Organisations and Behaviour Essay

The Purpose of management is to set collective goals for the organisation and communicate to members of the organisation. They make sure these goals are met organisational structures and systems are designed to make members ‘pull’ together and so that resources are utilised efficiently and effectively. They also create and sustain a corporate identity and culture; they look after the interests of the organisation’s stakeholders too. Managers need to control what goes on in their department, they also need to make sure that everything is co-ordinated otherwise things wont happen properly and problems will start to occur. They are very commanding in order to get jobs done properly and on time and also to show that they are the ones with the authority, i.e. the one who is in charge, what I say goes. Management are given many different types of authority so that they can then implement what they have to do in their role as a manager. They have power, which is the ability to do something or get others to do it. Their authority gives them the right to do something or get others to do it. Along with these comes responsibility, which is where the liability of a person is called into account for the way authority has been exercised. Finally there are also able to delegate, this means that they give a subordinate authority over a defined area of which is within their own scope of authority, they hand over work to someone else but and not rid of the responsibility and work fully. Read more:  Explain the Nature of Groups and Group Behaviour Within Organisations Managers have a number of roles; they consist of interpersonal, informational and decisional. A man called Henry Mintzberg in 1973 identified these roles. An interpersonal role is one that shows leadership, and consists of figurehead, leader and liaison. The interpersonal role has a very important factor known as ‘coaching’. According to Needham et al (1999 p214) â€Å"Coaching is an ongoing process in which one person works closely with another to develop skills and abilities†. An interpersonal manager would need to be a good coach I order to be effective. They build one-to-one relationships with the people they work with in order to build up loyalty and support and at the same time they unleash their full potential. The informational role is an administrating role and consists of monitoring, disseminator and spokesman. Managers in this role are supposed to be able to process information with confidence. They are also supported by information technology in this role, they need to be able to adapt to the changes that happen to rapidly in this environment. The decisional role is a kind of fixing role and involves entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. The managers in this type of role have to make decisions; this means they need to choose courses of action from a set of different alternatives available. There are two main type of decisions, programmed and non-programmed. Herbert Simon (1957, cited in Needham et al 1999 p214) says that Programmed decisions â€Å"are straight forward, repetitive and routine, so that they can be dealt with by a formal pattern† and that Non-programmed decisions â€Å"are novel, unstructured and consequential. There is no cut-and-dried method for handling situations that have not arisen before†. Over the years the way people thought about management and the way they implemented different strategies has changed vastly. To start with back in the early 1900’s there was a scientific approach to management brought about by a man called F W Taylor. Each work process was to be analysed and then by a scientific method it was possible to find the best way for people to do their task or job. Taylor’s thought was that in the same way that there is one special machine that was best for doing one certain job, there is one specific way by which people should undertake their jobs. They would get what was described as a fair days pay for a fair days pay. If workers were to take up Taylor’s methods of working their wages would increase due to it being a more efficient and productive way of working and thus they would become more motivated. However, when actually implemented there became strong criticisms and reactions to his scientific management methods as workers actually found the work boring and weren’t interested, as it required very little skill from them. The workers saw this as disempowerment of them and didn’t like it. So although this was one of the very first approaches to management Drucker (1976, cited in Management and Organisational Behaviour, 1999 p52) says â€Å"Taylor’s greatest impact may still be ahead †¦. The need to study Taylor anew and apply him may be the greatest in the developed countries† suggesting that we may still need to use this theory in present day organisations. Moving on into the 1920’s brought Webber and Fayol with their classical administration/bureaucracy approach to management. This type of management brought sets of official positions, with rules for experts and rules for officials. It showed clear hierarchical authority structure. Impersonal actions by managers in dealing with clients and other workers were seen in order to get rational judgements and a good performance of duties. There are four main features of the bureaucracy theory, they consist of: 1. Specialisation – of the job, so that should the current jobholder leave the job can still continue to function. 2. Hierarchy of authority – a very clear and sharp distinction is made between the workers and the management. And then within the management there are clear ranks between levels of authority, just like what can be seen in current day armed forces. 3. System of rules – this is where the ‘impersonal’ bit comes in as they were set to provide efficient, impersonal operation. These rules are set to provide a stable environment, even though some of the rules are open to change. 4. Impersonality – The rules set down above in number 3 are used to allocate privileges and exercise authority. The characteristics of impersonality are a feature of bureaucracy. Stewart, R (1986, cited in, cited in Management and Organisational Behaviour, 1999 p55) says â€Å"A bureaucracy should not only be impersonal but be seen to be impersonal.