MSWPG7212 Organisational Culture and Management

MSWPG7212 Organisational Culture and Management

Management Theory 1:Situational Leadership Theory

Describe the management theory

Situational leadership is one of the most relevant leadership styles, used to handle a contingent management issues in any type of workplace. As the name suggests, this leadership theory describes the characteristics of the leaders to be applied in different types of situations. Hersey and Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory is one of most popular contingency or situational leadership models. According to Thompson & Glasø (2015), Hersey and Blanchard stated that effectiveness of the leaders is highly dependent on the situations. The readiness of followers to perform the jobs willingly is a major situational factor and that often affects the efficiency and effectiveness of the leaders. In this model, the authors distinguished between the relationship organizational behaviour and task behaviour of the leaders. They also stated that, a situational leader must adjust his leadership style as per the readiness, that is, ability and willingness to perform, of the followers. McCleskey (2014) explained that, the situational leaders have the ability to understand the readiness of the followers and act accordingly. When the followers have low readiness for the tasks given, then the leaders should use the high degree of task behaviour by defining tasks and their responsibilities, and low degree of relationship behaviour, that is, guiding or directing them. With time and situations, the degree of these behaviour structures should be changed. In the social work structure, this model is highly relevant as various types of situations or follower readiness changes quite frequently due to involvement of a large number of people with different social, cultural and economic background (Chemers, 2014).

Provide evidence/examples of how you see this management theory being implemented in your focus agency

Mercy Care Hospital or Mercy Health is one of the major publicly funded healthcare institutions located in Allbury, New South Wales. It caters to a large number of populations in the Albury–Wodonga and surrounding regions. This social institute provide various types of health and care services, such as, aged care, palliative care, transitional aged care, mental health programs, geriatric evaluation and management, and support and community therapy and inpatient rehabilitation programs. However, it does not provide services for acute disease care services (Mercy Health Services, 2018). Based on the services offered in this social work institute, it can be inferred that many types of situation

or contingency arise here due to involvement of a large number people, that is, patients, physicians and healthcare workers, which calls for the application of situational leadership. Many emergencies arise, such as sudden inflow of aged patients and children during the winter, which needs special attention. The working shifts needs to be increased and the healthcare workers need to put more efforts to take care of the excessive number of sensitive patients. In such situations, many healthcare workers, especially the new recruits or interns, who did not face such situations before, might have some readiness issues. For example, in terms of work load, handling different types of needs of different patients at the same time, ability to understand the patient’s mentality, background as well as needs etc, the workers might not be ready to work effectively and efficiently. In these cases, the situational leaders adjust their leadership styles to make the followers work efficiently by applying different degrees of task and relationship behaviour.

Critically analyse (1) the benefits and (2) the challenges of this management approach

Situation leadership model has both benefits and challenges. As stated by Cherry (2012), this type of management or leadership is quite flexible in nature. Instead of imposing rigid rules, regulations and procedures, which can demoralize the healthcare workers, the leaders or the management of the social institutions can adapt to the reactions and capabilities of the followers and accordingly plan the strategies to make them work efficiently. McLaurin (2013) describes that in this leadership style, the leaders and the followers both experience the human resource management issue or the situation, and both work to adjust their capability and willingness, which makes the followers feel valued and important in the organisation. On the contrary, Van Wart (2013) highlighted that, often the situational leaders put focus on short term goals than the long term objectives. To handle the short term or immediate situations, these leaders put emphasis on changing the working styles, which might not be beneficial for the long term objectives of the organisation. Moreover, according to Bedford & Gehlert (2013), the Hersey-Blanchard model fails to define and quantify the emotional and job maturity of the leaders and the followers. A manager or leader may assume that an emotionally mature and tenured worker can take on the job responsibilities easily, which might not be the case always. Thus, the manager fails to recognize the needs of the situations and cannot work effectively. Hence, in the Hersey-Blanchard model, there is no measurement scale, which can be applied to measure the effectiveness of the model.

Management Theory #2:Herzberg’s Two-Factor or Motivator Hygiene theory

Describe the management theory (making links to theoretical literature)

In any type of social work, motivation of the people is extremely essential. The social work often entails more effort for the benefit of the community as a whole than the personal benefits. Hence, due to many factors, the motivation of the workers gets affected. Hence, to solve the motivational management issues, the motivational theories are appropriate in the social work (Yusoff, Kian & Idris, 2013). One such relevant theory is the Herzberg’s Two-Factor or Motivator Hygiene theory. According to Herzberg (2017), two types of factors affects the motivations of the employees and those are known as motivation and hygiene factors. Motivation factors include the career growth opportunities, recognition, job satisfaction, sense of accomplishments, and responsibility. On the other hand, salary, benefits, organisational policies, work environment and interpersonal benefits are the hygiene factors, that are the causes of job dissatisfaction. As stated by Ghazi, Shahzada & Khan (2013), in the social work, the managers or the leaders must pay attention to both the motivation and hygiene factors, although, in majority cases, the hygiene factors outweighs the motivation factors. There are many management issues in social work, especially, lack of adequate fund or capital, which affects the salaries and benefits of the workers. This creates an impact on the satisfaction level of the employees and organisational culture, and thereby their performance is affected. Hence, to bring out the efficiency of the social workers, the project managementshould pay attention to the hygiene factors, which in turn will increase the motivation and job satisfaction of the employees (Latham, 2012).

