Organizational Behaviour: Theories, Models, And Leadership Styles – Case Study Of Quasar Communications, Inc

Theories of Organizational Behaviour

Organizational behaviour is the study of both group and an individual employee. Organizational behaviour is a study of the employees’ behaviour and ways through which employees interact with each other in the workplace. Following theories related to the organizational behaviour can be used such as Contingency and Situational theories, Skills theory and participative leadership theory (Vasilescu, 2019) (Page Number: 1). It focuses on the following key aspects such as: communication, performance, job structure, motivation and leadership. There are four key models of organizational behaviour such as: autocratic model, custodial model, supportive model and collegial model (figure 1). For this report, the selected company is “Quasar Communications, Inc” (as per the case study). This company is a division of Communication System International. Currently, 350 employees are working with the company and the job position of engineers is critical for the company (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2013) (Page: 166). In the year 1999, the company had focused on the 12 large customers and 30 to 40 small customers. To improve the efficiency the company had created a project management (PM) groups and vice-president is in charge of this group (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2013) (Page 167). Apart from this, there will be discussion about the leadership style to handle the highlighted projects, tools and techniques to use in the PM for motivating and influence team members, 5 types of power, the methods for developing self-managed teams for agile products, etc. 

Figure 1: (Dreamtime.com, 2022)

Figure 2: By author

Figure 3: By author

In the R&D department, manager requires creative opinions, different perspective from the team members, different ideas, etc (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2013) (Page: 166). So, it is suggested that R&D department manager should take use of the democratic leadership style. Utilizing democratic leadership style will help the R&D project managers to incorporate their team members into the decision-making process and it will positively impact the functioning of the company (Brighthubpm.com, 2010). Moreover, as per the case study, it can be analysed that project manager is facing the issue of working with diverse group (marketing, quality assurance). To overcome this issue, democratic leadership can generate effective results by incorporate different or team members into the decision-making. For example: it is mention in the case study that R&D project manager is facing issue due to working with different departments such as: marketing, manufacturing, accounting, quality assurance, etc (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2013) (Page: 168). Now, if R&D manage take use of the democratic leadership style then it will effectively help them to reach on the common decision by including all departments or team members into the decision-making process.

For small customer project manager, it is suggested that the use of transformational leadership style will help on attaining best results. As per the case study, it is mentioned that project manager is facing an issue to manage projects because few projects are so small that it only stays in one functional department (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2013) (Page: 165). He also raised different concerns that line managers made different promised on their own. For example: a line manager promised to the consumer that additional test would be run (it was not mentioned previously) and another line manager made a remark for technical requirements. So, in this case, transformational leadership style will help the leader to create an effective change in the system. By utilizing this leadership style, project manager of small customer project will able to create a vision and guidelines for new changes which can be adopted by the line managers in the effective way (Ardi, et. al., 2020) (Page: 3).

Models of Organizational Behaviour

On the other hand, situational leadership style can be used for handling the large customer-based projects. For the large-customer product department, he (project manager) will be able to produce more productive output because project manager will have an opportunity to incorporate different leadership styles to govern the team members (Kerzner and Kerzner, 2013) (Page: 166). By incorporating this leadership style, project manager will able to use change their leadership style as per the situation in the effective way. Apart from this, authoritative leadership style can be best suited for the capital equipment project managers (Brighthubpm.com, 2010). Apart from this, incorporating the use of autocratic leadership style will enable the project manager to take their own decision without allowing their team members to interfere in the decision-making process. Project manager of this department already raised a concern that functional employees always pulled off his/her project to assist manufacturing (Gandolfi & Stone, 2018) (Page: 262).

