Ahsanullah University Science and Technology

School of Business
Semester Fall 2021
Course Title: Organizational Behavior
Course Code: MGT 610
Assignment
Total Marks: 20
Assignment for the students of MBA / EMBA, School of Business, Ahsanullah
University Science and Technology. You must submit the following two
assignments within 13th September, 2022

Assignment # 1
Organizational behavior is a part of industrial and organizational psychology and has emerged in
the 1940s and 50s. However, until the 1970s, it did not develop into an independent field of study.
The area became rapidly quantitative in the 1960s and 1970s and produced significant ideas Such
as compulsive rationality, informal organization and resource dependence. Some important
theorists in this area are Herbert Simon, James G. Mar, Chester Bernard, Henri Fayal and Victor
Worm.

Today, organizational behavior analysis is a major sub-sector of general management and is taught
in almost all universities and business schools. There are three levels of study in this area and you
must interpret these three levels:

1. Micro level (which studies how employees work)

2. Meso level (which studies how working groups work)
3. Macro level (that studies how organizations in general work)
Assignment # 2
Read the following assign problem and summarize it
with in 2/3 pages.

1. A Report Writing Assignment on Organizational Behavior: A

Case Study of the Regency Grand Hotel

Introduction:

Employee motivation and employee retention are held as the most important responsibility that a
manager has to do Report Writing. In a workplace, a manager has to face different employees
bearing different values, ideas and beliefs. In order to gain control over all of them, a manager
needs to implement certain effective measures with the help of which he/she can be able to
maintain a healthy and effective organizational behavior. Here in this assignment, an attempt will
be made to critically evaluate different aspects of organizational behavior with explicit reference
to the case study of the Regency Grand Hotel. The assignment will deliver a brief summary of the
entire situation under which the hotel is passing through. It will also try to analyse the major issues
that are causing trouble for the organization. The assignment will also include the major causes
behind those demanding issues and the possible solutions that can be able to get the organization
out of this unfavorable situation. A detailed analysis of the consequences of those possible
solutions will also find its place in the Report Writing. In the concluding part of it, a proper and
applicable recommendation will be made for the benefit of the organization.

1. Information Summary:

The given Report Writing of the case study reveals the story of the Regency Grand Hotel. The
hotel started its journey 15 years ago and under the effective leadership of a Thai general manager
it earned the reputation of being the most prestigious and most popular hotel in Bangkok. The hotel
offers industry best salary package to its 700 employees and provides other added benefits like
annual bonus and so on. The employees carry a sense of pride because of their association with
the hotel. In an unusual turn of events in recent times, the hotel was sold to a renowned hotel chain
of America. During the process of shifting of the ownership, the general manager decided to retire.
As a consequence of it, Mr. John Becker has been found as the most suitable replacement for the
position of the general manager of the hotel. Mr. Becker is a well-experienced management
professional who has previously handled a number of successful acquisitions. He tried to
implement a new style of business operation for the employees of the Regency Grand Hotel. After
retaining the same employee workforce with little exceptions here and there, he concentrated his
focus on the empowerment of each and individual employees. The employees of the hotel were
previously accustomed to carrying out their job responsibilities according to the instructions of
their managers in Report Writing. By taking a 360-degree turn from the previous practice, the
newly appointed general manager forced the employees to go beyond the guidelines of their
managers and make decisions independently based on the situational demands. According to him,
this practice would result in increased level of employee motivation and job satisfaction and it
would extract the hidden creativity or imaginative power lied dormant in the minds of the
employees. Before implementing the employee empowerment process, Mr. Becker has arranged a
meeting with the managers and the heads of different departments of the hotel and discussed the
necessity of employee empowerment with them. After hearing his ideas, few of the managers and
departmental heads responded positively and others just swayed their heads. In his attempt to turn
his ideas into action, the general manager revived the organizational process in such a way that the
lower level employees now do not have any need to take the help or guidance of their superior
managers for making an organizational decision in the case of minor organizational issues. But for
major organizational issues, the employees are directed to take the guidance of their superior
managers. In practice, the employees are found vacillating in doubts in order to identify an
organizational issue to be a minor or a major one. They remain utterly confused in deciding
whether they need to take the guidance of their superior managers or not. Even their superiors
often dismissed their taken decisions by saying that this is a major organizational issue and needs
to be discussed with the upper level of management. All these invite a chaotic situation for the
organization and subsequently the employees lose faith in their ability to take correct and effective
organizational decision. The employees even lose their mutual trust and respect for each. The
situation becomes worse to that extent in which increased number of customer complaints starts
coming regarding the improper performance of the employees of the hotel. The past glory of the
hotel drowns in the present shame that the employees acquire under the new general manager.

2. Major Problems that the Regency Grand Hotel is facing:

The hotel in earlier times successfully delivered quality Report Writing services to its customers.
The credit for this success definitely goes to the individual performance of each and every
employee of the hotel. But due to a change in the organizational process in recent times, the same
set of employees couldn’t be able to provide quality services to the customers of the hotel. In
previous times, the employees were generally put under the supervision of managers and
departmental heads. They were accustomed to follow the orders of their superiors and act
accordingly. They were not been given any opportunity to reflect their creativity or decision
making power. The managers used to follow the autocratic style of leadership. In which the
managers takes the position of a strict instructor and delivers orders that the employees were forced
to follow (Bel, 2010). Under all such adversities, the employees were able to maintain an
acceptable performance standard. But with the change in the position of the general manager, the
situation starts declining. Even though the new general manager takes a democratic style of
leadership and tries to empower his employees in order to ensure that they can reflect their
innovative thinking in taking important organizational behavior decisions, the performance of the
employees are degrading at a rapid speed. Increased number of customer complaints reveals that
the employees are not being able to deliver standard performance. It is basically the failure of the
top management in maintaining a proper organizational behavior within the organization. Due to
this only, the employees have to suffer from loss of faith among themselves, face potential
organizational conflict and feel not motivated enough to enhance their performance of Report
Writing.

