Organizational Behaviour

Project

Business Studies Grouping

(Diplomas in Business/Logistics & Operations Management/Marketing)

Tutorial Group:

T08

Tutor:

Miss Serene Ng

Group members:

Chang Xiang Dun Jeremy 0605940F

Esther Tan Jia Ling 0607066H
Leonard Tan Yu Kiat 0608647D
Matthew Khong Weimin 0608119D
Poon Marian 0610264D
Yu Chuan 0604404D
 Content Page

Page Content Topic

3 Task A: Scenario 1(In School) Personality, Motivation, Perception

5 Task A: Scenario 2 (outside School) Personality, Motivation

6 3 Practical ways to minimize/ -

eradicate vandalizing

7 Task B: Article 1 Personality

Youth starting their own Business

9 Task B: Article 2 Power & Politics

Bullying in School

11 Task B: Article 3 Perception

Workplace Bullying

Organizational Behaviour Page 2 of 12

Task A

Scenario 1 (Inside Temasek Polytechnic)

We were sitting in for our usual lectures. As usual, I was looking around to see if others were

actually listening to lecture or doing there own things. A boy who sat in front of me in the lecture

hall caught my attention. He was constantly writing even when the lecturer stopped. I stretched

myself forward and saw him drawing on the table. I knew he wouldn’t be listening to the lecture as

his body language was sluggish. Later on he even scribbled on the walls.

Key players: Boy (vandal), Victims (students who use the same room.)

Topic: Motivation

Concept: Alderfer’s ERG Theory - Relatedness

His need to integrate into his circle of friends who vandalize motivated him to vandalize too. To be

similar and thus, regarded as one of them, he vandalized to show his loyalty for them.

Concept: McClelland’s High Need for Affliation

His desire for close relationships with his group of friends who vandalize motivated him to behave in

the same way as them.

Topic: Personality

Concept: Internal Locus of Control

He thinks that as long as he vandalizes, his friends will acknowledge him. He believes close

relationships that he can have relies on how he behaves; he believes he is control of his own fate.

Organizational Behaviour Page 3 of 12

Concept: High risk-taking

Knowing that he could be caught and punished for his vandalism acts, he carried on vandalizing. He

took great risk in vandalizing as it will land him in trouble and results in punishment. However, he

wants to challenge the rules this is because he derive thrill from vandalizing and he feels that he is

above the law when he is going against the law.

Topic: Perception

Concept: Fritz Heider’s Attribution theory

The boy’s actions were initiated by internal and external factors.

Internal factors: He wanted others to be impressed by his drawings; he wanted to get attention.

External factors: The teacher is too boring. Hence, he wanted to kill time by vandalizing.

His behaviour is normal as compared to others. This is because under same situations, others will

also do the same thing that he does - high in consensus. This shows that his behaviour is due to

external factors. With similar scenarios, he will vandalize again- high in consistency. Thus, his

behaviour is strongly influenced by external factors.

Concept: Projection

However, he could be influenced by his friends. Being surrounded by artistic friends who often

vandalize, projection occurs on him. Hence, he may want to be like them and show them he is as

artistic as them. He may also want to project feelings he has to others through his vandalism. His

drawings may show his frustrations, inner feelings that he does not know how to express verbally.

Organizational Behaviour Page 4 of 12

Task A

Scenario 2 (outside Campus)

My friends and I boarded Bus Service 10 and we headed for the back seats. When we finally settled

down, we realized that there was a group of Secondary School girls scribbling vulgarities on the

cushioned seats with correction liquid at the other end of the back row.

Key Players Involved: Secondary School girls

Victims : Passengers exposed to the vandalism

Topic : Personality

Concept : Environment

Internal factors : Risk-Taking

External factors : Locus of Control

Topic : Motivation

Concept : Maslow Hierarchy of Needs

Internal factors : Social/ Belongingness

External factors : Esteem (amplification of needs), Stand out to be counted

Organizational Behaviour Page 5 of 12

3 ways to minimize or eradicate the acts of vandalism

1. Firstly, many people vandalize as they feel the need to showcase their artistic talent.

Sometimes, they want to express themselves through different ways like graffiti as they have

difficulty expressing themselves verbally or physically. Hence, the government and schools

can set aside areas that allows people to express their feelings though drawings. Others who

have “caught” their artistic feelings can too showcase their art for others to enjoy.

2. Next, during lessons, the teachers can conduct interactive lessons to allow students to

participate. Teachers can add interesting external teaching materials that can interest the

students. This way, the students will be pre-occupied with activities and not think about

vandalizing. This can help reduce vandalism as most students vandalize during lessons as

they feel bored.

3. We should inculcate values from young. The child should have desirable influences in school

and at home and thus, enhance their growing and learning experience. Parents should keep a

close watch on their children to ensure the proper learning of their growth. At the same time,

teachers should try their best to inculcate the moral values through lessons like Moral

Education.

