BANKING ACADEMY, HANOI

BTEC HND IN BUSINESS (FINANCE)

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

NAME OF STUDENT Nguyen Phuong Hoa (Hana)

REGISTRATION NO.
UNIT TITLE Organisations and Behaviour
ASSIGNMENT TITLE Individual Assignment 1
ASSIGNMENT NO 1 of 2
NAME OF ASSESSOR Vincent Ng
SUBMISSION DEADLINE 24 November 2010

I, __Nguyen Phuong Hoa (Hana) __ hereby confirm that this assignment is my own work and not copied or
plagiarized from any source. I have referenced the sources from which information is obtained by me for this
assignment.

________________________________ ____24th November, 2010___

Signature Date

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR OFFICIAL USE
Assignment Received By: Date:

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Unit Outcomes

Evidence for the Assessor’s Internal

Outcome Feedback
criteria decision Verification

Compare and
contrast different
organizational
a
structures and
cultures
stakeholders

Analyse the
Explore relationship
organisational between an
structure and organization’s
culture structure and b
culture and the
effects on
(1)
business
performance

Analyse the
factors which
influence c
individual
behaviour at work

Merit grades awarded M1 M2 M3

Distinction grades awarded D1 D2 D3

Comments by Assessor - Common Skills

A B C D E F G

Assignment
( ) Well-structured; Reference is done properly / should be done (if any)

Overall, you’ve

Areas for improvement:

ASSESSOR SIGNATURE DATE / /

NAME:...................................................................................................
(Oral feedback was also provided)
STUDENT SIGNATURE DATE / /

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 Evidence for the Assessor’s Internal
Outcome Feedback
criteria decision Verification

NAME :......................................................................................
FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY
VERIFIED YES NO

DATE : .....................................................................................
VERIFIED BY : ....................................................................................
NAME : .....................................................................................

COMMON SKILLS & COMPETENCIES ASSESSED (indicated by X)

A. MANAGING & DEVELOPING SELF D. MANAGING TASKS & SOLVING PROBLEMS

1. Managing own roles & responsibilities X 12. Use information sources X
2. Manage own time in achieving objectives X 13. Deal with a combination of routine & non-routine tasks
3. Undertakes personal and career development 14. Identify & solve routine & non-routine problems
4. Transfer skills gained to new/changing situations & contexts
B. WORKING WITH & RELATING TO OTHERS E. APPLYING NUMERACY
5. Treat others beliefs and opinions with respect 15. Applying numerical skills and techniques
6. Relate & interact effectively with individuals & groups X
7. Work effectively as a team member F. APPLYING TECHNOLOGY
C. COMMUNICATING 16. Use a range of technological equipment and systems
8. Receive and respond to a variety of information G. APPLYING DESIGN AND CREATIVITY
9. Present information in a variety of visual forms 17. Applying a range of skills and techniques to develop a
variety of ideas in the creation of new / modified products,
10. Communicate in writing X services or situations
11. Participate in oral & no-verbal communication 18. Use a range of thought processes

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 EXCUTIVE SUMMARY

This assignment discusses about three main parts: Organizational Structures,

Organizational Culture and Individual Behaviour at work. Besides, it also mentions to
Organizational Behaviour and the way it helps in Management. It helps people more
understand about the theory by applying in analyzing into typical examples. The author
completes this assignment not only used some recourses from websites on the Internet and in
the course book; but also used documents from Mr Vincent – teacher of Organizations and
Behaviour at ITC, Banking Academy.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover paper 1

Executive Summary 4

Introduction 6

- Organizational Behaviour 6

- Management 6

Organizational Structures 8

Organizational Culture 14

Individual Behaviour at work 17

Conclusion 20

References 21

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I. INTRODUCTION

1. Organizational Behavior

- Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study and application of knowledge about

how people, individuals, and groups act in organizations. The main purposes focus
on some objects, such as: attributes processes, behaviors, and outcomes within and
between individual, interpersonal, group, and organizational levels of analysis.
(Obweb, 2010)

- In order to discuss more about OB, there are some main topics which can help
people understand clearly.

• First, individual characteristics like beliefs, values, personalities,

and demographic attributes. Besides, individual processes such as
studying, perception, motivation, emotions, and decision making.
• Second, interpersonal processes like trust, justice, power/politics,
social exchange, and networks.
• Third, group/team characteristics such as size, diversity, and
cohesion, and group/team processes such as development,, decision
making, cooperation and conflict between internal and external
groups, and leadership.
• Fourth, organizational processes and practices as know as
leadership, goal setting, work design, feedback, rewards,
communication, and socialization.
• Fifth, contextual influences on individuals and groups such as,
organizational identity and climate, and organizational and national
culture
• Last, influences of all of the above on individual, interpersonal,
group, and organizational outcomes such as performance,
creativity, attachment, stress, absenteeism, deviance, and ethical
behaviors.

