Organizational Behavior Final free essay sample

Power and Influence Read this case: â€Å"Nabs Rogue Trader† (page 312). 1A. Power The sources of contingency of power model applies to the situation described in case study 10. 2 in McShane Von Glinow (2010) book through legitimate and coercive sources of power and visibility and discretion contingencies of power. Whether power is used in an ethical (good) or unethical (bad) way power is still power. Power is defined by McShane Von Glinow as â€Å"capacity of a person, team, or organization to influence others† (2010, pg. 290). This ability to influence people is shown by Luke Duffy in the case study through mainly coercive power but also legitimate power. Duffy’s power was derived from legitimate power because of the position he held within National Australia Bank’s (NAB’s) foreign currency option desk. Duffy’s boss, Gary Dillon, enforced this legitimate power by keeping him this position. Legitimate power that Duffy receives is due to his agreement within the organization and originates from his formal job description and informal rules of conduct. In the case study, Dennis Gentilin who is Duffy’s subordinate, states that Duffy is one of the â€Å"untouchables† and is used to getting his way. Legitimate power does have limitations and Duffy gets around this issue by also using coercive power to control or influence the staff to do what he wants and stay loyal. Duffy’s other source of power that he used to stay in his position was coercive power. By using his ability to apply punishment Duffy utilizes his coercive power. He does this several ways, one by inducing fear that he will use the punishment of transferring off his team and the other by mocking (bullying) them into submission. A good example from the case study is when it is explained how Duffy uses this mocking against a coworker in the London by making fun of him, which in turn kept the employee compliant. The employee did not want to be made fun of so the easiest way to make Duffy stop making fun of him (a form of punishment) was to let Duffy do what he was doing and stop interfering with his actions. Duffy also had contingencies of power that he used in his favor such as visibility and substitutability, though mainly his ability to use discretion was his main contingency of power within NAB’s. Duffy’s ability to make decisions without being questioned gave him this important contingency of power. Duffy was doing things against policy because he had been given too much discretion in his decision making responsibilities which resulted in numerous illegal actions on his part. The executives that gave him this amount of discretion to abuse ended up losing their jobs because of Duffy’s illegal actions. 1B. Influence Tactics Duffy does use his influence tactics effectively though in a negative capacity. One tactic that Duffy uses effectively is assertiveness. Duffy had a team that was under him and his social network consisted of this group, though not all of them enjoyed his company or agreed with what he was doing they still stayed in line, for the most part, with him due to his influence tactic of assertiveness. He was able to keep his social network by limiting contact of other social networks by being the main bridge between others and essentially creating a structural hole in the social network of the organization. According to McShane and Von Glinow (2010) a structural hole is the gap that is formed between two different groups or clusters in a social network. Duffy’s influence tactic was assertiveness, which he used very effectively throughout the organization, in a negative way. He applied vocal authority and through legitimate and coercive powers to influence others inside and outside his team to conform to his ways or turn a blind eye to his activities. In the case study, Gentilin, attempted to have Vanessa McCallum look into Duffy’s transactions but did not want to because she was afraid of his threats and assertiveness tactics of having her being removed from the team. Everyone knew of his threats of being removed from his team if they did not comply. This example of how Duffy uses his influence tactics is a great example of the â€Å"dark side† of organizational politics. His tactics were selfish and self-serving. At the end of the day Duffy’s tactics were allowing him to continue on with illegal and unethical behaviors, ultimately costing the organization over 350 million dollars over the course of one year and putting him and several others in jail. 2. Leadership Read this case: â€Å"Profitel Inc† (page 370). The behavioral perspective sets the stage for understanding transformational leadership. It also sets the stage for understanding the contingency Path-Goal Theory of leadership. A. Leadership Perspective The best perspective of leadership style that explains the scenario in McShane and Von Glinow (2010) is Fiedler’s contingency model. According to the contingency perspective of leadership the most appropriate style of leadership will always depend on the situation at hand and no one leadership style will work in every situation. Leaders must have a high level of emotional intelligence to be able to foresee the situation and change his or her style of leadership to best work for the situation (McShane Von Glinow, 2010). This scenario is an example of a leader being unable to adapt to the situation and forced his leadership style unto an organization resulting in failure. In this scenario the telephone company, Profitel, was looking for a new CEO to help battle emerging threats in a couple new markets. Profitel decided to hire from the outside based on the threats since this was new competition in hopes that the new CEO would bring experience with him to handle the issues. The board of directors at Profitel was excited by the prospects of Lars Peeters and the experience he had. Peeters had extensive global experience coming from a European company. His leadership style is stated as being