Provide evidence of how you see this management theory being implemented in your focus agency

The focus agency, that is, Mercy Health Albury, is a publicly funded health care institution. It is registered under the healthcare department of the Australian government. Being a public healthcare organisation, Mercy Health faces quite a few challenges, which affects the motivational level of the healthcare workers. Funding issue is one of the major issues that create a challenge for efficient working of Mercy. Since, it cannot charge a lump sum fee from the patients and the price for the other healthcare packages are lower than in the private hospitals, it has to depend on the government funding and donations from the patrons. In its website, the hospital has options and information about thedonation, volunteering and fundraising to mercy health foundation to improve its healthcare and wellbeing facilities for the community (Mercy Health Foundation, 2018). Thus, it is evident that the hospital needs capital for efficient and improved services. It leads to the lower pay structure for the employees. They are often dissatisfied due to lack of motivation and insufficient pay, benefits and rewards. On the other hand, there is also lack of permanent employees, which makes the management ask for volunteers. Hence, the hygiene factors are more dominant than the motivation factors in Mercy Health Care Hospital. The organisation hence focuses on securing the predictable and certain local funding sources, securing the revenues from insurances, and hiring more temporary contractual workers. Securing adequate capital not only ensures a better pay structure of the employees, but also ensures an improved working conditions and healthcare facilities for the patients. This helps in increasing the satisfaction level and motivation of the workers.

Critically analyse (1) the benefits and (2) the challenges of this management approach

According to Lacey, Kennett-Hensel & Manolis (2015), the two-factor theory by Herzberg highlights two types of behaviour patterns and the factors affecting those. The motivational factors increase the overall job satisfaction, while the hygiene factors do not provide satisfaction, rather increases dissatisfaction if absent. Hence, this theory helps the management of an organisation to differentiate between the organisational factors that cause satisfaction and dissatisfaction among the employees and put focus on those. Through this approach, the managers can differentiate between the behavioural needs of the workers and can make strategic plans accordingly to meet the needs of the employees while meeting the organisational goals. On the contrary, this approach has many challenges. As stated by Malik & Naeem (2013), this theory often ignores the situational factors, and there is no comprehensive measurement scale for assessing the satisfaction level. Moreover, the reliability of the theory is ambiguous, as raters may analyse different findings in different manners, leading to different outcomes. Another challenge of this theory is that, the motivational factors can change over the tenure of an employee. Thus, these factors have dynamic implications on the employees and this influences their needs. However, this theory labels the factors quite rigidly and there is no scope for flexibility in assessing the motivation and hygiene factors over the lifetime of the employees. Not only in the social works, but also in any other job sector, the factors are dynamic, leading to change of needs and attitudes towards the job satisfaction. Herzberg’s theory does not measure this dynamism in the behavioural pattern of the employees, which also changes the motivation and hygiene factors (Ozguner & Ozguner, 2014).

Reference List – Management Theory One

1. Bedford, C., & Gehlert, K. M. (2013). Situational supervision: Applying situational leadership to clinical supervision. The Clinical Supervisor, 32(1), 56-69.
2. Chemers, M. (2014). An integrative theory of leadership. Psychology Press.
3. Cherry, K. (2012). Leadership theories.
4. McCleskey, J. A. (2014). Situational, transformational, and transactional leadership and leadership development. Journal of Business Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 117.
5. McLaurin, J. R. (2013). The role of situation in the leadership management process: A review and application. Electronic Business, 12(2).
6. Mercy Health Services. (2018). Mercy Health Albury. Retrieved from https://health-services.mercyhealth.com.au/our-locations/mercy-health-albury/ Thompson, G., & Glasø, L. (2015). Situational leadership theory: a test from three perspectives. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 36(5), 527-544.
7. Van Wart, M. (2013). Lessons from leadership theory and the contemporary challenges of leaders. Public Administration Review, 73(4), 553-565.

Reference List – Management Theory Two

1. Ghazi, S. R., Shahzada, G., & Khan, M. S. (2013). Resurrecting Herzberg’s two factor theory: An implication to the university teachers. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 3(2), 445.
2. Herzberg, F. (2017). Motivation to work. Routledge.
3. Lacey, R., Kennett-Hensel, P. A., & Manolis, C. (2015). Is corporate social responsibility a motivator or hygiene factor? Insights into its bivalent nature. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(3), 315-332.
4. Latham, G. P. (2012). Work motivation: History, theory, research, and practice. Sage.
5. Malik, M. E., & Naeem, B. (2013). Towards understanding controversy on Herzberg theory of motivation. World Applied Sciences Journal, 24(8), 1031-1036.
6. Mercy Health Foundation. (2018). Mercy Health Foundation: Donate To Improve Care and Life Outcomes. Retrieved from https://www.mercyhealthfoundation.org.au/ Ozguner, Z., & Ozguner, M. (2014). A managerial point of view on the relationship between of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's dual factor theory. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 5(7).
7. Yusoff, W. F. W., Kian, T. S., & Idris, M. T. M. (2013). Herzberg’s two factors theory on work motivation: does its work for todays environment. Global journal of commerce and Management, 2(5), 18-22.