BIB 1 LONDON

Organizational
behaviour
Grgoire Bonnefoy A4095640
classwork portfolio
Organizational Behaviour

BIB 1 LONDON

Organizational Behaviour

Session 1
Slides 5
A generally accepted definition is that learning involves a permanent change in
behaviour that occurs as a results of previous practice or experience (Atkinson, Atkinson,
Smith & Hilgard 1996). It is possible to learn false information or pick up bad habits and it is
also possible to learn correct information and good habits. Here, we have try to find some
organizational technics to make easier learning difficult content.
Frist, preparation and planning can make a hard task more easy. This advice consists
in paying attention to the steps of the task and shell it to see the all desk. Then the task
appears easier because you can divide it into session and make your own timetable to answer
it. It will help to see the end and not to panic.
Then, working by sessions can be really effective. For example, 1h30 of work, then
15 minutes breaks and 1h30 of work. Like this, its easier to work a long period without a
burn out if you are working the whole week. It can be associated to the first advice: they are
complementary.
There is two main benefit to work by groups: stay motivated and to help each other.
Say motivated is possible by keeping an eye on the other. If one of the members is on
Facebook instead of working, the others can remind him that he should work which is not
possible if this employee is alone at home. Then, help each other is stimulating because if the
employee is alone and he do not understand a point of the subject, he will have difficulties to
find a clear answer quickly on the internet. However, if he works with friends or colleagues
he will explain his point and he may have a quicker and more relevant answer from his team.

Slide 8:
Nearly everybody is capable to understand what are the mains skills of a good
manager. However, a lots of corporation have managerial problems. Why people dont just
apply these rules?
Lack of motivation might be the first barrier to effective managerial problem. People
can not be effective in their work if they are not motivated. It can be due to multiple causes
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Organizational Behaviour

such as low salary, no recognition of the work, lack of goals, bad environment to name but a
few. If a manager is not motivated in his works he will not be capable of pushing his team to
do their best.
It is also important to understand that humans are very complex and they are not
always in perfect condition. For example, when a manager is angry or very tired he will react
in a very different way than if he was in a good mood. If its not difficult to assimilate and to
incorporate all these life skills to his daily life, it is very difficult to make sure that he will
always respect it in the long term. So much situations are making this difficult. If this
manager has big personal or familial problems he may not be capable of keeping these
problems at home and it will impact his way of managing.
Here are two possible issues to effective management in corporation.

Slides 14:
Culture and routine has been the subject of study in social anthropology, where
researchers tried to understand the shared meaning and values held by a team in corporation
that give significance to their actions. According to Pettigrew (1979), organisational culture
consists of the behaviour, actions and values that people in an enterprise are expected to
follow.
Why is it important for company?
In research conducted by Kotter and Heskett (1992), it was founded that good
financial performance is highly linked on having a culture that helps the company anticipate
and adapt to changes in its environment. The company must respond appropriately to changes
in the preferences of their consumers and a strong culture might lead to high adaptation.
Hodgetts (1991) identifies five mains benefits of culture: effective control, promotion of
innovation, strategy formulation and implementation, strong commitment from employees
and normative order. This portfolio will focus on two of these benefits; the effective control,
and employee commitment. First, organizational culture acts as a control mechanism on
behaviour (OReilly & Chatman 1996). People understand what they should do or what they
should not do. When employees do not respect the beliefs or the values of the company,
managers and colleagues are likely to correct the action, what is more complicated without a
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Organizational Behaviour

strong culture. Then, when the employees are attached to their culture they care about the
success of the company and create a strong commitment and passion.
For the consumers, routines are important because it create bases and people like to
have steps during their weeks. In family, it creates a strong feeling of belonging in an entity
that they understand and like.

Session 2
Slides 5/6
The question of motivation is often arising when people are trying to understand why
people behave in a certain way. Here is resume few of the key literature, ideas and
contributions.

