An
Assignment On
Organizational Behaviour

1 Table of Contents
Introduction: ............................................................................................................................... 3
Task: 1 ........................................................................................................................................ 4
1.1 Organisation structure and culture of ASDA PLC and British airlines: .......................... 4
1.2 Asda’s structure and culture impacts on its performance: ............................................... 5
1.3 Factors that influence the behaviour of ASDA’s employees at work: ............................. 6
Task: 2 ........................................................................................................................................ 8
2.1 Effectiveness of the leadership styles used by ASDA and British airways: .................... 8
2.2 Organizational theory practiced at ASDA & how it strengthens management practice: 9
2.3 Management approach used by ASDA and British airways:......................................... 10
Task 3 ....................................................................................................................................... 11
3.1 Impact of Different Leadership Styles on Motivation during Changes: ........................ 11
3.2 Motivational Theories: ................................................................................................... 12
3.3 Usefulness of Motivational Theory: .............................................................................. 14
Task: 4 ...................................................................................................................................... 15
4.1 Groups that may exist in ASDA and their influence on staff’s behaviour: ................... 15
4.2 Necessary Factors to Promote the Development of Effective Teamwork: .................... 17
4.3 Impact of Technology on Team Functioning: ............................................................... 18
Conclusion: .............................................................................................................................. 19
References ................................................................................................................................ 20

2 Introduction:
The single most critical problem that the managers are facing today is managing the people.
This is the most challenging issues that every kind of organizations is dealing with now a day. Organizational behaviour is the study of individual, group and organization as a whole that examines the effect of organizational structure and culture on organizational performance. Therefore, it mostly tries to define the performance and efficiency factors of an organization. Organizational structure and organizational culture are highly correlated performance factors.
It basically defines the appropriate structure of an organization in order to get more than average performance. Organizational culture is a primary factor for employee turnover and job satisfaction (Bolden, 2004). If an organization possesses a strong culture of self-respect and employee affiliation, it is no wonder that the employee retention rate would be very high
(Tracy, 2013).
In this report, the relationship between organizational culture and organizational structure will be pointed out. While doing so we generally use two famous business organization of
UK for realistic insight- ASDA PLC and British Airlines. ASDA is one of the largest chain store in UK. It offers several types of products and services to its customers. British Airlines is the largest airlines based on schedule of flights and fleet size. It is the primary airlines of
UK. It has tremendous brand value around the world.

3 Task: 1
1.1 Organisation structure and culture of ASDA PLC and British airlines:
The organizational structure encompasses its culture, leadership, external and internal environment etc. Every organization has some sort of organizational structure. It may be formal or informal. Patton and Higgs (2010) holds the view that an organization structure is the layout of organizational hierarchy and chain of command. Since ASDA and British airways both are huge organizations, they has more formalized organizational structure and strict rules and regulations.
ASDA has a formal hierarchical structure because it has a clear chain of control and command-execution line. In ASDA, a lot of people reporting to more than one people. It has a multiple level command and decision stage. A hierarchical level tends to be effective in huge and diversified organization like ASDA. The main problem of ASDA is that people working together are on the same footing regardless of the seniority (Glassdoor, 2013). It also provides a competitive pay for the new employees.
On the other hand, British Airways (BA) has a more official standards and structures. The reason is simple enough. It has a massive size and its operations incorporate all over the world. Moreover, the management is trying to accelerate the management capability by exercising dynamic decision-making environment. It is trying to reduce the layers between the chief executives and customer managers. Instead of fixed span of control, it is now heavily relying on small ad hoc groups. As a result, these groups are now working along with formal groups and managing some additional responsibilities in some certain cases.
Organizational culture is the set of shared beliefs, values and attitudes (Jones, 2007). These factors can greatly direct the members of an organization how the works will be done. On the other hand, culture is the internal environment and rituals of organizations, which play a very crucial role in organizational success.
ASDA’s success story is mostly influenced by its rich organizational culture. It has a very strong culture of employee empowerment around the organization. It defines how employees accommodate their customers and how they behave with each other. ASDA believes that every stakeholders of the company can help improve the company in a significant way.
Therefore, the main motto of the organization is to:
 accommodate each and every customers in a customized way