There are four primary departments in the Quasar Communication, Inc such as: R&D, Small customer PM, large-customer PM and capital equipment PM. For the proper functioning in these department below tools and techniques will be useful:

• Tool for facilitating team decisions: brainstorming of the new ideas and encouraging critical thinking methods will help in the process of facilitating team decisions in the effective way. Brainstorming and critical thinking can also be used for business process modelling process.
• Following motivation theories or techniques:
  • Frederick Herzberg’s Dual factor theory: this hypothesis states that there are certain factors which creates job satisfaction and these factors can be divided in these two categories such as: hygiene factors and motivating factor. For example: motivator factors are as follows: achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, etc. Hygiene factors are as follows: working conditions, co-worker relations, etc (Wong, 2007) (Page: 24).
  • McClelland’s achievement motivation theory: this theory states about the three main driving motivators for every employee or an individual such as: the need for achievement, affiliation or power (Wong, 2007) (Page: 24).
  • Vroom’s expectancy theory: as per this theory, it is important that employees should believe that a task is achievable because it will improve their ability to put effort into accomplishing the objective of the task. It is a responsibility of a leader or manage to create a feeling among the workforce that all of their roles, responsibilities or tasks are achievable (Wong, 2007) (Page: 26).
• Development plan for the managing team conflicts: as per the author Wong 2007, it can be analysed that majority of the conflicts fall into three main areas such as: changes, values and behaviour. The company need to impose different key values through its systems of policies and decisions (Wong, 2007) (Page: 24). Although, team members can also draw arrow diagramming method (ADM). This method is used to represent activities and nodes to represent events or milestones.
• Developing a communication plan for the communication can be keep transparent as much as possible: to manage the change process well there is need for a specific communication tool or a specific communication approach. To make an approach more effective the company should focus on both verbal as well as written communication (Wong, 2007) (Page: 34).  A communication method should be developed for keeping transparency in the operations. As per the case study, it can be understand that project managers of different department stating their issue to the President of the company. However, a transparency should be created in the communication so that project managers will see actions of the President regarding the issue raised by them.

Below are the steps for creating self-managed teams for Agile projects.

Step 1: Gauge interest from possible team members with proper mental corporation (Tewari, Gujarathi & Maduletty, 2019) (Page: 115).

Step 2: Providing guidance and guardrails.

Step 3: Developing team roles and decision-making standards.

Step 4: Development of KPIs – key performance indicators so that team members can analyse their performance in the effective way.

Step 5: Offering training to the employees for handling their specific roles and responsibilities.

Step 6: Practicing on the project volunteer team members.

Apart from this, the project leaders should also focus on creating higher job satisfaction. Although, below figure represent about the job satisfaction by specific countries:

Figure 4: Dreamtime.com, 2022

Below plan will also incorporate a communication strategy for managing communication with the relevant stakeholders:

• Video and web conferencing methods can be used for managing communication with the stakeholders.
• Social networking sites can be also be used for the communication purpose.
• Live chats can also be used for sharing important information whether it is related with the personal or professional issues
• Customer service platform – this communication tool can be used only for commencing a formal communication with the customers. If QCI want to use any third-party or external customer service platform then they can utilize these platforms such as: Zendesk, MailChimp, Survey Monkey, Slack, etc.

Current challenges in the QCI:

• R&D project manager is facing a challenge in working with diverse teams (marketing, engineering, quality assurance, etc). He is only liable to introduce new product in the market and if he will keep a direct coordination with all departments then it will be time consuming process and it will hamper the productivity (Müller, Drouin & Sankaran, 2019) (Page: 4).
• Small customer PM is facing an issue that line managers made promises or commitments to the customers but as per the rules only project manager has a right to make any commitment from the customers (Tereso, et. al., 2019) (Page: 6).
• PM of the large customer project raised an issue that the management of the QCI continue to run ailing projects.
• PM of the capital equipment raised a concern regarding employees always pulled off from his projects. Information and communication technology should give preference in capital equipment (Ma, et. al., 2018) (Page: 1).

Future challenges which can hamper the process:

• After gaining the authority from the President, if project managers change their leadership style then there is high probability that employees may face a challenge at the initial level to adjust with the new leadership style.
• There can be an issue related to the employee retention rate if the project managers failed to create employee satisfaction through their leadership approach (Buganová & Šimí?ková, 2019) (Page: 991).

Steps to overcome the challenges:

Step1: need to create awareness among the team members regarding changes in the leadership.