â€Å"a high-octane energy level, self-confidence, decisiveness, and a congenial yet strong persuasive interpersonal style. † (McShane Von Glinow, 2010, p. 370). He came to the board with a strategy to boost profits, which is where the first hint comes into play. One of the board members noted that this was the same strategy he used in his previous two jobs as CEO, showing that he lacks the ability to change his leadership style to the situation. Fiedler’s contingency model is based off the effectiveness of whether or not the leadership style is appropriately matched to the situation and this case Peeters’ is not. According to Fiedlers’ model leaders cannot change their style and they will always fall back onto their natural style of leadership. Though they might be able to alter their style temporarily but it will not last (McShane Von Glinow, 2010). What Profitel should have done was find a leader more appropriate for their organizational structure. 2B. Leadership Problems If organizations, such as Profitel, wish to avoid leadership problems identified in this case study they should put the appropriate leader in that best fits the situation and the organizational structure. Though not all agree with Fiedler’s contingency model and has been criticized his point about a leadership style changing does hold weight. A company or organization should not expect a leader to come in and change his or her leadership style but instead should look for certain leaders that fit the situation. If an organization has an opening for a position such as what Profitel had in that they needed a leader that was free thinking and used to change then they should find a leader that has a leadership style appropriate for that. Flexibility is something that should be seen as a value in a scenario like this and Lars Peeters seemed like a leader that did things his way and forced it to be his way. Finding the right fit will go a long way when picking the right leader for an organization. 3. Organizational Structure Read this case: â€Å"Nokias Evolving Organizational Structure† (page 399). Current Changes to Structure Nokia Corporation has had to make many drastic changes in terms of division of labor within their organizational structure in order to stay successful and competitive in their market(s). Nokia’s organizational structure has changed dramatically over the decades it has been in business but most recently starting in the early 1990’s where its product-based organizational structure was mainly designed around its different businesses to today where Nokia has sold off most of their divisions and focusing on just a few product divisions. All in all Nokia has remained a product-based organizational structure. In the early 1990’s Nokia’s divisions were consumer electronics, cable for construction and power transmission, industrial rubber, and their (at the time) newly acquired telecommunication business (McShane Von Glinow, 2010). Today their organizational structure is smaller and their main emphasis is on two divisions: Smart Devices and Mobile Phones. The third division is their â€Å"Markets division that instead of products deals with global sales and supply chain operations. Nokia’s changes were made due to the evolution of their products. They had to change their organizational structure in terms of division of labor to keep their divisions successful. Cell phones were changing and the market was changing so they had to keep up. As the product changed from just a regular cell phone to a cell phone with internet capabilities they changed their division of labor to focus on those markets to fight off the declining of sales. Nokia is a large company that deals with products and must focus on keeping those products sales high. If they are obsolete they must change products and evolve. The divisions of labor that Nokia had in the beginning were broad and varied to a high degree compared to the narrow market it now deals with. The other divisions were sold off or closed. 3B. Problems with the new Structure Nokia is in a market that is going to be forever changing. As technology advances so will the products that Nokia sells. The current organizational structure is good for the current products but will be forced to change yet again as the products evolve and the current products start to decline. Nokia’s second division is focused on the traditional cell phone market that in the next five to ten years could be a smart phone. At that point both divisions would be dealing with the same product or that division will go away, leaving Nokia with yet another organizational change / shift. With these changes Nokia will be losing valuable experience or forced to re-train these individuals in the new markets on the new products. Nokia currently has a divisional structure, which has forced them to continually change their organizational structure to fit their current product lines. If Nokia would go through a radical change into a functional structure they would go through less organizational changes over the coming years. A functional structure will focus their organization around the employees and their specific knowledge instead of their current organizational structure which is focused around their products. I would recommend a change to having a CEO at the top of their organization chart with maybe a research and development (RD) division, a sales division, and a product division. This would allow for more flexibility as different products come and go through the organization. The technology could move from the RD division right to the product division with the sales division being similar to what they have now with their â€Å"Markets† division. By staying with a divisional structure with their current products they will always being changing and refocusing their efforts, never really establishing a strong organizational structure where formalization is allowed to standardized the informal communications, behaviors, etc. 4. Organizational