† This impersonal-ness in relationships leads to a lack or responsiveness with some incidents and problems. There was also an over emphasis on the rules and procedures in bureaucracy method. Caulkin (1988, cited in Management and Organisational Behaviour, 1999 p56) criticises this over emphasis by saying â€Å"The overemphasis on process rather than purpose, fragmented responsibilities and hierarchical control means that it’s all too easy for individuals to neglect the larger purposes to which their small effort is being put† People then began to recognise about this impersonal-ness and came upon the fact that the workers needs had to be recognised somewhat. This was known as the human relations approach and brought about by Blake, Mouton and Hertzberg in the 1920-1930s. The human relations theory was a major turning point as it started to take into account the needs, values and relationships of the workers. The workforce became more motivated and satisfied job wise, as the human relations approach recognised the importance of informal organisations. They emphasised the needs of wider social needs of individuals and gave recognition to social organisations. The importance of groups and values was emphasised which influenced their individual behaviour at work. All of this led to continued attention being paid to matters such as job satisfaction, group dynamics, participation, leadership and motivation. However, certain criticisms of the human relations approach were that it was not scientific enough and it ignored the role of the organisation itself in how society operates and so another theory was introduced, called The System’s theory. Katz and Kahn introduced the System’s theory in the 1960’s. The systems approach tries to reconcile the theories of Webber and Fayol with that of Hertzberg. It focuses on the interrelationships of structure and behaviour within the organisation. There are two types of systems, an ‘open’ and a ‘closed’ system. A closed system is one that is shut off from its environment. Whilst an open system is usually business related organisationally and it involves continual interaction with its broader external environment. They take in influences from ‘outside’ as INPUTS and produces/influences the environment using OUTPUTS. Every system can have many sub-systems, some including marketing, sales accounts departments etc. INPUTS PROCESS OUTPUTS Materials, Labour, Machinery, Land. Products, Services, Profit. As we moved on into the 1970’s along came the contingency approach, mainly Burns and Stalker brought this to us. The contingency approach shows the importance of structure as a significant influence on the organisational performance. It is also seen as an extension to the systems theory. There is no on optimum state in this approach. The structure and success of an organisation is dependant on the total picture of internal factors and external environment. This type of approach shows that not one style of organisational structure is suitable for all types of businesses, it all depends on the circumstances and structure at that particular moment in time. This theory suggests that an organisation should not seek just one best type of structure to use but that they should look at the present situation and relevant background factors that influence management decisions. The final and most current management theory came about in the 1980’s. This is known as the chaos theory and was brought to us by Tom Peters. The chaos theory tries to make organisations emphasise on the fact that they need to prepare themselves for turbulence, rather than having a rigid, inflexible structure with fixed conditions. It incorporates the contingency approach as it suggests that you should prepare for the unexpected with contingency plans. You can see that the chaos theory is working in current day situations as shown by Peters. Peters, T.J and Waterman, R.H (1982, cited in Management and Organisational Behaviour, 1999 p58) â€Å"found that excellent American companies achieved quick action just because their organisations were fluid, and had intensive networks of informal and open communications†. Part A – (2) Two organisations that I am going to compare are Irwin Mitchell Solicitors and Signfab. Irwin Mitchell Solicitors is a formal, geographical organisation as it has branches across the UK and is run through a partnership. Whilst Signfab is a small local, informal organisation which is run by a sole trader. There are many different approaches to management that could be taken by an organisation, one would be the Theory X and Theory Y approach brought about by McGregor. The main principle of Theory X is based on direction and control through a centralised system of the organisation and the exercise of authority. Whilst Theory Y bases itself on the integration of individual and organisational goals. These Theories influence a range of managerial behaviours and strategies. Managers of Theory X take an authoritative approach and those of Theory Y use a more democratic one. Signfab seems to take a Theory Y approach to its management. In Theory Y management they would check peoples attitudes and skills rather than their references, they would also have frequent informal contacts with their employees rather than consulting them through trade unions. Also the pay scheme for Theory Y is mainly based on a salary and profit related pay, whilst Theory X uses piece rate pay and a personal performance related pay. If you look at the theories that Fayol and Mintzberg took to management we can compare them to what managers currently take in modern day organisations. In the organisation Signfab I would say that they seem to use Mintzberg’s managerial roles. Mintzberg says that there are 10 different roles of managers. Interpersonal, which consists of a figurehead, leader and liaison. Informational, which consists of monitor, disseminator and a spokesperson. And lastly decisional roles these involve entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and a negotiator. On an average day Signfab the owner of Signfab would take on almost all of these managerial roles. He would become a figurehead, leader, monitor, spokesperson, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator. He uses all of these roles because he takes on the jobs of selling products to consumers, sorting out the