The hierarchy of needs of Maslow classified the need with a pyramidal form. The foot
of the pyramid represents the most basic needs, and the individual strives to move upwards
through the hierarchy. As Maslow explains, a man never reaches complete satisfaction. When
the need that he highly expected is satisfied another will replace it. In his theory (1954),
Maslow explain that the higher need will been accessible only if the lower needs are satisfied.
He divided this needs into five categories: physiological needs such as drinking or eating,
safety needs such as protection from elements or freedom from fear, affiliation needs such as
friendship or love, esteem needs such as prestige or independence and self-actualization
needs such as realizing personal potential or self-fulfilment. An issue of this theory is that
some people sometimes try to satisfy higher needs even when lower need in the hierarchy
have not been satisfy (Williams & Page, 1989). Even if Maslows theory has been criticized
its theory made an important impact on the expansion and application of theories of
motivation based on human needs and it is still being possible to find evidence of support to
the hierarchy of needs.

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Organizational Behaviour

Mc Gregor (1960) postulate two different views and perspective of men called theory X and
theory Y.
The X theory is the belief that people are obviously lazy and unwilling to effort and
has to be frightened or manipulated if someone want to them to work. This theory is at the
opposite of the Y theory which states that work is as natural as play. According to this theory,
imagination, creativity and ingenuity can solve work issues by an important number of
employees. If people are passive or negligent on the job, it is because of their negative
experiences in organization and not generally because of inherent human weakness.
McGregor would belief that there are more individuals than is generally believed who are
able to make a constructive contribution to find a solution of organizational problems and
subscribe to the theory Y. Mac Gregor show that managers can have two point of view that
will impact their way of managing their employees. Pinder (2008) talking about the X and Y
theory said One of the most insightful and enduring observations made by behavioural
science concerning work is that made McGregor.

In 1967 McCelland, suggested the need theory, also know as the Three Needs Theory.
This is a motivation model that show how the needs for achievement, power, and affiliation
affect the actions of people in a company environment. The need of achievement, is
characterised by the fact that people needs to have results in their job. They like to have
feedback, and prefer work in which the outcomes are based on their effort. The need of
affiliation is the need of friendly relationship. This category of people like to have contact
with colleague during their work and are motivated by this. They like team work. The last
need is the need of authority and power. These kind of people need to be influential, effective
and to have an impact on the company.

The work of Herzberg (1966) is reliable to Maslows and McClellands theories. The
Dual-Factor theory is based on the principle that humans are motivated towards what makes
them feel happy or good and away from what makes them feel bad. His research classifies
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Organizational Behaviour

motivators as factor producing good feeling in the work environment. These factors are
divided into two part, the hygiene factors and the motivators. The hygiene factors are clearly
concerned with the work environment rather that the work itself. Hygiene factors are
supervision, salary, status, security and motivators factors are recognition, responsibility and
advancement, to name but a few. These factors differ significantly from motivators because
they can only prevent illness but not bring about good health. Herzberg consider that job
satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are not the opposites, for him, the opposite of job
satisfaction is no job satisfaction and the opposite of job dissatisfaction is lack of job
dissatisfaction. This theory has been criticized. For example, the fact that hygiene and
motivator factors can both cause satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction, or the way the
research of Herzberg was conduct have weaknesses (House & Wigdor, 1967).

Hackman, Oldham, Janson, and Purdy (1975), developed a model that include a set of
guideline to help managers to motivate their employee. This model is based on the idea that
the job itself is crucial to employee motivation. It state that the motivating potential of job
can be improved by the introduction of the following five concepts: combining tasks
(increase variety of tasks), forming natural work units, establishing client relationships (allow
employees to contact directly clients), vertical loading (give the managers task to the
employee) and open feedback channel (let them give feedback).

The American physiologist Victor H. Vroom (1964) developed the first expectancy
theory of work motivation, based on three concepts: valence, instrumentality, and expectancy.
This theory develops the view that we predict the possible outcome of divers actions. In other
word, he explains that people work hard only when they believe that they will better their
performance, that they will be recognise and/or that they will be rewarded. Vroom explain
that it is possible to quantify valence, instrumentality and expectancy. Some people feel that
this theory is idealistic because of the difficulties that people have when there are trying to
see a connection between rewards and performance. Researchers have some difficulty in
reproduce the original methodology (Thompson & McHugh).

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Organizational Behaviour

The self-efficacy theory of Albert Bondura (1997) is based on the idea that people can
be motivate by themselves. A strong belief in ones capabilities will sustain the motivation
needed for high performance on a task. People who have high level of confidence in their
skills will put more effort in their job, will accept negative feedback, will set higher goals and
will choose better strategies than people without any self-confidence. It shows that positive
state of mind will lead to more efficient and more effective work.