Change Read scenarios 2 and 3 in the team exercise: â€Å"Strategic Change Incidents† (page 456). A. Lewin and Change Management Practices After reading scenario 2 and analyzing the different factors that might be in play in this scenario I would suggest that the organization do a couple different things to help unfreeze, change, and refreeze the organization in order to help them become more environmentally friendly. Resistance to change can come from many different angles and it is key as a leader to identify what these forms of resistance to change might occur before unfreezing an organization and attempting to make a change. Resistance to change is common and according to McShane Von Glinow (2010) it is a natural human response. In general some reasons why employees might be resistant to change are when an employee’s personal cost-benefits analysis is negative, to save face or embarrassment of being wrong, the fear of the unknown, a break in common routine, incongruent team dynamics, or incongruent organizational systems (McShane Von Glinow, 2010). In this particular scenario I would attempt to foresee some of the forms of resistance to change that might come about such as direct costs to the employees. They might see the extra effort that might be involved in this change as more work on their part and no extra benefit. Another might be the fear of the unknown where some jobs might become obsolete due to saving no paper or just in general what is going to be expected of them. Finally another resistance to change that might come about could be a break in their normal routine and a waste of their time and effort. By knowing these possible forms of resistance to change I can plan accordingly and prepare for them. Since the board of directors and the CEO both want the organization to be more environmentally friendly and I am the one in charge of making it happen I would first unfreeze the organization by starting an educational program that is geared towards helping the employees learn about the importance of environmental objectives, such as the 3 R’s â€Å"reduce, reuse, recycle†. After a period of time, allowing the educational program to work I would then start to introduce the change. I would hope that this educational program would help inspire change from within and create urgency for change that starts with the employees. By properly communicating what the organizational goals are in regards to their environmental objectives it will allow the employees to create their own programs and eliminate their fears of the unknown, they would break their own routines out of want, and they would understand that their cost-benefit analysis would not be affected in a negative way. Since this change was brought on by the employees the freezing would be as simple as putting the suggestions and â€Å"new† behaviors into company policies. By creating policies from initiatives that the employees started their will be less resistance to the official company policies that are being implemented, which would essentially be freezing the change. 4B. Action Research In this scenario, Team Exercise 15. 2 scenario 3, I would assume I am in the Chief Operations Officer (COO) and working alongside the CEO to help keep the airlines from defaulting on their payroll obligations and turn around the organizations operational efficiency. The action research approach is an four step approach to changing the process of an organization that is a combination of action orientation and research orientation (McShane Von Glinow, 2010). As COO I would apply action research, minus step-one since I am already in the organization and forming the client-consultant relationship does not apply to this situation. Going straight into step-two of the action research approach, which is diagnosing the need for change, I would immediately attempt to find the root of the problem. I would sit down with as many different staff and talk to them about what is causing the problems. I would also hope to have enough time to implement a well thought out survey to narrow down exactly what the problem(s) are. Since this is an airlines company and the reputation goes a long way I would start with fixing why the employees are embarrassed to wear the company logo, if the employees are embarrassed, the surely the majority of the customers do not want to fly with us. The employees will know the underling cause so once I have them on board step-one will be complete. In this scenario as the COO I would move into step three viciously and fast with what McShane and Von Glinow (2010) calls a quantum change. Step-three of the action research approach is to introduce intervention, which is applying the methods to fix the problem. So as COO I would implement change starting with rewards or incentives to all the staff working on the flight, for every flight that takes off on time. Obviously there are situations that are out of the hands of the staff such as weather and mechanical issues but over for the majority of the flights the staff would be working towards getting that plane off on time. This I believe would help with the embarrassment of working for the airlines and over time the staff will become proud to be employees. It will not be an overnight process but instead something that will take considerable effort and communication between the employees and executives. The final step, step-four, of the action research approach is to evaluate and stabilize the change. In this step I would have to watch and see if the incentive is working. Is the incentive too little, too much, or over time are they forgetting about it all together. I would need to adjust the incentive but also ensure that healthy approaches are being taken. It would be counterproductive to have staff rushing the people on the plane just to get the incentive, or pilots leaving early or without passengers just for the incentive. So as the COO I would have to carefully watch what is happening and adjust as necessary.