finance for daily, weekly, monthly running of the business, he briefs his employees on new tasks they have to do and daily jobs that need finishing. He also has to ensure the equipment is safe and working properly for them to use, he takes care of the advertising and takes orders for items to be made and places orders for new stock that they need and then he also gets involved in the making of the products himself on a daily basis. There is also the Chaos theory; this is where the organisations need to be able to move with the turbulent world that we live in today. When the unexpected happens they need to have a plan of what to do so that things are not to badly disrupt and their organisation may still function properly. A key concept of the Chaos theory is that tiny small changes in the input of the organisation and environment result in overwhelming differences in the output. According to Needham et al (1999 p201) â€Å"clearly the emphasis for the modern organisation should be on thriving on chaos. This requires forward-thinking and adaptive structures†. In the organisation Irwin Mitchell Solicitors the managers had a more empowering approach to their management. If you take the theories of Henri Fayol you can see that his theories have a more hierarchical structure to management. Managers have 5 main functions in Fayol’s theory; they consist of – planning, co-ordinating, organising, control and command. The planning function means that they had to decide what needs doing and then make a plan of action. The co-ordinating meant that they were harmonising all the activities and effort of the organisation in order to make possible its working and success. The organising meant that they provided material/human resources and building the structure in order to carry out the activities of the organisation. The controlling was checking that everything was occurring in accordance with their plans, instructions and established principles. Finally the commanding meant that they were maintaining the activity among personnel, getting the best return from all employees in the interest of the whole organisation. Irwin Mitchell’s had a very strict set of procedures and plans for what needed to be done in time for the end of the financial year. Their managers were all very co-ordinated in that each department was in some way connected to the one next to it and they quite often had meetings to see how they could get their teams to work more efficiently between them. There was a very big sense of control over the workers in that your manager checked everything you did. The managers were also very commanding as they hardly ever did the work you did they were more into dictating what needed to be done and then expecting it to get done without their assistance. There was a very long chain of command style structure, as you reported to and any problems to your team leader, who then reported it to her/the department manager, who in turn reported it to the site manager who then reported to the directors of the Sheffield branch. The managers had a lot of authority and unity of command in this organisation. Their approach was very structured and hierarchical, in that the higher up the scalar chain you were the more authority, power and command you had. Part B – (1) Organisational culture is known as the way we do things around here. A more detailed version according to Miner (1971, cited in Management and Organisational Behaviour, 1999 p803) would be that organisational culture is â€Å"†¦the collection of traditions, values, policies, beliefs and attitudes that constitute a pervasive context for everything we do and think in an organisation†. Organisations reinforce culture through their rites and rituals, patterns or communication, the expected patterns of behaviour and the informal organisation. Schein (1985, cited in Management and Organisational Behaviour, 1999 p803) suggests â€Å"a view of organisational culture based on distinguishing three levels of culture: artefacts and creations, values and basic assumptions†. Level 1 – The Artefacts: These are the most visible aspects, the physical and social environment. They include things like physical space and layout, management style, technological output, written and spoken language and the behaviour of group members. Level 2 – The Values: These are solutions for how to deal with a new task, issue or problem, which are based on convictions of reality. If the solution works it is often then transformed into beliefs. These values and beliefs then become part of a process whereby group members justify actions and behaviour. Level 3 – The Basic Underlying Assumption: When the solutions to problems mentioned in level 2 work repeatedly it gets taken for granted. These assumptions actually guide behaviour and determine how the group member perceive, think and feel about things. There are four main types of culture, these consist of Power, Role, Task and Person. * Power culture is also sometimes known as club culture. A key feature of this type of culture is centralisation of power. Power culture is often found in small organisations where control lies with one single person or a small group of individuals. The power culture structure can often be seen to be drawn as a spider’s web style diagram. This is because there is a central power source and rays of influence spread out from there. In power culture decisions are made by high-status individuals, rather than a group of people, because of this the decisions can be made extremely quickly. A bad point about power culture is that other workers in the organisation may feel demoted by a lack of challenge and suppressed by those with the power. The web may crack if they support to many activities . a good example of this would have been the Ford Motor Company , up until the early 1980’s its approach to management was functional specialisation, with hierarchy and tight control. * Role Culture, a typical example of a role culture organisation would be a bureaucratic one, where they are divided into layers of offices and officials, with sets of functions that get determined by sets of rules and procedures. Organisations like this operate by using logic and reason. They would also be arranged according to different functions, such as marketing, human relations and finance. In role