Organizational Behaviour Page 6 of 12

Task B

Article 1

Summary:

This article illustrates on how more youths are starting businesses, just as the Heading,”More youths

becoming their own bosses” suggests. Despite their busy study schedules at the universities, they

were totally committed and united to start up their businesses. Some personality attributes played a

big part in ensuring all this successes, such as: high motivation and high risk-taking.

Topic: Personality

Concept 1: Motivation

According to the McClelland’s Theory of needs, motivation takes place when there is a need for

achievement, power or affliation. In this case, there is a high need for achievement.

This is evident as shown:

• To start the business, they had to take time off from school take up art-time jobs despite

their busy schooling life. They were motivated by achievement.

• Also, when business had started and they knew that their business was “to be in the black

in about a year or so”. Nevertheless, they were motivated by the need for achievement.

However, the need for affliation was not obvious as the business was set up to foster relationships

amongst themselves, but amongst the customers. As for the need for power, it was not evident as

well as another similar business to theirs commented that they did not mind sharing the customers.

Evidently, there is no need for power among the different businesses.

Organizational Behaviour Page 7 of 12

Concept 2: Risk-taking

Risk-taking refers to an individual’s willingness to take risks as an individual as well as within

group settings. As proven in the passage, the youths have shown a high risk-taking propensity. This

is evident as shown:

• They were busy university students, and taking up part-time jobs and starting a business

takes up a lot of time. They were putting their studies in risk as they would have much

less time to study.

• As stated in the article, the main objective of the business was to introduce foreign games

to Singapore and encourage interaction among youths. It was obvious that huge profits

was not heir concern as compared to other eatery businesses, This is very high risk-taking

as they were still amateurs starting up a business, besides they wanted to set up a business

not expecting huge profits. It was definitely not easy to remain in this business.

Organizational Behaviour Page 8 of 12

Task B

Article 2:

Summary:

This passage talks about bullying being widespread in workplace. The passage shows many

examples of how workers in the offices were bullied, especially by the workers of higher rank. The

article shows how organizational behaviour causes such behaviour in the workplace.

Topic: Power and Politics

Concept: Coercive power

“When I complained and said I deserved the credit, he said he'd squish me like big if I tried to steal

his thunder.”

The above phrase, senior staffs bully their workers as they feared the junior staffs are a threat to their

job. They feared that if the junior staffs did too well, they may be replaced by the junior staffs or

worse, retrenched. Hence, the senior staffs use their coercive power to bully the junior staffs and

keep them in their place. By doing so they hope the junior staff will not perform well enough to be a

threat to their place in the company. However, the junior staffs cannot retaliate.

Organizational Behaviour Page 9 of 12

Concept: Friendliness

"My boss was a skinny witch who constantly competed with one of her direct reports for the CEO's

attention.”

The above phrase shows that some employees make use of the concept of friendliness to seek

attention and gain favour from the higher authority. Her behaviour results in the competition for

recognitions and promotions. She will constantly say “honeyed” words to higher authority and do all

kinds of other acts which put her in favor of the higher authority. This is in hope of getting support

from higher authority and gaining benefits and promotions.

Conclusion:

From the above analysis, we can conclude that organizational behaviour plays a huge part in

affecting the behaviour of bullying in workplace. We have learnt that workplace bully occurred due

to the constant competition for positions and promotions and other benefits.

Organizational Behaviour Page 10 of 12

Task B

Article 3:

Summary:

This article is about bullying of students in schools. The article shows surveys of students bully

bullied in school. The results showed that most of the 500 students surveyed had been bullied in their

years in school. The bullying was carried out in many forms like name calling and such. Almost half

surveyed said they took revenge on their bullies. Some even became bullies themselves. The article

shows how organizational behaviour results in such behaviours in schools.

Topic: Perception

Concept: Attribution theory

“Some boys in my class were calling me names and it spread to almost the whole school.”

When the bullies bully others, by-standers will cheer them on. Most would not interfere as they see it

as just a small conflict. Hence, the bully will have a sense of satisfaction. His act of bully is driven

by the admiration and laughter he receives from his peers. Hence, this shows his action is driven by

external forces. This means high in distinctiveness. Most people put under similar situation will act

similarly as they are motivated by sense of power and achievement. This means high in consensus.

However, the bully may not bully if there’s little or nobody around to cheer him on and give him

support. This is because of lack of sense of satisfaction. This shows his action lacks consistency and

will only result when there is a sense of power and satisfaction.

Organizational Behaviour Page 11 of 12

Concept: Needs theories

"It's a vicious cycle. If I'm being victimized and I don't know where to vent my frustrations, I'll begin

to think that people are so unkind to me, so why do I need to be kind to other people. So they become

bullies themselves,"

In other cases, the bully may felt threatened as they were victims of bullies themselves. In this case,

the bully will have the sense of need for power (nPow). This resulted because being victims of bully;

they do not want to be bully again. Hence, they bully others first to avoid being bullied and instill

fear into others. Secondly, they also want friends. By bullying, they gets attention and peer

admiration from the peers for being so daring. This shows that the bullies have the need for

affiliation (nAff). Bullying also gives the bullies a sense of satisfaction. They feel they have achieved

something when they are in control of others. This shows need for achievement (nAch).