Step 2: analysing common needs of each department rather than implementing identical program on all department (Farashah, Thomas & Blomquist, 2019) (Page: 6).

Step3: conducting a brainstorming session with the team members so that all the employees (team members and leaders/managers) can decide about specific changes that should be created within QCI.  

Step 4: creating an employee forum so that employees can share their opinions or feedbacks regarding the changes that need to be eliminated and adopted. It can help in the formulation of the agile approach to project management (Zasa, Patrucco & Pellizzoni, 2020) (Page: 2).

Above steps will help in maintaining worker satisfaction as well. Although, a study conducted by the “Finances Online” indicates that 76% workers says that their boss is toxic while 75% says that their boss is the most stressful part of the job (below figure 5):

Figure 5: financesonline.com, 2022 

Conclusion 

As per the case study, R&D PM is facing an issue of working with diverse groups so democratic leadership style will be best suited. On the other hand, transformational leadership style will be suited for the small customer PM because he is facing an issue that line managers made promises with the customers. So, transformational leadership style will small customer PM to adopt changes in the system. Apart from this, it is also concluded that following tools will be required to influence project team such as: motivation theories (Alderfer’s ERG theory), McClelland’s achievement driving motivation, etc), developing a communication plan, etc. Moreover, communication strategy can be used to communicate with the relevant stakeholders such as: web conferencing, customer service platform, e-mail, etc.

References 

Ardi, A., Djati, S. P., Bernarto, I., Sudibjo, N., Yulianeu, A., Nanda, H. A., & Nanda, K. A. (2020). The relationship between digital transformational leadership styles and knowledge-based empowering interaction for increasing organisational innovativeness. International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 11(3), 259-277.

Buganová, K., & Šimí?ková, J. (2019). Risk management in traditional and agile project management. Transportation Research Procedia, 40, 986-993.

Brighthubpm.com. (2010). Project Management Leadership Styles – Which One is the Best? Retrieved from: https://www.brighthubpm.com/monitoring-projects/64679-project-management-leadership-styles/

Dreamtime.com. (2022). Models of Organizational Behavior. Retrieved from: https://www.dreamstime.com/five-models-organizational-behavior-image199274507

Farashah, A. D., Thomas, J., & Blomquist, T. (2019). Exploring the value of project management certification in selection and recruiting. International Journal of Project Management, 37(1), 14-26.

Financeonline.com. (2022). 54 Key Leadership Statistics in 2022: Traits, Diversity & COVID-19 Impact. Retrieved from: https://financesonline.com/leadership-statistics/

Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269.

Howard, T. L., Ulferts, G. W., & Hannon, J. (2019). Leadership styles of small business owners: Linking theory to application. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 16(2), 47-55.

Kerzner, H. & Kerzner, H. R. (2013). Project management : case studies. Retrieved from: Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com

Ma, X., Xiong, F., Olawumi, T. O., Dong, N., & Chan, A. P. (2018). Conceptual framework and roadmap approach for integrating BIM into lifecycle project management. Journal of Management in Engineering, 34(6), 05018011.

Müller, R., Drouin, N., & Sankaran, S. (2019). Modeling organizational project management. Project Management Journal, 50(4), 499-513.

Tereso, A., Ribeiro, P., Fernandes, G., Loureiro, I., & Ferreira, M. (2019). Project management practices in private organizations. Project Management Journal, 50(1), 6-22.

Tewari, S., Gujarathi, R., & Maduletty, K. (2019). Leadership styles and productivity. Asian Social Science, 15(4), 115-118.

Wong, Z. (2007). Human factors in project management: concepts, tools, and techniques for inspiring teamwork and motivation. Hokoken: John Wiley & Sons.

Vasilescu, M. (2019). Leadership styles and theories in an effective management activity. Annals-Economy Series, 4, 47-52.

Zasa, F. P., Patrucco, A., & Pellizzoni, E. (2020). Managing the hybrid organization: How can agile and traditional project management coexist?. Research-Technology Management, 64(1), 54-63.

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