2. Management
- Management is the process of getting activities completed efficiently and
effectively with and through other people. By managing, we can rationalize
production processes, organize our workforce, build our organization, and
especially, many people move in one or many directions (management.about.com,
2010).
- There are some management functions which are mentioned as well as basic
management skills, such as:

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  Planning: is the management of the organization's future in an uncertain
environment.

 Organizing which concluded many other parts, such as: division of labor,
unit of command, authority and responsibility, and so on.
 Directing: is a tool to show other people what you want they to do.

- As introducing about two definitions above, people can easily see that
Organizational has an interactive relationship with management. Obviously,
Organizational Behavior helps managers to improve their organizational
effectiveness and efficiency by managing their employees, their staffs, their
business based on studying about Organization Behavior. To add more details, the
expense of transferring inputs to outputs at the lowest cost is a helpful way to
make organizations become more effective in production. Besides, Organization
Behavior helps managers to keep high quality employees to work at organization
for a long time by plans and strategies.

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II. ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURES

No matter big or small, each organization has own its structure to manage their
labour, their business and their whole organizations. Normally, there are two main
kinds of structures: functional structure and divisional structure.

1. Theory:

a. Functional Structure

- The most common structure found within organizations, functional structure

consists of units or departmental groups identified by specialty, such as
engineering, development, marketing, finance, sales or human resources that are
controlled from the top level of management. This differs from a divisional or
product structure, which typically distinguishes its units by product type or
geographical region and allows leaders within each unit more control. The
functional structure was designed on the concept that high specialization and high
control yields high efficiency.

- The functional structure groups’ employees together based upon the functions of
specific jobs within the organization. The organizational structure at that division
was functional. The organizational chart was as follows:

- The functional structure was built based on the jobs of people in organization. As
the chart, people can easily find out that the biggest powerful person is Managing
Director. Below the main director, there are some other specific directors who
responsible for each kind of job in organization, such as: Marketing Director, Site
Operations Director, Personnel Director and Finance Director. Additional, in order
to manage easier, each kind of specific Director has below people. As you can see,
three Project Managers are under the Site Operations Director.

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b. Divisional Structure

- A divisional structure groups its divisions according to the specific demands of

products, markets or customers. Unlike the functional organizational structure,
where the different organizational functions of the company conduct activities
satisfying all customers, markets and products, the divisional structure focuses on
a higher degree of specialization within a specific division, so that each division is
given the resources, and autonomy, to swiftly react to changes in their
specific business environment. Therefore, each division often has all the necessary
resources and functions within it to satisfy the demands put on the division.

- The divisional structure is broken down into three areas: product, market, and
geographic.

Product Structure: groups’ employees together based upon specific products

produced by the company. An example of this would be a company that produces
three distinct products, "product a", "product b", and "product c". This company
would have a separate division for each product.

Market Structure: groups’ employees together based upon specific markets in

which the company sells. When I worked at the ISP, we also used a form of
market structure. We sold internet access to individual consumers and business
customers. So the sales and customer service departments were organized using
market structure. Consumer sales and consumer customer service worked
together, and corporate sales and corporate customer service worked together.

Geographic Structure: Geographic structure groups employees together based

upon specific geographic location. This is often used by large companies that
operate in many areas throughout the United States or in both the U.S. and
overseas.

- In order to help people know more about this field, I would like to make an
example.

Directors

Africa Asia Americas Europe

- The example is followed geographic structure because the whole organization was
divided into many places in different continents. Generally, global organizations
as known as MNCs (multinational companies) have divisional structure,

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 especially, geography structure because native corporations do not have smaller
company in other countries. Global organizations, obviously, want to make their
scope around the world to have basic potential customers in many different
countries and continents.

2. Reality

a. Unilever

- Unilever is a Multinational Company, producing consumer goods was established

in England by William Hesketh Lever in 1809s. From the first store opened in
1896, Unilever now it has a company system in more than 150 countries all over
the world.

- By reaching the mission ‘To add vitality to life’, Unilever are producing five
kinds of goods: ((unilever.com, 2010).

• Foods branch (such as Knorr, Lipton, Blue Band, Rama, Flora)

• Personal Care branch (such as Dove, Lifebuoy, Rexona, Closeup,
Sunsilk, Lux)
• Home care branch (such as Comfort, Omo, Sunlight, Surf)
• Nutrition.
• Health, Hygiene & Beauty.