Conclusion:

From the above analysis, we can conclude that organizational behaviour affects the actions of the

bullies to a large extent. We have learnt that bullying often occurs because of the cheering and

encouragement provided by the on-lookers who sometimes join in the bullying.

Organizational Behaviour Page 12 of 12

Appendix
Channelnewsasia.com Search Results

Title : One in four secondary school students a victim of bullying: survey

By : Joanne Leow, Channel NewsAsia
Date : 15 Jul 2006 2252 hrs (GMT + 8hrs)

SINGAPORE : One in four secondary school students is a victim of bullying and they experience it
at least twice a week.

The survey of 500 youths found that most of them were bullied by their classmates and some
victims even became bullies themselves.

"It started when I entered Secondary school. Some boys in my class were calling me names and
it spread to almost the whole school. I felt really sad and it affected my studies a lot. The bully
incident kept running through my mind and I cannot concentrate," recalled "Jim", who was a
victim.

The 15-year-old is not alone. Social workers find that a quarter of secondary school students face
verbal or physical bullying at least twice a week.

They are subject to name calling, vulgar language, false rumours and even physical violence,
mainly by their own classmates.

The Children's Society feels that schools and teachers can do more, by coming up with ground
rules against bullying.

"If it is purely name calling, ostracising, although it happens many times to a particular victim,
some schools or teachers in fact see it as very trivial. They don't see that it's important unless
it's a fight or somebody is being harmed physically. Only then will they take serious action," said
Tan Bee Joo, a social worker with Children's Society.

"You never know how that particular victim will take things and what it will do to their confidence
level. And you don't know whether they are strong enough to take the bullying or not. So I think
any bullying is a no, the student has done nothing to deserve such behaviour," added Tan.

To get an even distribution of students across gender, educational level and races, surveyors
used a random sampling method on a pool of households, and found that the victims of bullying
were evenly distributed across all these groups, although a majority of bullies were boys.

And some of the victims actually became bullies themselves.

"It's a vicious cycle. If I'm being victimised and I don't know where to vent my frustrations, I'll
begin to think that people are so unkind to me, so why do I need to be kind to other people. So
they become bullies themselves," said Tan.

Almost 40 percent of victims also reported that they took revenge on their bullies.

The Children's Society says it is important that victims not take things into their own hands but
seek help from counsellors, teachers or friends.

Bullies too need to be counselled, as social workers note that they tend to get in trouble with the
law later in life.

- CNA /ls
The Worst of the Bad Bosses

By TORY JOHNSON

June 26, 2006 — Not too long ago in this space I wrote about bad bosses. The floodgates
opened with stories pouring into my Inbox from readers who were very eager to share their
experiences. While it's easy to chuckle about them now, none of these situations were any
laughing matter to the employees who had to endure the chaos and craziness of their
maniacal managers.

These are some of the standouts. Perhaps they'll make you feel better about your own boss,
or they'll serve as a lesson for how never to behave as a manager of others.

• "My boss was a skinny witch who constantly competed with one of her direct reports for the
CEO's attention. My colleague worked very hard and was a really nice woman. She had no idea
why the boss tried to compete with her. I caught the boss swapping this girl's daily diet sodas
with full-fledged Coke. When I asked why she was doing that, the boss said, 'I'd love nothing
more than for all of that sugar to go straight to her hips.' What a lovely human being."

• "I know the boss should be entitled to take credit for everyone who works under him. But this
creep took it to the extreme. When I scored a big account that I worked months to land, he
ran to the big VP and said he did all the work and even went so far as to describe the meetings
and conversations. Problem was he never met or spoke once to the client. I did it all. When I
complained and said I deserved the credit, he said he'd squish me like big if I tried to steal his
thunder. I got the best revenge: I quit and took the new client with me to my new job!"

• "I had a boss who flipped a button on my desk and asked me if I knew how to sew. When I
said yes, he told me to sew it on his pants. I told him to go into his office and take them off
and hand them back out to me. He said no and told me to just sew it while he kept them on.
There I was sewing this button on the fly of his pants while he smoked a cigarette above me!"

• "While working for a computer company, I would take dictation from one of the vice presidents,
an owner. He'd take his shoes off, put his foot on the desk, and clip his toenails while dictating
letters to me! Yuck."
 • I think I like this story best. One woman said she made a laundry list of complaints about her
manager. When she presented them to the HR department, she was told to pay very, very
close attention to everything her boss said and did. "Why," she asked, very confused. The
response: "If you watch her closely, you'll learn exactly what not to ever do and you'll wind up
going very far in management as the boss that everyone wants to work for."

• The woman said, "I was 20 years old at the time, yet this advice has stuck with me throughout
my 30-year business career. With every job and every bad manager, I've learned what is not
effective with employees, which is just as valuable as knowing what is. It has indeed made me
very successful everywhere I've worked."

To connect directly with Tory Johnson or for other information on career advancement, visit
www.womenforhire.com