Management and Organizational Behaviour - Literature review Example

Organizational Behavior Name Professor Institution Course Date Organizational Behavior The world at present relies largely on the service economy (Bingham, Eisenhardt & Furr 2011). However, high levels of dissatisfaction based on the quality of services are still a challenge for several companies since they fail to find out what customers’ demands. It is in this regard that managing good customer service is crucial and key to improving and driving the pleasure and loyalty of customers for the business to increase its profits. To provide customer service, the management and employees must work as individuals and as a team (Bingham, Eisenhardt & Furr 2011). There is a need for motivated team of qualified customer representatives to supervisors with the guidance of a manager. As such, expectancy theory will play a key role towards accomplishing motivation aspects. Job design is also another aspect that ensures better delivery of services among the teams and individuals. Based on this information, this paper analyses the how best leadership style, motivation factors, communication methods, and team work help deliver quality customer service in an organization. This essay also evaluates and discusses the pros and cons of two different recommendations. It will also put into consideration some theories like expectancy theory, Maslow’s Hierarchy theory and job design aspects. Customer service is the service to a clients’ provision before, through and after the purchase (Dwyer & Hopwood, 2013). Customer service is a chain of events formulated to enhance the degree of customer satisfaction – For example, the impression that a product or the service has met the consumer expectation. Quality customer service is the capability to form an atmosphere of satisfaction, reliability and confidence for every party in the business chain from product development and concept all through to production and delivery to payment. Today's contemporary consumer is transforming the sector of customer service (Bingham, Eisenhardt & Furr, 2011). They are using more communication channels, making knowledgeable decisions and are fast to make their demands. If a customer representative treats customer badly, he or she will also treat the business badly by bringing down the reputation and also neglect it for the rival company (Dwyer & Hopwood 2013). Majority of people have personal challenges which enable them to show attitude towards other work mates or even customers sometimes without a reason. One major aspect to be looked into in this essay is leadership style. A business looks to generate a profit by offering customers with products and/or services. The achievement of a business lies in the quality of customer service and products themselves. Leadership and management styles hold a great influence on the employees' motivation and environment (Day, Gronn & Salas 2006). The study makes a sensible contribution by showing how service managers’ use of leadership traits reduces employees’ stress levels and boosts their satisfaction, motivation and eventual quality service delivery. From the management perspective, the research provides that general service quality can be improved through proper leadership styles (Day, Gronn & Salas 2006). More particularly, the research must enable leaders in the service organizations to purposely lead in manners more likely to improve a service-oriented culture. According to John Kotter, leadership entails planning and budgeting, problem solving, organizing and staffing, and setting the direction the firm (Laurie, 2009). Such holds a crucial step towards excellent delivery of services and directions in an organization. Greenberg & Baron (2000) assert that in such a situation, training services managers leads to front-line subordinates in an efficient way so as to positively impact employee levels of stress, satisfaction, motivation and eventual quality service delivery (Decuyper, Dochy & Van den Bossche, 2010). Since customer representative frequently represent the company in the eyes of consumers, it is important for service organizations to realize how quality customer’s service awareness can be improved by means of the display of proper behaviors as inculcated by the leadership and management. The supervisors must ensure customer service representative behaves in a particular way which uses company principles during the service delivery process. On the managers’ side, managers must seek to hire workforce who display suitable behavioral traits for instance the willingness to operate as part of the team, or has the capability to become accustomed to behaviors that are consistent with customers’ expectations (Kreitner & Kinicki 2007). They also require showing which particular staff service encounter behaviors require to be focused on during the process of service delivery. Managers can execute training programs with the particular intention of promoting, for instance, employee responsiveness or empathy. The leaders have to hire the right people who can cooperate with team members and customers (Cole 2013, p.297). Leaders seeking to hire the right people will conduct through checks whilst asking a numerous questions. Leadership style is a combination of behaviors, traits and skills a leader employs when they interrelate with customer service representative (McCauley, 2004). Linda as a leader (supervisor) must understand that it’s the leadership style which influences the behavior of the employee. As such she should ignore the employee’s attitude or request to be transferred to another team because at the end of the day the employee will transfer this attitude to the new team. Also, it’s important that she puts into consideration contingency theories like path-goal theory in order be able to identify varying situations where different leadership styles tend to be suitable or applicable. Leaders are chosen based on their ideal traits, intelligence, personality and interpersonal skills; therefore they are charged with the responsibility of using these attributes to influence the rest of the team to