HUMAN RESOURCE PAPER - Essay Example

? HUMAN RESOURCE PAPER HUMAN RESOURCE PAPER Introduction Generally, organisational behaviour may be said to be a term or phenomenon that was born out of the concept of organisational theory (Gopalakrishnan, 2008). This is because studies in organisational theories put emphasis on a number of interrelated fields of study such as communication, management and sociology, out of which the idea of behaviour can be studied. But because organisational theories are focused on organisations, the kind of behaviour that is studied as part of these fields is generalised and termed as organisational behaviour (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009). In principle therefore, organisational be said to be the study of how the behaviour of individuals, groups and corporate structures influence an organisation. Organisational behaviour is often undertaken as a study, in which case involves a number of qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis and data collection to take decisions on ways of improving organisational effectiveness (Bollen, 2009). It is therefore a very valid argument to make that organisational behaviour is directly related to organisational effectiveness. But for there to be organisational effectiveness, there are key components of organisational behaviour that must come to play, two of which are critically analysed below. Adaptive leadership theory and its influence on organisational effectiveness Adaptive Leadership and its role on Organisational Behaviour An organization without a leader may best be likened to a snake without a head. In such a situation, the organization becomes as powerless and the snake with its head cut off (Coad and Berry, 1998). This is because just as the head of a snake does for the snake, the leader is there to determine the direction that the organization will take in all its endeavours and corporate dealings (Bessant and Buckingham, 2003). It would however be noted that just as there are several forms of snakes, there are also several types of leaders, using different styles and forms of leadership. In recent times, one of the commonest forms of leaderships that are used in both the academia and in practice is the adaptive leadership. Adaptive leadership is very influential as a component of organizational behaviour, just as leadership in general is (Homburg, Krohmer and Workman, 1999). This is because from the definition of organizational behaviour, it is realized that organizational behaviour generally makes reference to how the organization reacts in intra-personal and inter-personal manner (Guns, 1996). Meanwhile, this sense of response is triggered by the leader, who determines how the organisation must behave. There are several ways in which leadership influences or determines organisational behaviour. In the first place, the leadership style and leadership phenomenon used at the workplace determines the kind of interactions and relationships that will exist among employees, between employees and employers, and between employees and customers (Bueno et al, 2010). Meanwhile, the nature of interactions and relationships that are in place within an organisation is a very instrumental part of organisational behaviour (Kanter, 2003). A typical example of this can be cited with Toyota Motor Corporation where the type of leadership practiced, which is adaptive leadership makes it possible for all employees to be freely part of organisational level decision making. Because of this, there is constant interaction and exchanges between employees, making it easier for employees to understand each other and thus create a more friendly and hospitable organisational behaviour among themselves and among other clients of the organisation. Another role of leadership on organisational behaviour is that leadership is very instrumental in the setting of organisational goals (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). Meanwhile, Garcia (2008) stated that the goals, aims and visions of an organisation determines the response of the organisation to internal and external situations, thereby determining the nature of organisational behaviour that will exist within the organisation. Noting that organisational behaviour is always focused on organisational effectiveness, it is right to argue that the scope of the organisation’s goals will certainly determine its approach and behaviour towards effectiveness (Egri and Herman, 2000). For example companies that do not have wide focus for growth are likely to be mediocre in their processes and approaches whiles those who have wider focus will be pragmatic in their behaviour. How Adaptive Leadership bring about Organisational Effectiveness It has already been mentioned that adaptive leadership involves a leading-following interaction that aims at making leadership of the many to be undertaken by the many (Hair, 1999). In line with this, it is important to study how the production of an emergent leader-follower identity would be on the organisational effectiveness of a company such as Toyota Motor Corporation. In the first place, an emergent leader-follower identity will be explained as a situation within the management and control of the organisation where everyone sees himself as a leader and at the same time as a follower (Ogbonna and Harris, 2008). This is however much of a hypothetical condition backed by the reality of the distribution of roles as the core organisational hierarchies of leaders and followers remain intact (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 2010). Indeed, in an organisation with such behaviour, the effect on effectiveness is massive. This is because decisions get taken real fast. The reason this is; is because the duty of decision making is not left with only a few people who would have to spend so much time in coming up with decisions as against when the decision is taken in a round table manner where the brains and minds of all people within the organisation takes part in deliberations (Calantone, Cavusgil and Zhao, 2010). Personally with the organisation I belong to, there have been two eras of leadership, which have become a critical case study for this point. In the first scenario, we operated under a leader who always wanted decisions to be taken by only a few people on the topmost of the organisational hierarchy. Due to this, there were mostly delays in decision making and ineffectiveness of decisions, whereby most decisions had to be reverted in most cases because they could not solve problems for which they were made. In a different era where the current adaptive leadership style is practice, decision is taking by all within the organisation through various methodologies including the use of questionnaire and other forms of data collection instruments. Since the beginning of this new era, the