Introduction
The case involved GoSports Inc., which is in a state of crisis and has attracted a third-party manager to improve its financial situation. Three key elements emerged from the study of the case. Firstly, it is corporate culture, which in paper will be defined as Hierarchical. Secondly, a feature of the organization is its family structure, which is disclosed in the central part of this study. Thirdly, the impact on the company of conflict situations within top management was considered. The purpose of this paper is to explore these key aspects that have been identified in the case study.
Organizational Behavior Concepts
Organizational behavior is based on basic ideas about the nature of people and organizations. It is essential to understand that “different organizational behavior constructs use the different features of reciprocity” (Gervasi et al., 2021, p. 3), so each needs a unique approach. First, the person who works in the organization is nature. It is customary to distinguish six fundamental concepts that characterize any individual’s characteristics, perception, personality integrity, behavioral motivation, the desire for complicity, and the value of the individual. Individual characteristics of employees also play an essential role in the organization of the company. Each individual differs from others in many characteristics. For effective motivation of employees who have individual characteristics, a specific approach of the manager to each of them is required. It is important to consider employee changes. However, “Personality change in organizational behavior has been neglected, partly, because researchers have tended to render such change impossible by definition” (Tasselli et al., 2018, p. 4). Each person individually perceives ongoing events or even the same object. How each person relates to reality depends solely on his perception. It is unique to each individual depending on his past life experience. An essential aspect of studying this topic is the understanding that the “development of theories of management and organizational behavior took place in parallel” (Urinov, 2020, p. 40). Managers must learn to better understand the processes of perception of their employees and, given the degree of their emotionality, select an individual approach to each. In this example, one could observe how the management, on the contrary, did not want to take into account the characteristics of employees and their self-leadership. It “is a critical, even core, element of organizational psychology and behavior” (Stewart et al., 2019, section 4.5). Companies have to deal with the whole personality, not individual qualities, qualifications, and ability to analyze. Professional skill does not exist without experience and knowledge, a person’s personal life cannot be separated from the labor process. The usual behavior of an individual is formed due to the influence of various factors on him, which may be the consequences of his actions or due to his needs. People’s motives are not what we think they should be, for they are what people themselves desire.
Communication
The first theory of organizational behavior, in this case, is a particular corporate culture of the company that has been entrenched for a long time. It is the corporate culture that largely determines communication within the company. The company’s corporate culture is a whole set of values and principles that every employee follows. This set of rules helps to form uniform rules of behavior and communication with both colleagues and clients. Motivates staff to achieve results, positively affects the working atmosphere in general, and makes customers return. In most cases, corporate culture helps the company grow faster and exaggerate achievements. However, in this case, the opposite happened due to the formation of this culture in the wrong way GoSports Inc. began to lose come and fade. This happened because of the process by which culture was created in this company. Creating a corporate culture is most often the painstaking work of the management department. HR, the top manager, and the company founder are making great efforts to implement the new rules gradually. Everything should start with improving the working conditions of employees and small bonuses, such as gifts for regular customers. Creating a corporate culture at GoSports Inc. happened similarly but eventually turned into a conservative system that further began to impede the company’s development. According to Carvalho et al. (2018, p. 202), “there are four cultural types called Clan culture, Adhocracy culture, Market culture, and Hierarchy culture.” It can be assumed that the corporate culture of GoSports Inc. Hierarchy type because it is most concentrated within itself. Also, the cultural values of the company are often formed spontaneously. Moreover, ordinary employees can become the initiator of the process. The leader should listen to the wishes of subordinates and join the process promptly in order to direct it in the right direction.
