organisational management are central to the study of organisational theory.

From this perspective, organisational theory acts as a complement for studies in human resource together with organisational behaviour. Studying organisational behaviours is integral to the derivation of strategies for organisational management that would resort to the alignment of all organisational workers to common themes, goals, and objectives that spell the reasons as to why an organisation is established.

Organisations deploy different forms of leadership approaches. One of such approaches is implicit leadership. It digs into the relationship between leadership and followership theories. A second approach is the behavioural leadership theories. Some of these theories including democratic, autocratic, and laissez-faire were developed by Lewis studies (Daft 87). From an autocratic perspective, leaders deploy strong controlling and directive actions to ensure that rules alongside regulations together with relations are enforced within work environments.

Although this kind of leadership is necessary, where the goal is to enforce compliance to stipulated guidelines, it can create a negative perception accompanied by fear among people being led. Consequently, rather than executing duties to precision to attain organisational objectives as spelt out by organisational culture, people execute their roles to escape the wrath of their leader. This makes workers feel as if they are not part of organisational processes.

Another approach of leadership and management is the autocratic leadership. This form of management and leadership approach is a direct contrast of democratic management and leadership approaches. With regard to Kedharnath, “democratic leaders take collaborative, responsive, and interactive actions with followers concerning work and work environment” (13).

Leading from a democratic leadership approach means that workers are part of decision-making processes of an organisation. Therefore, they are accountable to the leaders for their actions. Therefore, the goals of workers in the organisation are to act in a manner that ensures that the duties that are delegated to them are accomplished to the prescribed quality levels. Such quality levels are determined in the organisation’s objectives, goals, and aims and stipulated in the organisational culture.

A leader can accomplish his or her roles of leadership through delegation and participation as opposed to control and enforcement of rules and regulations. This kind of leadership approach is likely to create positive schemas about one’s capacity to function as a leader in the employees’ cognitions.

Despite the argument that the followers’ theoretical paradigms emphasise that followers should be accountable to the manner in which they accomplish the functions of the organisation delegated to them, followers still know that their leader would appreciate and accept his or her responsibilities for having delegated the tasks to them. This view is opposed to laissez-faire approach in leadership in which a leader rejects the responsibility of his or her position.

Consequently, adopting democratic leadership approaches implies that employees act in a manner that ensures that their work receives credits. In the process, leaders are also able to direct, control, and monitor the process of realisation of organisational aims, objects, and goals. The underlying argument here is that leaders cannot achieve their leadership function without understanding the roles of employees in the organisation and/or how to ensure that an organisational culture of participatory leadership is realised.

Ways of using motivational theories in organisations

The management arm of an organisation determines the direction taken by the entire organisation. In the determination of the appropriate direction, employee satisfaction emerges as a central issue that managers have to address (Boon and Den Hartog 115).

Enhancing satisfaction is one of the ways of building motivated work teams. Arguably, employees are more satisfied if the organisation in which they work meets their own needs starting from the most basic psychological needs transcending upwards to self-actualisation as discussed by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This step is an effort of ensuring that the organisational behaviour aspect of enhancing job satisfaction is rested on the platforms of good person-organisational fit.

The above argument is significant by noting Chatman’s argument that organisations are established not only to serve the interests of their owners but also to have also an obligation to the persons they employ (470).

Therefore, if people have some emerging needs, the principles of operation of the organisation, which are often spelt in the organisational behaviour philosophies should respond to these needs in the effort to maintain motivation of employees. In this line of thought, it is imperative to note that a poor fit between an organisation and the people it employs gives rise to conflicts of interest, which lower the motivation of employees.

This creates situations in which people tend to resist performing the demands placed on them by the organisation. It is for this reason that human resource management is established to ensure that the behaviour developed by people in response to certain organisational situations does not impair the normal functioning of organisations (Cooper, Van, and Natasha 55) by lowering their work motivations.

It is also crucial for organisations to consider remunerating people according to the levels of attainment of organisational goals. This measure is incredible for keeping highly performing employees motivated. However, money does not always act as a source of motivation. Consequently, organisations need to consider alternative methodologies of motivation such as delegation of responsibilities.

Mechanisms for developing effective teamwork in organisations

Organisations are extremely interested in employing people who are able to work effectively in a teamwork environment. The main aim is to ensure that decisions made by a given work group do not depend on the thoughts of one individual. Rather, they need to incorporate different perspectives of different people. This strategy is essential for the decisions to produce positive impacts in the success of an organisation.

Building effective work teams within an organisation requires the adoption of a leadership style fostering the development of teamwork culture. As a leader, one should be a team builder. This means that a leader should have the ability to develop teamwork and/or enhance employees’ motivation.

In the development of a teamwork consensus, a leader ensures that employees are empowered by establishing a working environment that enables people to have fun through teamwork culture. Hence, boosting the morale of work is necessary for being developed by an organisation seeking to develop effective teamwork.

A leader who is a team builder should create teams and develop cultural trends in an organisation that will be suitable for all employees through a reduction of disagreements. To create harmony between teams, leaders should show a sense of loyalty to their workers by developing relationships and being interested in their growth requirements together with career progress.

Leaders need to be open to ideas brought forward by employees. This means that they should have the will to use the power they possess together with the employee to execute innovative ideas developed by members of staff.

Building effective work teams requires persons in leadership positions in an organisation to act as role models. A role model is someone whose traits or achievements are worth admiring by other people (Hogan and Hogan 45). For instance, a good role model is one with hopeful wishes and confidence. Role models possess a number of qualities such as caring for others and setting ample examples to those below them.

They are good at listening to other people’s ideas and opinions. A good role model believes, trusts, and shows confidence in others. Leaders should give motivation to their employees by doing things that will give them inspiration, courage, and/or lead them to attain success of organisational goals. In such a situation, employees are willing to do the work delegated to them. This helps in enhancing confidence and encouraging growth through a teamwork culture.

Conclusion

Organisations set goals, aims, and missions that guide their course of actions that describe their businesses. All these aspects are defined by an organisational behaviour. The paper argued that organisational behaviour is replicated in the organisational culture, organisational structure, approaches to management and leadership, and mechanisms for developing effective teamwork in organisations.

Works Cited

Armstrong, Arthur, and Richard Daft. Organisation Theory and Design. Toronto: Nelson, 2009. Print.

Boon, Chaurse, and Nikson Den Hartog. “Human resource management, person–environment fit, and trust.” Trust and human resource management 3.2 (2011):109-121. Print.

Chatman, Johnson. “Matching people and organisations: Selection and socialisation in public accounting firms.” Administrative Science Quarterly 36.6(2001): 459–484. Print.

Cooper, Thomas, Vianen Van, and Anderson Natasha. “Changes in Person–Organisation Fit: The Impact of Socialisation Tactics on Perceived and Actual P–O Fit.” European Journal of Work and Organisational Psychology 13.1(2004): 52–78. Print.

Daft, Richard. The Leadership Experience. Toronto: Southwestern, 2005. Print.

Griffin, Raymond, and George Moorhead. Organisational Behaviour: Managing People and Organisations, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011. Print.

Hogan, Rachael, and Jasper Hogan. “Assessing Leadership: A View from the Dark Side.” International Journal of Selection and Development 9.2 (2008): 40-51. Print.

Jacobides, Martin. “The inherent limits of organisational structure and the unfulfilled role of hierarchy: Lessons from a near-war.” Organisation Science 18.3(2007): 455-477. Print.

Kedharnath, Erastus. “The influence of leaders’ implicit followership theories on employee outcomes.” Organisational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes 7.5(2011): 1-24. Print.

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