3. Causes Behind the Problem:

The failure in maintaining a proper and healthy organizational behavior invites several other
complications for an organization (Saiyadain, 2010). It builds a communication gap between the
employees. It snatches away mutual trust and respect that exist among the employees for each
other. Similar situation occurs in case of the Regency Grand Hotel. The newly appointed general
manager tries to bring about a change in the organizational process by rendering empowerment to
the employees. His idea is noble, but the process he chooses to implement his idea is inappropriate.
In order to bring about an organizational change, a manager needs to identify the organizational
areas where the change is required the most, design the change process properly, and execute the
change in the organizational structure in a slow but steady process so that the implemented change
can sustain for a longer period of time (Edd, 2011). In this case, Mr. Becker has made certain hasty
decisions in implementing the desired organizational change.

4. Determination of Major Causing Steps:

It is necessary to identify those troubled areas which Mr. Becker mistakably manhandles. In order
to empower the employees, the management needs to ensure it whether the employees are
competent enough to handle added responsibilities (Aston and Morton, 2007). It is unnecessary to
say that all the employees of an organization cannot be equally competent and able. So
empowering all the employees without even judging their individual competence and creative
qualities is not a good idea. Besides this, even a competent employee can utilize its acquired power
to the fullest only after getting proper training and development opportunities. In order to handle
added responsibilities allocated to a particular employee, he/she requires certain added skills which
can only be gathered from proper training and development programs (Kayode, 2010). The
management of the Regency Grand Hotel also fails to implement effective measures which can
motivate the employees to a great extent. With the help of increased level of motivation, the
employees can be able to accept the organizational change wholeheartedly and deliver standard
performance.

5. Ways to Get out of the Problem:

In order to turn the specific idea of Mr. Becker into existence, a proper organizational change
process is needed to be implemented. The hotel managers need to understand that the employees
have already become accustomed with the previous practice of following the instruction of their
superiors. Bringing about a change in their style of working can create problem for the organisation
Report Writing. It can even decrease their individual productivity. Thus at the very first stage of
the change implementation process, there is a need to analyse the exact benefit that the change will
bring for the organization (Hendry and Pettigrew, 2009). In the next stage, the specific needs like
training and development need are required to be identified. In the third stage, a proper planning
should be done to chalk out the specific action plan for the implementation of the desired change.
The most important function that needs to be performed after this stage is the inclusion of proper
change infrastructure (Goksoy and Ozsoy, 2007). This can be done by designing exclusive training
programs for the employees or announcing specific reward systems to motivate them. In the
concluding part of the process, the change should be implemented with a strict attention to the
response it gets, the success it attains and the corrective measures that need to be taken (Refer to
Appendix). Besides implementing a proper change implementation process, the managers of the
Regency Grand Hotel can also adopt certain effective initiatives in order to motivate their
employees. For this, they can take the help of Herzberg’s Motivation and Hygiene Theory. In the
said theory, Herzberg proposes two sets of factors- Hygiene and Motivation factors in Report
Writing which impose negative and positive impacts on employee job satisfaction (Carl, 2009).
Hygiene factors include faulty company policies, improper relationship between superior and
subordinates, unsuitable working conditions, insufficient salary package and lack of job security.
The above-said factors can negatively motivate employees and create job dissatisfaction. In stark
contrast to these factors, Herzberg proposes Motivation factors which can positively motivate
employees and can create job satisfaction. Motivation factors include opportunities of
achievement, recognition of achievement, interesting job, added responsibilities and growth
opportunities (Eunmi, 2009).

Motivation factors Hygiene Factors

Achievement Company policy

Recognition Relationship between supervisor and peers

Interesting job Working condition

Added responsibility Salary

Growth opportunities Job security

Figure 1: Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory

6. Effects of those Possible Solutions:

With the help of the said solutions, the management of the Regency Grand Hotel will be able to
implement changes in the organizational process successfully. It will help the management to
identify competent and potential employees, whose empowerment can derive positive result to the
organization. The management can even organize specific training and development programs for
the selected employees which will help them to improve their decision making skills to a great
extent. Inclusion of employees in the change implementation planning process will derive
innovative ideas and opinions which can prove to be effective for the organization (Okumus and
Hemmington, 2011). The employees of Regency Grand Hotel already enjoy an industry best
compensation package. Added monetary reward will not motivate them to a great extent. Instead
by following Herzberg’s theory, other motivational factors can be chosen in order to derive
motivation for the employees. Offering ample chances of achievement or recognizing individual
achievement or providing future career growth opportunities can greatly motivate the employees
and extract the best possible performance from them (www.hrzone.co.uk, 2014).

7. Recommendation:

It can be recommended to the top level management of the Regency Grand Hotel that it can think
of bestowing empowerment on group level, instead of individual level. Group empowerment will
help the employees to build up effective team network and all the organizational decisions will be
taken by the team as a whole which will minimize mistakes in taking decisions. It is the duty of
the top management to clearly explain individual responsibility to each and every employee of the
organization. There should be a predefined list of decisions which categorically depicts that which
organizational decisions can be taken by the lower level employees and which ones fall under the
authority of the top level management. The management should give stress on effective
motivational factors which confirm increased level of employee motivation, employee
productivity and employee retention.