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 b. Organizational Structure of Unilever

- Functional Structure:

CEO

Technical Personnel Business Food Sales Commercia

& Logistics Director Unit Business Director l Director
Director Manager Director
ODF

Advertising Sales
Manager Manager

Unilever’s leaders’ is CEO, who has greatest power of corporation. Under this
person, six directors with different kinds of job like: Technical & Logistics,
Personnel, Sales, and so on. Based on this map, there are some advantages and
disadvantages that I would like to show:

• Advantages:

Maximizes Functional Performance - all the human’s knowledge, skills

and infrastructure are required for a particular functional activity which is
consolidated in a single sub-organization. this facilitates sharing of
valuable expertise by superiors with their subordinates. The functional
units of Unilever are managed by leaders who have in-depth knowledge
and experience; they are able to control the unit very effectively.
Therefore, it harvests the potential of the unit without duplication of scarce
resources, maximizing their utilization.

Cultivates Specialist - this type of structure promotes career development

of individuals aspiring to be technical specialists of their field in large
organizations. If the organization has properly crafted performance
management that promotes the visibility of individual skills, functional
structure makes it easier to coach other and climb the hierarchical ladder.

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 • Disadvantages:

Slow Response - functional units cannot respond to fast changes in

customer demands or the product since only the top level management has
broad knowledge and the decision making authority. The management
also performs the role of coordinating tasks across functional units, thus
unless a complete plan of action is not formulated by the managements,
little progress can be made in individual functional units. Therefore, it also
lead to decision making can be slower and less effective.

Poor Accountability - due to weak link between product and functional

units, it is hard to correlate profits of individual products to the budget and
spending of individual units. The units that offer support to other
functional units, like human resource or IT department, do not contribute
directly to the revenue, yet they are essential components that helps in
running the organization smoothly.

- Divisional Structure:

Obviously, each Multinational company has divisional structure, so Unilever is

not an exception. It has many offices and factories to produce and sell goods and
services in many countries. Look at the map, five main kinds of parts in the world
are found out. As well as functional structure, this geography structure has its own
strengths and weakness.

• Strengths

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 Potential Customers: Unilever has made a simultaneous emphasis on
organizational goals and strong customer orientation towards area by using
geography structure.

Broader skills development: Active collaborations between different

countries provide employees with opportunities for learning new skills
beyond their own area of expertise. It is easier to comprehend the
dynamics of a product and therefore is best suited for nurturing general
managers in Unilever.

• Weaknesses

Communication and decision making: become not effectively because

of far distance. The ideas from people who work in Unilever and responses
from customers can be received by leaders much slower. Besides, the
expense for travel to all offices or factories to check is quite high, and it
can affect to profit of Unilever.

Sharing of expertise - can be limited because of the different competition.

This will also have influences to goals of each division.

III.ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE
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 In recent years, Organizational Culture has received a lot of attention.
Organization Culture means the collective self-image and style of the
organization; it shared values and beliefs, norms and symbols (BPP professional
education, 2004, p. 103). In order to explain more clear about this field, I would
like to mention it into two sides: theory and reality.

1. Theory

- Generally, Culture includes the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs of
organization members and their behaviors. Organizational culture is also defined
by all of the life experiences, strengths, weaknesses, education, upbringing, and so
forth of the employees. While executive leaders play a large role in defining
organizational culture by their actions and leadership, all employees contribute to
the organizational culture.

- As can been known, there are four main types of Organizational culture: Power
culture, Role culture, Task culture and Personal culture.

a. Power culture

- As the picture above, the shape of power culture likes a wheel or a web. It means
the main powerful belongs just belong to a person who is mentioned as focus of
the wheel. The web usually uses for family-owned businesses. Besides, this kind
of organizational culture is controlled by one person who has the greatest
powerful in the company, and then he gives the tasks for other people do.
Additional, the instructions from the leader are characterized individual because
there is just one person make decisions and orders to others.

- Power culture is in family-owned businesses; then, decision makings are just in

few hands. Therefore, it is really hard and complicated for other people who are
not in that family to reach the point in managing the company.

b. Role culture

- This type also is known as Greek temple. The apex of the temple is where the
decision makings are published; the pillars of the temple reflect the functional
units of the organization which have to implement the decisions from the apex.
The strength of the culture is put in specialization within its pillars.

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 - The culture functions well in a steady-state environment, but is insecure in times
of change. The role culture is typified in government departments, local
authorities, public utilities and the public sector in general. This sort of culture
finds it extremely difficult to change rapidly.

c. Task culture

- This type is cultural work which tends to be responsible and active for workers.
This is because the affiliates advertising, high-tech company, or product
development

- However, influence in this culture is based upon expertise and up-to-date

information where the culture is most in tune with results. The dangers for this
culture exist when there is a restriction in resources causing it to become more
power’ or ‘role’ orientated.

d. Personal culture

This type is not suitable for business organizations. It may be appropriate for self-
help group or a commune (such as: hospitals, offices, and so on). Besides, offering
multiple levels of management or treatment is difficult. However, the power based
on the expert is not the position and it is less administrative.

