Organisational Behaviour - Motivation - Leadership - Power & Politics -Assessment Answer

Organisational Behaviour Assignment

Assignment Task1

1 . What is the difference between trait and behaviour theories of leadership? are the theories valid?

2. How can organisations select and develop effective leaders? provide 1 example.

Assignment Task2

Visitwww.greatplacetowork.co.ukand take a look at the UK’s 50 best places to work, as well as the 100 best workplaces in Europe.

Find out what these companies do to motivate their staff.

Assignment Task3

Please read the following case study from your prescribed textbook and answer the 4 questions at the end:

Case Study: Delegate power or keep it close?" p.360

Assignment Task4

Please read the following case study from your prescribed textbook and answer the 3 questions at the end:

Case study: "Choosing your battles?"p.391

Assignment Task5

Based on your studies of Organisational Behaviour in the past 11 weeks, explain whether interpersonal skills, motivation, group behaviour, leadership style, conflict management, structure, predominant leadership style, training and HRM practices are all culturally relative.

Motivation is significant aspect that enables an individual to stay at the workplace and provide their best. This is the reason why many companies are the most preferred companies to work while there are many, where people do not prefer to work. The list of UK’s 50 best places to work has one thing in common that is motivation. These companies have very strong motivation policies and due to that employees feel a sense of belonging towards working in those organisations. The 100 best workplaces in Europe also have motivation in the right place. These companies fulfil the basic needs of the employees, provide them monetary and non-monetary benefits, enable work-life balance, and fulfil social needs and self-esteem needs. These companies also provide friendly and congenial working environment to the employees. The employees know that their needs will be fulfilled while they will work in these organisations. It has also been argued that workplaces with motivation at the right places are more likely to retain the employees than the workplaces that don’t. This makes us understand that motivation is not only necessary for employees but it is also an integral part of organisational policies.

Solution2:

Leadership is an integral part on an organization because it has huge impact over working of employees. It is very important for the organisations to select and develop effective leaders and this will be possible only if the organisations will take into consideration leadership theories. There are various theories of leadership such as trait theories, behavioural theories, contingency theories, situational theories, etc. The trait theories and behavioural theories are traditional theories and these theories are not valid for most of the organizational situations in current context. The organisations shall develop leaders by understanding the environment of the organisation. For instance the path goal theory and situational theories of leadership are the ones that develop leadership tendencies on the basis of requirements of the organisations. The most significant theory is path goal theory of leadership. This theory suggests that leaders first define the goals to be achieved and then they assist the followers to achieve to achieve those goals by making clear path. This makes a leader very effective since it ultimately leads to achieving the organisational goals. The aim of a leader is to help and assists the employees in achieving the goals.

Solution3:

While there are many positive aspects of the organizational functioning, Power and Politics are the aspects that are most of the times considered to be negative. It is a long debate that whether power and politics is a creative concept or negative concept with respect to the organisational functioning. As a matter of fact the organisations operate by distribution of power. The managers in the organization have power and it depends upon them whether they use it for enhancing productivity or decreasing it. There is also a significant issue for discussion that is, power shall be kept close or delegated. Again, different scholars and researchers have different opinion on this aspect. But the conclusion on this issue is that it totally depends upon the situation. Sometimes a manager is required to delegate the power while sometimes he/she shall not do that. Power is something that can be misused very easily. The researchers say that when power is distributed unequally it gives rise to politics in the organisations. Politics generally takes place among peer groups. Sometimes organisations use politics for increasing productivity. But many a time’s politics hinders the progress of the organisations.

Solution4:

No organisation can exist without conflict. Conflict and negotiation ate the two aspects of running a business. The owners of the business face conflict with managers, general public and employees. When a number of individuals work together the chances of arising conflict are high due to the differences in the opinions. Negotiation helps in creating amicable situations among the parties to the conflict. Conflict is not always negative; it is many times a positive aspect for the managers. This is why the researchers have coined two terms that are functional and dysfunctional conflict. Functional conflicts are creative for an organisation while dysfunctional conflict hinders the productivity. There are many ways of negotiation that an organisation may use. The conflict handling styles that are most significant are divided into five parts. These are collaboration, compromise, avoidance, competition and accommodation. There are two dimensions upon which these fives aspects are based and these dimensions are assertiveness and co-cooperativeness. Sometimes business owners may find it very difficult to resolve the conflict situation and due to that the entire process of organization might suffer. BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement) is also a significant tool for resolving conflict situations and bring back everything to normal.

Solution5:

Culture denotes the behaviours and values that tend to contribute to the unique psychological and social environment. It also represents the beliefs and principles of the members of the organisations. In organisation behaviour culture has a very significant role to play. There are many factors of the culture that affect organisational behaviour. It is also true that development of a strong culture is essential for the success of an organisation. All the practices such as motivation, interpersonal skills, leadership styles, group behaviour, training, structure and HRM practices are culturally relative. With the change in the culture these practices also change. For an instance in some organisations the culture of monetary incentives as motivation is part of the culture while in other organisations recognition is used as motivation. The Human resource practices like training, development, interview, selection, counselling, etc. also work different in different cultures. As per Hofstede’s dimensions of culture there are five dimensions that make the cultures of all the organisations different from one another. For instance, in some organisations males and females are given equal importance while in other organisations only males are offered senior positions. This is because of the cultural orientation of that organisation. Thus, all the organisational activities are relative to the culture.