An

Assignment On
Organizational Behaviour

Table of Contents
Introduction: ............................................................................................................................... 3
Task: 1 ........................................................................................................................................ 4
1.1 Organisation structure and culture of ASDA PLC and British airlines: .......................... 4
1.2 Asdas structure and culture impacts on its performance: ............................................... 5
1.3 Factors that influence the behaviour of ASDAs 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 staffs 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

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.

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.
ASDAs 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

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 Asdas 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:

Peoples 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
customers problem.
There are many discussions on the relationship between organizational culture and
performance. The effects on organizational culture and performance are quite clear.

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. ASDAs 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 ASDAs 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

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.

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 Williams leadership-style and motivation are followed by:

Motivating employees to compromise their own interest for the betterment of the
organization

Creating awareness for the importance of the firms 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
Webers 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:
Work

Authority

Discipline

specialization

Administrat
ive

Unity of
command

Unity of

Individual

Remuneration

Functions of

direction

interest

Centralization

Scalar chain

Order

Equity

Stability of

Initiative

Esprit de

Line and staff

corps

management

management

Theory
tenure of
personnel

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

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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
leaders 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 ASDAs 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 ASDAs 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 ASDAs 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

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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: Maslows Hierarchy of Needs

Maslows 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 employees 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 Vrooms 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: Vrooms 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: Herzbergs Motivational Theory

Based on this theory, ASDAs 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 staffs
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

Groups

Informal

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.
II.

Command group
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

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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.

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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.

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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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