2. Reality

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 In case of Unilever, the corporation follows role culture because it works
based on 4 characteristics of role culture.

a. Role, not personalities

The organisation structure defines the authority and responsibility of individual

managers, who enact the role expected for their position. However, people who work
for Unilever obey the role in a community of working environment, not just depend
on their personalities. As many employees are able to do the same jobs with same
positions, the efficiency of Unilever depends on the design of communications, rather
than on individual personalities.

b. Not entrepreneurial

People who work for such organisation like Unilever tend to learn in individual
way about an expertise without experiencing risks; many of them do their jobs fully,
but are not over-ambitious.

c. Stability

In a large working environment because of distance between countries all over the
world as Unilever, the work is unpredictable and it is really difficult to realise what
can be change or what should be fix. Therefore, the bureaucratic style can be very
efficient in that stable environment.

d. Slow to change

Unfortunately, bureaucracies are very slow to adapt to change and respond to change
by doing more than the same. Unilever could be need much time to change or fix its
stuffs.

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IV. INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR AT WORK

1. Theory

- Look at the map, it mentions about the model of individual behaviour at work and
the performance. Each person has own individual behaviour which is factors to
help he (she) work. These factors are: Value, Personality, Perception, Emotion
Attitudes, Stress, Motivation, Ability, Role Perception, Situation Factors and
Performance (Behaviour and Results).

- This theory work based on two main equations:

Person x situation = performance (behaviour and results)

Ability x motivation = performance (behaviour and results)

• When a person is put in right situation, he can express their own value to
perform well his job.

• When people motivate someone to encourage him do the job which is

suitable with his abilities, he can show others a good performance at
personal work.

• When a person has to understand roles well about his jobs, so he can
perform well in the right way.

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 2. Reality

After completing a typology test on the website

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes3.asp, I find my results as:

I am:
• Moderately expressed extravert
• Slightly expressed sensing personality
• Distinctively expressed feeling personality
• Moderately expressed perceiving personality

a. Ability

- I realize that I have special gifted that is speaking in rhyme. For example, I can
make quickly many short poems with the same rhyme like this in about 1 minute:

I’m really noisy

I’m also busy
Deadline comes to me
My time isn’t free.

- When I was at Primary School, I really loved studying Literature. I did well most
the Literature test with high grade. Then, at the time I was at grade 6, my teacher
paid attention to me and she decided allow me to study at a special class which
helped me improve my writing literature skills. 2 months later, I with more 150
students who also were at grade 6, took a gifted Literature exam. The result was
out of my expectation: I won the second prize.

- Gradually, I started thinking maybe I could be a writer or a journalist. Because I

could practice my ability in the right situation with the right people (I meant other
writers or journalists also have as same ability as me). Therefore, my performance
in writing books or doing reports and news could be well as I hoped. However, I
am growing up and my loving with studying Literature was not growing up. Now,
I just like doing funny poems and send to my friends to make them laugh.

b. Personality

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- I am a talkative and out-going girl, and always will be. I can talk fast and
nonstop if I want. My friends said many times that it was not good at all, because I
needed also listen to other ideas. When I start talking, I want others to pay
attention at me. Especially, I love telling jokes to make others laugh. Seeing other
people laugh makes me so happy.

- I have thought for a long time that my job in the future can be a marketing staff.
Because being talkative is quite easily persuade customers (on the other hand, it
can make other people feel uncomfortable because of forcing too much).
Additional, being out-going is a special strength which can be more attractive and
effective in the way communication to other people.

- Besides, I well suitable for being a tour guide because I am out-going, so I love
going out, travelling many different places all over the world. I am talkative, and
then I can talk as much as I want about information of new places for tourists. The
feeling that I am standing at centre and talking to others who always focus on me
makes me excited now.

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 CONCLUSION

This assignment can be helpful document to help people, especially students,

understand more about the subject Organizational Behaviour. Moreover, they can
know about Management and the way Organizational Behaviour helps managers.
Beside, this research mentions about organizational culture and individual
behaviour at work, which are discussed about two sides: theory and reality.
Because of time limited, I could not do this assignment as well as my expectation.
I hope the readers can be sympathetic for me.

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 REFERENCES

1. HNC/HND BTEC Business Course book, Organisations and Behaviour

Mandatory Unit 3, First Ed, BPP Publishing, 2004.

2. Obweb About the OB Division (2010) [online] [accessed 21st November 2010].
Available at: <http://www.obweb.org/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=67 >

3. Management Management 101 (2010) [online] [accessed 23rd November

2010]. Available at:
<http://management.about.com/cs/generalmanagement/a/Management101.htm

4. Unilever Brands for life (2010) [online] [accessed 23rd November 2010).
Available at: < http://www.unilever.com/brands/?WT.GNAV=Our_brands >

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