culture, power is hierarchical and determined by the employees’ position, like in the armed forces with generals, colonels and majors. A job description and set of communication procedures determine the relationship between each role. Position is ‘the’ source of power and the main source of influence are the rules and procedures. There is little scope for individual initiative and recognition making jobholders feel cramped and no room for development, this being a major disadvantage to the role culture organisations. * Task culture is team oriented. Needham et al (1999 p251) describe this type of culture as â€Å"A task culture is job- or project-oriented and emphasis is placed on completing a specific task†. The ‘task’ states the way in which the work is organised as oppose to the individuals or rules like in power and role cultures respectively. Task culture is often illustrated in the form of a net, with some strands being thicker then others and most of the power and influence laying at the interstices of the net. Task cultures are rewarding environments to work in because the employees have a large amount of freedom and flexibility. All this lack of authority can make management and control of this type of culture difficult though. In today’s work force we can increasingly see more and more emphasis placed on team working style cultures. * Person culture is rarely found in a profit-related organisation as they exist only to serve those within their own organisation. You are most likely to see examples of person culture in co-operatives, barristers’ chambers and architects’ partnerships. This is because you usually see a cluster of individuals all operating at the same level in person culture. Hierarchies are not possible in person culture, unless by mutual consent, given a choice though most people would opt for this type of culture. Each organisation will use their own choice of culture , some larger businesses will use a mix of cultures. There are many things that influence the development of corporate culture. Some of these influences are: * History – the age, values of owners and way in which the organisation was originally formed all effect the culture. A merger or reorganisation of management also change the type of culture used. * Primary functions and technology – The businesses’ primary function affects the culture. Primary function of an organisation is the nature of methods of undertaking work, this effects the culture but also the structure too. * Goals and objectives – An organisation will want to be profitable but they will also have to give their objectives and goals attention, the resultant strategies of their objectives will effect and be effected by the change in culture. * Size – Rapid growth or decline in size and the rate or growth and all the results that come from these, like staffing procedures influence the structure and culture. * Location – The geographical and physical characters of an organisation have a major influence on the culture of the organisation. * Management and staffing – Top managers, directors and executives all have a considerable effect on the nature of the corporate culture. * The Environment – An organisation must be responsive to external environmental factors in order to be an effective business. So from all this we can see that the culture of an organisation is an important thing for them to have stated. It helps to account for all sorts of variations among organisations and managers, on a national and international scale. As Oliver, J (1977, cited in Management and Organisational Behaviour, 1999 p807) mentions â€Å"it helps to explain why different groups of people perceive things in their own way and perform things differently from other groups†. Part B – (2) Irwin Mitchell Solicitors Structure: There are four different areas of the UK where this organisation exists. I have focused on the Sheffield one, as that is where I was. However, they all the other sites were run in the same way that the Sheffield branch was. To look at the structure, there was a group of four to six directors for each location. Then there at Sheffield there was two sites each having their own overall/building manager. The building had about 4-5 floors where each floor had about 4 teams of workers, each floor had a supervisor who was in charge of all the departments/teams on that floor and then each department/team had a department/team leader who had typically 8 people in their team. The personnel department was located in one of the Sheffield branches and each location had their own IT technicians. So we can see from the diagram of their structure that they are a geographical organisation operating on a combined line and staff organisation structure. There is a presence of task culture at the bottom where it is in teams and yet power culture at the top where the directors of the company make all the decisions and are seen to be very high-status and powerful. The employees of this organisation are grouped by function, this means that they are divided into sectors according to what they do, for example a sales, an accounts and a quality control department. This is good because specialists are able to work in an area with like-minded people and each part of the organisation is then pursuing their own primary function, making contributions to the overall well being of the organisation. However, it can be bad to organise things like this because it means individuals can not move easily between departments, the organisation gets bigger and the communication channels become distorted between levels of people and also the different departments may pull in opposite directions, causing the company to focus too much on one specific area. They are also grouped by the type of customer in some areas/cases, as they offer a service which is designed differently for depending on the customers circumstances and each different product like accidental injury area, a divorce section are in their own little divisions. This type of grouping shows clearly that each department can concentrate on its own needs, also the customer will fell more inclined to go to your company as you deal with different problems in different areas and more specifically and its easier to check on the performance of their individual product/service. Although having them