a good performance. According to House’s Path-goal theory as illustrated in figure 1 below, it’s the job of a leader to assist followers as well as provide direction and assistance required towards the achievement of goals (Cole, 2013). Hence Linda has the responsibility to train Joe and other employees to effectively work with customers and teach them how to handle complicated situations. Linda also had the chance to “spot the team top performers in the customer service and request them to teach others in the group” (Cole, 2013). A leader must change the attitude of employees so as to continue with the good work of serving other people. Leaders must always balance between different leadership styles to get the job done. Such leadership styles include democratic, situational, Transactional and transformational (McCauley, 2004). Figure 1. Path-goal theory of leadership Using democratic style of leadership will ensure that customer service representatives take part in decisions, while the leader listens to them and trust them with their work (Yang, 2007). This will boost their attitude, motivation and morale to serve for the betterment of the organization. As a transactional leader, Linda ought to use rewards for the effort done by the employees, this will make them feel valued and change their attitude towards leaders and other team members. Another aspect is motivation. Motivation can be viewed as the process that awakens and sustains goal-directed behavior (Laurie, 2009). Motivation can be viewed from varying perspectives like fulfilling needs, reinforcement, cognition, job characteristics, and emotions. The former CEO of Southwest Airlines, Herb Kelleher claims that the company should put the employees first whilst the customers second (Bingham, Eisenhardt & Furr 2011). Initially this could look contrary to the idea of having an organization which is customer centered. However, if the company sticks to an idea of “A happy workforce makes a satisfied customer,” then this actually looks sensible. (Bingham, Eisenhardt & Furr 2011) Southwest Airlines is considered to be very successful in a competitive business for quite some time because of embracing such concept. The company has integrated an entrepreneurship spirit in its workforce. The attitude is that the Airline Company operates in a people business which is largely a service industry. It is of great importance if job performance model of motivation of practiced by the manager to ensure overall good performance of staff and satisfaction. Such entails putting together individual inputs, job context, motivational processes, motivated behaviors in order to achieve outcomes as shown below. It is important to put into consideration various motivation theories in this analysis. Some of the major theories include content/needs theories like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, McClelland’s acquired needs theories, and Herzberg’s two factor theory. Others include process/cognitive theory which comprise of Adam’s equity theory and expectancy theory (Cole 2013). In this case, it’s important for Linda to take into consideration Maslow’s hierarchy theory of needs. This will ensure that he identifies the higher-order and lower-order needs hence being able to satisfy the workers accordingly. Higher-order needs like self-actualisation and esteem needs require to be looked into keenly (Cole 2013). Nevertheless, it’s important to look at the level in which a person is within the Maslow hierarchy pyramid before deciding which way to motivate him/her. Another most important theory of motivation is process/cognitive theory and specifically, expectancy theory which was developed by Victor Vroom. It usually has three components that include expectancy, instrumentality, and valance. In terms of expectancy, one’s effort will result to attaining desired performance. Nevertheless, they are some variables affecting it including self-efficacy, goal difficulty, and control (Cole 2013). From an instrumentality perspective, if one meets expected performance, he/she receives a greater reward in form of promotion, pay increment, recognition, or sense of accomplishment. However, trust, control, and policies may affect it. Valance on the other hand is the value an individual personally places on rewards. This is mainly a function of his needs, values, goals and motivation sources. Therefore, Linda as a leader requires understanding of each and every requirement and motivation needs of his followers. This will lead to change of attitudes and increased motivation among the employees in various departments (Bingham, Eisenhardt & Furr 2011). Instilling an ideal culture is what motivates customer service representatives and it’s a major factor in enhancing employees’ spirits. Also, providing financial rewards and career advancement can also be employed to motivate then (Dwyer & Hopwood 2013). Job design is a crucial aspect in improving performance as well as motivating the employees. It entails planning and specification of jobs and work setting. Traditional approaches to job design include job enlargement/ job rotation, job enrichment, job characteristics theory, and scientific management/work simplification. Scientific management lays emphasis on work simplification and standardization of tasks while job enlargement/rotation lays emphasis on range of job activities to overwhelm monotony (McCauley 2004). Job enrichment entails integrating motivational factors in job and achievement. Therefore, Linda need to embrace job design among the employees as a way of improving their performance and satisfaction and as a way of motivating them. Some of the advantages of job design include playing a key role towards assessing needs of organizational structure, provides milestones in selecting competent employees, making work more interesting hence increased organizational productivity and satisfaction of employees, and build of a harmonious working relationship. Nevertheless, they are some disadvantages of job design like increased workload, poor performance among some workers, lack of training, conflict among non-participants, and lower