Free Case Study About Organizational Behavior: Case Study Of Barrie Super Subs

Determination of organizational behavior or the collective behavior of a group of employees in any organization is an important aspect, as the same has a direct impact on the operations and management of the organization . Employees in an organization are regarded to be the most vital of all resources available as they have the capability of decision making, which in turn determines the management and utilization of all other available resources for the achievement of organizational objectives. An effective management of human resources facilitate achievement of favorable results, whereas poor results in the opposite where organizational performance is hampered . This particular aspect I particularly relevant for organizations such as Barrie Super Sub, which being part of the service industry has to ensure addressing organizational issues effectively.
The organization in question here is Barrie Super Sub and the problem that has been identified to pose a challenge to normal operations of the restaurant is behavior among the employees of the organization with respect to food consumption, wastage or both. The management of the organization claims that the employees of the organization are responsible for poor performance as they engage in malpractices such as eating, disregarding food service standards (by means of offering generous portions to friends) and even providing food and drinks for free. Almost all of the employees of the restaurant are students who are employed at minimum wage. On top of that, specific conditions are imposed by the management in terms of provision of food allowance to the staff.
In light of the above mentioned factors, it becomes important to highlight one specific theory of motivation which is the expectancy theory of motivation. The theory suggests that an individual will be inclined to act or behave in a certain fashion as there is some motivation behind the selection of this particular behavior over others . It suggests that the behavior of an individual is basically determined by the anticipated outcome in any given situation. The employee will be motivated to behave in a particular manner, the outcome of which will be more favorable than the outcome of a behavior which is perceived to be less favorable by the employees. The same theory has three vital components, which need to be understood in order to assess the situation prevalent at the organization and derive conclusions from the same. The components of the expectancy theory are expectancy, instrumentality and valence .
The first component, expectancy, makes an individual to believe that the effort provided will help in the achievement of the desired level of performance. In this case an employee will be likely to make three assessments in the performance of a job. Employees are likely to believe they have the skills to perform a job (self-efficacy), that the job to be performed needs to be in accordance to their perceived level of difficulty or importance (goal difficulty) and that the employees do have some degree of control on the end results or the outcomes of the job or behavior (perceived control) .
If the situations identified in the organization are analyzed, a few important factors will be identified. The student employees develop a sense of self-efficacy once they are recruited and selected by the management of the organization to provide services at the restaurant. Apart from the skills necessary, there has been the development of a belief among the employees that the task to be performed is difficult given the physical effort that needs to be put in. This belief is associated with the student employees’ perception of goal difficulty. Finally, the conflict over the factor that employees must be able to ascertain and delegate accidental wastage and deliberate wastage is an indication that there is a difference in the perceived control of the employees as compared to the managers.
The second component is that of the belief of the employees that when the performance is according to expectations, there should be a reward. The third component, valence is the belief which makes an employee believe that there should be a reward for his performance. Here, the fact that almost all the employees of the organization are working on minimum wage have also played an important role. It is possible that the employees have developed the belief or perception that as they are providing physical labor to the organization at minimum wage, the management should not have a problem with employees eating or even being generous in quantity or amount of food offered to selective guests (their friends, usually).
The incentives paid to managers were based on the amount of wastage from the restaurant which gradually decreased to the point where the managers did not receive any, after a few months. The management resorted to enforcing stricter controls which was perceived by the employees as a barrier to their expectations.
The managers probably found it difficult to sustain food allowance provided to the employees as after a few consecutive months of zero allowances paid, they increased the eligibility for food allowance to six hours from four and a half hours of continuous work. There is no evidence that suggests that the managers could provide all the employees with work for more than four and half hour or six hour shifts. In such circumstances, the employees of the organization cannot be blamed for the situation.
It has also been observed that the managers themselves found it difficult to find employees at a later stage who were willing to work for minimum wage once the mainly student employees left the organization. The food allowance provided to the student employees could have been effective and motivated the employees had the managers not made any exceptions in allowing employees to have food – in supervised and regulated amounts to employees. Instead of differentiating on the basis of hours worked, the managers could have resorted to other alternatives such as monitoring and regulating food consumption in limited quantities among the employees. Even though the managers started to believe the situation had improved, after three months the employees resorted to their old ways and what was worse, was the fact that the younger employees also started the practice of eating and consuming food from the restaurant.
Instead of offering food allowance, the management should have ideally resorted to analyzing and identifying a strategy by which food from the restaurant would not be wasted (deliberately), and the employees were also happy with the working conditions. Their selected plan of action led to opposite results and impacted the operations, management and performance of the organization – both among customers and the labor market, which could have been avoided with a little more analysis and study into the organizational behavior.

References

Greenberg, J. (2011). Behavior in organizations. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Hellriegel, D. and Slocum, J. W. (2011). Organizational behavior. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
McShane, S. L. and Von Glinow, M. A. (2011). Organizational behavior. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.