grouped in this way may mean that each division will compete with each other for the companies resources, this type of structure is costly to set up and more accounting and administrative services are needed. The structure above is a very formal structure; this means that the structure is based on the employees’ official roles. It also has a fairly narrow span of control. A span of control according to Needham et al (1999 p236) is â€Å"The span of control of an individual is the number of people he or she manages of supervises directly†. If an organisation has a narrow span of control this can be good because it enables close supervision and fast communications. However, it also means that the organisation might be too ‘tall’ meaning there is too many levels of management, this usually makes it very costly to run and also means that supervisors get too involved in their subordinates work. A wider span of control would show a much greater amount of trust in the subordinates and also mean having fewer managers; this still allows a hierarchy yet it gives fewer levels. Signfab’s Structure: Signfab is a local sign makers which consists of the owner and two employees, they all partake in the general making of the signs but the owner/manager takes on all the accounts, advertising, purchasing, payroll and general running of the company. From the structure above you can see that this is a much less complicated structure, with a lot fewer employees. There is hardly any span of control as it only consists of the owner and two employees. This is however a good thing because it means they have direct contact and communications with their boss/manager. It is a very flat structure with only two levels. A matrix structure/organisation consists of a combination of functional departments that are specialised and in a permanent location with ones that integrate activities of different functional departments such as a project team, product, programme and system basis. So you can see that the matrix organisation is shown through a grid with a two-way flow of responsibility and authority. Organisations that chose the matrix structure are opting for this because it means that they don’t have to choose one type of grouping over another. I would say that the above structure is a matrix organisation, as it is not grouped in any specific way. There are signs of power culture as all the authority lies with the owner and he makes all the decisions very quickly. So in this structure the owner has a lot of power and authority over his/her employees/subordinates as he/she is the owner and there is no one else higher than him to constrict his reign of power. Whilst in the solicitors structure there is a great deal of restriction in the amount of power they are allowed to have over their subordinates as there is always someone higher up the structure than them that has power over them and what they can and cannot do. The Signfab organisation is centralised as you can see that it is easy to implement policies for the organisation, the organisation on a whole is very co-ordinated, the subordinates are independent but not to a great extent, the decision making is very efficient as there is not compromise of authority when making them and they have a greater use of specialisation in what they do as an organisation. Whilst Irwin Mitchell Solicitors is more decentralised as their administrative services are close to the services they provide so that they can be more effective, opportunities for training in management arise very frequently, the staff are very encouraged by this and therefore morale is very high. Also the decisions can be made closer to the operational level of work. Part B – (3) Irwin Mitchell’s structure and culture are related to the organisations performance as their structure is a very tall structure and this means that they are less customer responsive as the communications between the managers and the employees are more complicated and not as good as they would be in a flatter structure. If their structure were more flat the managers would be nearer to the consumers and be in a better position to see and adapt to what their needs are. This is what Hertzberg suggests in the Human Relations approach. That the employees should not be treated as another part of the machinery their values and relationships should be seen and heard, this improves the morale of the workforce as they are at last being acknowledged. This acknowledgement of the workers and their values brought about an increase in their motivation and so the performance of the organisation would increase too. Irwin Mitchell solicitors take in to account the human relations approach to some extent as the workers values, relationships and suggestions are taken into account. This is seen by the fact that they hold functions at Christmas time for the employees to attend where they are rewarded for their hard work throughout the year. There is also more delegation in a flat structure as there is usually less managers and they would not necessarily be able to carry out all the work that double their amount of managers would have and therefore delegate some of this work to their subordinates, this improves the employees morale and is a good way of motivating them in to working harder so that the businesses performance will also increase. As Irwin Mitchell Solicitors has a tall structure their employees are less motivated and the morale is not always very good within the teams, meaning that the organisations performance is not as good as it could be. They do operate a Kaizen culture though, this is where the employees can suggest things that they think would help or improve the organisation. These are usually small things and are implemented gradually so that the performance of the firm will to improve gradually. This type of culture improves the employees moral, motivation to the company as they are rewarded for the ir efforts/suggestions if they succeed. Bibliography The books I used for reference in this assignment are: Business for Higher Awards 2nd edition by Needham et al published in 1999 by Heinemann. Management and Organisational Behaviour 5th edition by L J Mullins published in 1999 by FT Prentice Hall. HNC HND Business Core Unit: 3 Organisations and Behaviour 1st edition by BPP Publishing in September 2000.