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Organizational Behavior Concepts Introduction The role of organizational behavior concepts cannot be underestimated, when it comes to managing commercial institutions, because the proper application of these concepts often defines organizations profit-making effectiveness. Therefore, we cannot discuss organizational behavior concepts exclusively within the context of providing employees with possibility to realize their full professional potential or providing them with psychological comfort, as it became customary practice in recent years. There is no doubt that every company strives to unify the behavior of its employees, in order to make it more predictable and manageable. However, we need to constantly keep in mind that commercial organizations main priority is making profits, while everything else comes secondary. Nowadays, many companies adopt a new progressive approach, when it comes to increasing the professional adequacy of its employees. This approach consists of turning work place into some sort of kindergarten, where employees are required to celebrate diversity, often at the expense of neglecting professional duties, on their part.
In this paper, we will expose this practice as being counter-productive. During the course of analyzing organizational behavior concepts, applied at Wal-Mart, Starbucks and Microsoft, we are going to define the main reason for these concepts to be effective or ineffective in every particular case. The reason why we have chosen these three companies is that information about them is easily available, but the most importantly - these companies are often being referred to as such that deploy innovative and sometimes controversial methods to manage employees behavior. As such, they represent a great value, as subject of study. (1) Human resources (Starbucks) Starbucks is worlds largest coffee retailer.
It is estimated that Company has about 13. 000 coffee shops in forty countries, which allows us to talk about it as transnational corporation, in true sense of this word. Starbucks employs 74. 000 people throughout the world, although 84 % of them serve the American market. Since the time it was founded in 1971, Starbucks made the selection of right employees a cornerstone of its business philosophy. The case study Starbucks Human Resource Management Policies and the Growth Challenge, which can be found on the site of Center for Management Research, emphasizes that, in order to be hired by Starbucks, candidates for job need to posses a variety of transferable skills: Starbucks hired people for qualities like adaptability, dependability and the ability to work in a team. The company often stated the qualities that it looked for in employees upfront in its job postings, which allowed prospective employees to self-select themselves to a certain extent (CMR). Thus, we can conclude that Starbucks expect its employees not to be just fully committed to the ideals of exceptional performance, but also to think of them as integral part of Companys overall business reputation.
Starbucks mission statement, in regards to its employees, also shows that Company regards them as one of its greatest assets: to provide a great work environment and treat each other with respect and dignity. The article Become a Starbucks Partner, which can be found at Companys web site, provides us with the insight on the guiding principle of Starbucks policies, in regards to its human resources: We offer one cup at a time, and we are building our company one person at a time (Starbucks Coffee Company). However, it appears that Companys loyalty to the ideas of multiculturalism affects its commercial performance, because Starbucks officials actually do believe in dangers of institutionalized racism, which makes them to press even harder with celebration of diversity policy. Starbucks officially proclaims that it promotes the spirit of tolerance among its workers, however, it does not seem like they have a choice. The article that we quoted from earlier also contains this statement: At Starbucks, we value integrity and embrace diversity as an essential component in the way we do business. These values are reinforced.
In other words, the values of tolerance and freedom are being reinforced in a repressive manner. This, of course, prevents Starbucks employees from focusing on their professional duties, because they are expected to adjust their political and ethical beliefs to Companys corporate philosophy. Therefore, we can say that Starbucks is committed to the idea of encouraging its employees to think of themselves as part of the family. At the same time, Company does not allow the members of family to deviate from its official philosophy, which is based on Liberalism. Motivation When it comes to motivating its workforce, Starbucks often tries to resort to psychological manipulation, which became a commonplace practice nowadays. Comparing to the competitive salaries, offered by Companys main competitors to their employees, Starbucks monetary incentive do not look very impressive.
Starbucks Corporation SWOT, which is available at Reuters Investor Com. , points out to the fact that Starbucks employees salaries are lower then the industry average: The company generates lower revenues and income per employee as compared to the industry average. Its revenue per employee was $ 71, 544 during fiscal 2004, as compared to the industry average of $ 110, 841. Furthermore, its net income per employee is $ 5294 as compared to the industry average of $ 9500 (Datamonitor, Reuter). Nevertheless, the ratio of employees turnover at Starbucks is very low. This can be explained by the fact that only a certain category of people is attracted to working for Starbucks - namely the people who consider Companys corporate philosophy as such that corresponds to their own ideas.