flexibility (Hoogervorst, van der Flier & Koopman 2004). However, they are more advantages that disadvantage hence the need for Linda to put in place job design in his workplace and among the employees. Another aspect is Communication methods. Leaders must realize communication is one of the major factors used to run organization smoothly (Hoogervorst, van der Flier & Koopman 2004). Therefore, managers must create clear channels of communication in which they can articulate the organization goals. Attitude can cause conflict between an employee and a colleague or the manager. Hence, if the manager or supervisor finds a petty misunderstandings or arguments in the workplace, he or she should take action by improving employees’ communication style (Hoogervorst, van der Flier & Koopman 2004). Supervisors like Linda, must relate well with employees to plan career paths in the organization and teach them on how attitude and flexible behavior in business can enable them improve along the path. Clear communication channels must show protocols of reporting; who reports to whom (Laurie, 2009). Communication is an effective method of keeping in touch with customers. If one of methods of communication is not working efficiently, managers can use other methods, like memo, emails, social media and newsletters to communicate with employees (Day, Gronn & Salas 2006). Experts claim that for people who are in customer service, effective communication and strong problem-solving knowledge is a must to remain stable in this competitive industry (Hoogervorst, van der Flier & Koopman 2004). Customer service representatives must be capable of listening well and communicate efficiently verbally. All these are ensured during the hiring process by the HR managers. However, with the change taking place so fast in the service sector, training and teamwork is required. For instance, in the Linda’s case; there was not need of transferring Joe to another group, she only needed to improve on her communication skills so as to boost the morale of employees, in particular Joe. While it is critical for managers and supervisors to uphold a professional demeanor their workplace, they must also shun to be seen as indifferent or cold (Marquardt & Loan, 2006). Sharing some little information concerning oneself with junior employees will help them associate with you as an individual (Hoogervorst, van der Flier & Koopman, 2004). Managers must liaise with the lower level managers such as the supervisors to plan for fun activities in which management and employees can get a chance to interact (Marquardt & Loan 2006). Team organization is the major factor to enhance and maintain interaction levels among employees in the organization (LaFasto & Larson 2001). Other features such as leadership, decision making, motivation, openness to talk about problems, challenge-plan is all fixed into this key concept of tea organization to enable the business realize its strategic objectives. In a team setting, people not only work together for particular goals but get some experience from group members which help them change their attitude towards work (Van den Bossche, Gijselaers, Segers & Kirschner, 2006). In addition, they trust one another and share knowledge. In Linda’s situation, to change Joe’s attitude, she should work as group leader who are always influential to motivate Joe and explains to him why serving people is important. As part of the recommendations in this case study, it’s important to note that many researches have demonstrated a strong relationship between staff morale and attitude and organization productivity (Kreitner & Kinicki 2007). This makes sense that employees will work better, faster and harder when they are satisfied and motivated. As such, some recommendation are offered to the managers to help the improve organization behavior especially employees’ attitude. Utilizing various motivational theories like Maslow’s Hierarchy theory will play a key role towards establishing the high needs of employees hence satisfying them accordingly. From expectancy theory, there is need for an organization to relate rewards directly to individuals’ performance. Some of the factors that enhance employees’ attitude are the adoption of different leadership styles. Some of these leadership styles if not used well can be the downfall of the organization. Managers must know that using “soft” leadership styles may not be good for the organization because they give employees too much freedom which can make them deviate from organization goals (McCauley 2004). Therefore, managers are sometimes recommended to use an autocratic leadership style which is job-centered to get the job done rapidly. Employee’s attitude in the workplace is not good because of what influence it can have on employees. However, showing it openly to the mangers make it realize that there is a problem in regards to organization behavior. Improving communication with the employee is good. It is recommended that the manager does this one on one basis so as to get the root cause of the attitude as opposed to emails and memos. It is also recommendable to practice job design as a way of reducing boredom and motivating employees. In conclusion, making decisions by the top management should be enhanced for continuous learning. Organization should take all the realities with regard to the employment that focus on individual task, employees motivation and attitude, career development, quantitative production and the employee commitment. Management promotes quality, performance, recognition, flexibility and the employment relations rights. A company which operates in service sector must have an open management system which considers the human resource; that is the employees as the backbone of the organization. Other aspects which companies must concentrate to improve customer quality service is the communication channels, encourage team organization because of this it is easy to pass information to the general organization. References Cole, K 2013, Management theory and practice 5edn, Pearson, Australia. 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