WEEK – 3

ASSESSMENT
OR
CASE STUDY
NAME: GIRI PRASAD. P
DATE: 23/04/2023
Instructions

Difficult Transitions

Tony Stark had just finished his first week at Reece Enterprises and decided to
drive upstate to a small lakefront lodge for some fishing and relaxation. Tony had
worked for the previous ten years for the O’Grady Company, but O’Grady had
been through some hard times of late and had recently shut down several of its
operating groups, including Tony’s, to cut costs. Fortunately, Tony’s experience
and recommendations had made finding another position fairly easy. As he drove
the interstate, he reflected on the past ten years and the apparent situation at
Reece.

At O’Grady, things had been great. Tony had been part of the team from day one.
The job had met his personal goals and expectations perfectly, and Tony believed
he had grown greatly as a person. His work was appreciated and recognized; he
had received three promotions and many more pay increases.

Tony had also liked the company itself. The firm was decentralized, allowing its
managers considerable autonomy and freedom. The corporate Culture was
easygoing. Communication was open. It seemed that everyone knew what was
going on at all times, and if you didn’t know about something, it was easy to find
out.

The people had been another plus. Tony and three other managers went to lunch
often and played golf every Saturday. They got along well both personally and
professionally and truly worked together as a team. Their boss had been very
supportive, giving them the help they needed but also staying out of the way and
letting them work.

When word about the shutdown came down, Tony was devastated. He was sure
that nothing could replace O’Grady. After the final closing was announced, he
spent only a few weeks looking around before he found a comparable position at
Reece Enterprises.

As Tony drove, he reflected that "comparable" probably was the wrong word.
Indeed, Reece and O’Grady were about as different as you could get. Top
managers at Reece apparently didn’t worry too much about who did a good job
and who didn’t. They seemed to promote and reward people based on how long
they had been there and how well they played the never-ending political games.

Maybe this stemmed from the organization itself, Tony pondered. Reece was a
bigger organization than O’Grady and was structured much more bureaucratically.
It seemed that no one was allowed to make any sort of decision without getting
three signatures from higher up. Those signatures, though, were hard to get. All
the top managers usually were too busy to see anyone, and interoffice memos
apparently had very low priority.

Tony also had had some problems fitting in. His peers treated him with polite
indifference. He sensed that a couple of them resented that he, an outsider, had
been brought right in at their level after they had had to work themselves up the
ladder. On Tuesday he had asked two colleagues about playing golf. They had
politely declined, saying that they did not play often. But later in the week, he had
overheard them making arrangements to play that very Saturday.

It was at that point that Tony had decided to go fishing. As he steered his car off
the interstate to get gas, he wondered if perhaps he had made a mistake in
accepting the Reece offer without finding out more about what he was getting into
.
Case Questions

Identify several concepts and characteristics from the field of organizational

behaviour that this case illustrates.

What advice can you give Tony? How would this advice be supported or tempered
by behavioural concepts and processes?

Is it possible to find an "ideal" place to work? Explain.

Organizational Behavior – Definition and Concepts

Definitions of Organizational Behavior

According to Keith Davis “organizational behavior is the study and application

of knowledge about how people act within organizations. It is human tool for
the human benefit. It applies broadly to behavior of people in all type of
organization such as business, government, schools, etc. it helps people,
structure, technology, and the external environment blend together in to an
effective operative system”.

Stephen Robins defines organizational behavior as a “field of study that

investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have an
organization for the purpose of applying such knowledge improving
an organization’s effectiveness“.

There are many definitions about organizational behavior; every definition must
include three important features, (1) organizational behavior is the study of
human behavior, (2) study about behavior in organisations and (3) knowledge
about human behavior would be useful in improving an organisation’s
effectiveness.

organizational behavior is the study of what an individual thinks feels or does

in and around an organisation, both individual and in group. It investigates
people’s emotions and behavior, behavior and performances in a team, systems
and structures of organisations. It helps to explore and provide an
understanding of all the factors that are necessary to create an effective
organisation.
Fundamental Concepts of Organizational Behavior

Organizational behavior is based on a few fundamental concepts which are

relevant to the nature of people and organisations. There are some basic

assumptions in organizational behavior such as, (1) difference between

individuals; (2) a whole person; (3) behavior or an individual is caused; (4) an

individual has dignity, (5) organisations are social systems; (6) mutuality of

interest among organisational members; (7) holistic organizational behavior.