It is a well-known fact that Starbucks is closely associated with promoting left-wing agenda. Apparently, a large number of Companys workers feel as if they really do contribute to the promotion the ideals of environmentalism, tolerance and e racism, while being the part of Starbucks family. This indicates that Starbucks was able to skilfully utilize the notion of corporate culture, in order to significantly increase the effectiveness of workers performance. Decision making One of the reasons why Starbucks was able to get far ahead of competition is that it constantly strives to address customers needs. It is estimated that Company introduces at least one new item in its menu, on monthly basis. It goes without saying that this requires an extensive amount of customer research being performed on the local level.
It its turn, this is impossible without Companys managers being able to enjoy executive independence. Starbucks is known for its adherence to the principle of localized management. Companys middle-level managers are given a full authority to reorganize the functioning of every particular coffee shop, to guarantee customers satisfaction. This is the reason why Starbucks menu is greatly diversified from location to location. For example, in Russia, Starbucks supplemental items include products that could not be sold anywhere else in the world, such as doughnuts with honey-vodka filling. This alone shows Companys dependence on its managers quick thinking, when it comes to staying ahead of competition.
Therefore, we can say that Starbucks deploys a progressive management strategy, which allows a great degree of independence, on the part of local operators. So far, this strategy is proving itself as very successful and it seems that this is going to be the case for years to come. (2) Human Resources Practices (Wal-Mart) Wal-Mart is the largest American retailing company. There are close to 3. 000 Wal-Mart discount stores in USA alone. Nowadays, many people think of a Wal-Mart as the symbol of American consumerism, which is often associated with irrational greed. It needs to be said that this point of view is not altogether illogical. In order for us to prove the validity of this statement, let us analyze the essence of Wal-Marts human resources policy.
We can define it, as human resources are renewable. What differs Wal-Mart from other retailing operators is that it does not allow the unionization of its workers. At present time, Wal-Mart faces 40 lawsuits over its discriminatory practices towards women and ethnic minorities. The fact that Companys employees are not the members of union, allows managers to force them to work overtime, without pay. In his article Selling Wal-Mart, Jeffrey Goldberg says: Wal-Mart is notably unfriendly to unions; in 2000, when meat-cutters at a single Wal-Mart in Texas organized into a collective-bargaining unit, Wal-Mart responded by shutting down its meat counters across Texas and in five neighboring states (Goldberg). Wal-Mart has a scandalous reputation of hiring illegal aliens, who are often paid as little as $ 3 an hour.
Thus, along with depriving Americans of their chances to get a job, Wal-Mart actually adds to the problem of illegal immigration, which is very acute in this country... Because of this, Companys annual employee turnover reaches 65 % on annual basis. At the same time, it would be wrong to suggest that such attitude to its own workers, on the part of Wal-Mart, undermines the effectiveness of Companys commercial performance. Despite numerous scandals, related to Wal-Marts human resources policies, this company is still able to come up with enormous profits every year. This is why, despite the fact that these policies might appear as being unethical, they are effective and therefore justified.
Motivation The entry position salary at Wal-Mart is $ 8 an hour, which is the lowest among other retailing operators. Such salary, of course, cannot be referred as strong enough incentive for the employees to perform their duties with dedication. However, instead of actually increasing workers salary and improving their working conditions, Wal-Marts managers try to increase employees professional efficiency by instilling them with a team spirit, which is nothing but a pathetic attempt to gain workers loyalty, without having to provide them with any benefits whatsoever. This, of course, is the best indication that Wal-Marts officials are only concerned about one thing extracting as much profit as possible at any cost. In recent years, Wal-Mart strives to attract more people to become Companys employees.
This is being done with the mean of offering them career opportunities. However, this cannot serve as strong motivation, because career prospects at Wal-Mart are still associated with low pay. The example of Wal-Mart proves different...
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Research essay sample on Organizational Behavior Part 1