A goal is basically an objective, the accomplishment of which is desirable in the mind

of a person. In business, goals might be reducing cost by 10% or increase revenue of 5%
over the next year, it can also be a goal for a carrier: during this year, I get a promotion!.
The starting point of the model is that behaviour is influenced by conscious goal and
intentions. Latham and Locke (1979) model show the complexity of the setting of goals in a
business. The model distinct four mechanisms thought which goal setting better increase
performances: focus on relevant activities, high goals lead to greater effort, persistence lead
to higher results and it helps to activate cognitive knowledge and strategies to make an
efficient work.

Session 3
Slide 2:
Here the purpose is to explain two function of the managerial aspect of managers.
Chester Barnard (1938) defined that Organizing is a function by which the concern is
able to define the role positions, the jobs related and the co-ordination between authority and
responsibility. Hence, a manager always has to organize in order to get results. Organizing is
one of the most important aspect of a manager. If he is not capable to do so the work could
not be effective. This aspect of management follows a planning. First, the manager has to
identifies all the tasks which have to be performed, then to departmentally organize the
activities by groups. Classifying the authority of the different department or units is the next
step, the manager has to define which department is in charge of which unit. The clarification
of authority helps in bringing efficiency to different task. This organization avoids wastage of
time, effort, money to name but a few. To finish the manager, have to define the coordination
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Organizational Behaviour

between authority and responsibility. Each employee must be aware of his/here authority and
he/she knows whom they have to refer from and to whom they are dependent and to whom
they have to report.
A motivated workforce can be a sign of successful organization. Every human being
has different motivation for their job and they are key determinant of our behaviour. A
manager who can understand the motives of an employee can influence his behaviour and
make him very effective at work. On the other hand, a demotivated workforce can be
disastrous. People will not be effective, will not try to do their best and will not be concern
about the real purpose of the company. Managers, in consequence, should be very careful
with the motivation of its employees and must be aware of their good business environment.
Even if it is not clearly defining as the managers job to motivate its employees, nearly every
professional admit at least that a manager has a big impact on the staff motivation.

Session 4
Slide 7-8:
The research of Deal and Kennedy provides way of comparing organizations cultures.
Two important factors shape the organizational culture: the risk of the activities of the
company and the speed of feedback in the outcome of employees. The Deal and Kennedy
approach consists of four cultural profiles: though-guy macho, work hard play hard, bet your
company and process. The thought-guy culture is the culture where the perfect employee is
though, individual, superstitious and risk-taker. Organization associated with this culture can
be found in construction, cosmetics, television, radio and management consultancy. In work
hard, play hard culture, the perfect employee is friendly, conventional in dress, not
superstitious, have high work rate and quick solutions to problems. Company associated with
this culture are often estate agencies, mass-product company, car distributor and door-to-door
selling. The bet your company perfect employee is technically competent with respect of
authority and double checks his decision. His dress code and his lifestyle is conventional, and
act as mentor for the new member of the organization. These type of employees are often
situated in oil, aerospace and defence companys. The last type of culture, according to Deal
and Kennedy, is the process culture. Employees are expected to be rather cautious and
protective of their position, have well defined procedures, to put a lot of time in their work.
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The organisation they attached is located in publics utilities, banking, insurance,

pharmaceuticals and governmental agencies.
Charles Handy (1985), influenced by Harrisons (1972), also propose four type of
organisation culture: power, role, person and task cultures. The power culture organization
have a single, dominant individual, these culture will recruit those who have a similar
viewpoint and will try to operate with the minimum of rules. This type of culture might be
founded in small company ruled by the owner. The role culture organizations focus on the
rules, the procedures, and the job description. This culture is based on functional department
and specialities. It is characterised by bureaucracies. The person culture organizations are
focused on individuals. That mean that the organization exist for the benefit of their
employees. Company associated with this culture are start-up and architects partnership. The
last culture is the task culture and is job or project oriented. Team are created to solves critical
problems. Each personality come together to form a team and each team member has to
contribute similarly and has to accomplish tasks in the most inventive way.
The difference between these two concept is the two important factors shape. In the
Deal and Kennedy model, the two factors are risk and speed of feedback. On the other hand,
for the Handy model the two factors are centralization and formalization. However, the two
model bring quite similar culture corporations. The tough-guy macho and power culture are
comparable and the process culture is similar to the task culture.

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Organizational Behaviour

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