company has recorded much organisational effectiveness because decisions get taken at a faster rate. What is more, decisions that are taken reflect the larger scope of the organisation’s philosophy, its culture and its ideologies as the decision are taken based on the personal experiences of employees with the company (Sanchez and Mahoney, 2009). Based on this, the result of decisions made, which is implementation has also been easier in all cases. Logically, when a person takes a decision, the person sees him or herself as being bounded by the decision. In this case, when the period of implementation of decisions come, the person becomes more committed to being part of the delivery of action to ensure the effect growth and development of the organisation in which the person belongs (Fein, Tziner and Vasiliu, 2010). One other important aspect of adaptive leadership and its relationship with organisational effectiveness is that through adaptive leadership, which breeds a very cordial and hands-on organisational behaviour, there is much employee engagement among employees (Gopalakrishnan, 2008). Meanwhile, employee engagement has been found to be a very useful tool in achieving both employee motivation and employee satisfaction. In the first place, employees who are engaged in most aspects of the organisational operation see themselves as very useful and important stakeholders in their organisation. In effect, they the success of the organisation becomes their own success, giving them an inner motivation to work towards nothing else than organisational success (Porac and Thomas, 1990). Meanwhile, organisational success is the direct result of organisational effective, which means that for organisational success to come about, the employees must be part of a united force that seeks to bring about effectiveness (Rodriguez, 2007). Secondly, employee engagement leads to employee satisfaction because it leads to a situation whereby the employees see themselves as being useful, and thus the need for them to retain their positions as a way of ensuring that their experiences, skills and abilities become appreciated and used (Hall and Bagchi-Sen, 2000). Meanwhile, as long as employees continue to be at post and take up their roles in a repetitive manner, they gain much experience with the roles, guaranteeing the level of effectiveness that will be recorded whiles executing those roles, as against people who come on newly (Hoopes and Postrel, 1999). By and large, organisational effectiveness becomes assured and guaranteed because the collective efficiencies and effectiveness of employees at their individual roles together become the overall success of the organisation (Bollen, 2009). Comparing adaptive leadership with traditional leadership In this context of the discussion, all other forms of leadership that do not follow the principle of leader-follower phenomenon is considered as a traditional leadership theory because such are the commonest forms of leadership practiced in most organisations (Gowen, Henagan and McFadden, 2009). While undertaking a study to compare this form of traditional leadership with adaptive leadership, Homburg, Krohmer and Workman (1999) noted that levels of organisational effectiveness in traditional leadership is often hampered due to the fact that there is always too much work to be executed by too few a people. Imperatively, the notion and idea is being created that no matter how scanty the scope of work of a company may be, it is always better executed with the execution is done by only few people. What is more, it has been observed that where a traditional leader and follower situation takes place, the only motivation under which employees deliver their roles is on the need for them to please to their leaders or superiors (Bueno et al, 2010). Meanwhile, this is not a positive form of motivation as compared to an intrinsic motivation that emanates from the need to perform roles because of the attainment of personal satisfaction (Joreskog and Sorbom, 1996). In effect, in such organisations where the employees perform their roles according to the dictates of their leader’s satisfaction, there is the possibility that in cases where leaders are not looking on or where leaders not around to offer reinforcement, rate of commitment will be affected. Meanwhile, where adaptive leadership is practice, employees do not wait for the presence of their leaders before they show commitment because they are leaders of themselves, who must work hard at all times to please themselves (Inkpen and Crossan, 1995). Strategic management of organizational behaviour in the creation of competitive advantage Relationship between organisational behaviour, organisational effectiveness, and competitive advantage One major similarity between organisations and human beings is that both organisations and human beings are born as individuals, possessing individual ambitions and goals but the way they go about these ambitions and goals is greatly influenced by the society or community around them, in which the live (Irwin, Hoffman and Lamont, 1998). To the organisations therefore, the society or community that they find themselves in is the competitive market in which they operation (Kanter, 2003). By this, it would be understood that a company or an organisation does not have much as a freedom in operating in isolation without giving critical thought to what is happening among competitors and within their competitive market. Competitive advantage generally describes strategies that are put in place to ensure that companies are put at an advantage of becoming preferred choices among customers (Capron, 1999). Modern studies have actually attributed competitive advantage to both organisational behaviour and organisational effectiveness. Strategic management of the dimensions of organisational behaviour As far as organisational behaviour is concerned, it would be noted that the general approach to which a company adapts in its organisational behaviour can go a long way to be an advantage over competitors because organisational behaviour generally focuses on human behaviour and the nature of human behaviour existing within organisations is very paramount in the choices that customers make in their decisions to working for some companies and ignoring others (Ireland, Hitt and Camp, 2001). Hurley and Hult (1998) argued that in today’s competitive business environment, it is not enough to trade just products and services but character and attitude. Meanwhile, the character and attitude of an organisation is directly manifested in the organisational behaviour that the said organisation exhibits (Nandakumar, Ghobadian and O'Regan, 2010). For organisations to exhibit and trade higher standards of character and attitude therefore, it is important that they would ensure that such standards on character