7-2 PAPER

APPLYING ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR THEORY

Karen Crump

Argosy University

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR THEORY

Introduction

Organizational behaviour theory refers to the study of behaviours of human within an Organizational environment. It aims to identify and ask questions why humans in an organisation behave the way they do in a working environment. Modern Organizational behaviour theory is based on system approach and founded on behavioural science (McCroskey et al., 2005).

Uber

Uber a renowned company in the United States of America has recently found itself in hot water following the customer base fall out. According to (Sundararajan, 2014), the brand name was defined а underfired with questionable customer safety and satisfaction. There were reported cases of sexual harassment too the clientele and drivers behaving badly as they undertook their duties. This is a clear indication that the organization culture has failed in some point and the organization leadership need a saving for this iconic brand to continue gaining the trust of its customers.

The company in 2017 on June 6, hired professor Frances Frei, a professor in Harvard Business school who according to the company advertisement was supposed to report to the CEO, work as a partner with the chief human resource and serve as an executive coach for Uber’s leadership team (Bussin et.al, 2017). Professor Frances Frei is among one of the worlds respected figures in organization transformation. Uber needed to change its organizational structure including the work place and leadership culture. With the Hobbesian environment that had a cutthroat competition, there were cases of sexual harassment which the human resource did not tackle. It was alleged also that the drivers were being treated like software’s rather than human beings. This led to multiple lawsuits which saw the resignation and boycotts of key executive members in the company.

Behavioral Organizational theory

Using the Behavioral Organizational theory, scientific leadership can be utilized to effectively know how jobs can be done more efficiently in the organization. By knowing the objectives of the organization performance standards can be set where workers can be assigned according to their specialties and a standard time for the job performance could be defined(Aleksic et al., 2016). Managers can plan their work to optimize the new processes and methods. Human relations approach can be used to improve the worker performance in an organization which increases the productivity of the workers. Managers using the decision-making approach can compromise the behaviors that does not optimize goal achievement and uphold goal-oriented behavior. Managers using the Neo Human relations can ensure that the workers are motivated to satisfy their basic needs at five levels including self-esteem and self-actualization, love, safety and psychological wellbeing. Managers can use the system approach to measure the organizational behavior as a dependent on input and processes within the system output. From the customers feedback information, they can allow modifications where possible. The human resources can be innovative in ensuring that the workers are well treated by not treating them as software’s rather than human beings (McCroskey et al., 2005).

Working Culture

When employees join Uber, they are introduced into the 14 core company rules including making bold bets and being “obsessed” with the customer and always be have a hustling spirit. The company emphasizes on the meritocratic culture of working which is an idea of seeing the best and brightest workers rising to the top even if it means stepping on the toes to get there. However, these values have seen the company being fueled to a Hobbesian environment as described by the employees. This has resulted in some workers being pitted against and a blind eye being turned to infractions from higher performers. The workplace culture is termed as unrestrained, where more than 35 current and former employees, email reviews, chat logs and tape-recorded meeting have proven this. Incidences are recorded where one uber manager groped female co-workers breasts at a company retreat (Sundararajan, 2014).

A director is also noted to have shouted a homophobic slur at a sub-ordinate during a heated confrontation in a meeting. This aggressive culture began in 2009 when Mr. Kalanick and another founder created a start-up that would let customers hail a cab with little more than a few steps on their smart phones. The company should hold listening sessions with the employees and ensure a diversity culture capturing women and minorities in the company. The company can utilize open system approach where the employees can interact with the environment to receive managerial and technical expertise from the environment and sell outputs to the society. The company can also utilize Synergy where the various departments and workers should not see themselves as independent entities who want to outshine others. They should work as sub-entities of the company arranged in a manner to achieve the intendent output as a unit. The management should always rely on the feedback system to determine whether the intendent output was achieved or not by the expected environment (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013).

Employee Motivation

Workers often work for freedom and flexibility in the exchange of foregoing the stability of steady income and health benefits. Researches have shown that uber is utilizing behavioral science to encourage its workers to work longer hours and in turn getting less money than they think. Uber workers do not have the privileged of incentives and the federal protection law in cases of lunch breaks and getting paid overtime to protect them from abuse. The company has been reported to develop a drive app which manipulates the myriad buttons, badges and banners (Bussin et.al, 2017).

When the drivers feel tired and want to log off to get some rest, the app tells them they have not matched their previous day pay amount which forces them to work harder than they know at a lesser pay. The drivers, after the company rolling out their first dispatch program, is assigned a new ride before they have completed the previous. This does not give the driver a chance to decide if they want to take the extra work for addition reward or wants to rest by going home and see their family. This does not become a motivation but a coercion. The company has also adopted placement of cars to ensure its customers have shortest possible wait times which lures drivers to lower-demand locations therefore spending more time idle and unpaid. Incentives systems requires the company and the employees to gain but not a win-lose scenario (Podsiadlowski et al., 2013).

Employee Satisfaction

To influence change in the employee satisfaction the company should strive to make sure that during hiring the human resource management should not strive for high performing achievers but team players who will come and assist other employees in achieving the company’s goal at large. The drivers should not be treated as software’s, but their opinions and decisions should be heard and listened to emphasize driver’s comfortability and quality work performance (Bussin et.al, 2017). Proper incentives and employee’s motivation should be laid down including extra-time compensation to motivate drivers to work more at free will. It is against the federal employment act to discriminate employees based on their gender and performance in any organization. The company should emphasize team work within the company to discourage discrimination among employees and the executive management should approach the employees with caution and respect.

REFERENCES

Aleksic, V. S. (2016). Followers in the organizational leadership process: From attribution to shared leadership. Ekonomski Horizonti, 18(2), 135.

Bussin, M., Christos, D., & Bergh, V. (2017). What would ORGANIZATIONAL Design look like in Uber times? HR Future, 2017(Aug 2017), 36-38.

Inceoglu, I. (2002). Organizational culture, team climate, workplace bullying and team effectiveness: an empirical study on their relationship (Vol. 1). Herbert Utz Verlag.

McCroskey, L. L., McCroskey, J. C., & Richmond, V. P. (2005). Applying organizational orientations theory to employees of profit and non-profit organizations. Communication Quarterly, 53(1), 21-40.

Podsiadlowski, A., Gröschke, D., Kogler, M., Springer, C., & Van Der Zee, K. (2013). Managing a culturally diverse workforce: Diversity perspectives in organizations. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 37(2), 159-175.

Sundararajan, A. (2014). What Airbnb gets about culture that Uber doesn’t. Harvard Business Review, 11.