Now let’s look at all assumptions in detail:

1. Individual differences idea comes from psychology. Every person is different

from the day of birth, every person is unique and personal experiences make a

person more different than the other. Every individual differs in many ways like

intelligence, physique, personality, learning capability, communicative ability

etc. Therefore only an individual can take responsibility and make decisions,

whereas a group is powerless until all the individuals within the group act

accordingly.

2. A whole person indicates that when an individual is appointed in an

organisation, he/she is not hired only on the basis of skills, but also on likes

and dislikes, pride and prejudices. An individual’s way of living in a family

cannot be separated from organisational life. This is why the organisations need

to provide their employees with a proper work environment where they can work

hard to progress and develop their abilities to become a better employee and

also a better person in terms of growth and fulfillment.

3. Caused behavior indicates that when an individual behaves in an unmannerly

fashion then there is a cause behind it. Anything could be the reason of this

cause such as personal problems at home within the family, or problems with
 coming early to the office etc. If an individual starts reacting in an unmannerly

fashion with other staff members, then a manager should understand that there

is definitely a cause behind it. Managers should investigate about the cause

and tackle the issue at the root level.

4. Human dignity indicates that every individual needs to be treated differently. It

shows human dignity because people at every level of professional ladder want

to be treated with respect and dignity. Every job needs to be done with respect

and recognition this helps every individual aspiration and ability to improve.

The concept of human dignity rejects the idea of using employees as economic

tools.

5. Organisations are social systems indicates that from sociology we know that

organisations are social systems; therefore the activities within the

organisations are governed by social and psychological laws. Organisations

have formal and informal social systems. Social systems in an organisation

indicate that the company has dynamic change ability rather than static set of

relations. Every part in the system is interdependent on each other.

6. Mutuality of interest indicates that both the organisation and people need each

other. Organisations are formed and maintained on the basis of some mutuality

of interest among the participants. People require organisations to reach their

goals, while organisation needs people to reach organisational objectives. Lack

of mutual interest causes disorientation among the participants and the group.

Mutual interest provides a common goal for all the participants, which results

in encouragement of the people to tackle problems of the organisation instead

of raising fingers at each other.

7. Holistic concept indicates that when all the above six concepts of organisational

behavior are placed together a holistic concept arises. This concept interprets

the relationship between people and organisation in terms of the whole person,
 entire group, entire organisation and the whole social system. Views of different

people are taken into account in an organisation to understand the factors that

influence their behavior. Issues are analyzed in terms of the total situation

affecting them rather than in terms of an event or problem.

There are many factors that affect an individual, a group and an organisation.

For example factors individual factors

like personality, perception, learning, attitude, job satisfaction and motivation.

Group factors like leadership, power and politics, communication and conflicts.

Organisation factors like human resource policies and practices, work stress,

change and development.

Case Questions and answers:

1. Identify several concepts and characteristics from the field of
organizational behavior that this case illustrates.
✓ The work culture was very conducive; organization was more informal
in approach, as the job had met personal goals and expectations
perfectly Quality of work life was high.
✓ The corporate Culture was easy going. The firm was decentralized,
allowing its managers considerable autonomy and freedom. But Tony
experienced a different culture at Recce. This organization is
bureaucratic in approach, without motivation and with centralized
structure.
✓ There was no harmony and cooperation from peers, superiors and
subordinates.

2. What advice can you give Tony? How would this advice be
supported or tempered by behavioral concepts and processes?
✓ My advice to Tony is to work environment that he can make Change in
is a continuous process in any organization probably the present
organization has not identified the importance of change.
✓ Tony should observe the norms of the new company and should try to
bring change in the new organization by interacting with the top
management. He should educate the top management the significance
of motivation, Quality of work life, decentralization etc.
✓ This initiative may land Tony in trouble as well. But the change should
be slow and steady.

3. Is it possible to find an "ideal" place to work? Explain.

✓ It is not possible to find or to create a workplace that is ideal for every

possible worker.
✓ It is also not possible to find a workplace that will be completely ideal
for any one person at all times.
✓ A workplace cannot be ideal for all possible workers.
✓ Different workers will have different preferences for things like
organizational culture. Some will, for example, prefer to work alone
while others prefer to work in teams. It is not possible to set up a
workplace to please everyone.