and attitude are reflected in the collective organisational behaviour that they present. By so doing, the organisations will easily gain advantage because they will be seen as those offering what the customer requires most in the search for product and services. On the part of organisational effectiveness and competitive advantage, it will be noted that the more effective an organisation is, the more likely it is that it would have an external branding or appreciation that is cherished by the customer as value needed in doing business with (Choi, Poon and Davis, 2008). A typical example can be cited in this instance with two telecommunication networks, one of which is effective with quality voice and data service and the other with mediocre service delivery. Clearly, for in the competition for customers, the tendency that the company with effective service will be advantageous is higher. With all said and done, it will be noted that organisational behaviour can only yield effectiveness and competitive advantage, only when it is used in a very strategic manner, making use of all dimensions of organisational behaviour (Mezias and Glynn, 1993). With this in mind, two major dimensions of organisational behaviour are identified, with how each of these three can be used in a strategic manner to bring about both effectiveness and competitive advantage. The first dimension is identified as micro organisational behaviour. Fiol and Lyles (1985) explained that micro organisational behaviour looks at the behaviours of the direct players of service delivery. In this case, organisational behaviour is viewed from an individual perspective or level, which puts emphasis on the human resource base of the organisation. Studies have showed that even though most individuals, and for that matter employees stand alone in the delivery of their tasks, there are key characteristics and issues that have to do with their behaviour, which affects the organisation directly (Koufteros, Babbar and Kaighobadi, 2009). Examples of these are motivation, satisfaction, competence, skills, perception, stress, personality, and human development. Indeed, even at the micro level where the need for the individual to interact with others has not even come in yet, the nature of these attributes that have listed above can directly affect organisational behaviour. For example individuals who are stressed at work and have low motivation are likely to be slow in the delivery of their tasks, making the work generally inefficient, ineffective, and low in productivity. Meanwhile, once the organisational behaviour becomes tagged with these attributes or qualities, there seizes to be competitiveness for the organisations because they become less effective (Konrad, Linnehan and Formalized, 1995). Strategically therefore, organisations must always look for ways in improving these attributes in individuals. The second dimension of organisational behaviour is what is termed as meso organisational behaviour. By meso organisational behaviour, reference is being made to behaviour exhibited at the level where individuals work together as a unit or coordinated force (Murray and Kotabe, 2009). In some literature, this dimension has been referred to as the work pull of the organisation. This is because it demands that the individual tasks and attitudes of workers are pulled together into achieving a common goal. At this level also, there are very key attributes of work that manifests as an organisational behaviour. Three of these may be identified as group dynamics socialisation and leadership. Group dynamics generally refers to how well a person is able to get along in a group and flow in the direction of the group, while changing their course of actions, as the group also changes its course of action (Murray and Kotabe, 2009). In terms of organisational behaviour, it would be noted that when group dynamism is not very functional, organisational conflicts become very common (Podsakoff et al, 2003). This goes a long way to affect effectiveness and efficiency. Socialisation on the other hand can be explained as the act as relating with others and sharing experiences that is of importance to organisational functioning (Forrester, 2000). Socialisation at the meso level of organisation also affects organisational behaviour because where there is ineffective socialisation, there is limited transfer of ideas, experiences and competences (Garcia, 2006). Leadership will also be explained as the task of heading a group of people within the organisation. Much of the effect of leadership has been explained earlier and so not much will be said again. But among these three attributes, it is important to note that the way and manner in which they are utilised is very important in affecting organisational behaviour. Once acts of conflict exist in the organisation and there is lack of satisfaction among employees for example, there is the likelihood that employees will have a very poor attitude towards customers. When this happens also, there is the tendency that customer satisfaction will be negative, driving customers away from the organisation, instead of pulling customers to the organisation as a way of gaining competitive advantage (Garcia, 2008). Conclusion Current studies on leadership have explained adaptive leadership in relations to organisational behaviour, explaining that adaptive leadership is a polyarchic phenomenon that gives credence to leadership as a shared responsibility that demands leadership of the many by the many (Podsakoff et al, 2003). By this, leadership is seen as involving both a leading and following phenomenon because almost the leader is seen as both a leader and a follower; just as the core followers of the organisation. It is therefore true to argue that part of the effect of adaptive leadership on organisational effectiveness is that it ensures that there are more hands in the delivery of organisational tasks, ensuring that everyone that matters is brought onboard the execution of task so that there can be better accumulation of holistic strength and the spirit of togetherness in the implementation of decisions. After all for those who take the decisions, successes with the implementation of the decision will be seen and appreciated as their own successes because of their involvement in the decision making process (Sarros, Cooper and Santora, 2008). Normally, the direction that competitors, and for that matter the competitive market takes determines the kind of strategies that companies should put in place in ensure that they achieve their ambitions and goals. 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Sarros JC, Cooper BK, Santora JC. Building a climate for innovation through transformational leadership and organizational culture. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 2008;15(2):145–58. Read More