4  provide service with excellence
 provide customers unique and great experience
Since BA airlines is a huge company and has some strict rules and regulations, it has an strong cultural influence behind its success. It follows some common rules as a part of their organizational culture:
 Dealing fairly
 Updating customer base
 Maintain standards
 Meeting customers need and demands in the most efficient way
 Re-enforcing the successful tasks
1.2 Asda’s structure and culture impacts on its performance:
Organizational structure and culture are two crucial success factors for any organization.
Organizational structures are related in the following ways:
 People’s behave are largely dependent on organizational structure:
If the CEO of ASDA is not satisfied with the performance of his workforce, he needs to look at the organizational structure. Much of the evidence shows that, people acts as like the systems they are in.
 Employee empowerment and organizational performance:
Employee empowerment can be a very effective tool for organizational success (Robins,
2003). ASDA behaves this way. They usually try to empower their lower line managers, which will ultimately ensure better performance and greater customer satisfaction.
 Structural impact and organizational performance:
ASDA tries to provide superior customer service to its customer. In order to that, it formed its organizational base in such a way that ensures prompt response to customers any types of call. It has a friendly customer interface for easy communication and better solution of customer’s problem.
There are many discussions on the relationship between organizational culture and performance. The effects on organizational culture and performance are quite clear.

5 Some different views exist on the relationship between organizational culture and performance:  Strong culture- High; performance:
There are strong relationship between strong culture and high performance.
Graphically:

Figure 1: Relationship between Culture and Performance (Boston, 2010)
It is a rationally proved that strong culture leads to high performance. As in the case of
ASDA where the competition is high and customer management is very important, a strong and service oriented culture is essential.
 Culture and efficiency:
Another common point of view is that, culture contributes a lot to organizational efficiency
(Brown, 2006). It is to keep in mind that, appropriate culture is a relative issue. Culture in one organization may not be appropriate or even acceptable in another. ASDA holds its culture in a way that would ultimately contribute to its efficiency and prompt work accomplishment.
 Workforce diversity and culture of change:
Workforce diversity and coping up with changes are the major challenges for the organizations operating in multi-domestic countries (Thomas, 2009). In order to be successful, creating an adaptive culture is very much important. ASDA’s culture needs to be a culture of adaptability so to have maximum flexibility in the face of rapid change. Cultures that are characterized by proactive behaviours, taking risk, working together, trusting each other should be favourable for the organizations like ASDA PLC.
1.3 Factors that influence the behaviour of ASDA’s employees at work:
Employees of ASDA are the people who work in the business for predetermined pay or any other benefits. By definition, they are the internal stakeholders. ASDA needs a huge number

6 of effective and efficient employees in order to carry out its business effectively. The amount of pay varies according to age, skill, qualifications and types of work etc.
Factors that influence the behaviours of ASDA:  Job security:
The employees want the security of their job at first place. Without having it, they cannot work peacefully and promptly. Employees at business should want to know how much their job is really secured. A high level of job security means that the employees have very little chance of becoming unemployed. As a result, they can work more efficiently and their performance should be accelerated.
 Job environment:
Employees at ASDA definitely seek for a great work environment. Since, airline work is tiresome and challenging, they naturally seek a comfortable and appealing place for working. It is a very important factor for workers’ performance. Workers’ performances ultimately contribute to the organizational performance.
 Rates of pay:
Like any other organizations, employees at ASDA need good rate of pay. It is very natural a good pay always motivate workers to work more efficiently. Good rate of pay also mean that the business is well enough to pay its employees at a high rate.
 Respect:
The employees at ASDA are mostly technical people. They know their jobs better than anyone else does and they have technical expertise in their respective fields. As a result, these employees do not always work for money. Self-respect and an environment of appreciation can be their major concerns. At ASDA if these people are not treated accordingly or not with adequate respect, their performance might be disrupted. For example, ASDA conduct a survey-named ‘’we are listening’’ regularly for their employees to listen to their employees and to feel them more valued.