Leadership
The second feature of organizational behavior at GoSports relates to its leadership. It can be attributed to family-type companies, that is, such management is transferred from generation to generation in one family. It is customary to call a company a family company, control over which belongs to one founder or several founders who are close relatives. The most noteworthy example of successful family companies in the world is the Korean experience. Organizations of this type have coined a separate term for chaebols, a unique company management structure in Korea (Oh & Park, 2021). An essential element of Korean business culture is a family inheritance. Usually, the eldest son is considered the heir apparent and treats his brothers and sisters like a father treats his children. The matter must remain in the hands of the family. While a board of directors currently runs GoSports, the sons of the founder of the company hold key positions, and their younger sister is the head of the financial department. Family companies can differ significantly when it comes to internal processes such as ownership of the company, the strategic and operational management of its affairs, as well as the appointment and replacement of top management. Because in them, in addition to traditional corporate ones, intra-family relations and processes play an essential role, which is entirely uncharacteristic for ordinary companies. Even though family companies have many advantages over conventional ones, such as high motivation and loyalty to the top managers of family members, an atmosphere of cohesion and trust in the team, respect for traditions, and continuity in management, in the case of this instance, this played in a negative direction. For the most part, because having taken over the management of the company, the heirs of its founder continued the line of management of their father for many years. The fact that the situation on the market has changed all this time and competitors significantly have not stood still has not been taken into account. According to a study by SC Johnson College of business, only 13% of family businesses are successfully passed on to the third generation (Family business facts). This confirms the fact that most of these companies adhere to the old views on management and development strategies, which leads them to close.
Organizational change
The third behavioral theory that can be observed at GoSports is the conflict management style. It is this feature of the company that should be changed as a result of the leadership of the new CEO, since it has an extremely negative impact on the work of the organization. Organizational changes have not taken place in the company since the death of its founder and are a key factor in the decline in revenue. The subject of change should primarily be the elimination of conflicts within the top management of the company. According to Aqqad et al. (2019, p. 230), “conflict is considered a double-sided blade leading to either positive or negative consequences.” In the case of GoSports, such conflicts within the leadership led to just negative consequences. Because managers had “repeated disagreements over the years regarding the strategic direction of the company” (Hemme & Dixon, 2015). The problem begins after the members of the board of directors cease to agree. The vision of a way out of a crisis situation is different for each of the partners, and being in conflict, it becomes difficult, almost impossible, to listen and hear another partner, and this, in turn, leads to extended and protracted corporate wars. They often end in significant financial losses for both the business and each of the partners, and sometimes even bankruptcy. In addition, in this case, the leaders involved in the conflict were poorly acquainted with the methods of dealing with such situations. According to Caputo et al. (2018, p. 3), “there is evidence that parties who engage in conflict may respond with different conflict management styles.” Based on this, we can conclude that the management staff was not qualified enough to be able to resolve the conflict situation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the described key features of this case are often found in older companies that pass the next generations within the family. The hierarchical type of management contributes so much to the fact that GoSports Inc. became conservative and closed to new experiments. This, as well as internal disagreements regarding strategy, led the company to a deterioration in financial performance. However, it is essential to clarify that management found a good way out in the form of bringing in an outside CEO with good recommendations. His fruitful work may partially compensate for missed opportunities in the past and bring GoSports Inc. from the crisis.
References
Aqqad, N., Obeidat, B., Tarhini, A., & Masa’deh, R. E. (2019). The relationship among emotional intelligence, conflict management styles, and job performance in Jordanian banks. International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 19(3), 225-265.
Caputo, A., Ayoko, O. B., & Amoo, N. (2018). The moderating role of cultural intelligence in the relationship between cultural orientations and conflict management styles. Journal of Business Research, 89, 10-20.
Carvalho, C. R. S. P., Castro, M. A. R., Silva, L. P., & Carvalho, L. O. P. (2018). The relationship between organizational culture, organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Rebrae, 11(2), 201-215.
Gervasi, D., Faldetta, G., Pellegrini, M. M., & Maley, J. (2021). Reciprocity in organizational behavior studies: a systematic literature review of contents, types, and directions. European Management Journal.
Hemme, F., & Dixon, M. A. (2015). A Case Study on Power and Politics in Organizations
Oh, H., & Park, S. (2021). Corporate sustainable management, dividend policy and Chaebol. Sustainability, 13(13), 7495.
SC Johnson College of business. (n.d.). Family business facts and family owned businesses are challenged. Web.
Stewart, G. L., Courtright, S. H., & Manz, C. C. (2019). Self-leadership: A paradoxical core of organizational behavior. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6, 47-67.
Tasselli, S., Kilduff, M., & Landis, B. (2018). Personality change: Implications for organizational behavior. Academy of Management Annals, 12(2), 467-493.
Urinov, B. (2020). Review of the trends of management: Corporate culture or organizational behavior. Scientific research archive, 33(1).