7 Task: 2
2.1 Effectiveness of the leadership styles used by ASDA and British airways: Leaders at ASDA are committed to provide unique and superior service to its customers and to make their organization a better place to work on. Andy Clarke CEO at ASDA tries to focus on the seemingly unimportant things that could have the greatest impact on the business. These focuses on unnoticeable things make the employees feel more fulfilled and appreciated. Andy Clarke try to focus on the following things:
 Equal opportunity of being promoted by the employees own quality. Fairness and leadership quality are the key to success
 Empathetic and caring managers are well accommodated and appreciated
 Respect for all level of employees and group decision makings are the key features of leadership at ASDA
 Pride of working with ASDA as a leader or manager
Leadership can be defined as the capacity to transform an idea into reality (Aswathappa,
2004). Leadership style is simply the approach an individual perceives to lead his/her people.
The prevailing leadership style in British Airways according to observation is supportive. The long used traditional leadership style used by British Airways had long been highly concentrated, administrative, used for low employee response, negligence for subordinates etc. Now this predominant style has been changed by the CEO Keith Williams into supportive one. In supportive leadership style proper career mentoring, training, participative decision-making are the keys to employee satisfaction.
This leadership style can create an environment of trust between management and employees
(Patton, and Higgs 2010). Managers now know how to communicate effectively with the employees and how to motivate employees. They can let the employees develop a vision and let the employees use their own self-judgement and discretion while taking any important decision. Managers have built a support system in order to get help from one another outside of the formal organizational structure. On the other hand, the employees need to be shown how their works are contributing to the betterment of the organization as a whole.
In BA Keith William’s leadership-style and motivation are followed by:

8  Motivating employees to compromise their own interest for the betterment of the organization  Creating awareness for the importance of the firm’s objectives
2.2 Organizational theory practiced at ASDA & how it strengthens management practice:
There are a lot of theories on organization. All these theories explain the organizational structure and formation. Organizational theory explains the types and forms of an organization. Organizational theory includes
 Scientific approaches to management
 Weber’s bureaucratic approach
 Administrative theory
ASDA should be fall under administrative theory. This theory was first proposed by Henry
Fayol. It is based on several principles of dynamic management. According to this theory,
Planning
 Organizing
 Leading
 Controlling
The administrative theory is a concept of following management tasks:

Administrat ive Theory
Work
specialization
·
Functions of management Authority Discipline Unity of command Unity of direction Individual interest Centralization Scalar chain Order Equity
Stability of tenure of personnel Initiative Esprit de corps Remuneration
Line and staff management 9 Organizational theory can be very useful for a business in different stages (Apter, 2001).
ASDA should try hard enough to get stick one specific theory. This adherence to one positive theory can help the business to become better at their performance and service. In the case of
ASDA, adherence to administrative theory can direct the managers and employees to achieve business specified goals. It can also provide a detail guideline to the workforce to follow. In addition, the top-level management can re-engineer their job structure in order to achieve firm specified goals.
2.3 Management approach used by ASDA and British airways:
There are usually three form of management and managerial approaches exist. These are:
 Active listening approach or passive management approach
 Cultivating approach or capacity building approach
 Steering approach or high control level approach
We can see that, the management and working culture in the ASDA is participative. There is no fixed command line and employee can report to more than one line manager. Cultivating approach is a kind of facilitative management approaches that extensively rely on people skill. This approach recognizes the need for external stimuli for better performance. ASDA usually a follower of cultivating approach because of the following reason:
 Identification of definite consumer community based on local community
 Definition of particular problems and specified solutions
 Collective and collaborative activity
Steering management approaches are common to many organizations. Steering management approach is common for specific and material outcome oriented circumstances. British
Airways generally encourages participatory design and appreciation. This approach is basically agency focused. BA knows the fact that effective steering needs comprehensive preparation and development guideline. Proper process planning and predetermined rules and regulations are also important.
The key aspects of the management approach used by BA are:
 Clearly mentioned project planning, objectives, process and period
 Integrated project development within wide range of planning process
 Assessment of project progress and project outcome against pre-specified standards
 Need for specific task evaluation, correction and reporting

10 Task 3
3.1 Impact of Different Leadership Styles on Motivation during Changes:
We are living in such a place where change is a must to survive in any industry. ASDA might be engaged in business process re-engineering, or any types of technological or incremental change depending on their needs and situation and to manage any change, good leadership style is required in order to motivate employees.
There is a huge difference between leadership and management. Management is the process of accomplishing the organization activities by using the limited resources wisely and leadership is the way to lead the people of the organization in order to achieve this goal
(Gilmore, and Williams 2009). Leadership also includes the handling and motivating the employees during the period of organizational change.
There are several approaches available for the leaders to lead the changes based on the leader’s authority and the employees’ freedom. The managers of ASDA may go for any of the approaches to motivate the staffs during the organizational change. Some of the major approaches for ASDA’s leaders’ are-
 When the change is going to take place, the leaders of ASDA can take the decisions by themselves and then direct the staffs about what to do. This is an authoritarian approach.  If ASDA’s leaders go for consultative approach, they will involve the staffs in the process by let them know about the upcoming changes and also by asking them about their opinions. This is a good approach to motivate them.
 A teamwork approach might be the best one for ASDA’s leaders, since the structure of this approach encourages the team for taking responsibilities of their activities.
ASDA leaders can use any of the last two approaches, because here the employees feel that they are important and thus they are motivated. No matter which style is followed, it is important for leaders to-
 Be passionate toward work
 Encourage the employees to participate in decision making
 Let the employees know about the benefits of change
 Communicate closely
 Describe the goals of change clearly

11 3.2 Motivational Theories:
One of the most vital assets of an organization is its employees (Dessler, 2007). So it is the responsibility of a manager to motivate the employees so that they become willing to give their best. But employee motivation is no more a difficult job nowadays. There are many motivational theories available but the ASDA should choose the one that best suits the organization. A comparison of different theories for ASDA is briefly provided here-
Figure 2: Theory X and Y
The human management is divided between two groups-X and Y according to McGregor.
The X employees require strict management and monitoring, since they dislike work, lazy and unable to fulfill duties. On the other hand, Y people are very active, love to work, responsible and motivate themselves. By this theory, ASDA should motivate X employees.
But Maslow thinks that the Y employees also need proper direction.

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Figure 3: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Maslow’s theory consists of a hierarchy of needs which starts with the basic needs and end up with self-fulfillment needs. If ASDA apply this theory, they will construct a strategy that the better the employees perform, the greater they will get. In this way, every time they reach a stage, they want to go to the next in the hierarchy and for that improved performance is required. But the problem is Maslow thinks that employee’s performance depends on his needs whereas Vroom thinks that it is based on his internal factors like skills, experience, knowledge etc. he uses three variables which are expectancy, instrumentality and valence in this regard.
I think Vroom’s theory is the most applicable for ASDA because of various reasons. This theory takes into account the fact of different perception of different people but Maslow assumes similar perception.

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Figure 4: Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
If ASDA use this theory, employees will be motivated by thinking that greater effort will bring greater performance and they will be rewarded. As a consequence, their performance will improve. But the manager should make them understand that performance and reward are closely related.
3.3 Usefulness of Motivational Theory:
To achieve the goals and objective of the organization, managers need to increase productivity and high productivity means highly productive employees. To make the employees highly productive, proper motivation is a must.
But employee motivation is a complex factor. After understanding the importance of employee motivation in the organization, the managers need to select the motivational theory for the employees. Many motivational theories have been introduced in this regard.
Motivational theories are useful, because managers have to encourage the employees for their good performance (Robbins and Campbell et al., 2010). If there is no incentive like status, fringe benefits etc. in the workplace, employees will not feel any willingness to give their best. So the necessity of the motivational theories is huge. The motivated employees ultimately raise the benefit of the organization by improved performance as well as productivity. According to the hygiene theory, which is the motivational theory of Herzberg, similar to the certain factors that lead to the job satisfaction in the organization, there are some other factors which cause job dissatisfaction.

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Figure 5: Herzberg’s Motivational Theory
Based on this theory, ASDA’s manager can motivate the employees. Motivating factors might be change as well, but the need of the people to get respect as a human being will never change. Employee satisfaction is gained by responsible, recognition and challenging work, and dissatisfaction comes from hygiene factors like job security, fringe benefits etc. if absent. So the managers of ASDA need to consider both job satisfaction and dissatisfaction factors. For this purpose, they have to increase the opportunity of getting reward to raise satisfaction and improve the working condition, procedures etc. to reduce dissatisfaction. By this way, the productivity will increase.
Task: 4
4.1 Groups that may exist in ASDA and their influence on staff’s behaviour: Groups are formed to get specified results from an organization. The members of the groups have some specified tasks and have some pre-specified set of purpose to work with. The members became naturally dependant with each other (Ditomaso et al., 2007).
Like any other organizations, several types of groups may exist in ASDA. They can be formal or informal, primary or secondary etc.
Several types of groups and their influence in ASDC are given below:

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Formal

Figure 6: Influence of the Groups
 Formal group:
A formal group is formed by the organization itself. It is formed in order to achieve some specified task. The management create these types of groups and set specified goals to reach. Members of this group have some fixed roles and responsibilities.
Formal groups can be divided into two categories:
I. Command group
II. Task group
A command group is not temporary in nature and has a fixed position in organizational chart.
On the other hand, task groups are formed a specified tasks and motive. These types of groups are usually temporary. These groups have relatively small impact on organization as compare to informal groups. It is to keep in mind that it has a great impact on organizational performance. If this group forming have proven to be unsuitable, overall organization may suffer.  Informal group:
Informal groups are formed not by the organization but by the members of the organization themselves. There are two types of informal group:
I. Friendship group
Groups

Informal

16 II. Interest group
Members of a friendship group are bonded by pure friendship (Duwett and Jones, 2003).
They may have something in common like age, attitude or belief. Interest groups are formed intentionally and are typically temporary. These groups have huge impact on overall business. It may help ASDA for the betterment of the overall organizational structure. An informal group can contribute a lot in enriching the culture in ASDA. It has also a great influence in organizational performance.
4.2 Necessary Factors to Promote the Development of Effective Teamwork:
When the managers of ASDA go to complete a task with the help of a team, they should focus on the development of effective teamwork, because a lot of problems arise when working in a team. But they need to overcome from these problems to reach toward the goal.
Some major factors that ASDA is required to identify to make the teamwork more effective are categorized below-
 Communication: It is mandatory among the team members of ASDA having a clear and open communication. Team members have to feel free to ask anything, share information, and give their suggestions in the organization.
 Trust: Without trust, it is impossible for ASDA to promote any strategy or to make any decision. Because if employees do not trust each other, they will not share information or unwilling to take risks which may lead to organization failure.
 Workforce Diversity: The people from different age, gender, ethnicity, religion, region etc. think differently. So the more diversity is there in the teams of ASDA, the more chances of creative and innovative ideas are there.
 Leadership: An ideal leader drives the team quickly toward the goal. To make the teamwork more effective, leadership is required, because the leaders direct the employees of ASDA, coordinate them, handle any types of conflict among the members and try to resolve them.
 Positive Attitude: If the teamwork faces any problem and everyone stops to give effort to the project, then the project will fail for sure. So all of the team members of
ASDA must have a positive attitude to their task and put their best effort till the end of every project.
Moreover, it should be ensured by ASDA that every team member is getting adequate training and motivation for his tasks.

17 4.3 Impact of Technology on Team Functioning:
Technology has made the world smaller and has brought the people closer around the world
(Burke and Cooper, 2007). The impact of the technology is also huge in the organization like
ASDA. ASDA has a geographically dispersed workforce from different place. Most of the projects are done by the virtual teams which are connected by the technology.
The technology makes it possible for ASDA to continue their activities in any time and distance which increase the productivity. It has a great impact on different functions of a team like team structure, trust, coordination, cooperation, leadership etc. So ASDA first needs to understand the team members and their culture and according to that, they should report the benefits of technology.
According to a research conducted in Florida, the impact of technology on organizational team varies from tem to team, because it depends on the nature of the work as well as the on the team members. But some study shows that team functions progress gently in virtual teams. But with the time team members become close each other, share information and become cooperative.
So we have found that, in spite of some temporary problems, teamwork brings positive outcome to the organization. In fact, the contribution of team members will increase because technology will help to make the members specialist and the more specialists in ASDA will make the organization more effective. One thing that ASDA need to do is they have to put great emphasis on reducing the distance among different geographical areas with the support of technology.

18 Conclusion:
Understanding the individual and group behavior in an organization and developing them efficiently is a key to success in the business world. It is possible by effectively motivate the employees to accomplish their tasks and developing a strong relationship which should be based on trust and cooperation. From this point of view, we may say that ASDA PLC is going to the correct direction since their main objective is maximizing organizational benefit by employee satisfaction. For this purpose, they try to understand the employee culture and their needs and try to fulfill them as much as possible.

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