3. 3
Introduction:
The organization we have visited for our course report is Sui Sothern Gas
Company (SSGC) which is a semi government organization. It’s a very huge
organization which has more than 4,000 employees including staff and engineers. This
organization is the form of merchandising company. Sui Southern Gas Company is Pakistan’s
leading integrated gas company. The company is engaged in the business of transmission
and distribution of natural gas in southern part of Pakistan.
Purpose: The purpose of our report is to highlight the main issue, which we have investigated
during the visit in the organization. And which is causing significant impact, on the performance
of employees.
Issue:
The issue which we found there is power distance. This issue is not only comes in
between the complete job satisfaction of employees but also give a sense of employees that, their
suggestions & values aren’t as meaningful in the eyes of their management as it should be.
POWER DISTANCE:
Definition:
Power distance is an important cultural concept. Power distance describes how people
from different culture view the power relationship between themselves, their subordinates,
supervisors & officers. The inequality in power is explained from the bottom up.
General Concepts: There are generally two concepts are present about power distance, that in
any organization there may be a high power distance or low power distance.
High power Distance: An organization faces high power distance when there is, the more
autocratic and paternalistic culture exist in the organizations. Employees acknowledge the power
of others simply, based on where they are situated in certain formal, hierarchical positions. In
high power distance organizations, people don't question the decisions of their leaders.
Leader/subordinate relationships are not close and friendly. As a whole, higher power distance
organizations believe that inequality is good, everyone has a specific place, people should
depend on their leaders, and that their power should not hide and are entitled to many privileges.
Subordinates expect to have their jobs and responsibilities, dictated to the employees working in
their supervision. And in mostly cases, employees not agitate on agreement with authority, for
the fear of the consequences that may rise up the conflict.
4. 4
Low Power Distance: In low power distance organizations, there is usually readily question
trend, authority expect to participate employees in decisions that affect them. Low power
distance organizations have decentralized hierarchies, where employees or subordinates are
considered equal, or nearly equal. There are fewer supervisors or leaders and they are willing to
trust their subordinates with important jobs, and are willing to share the blame when problems
arise.
PROBLEM:
In SSGC the main and current problem which is told by senior manager is power
distance, which the employees usually faced. As SSGC is semi government organization, so all
the orders and target projects are deliver to employees from top management. It’s the form of
highly centralized organization. Due to the centralized nature of organization, there is lack of
participative decision making. Employees and staff have no rights to attend decision making
meetings and give their suggestions for the organization as well as for themselves.
ORDER:
All the orders are directed by top managers and are followed by downwards to hierarchy
levels.
Employees:
Employees just perform the task whatever orders they have. They don’t even know what
they will do in next project or about the type of upcoming projects. People in Asian countries
tend to believe that power distance, is the fact of life and hence they do not even try to raise their
voice in front of their leaders, regardless of the situation they faced although, they may have
more beneficial ideas for the sake of the organization.
SSGC is the organization which is not only suppressed the creative and advance skills of
their employees. But also haven’t provided the platform on which their employees can say
whatever comes in their mind or whatever they feel, in terms of both positive and negative sides,
or from personal and professional aspects of their lives which may include:
SSGC is neglecting the voice and the demand of opportunities, for employees to enhance
their abilities and capabilities.
Employees personal suggestions, which they feel for the betterment of management and
the factors related to their job is completely neglect by the top management.
EFFECTS OF HIGH POWER DISTANCE ON:
High power distance not only affects the employee’s performance but also effects on so many
other factors:
TRUST RELATION:
o Another problem that is caused by the power distance is lack of trust between the
supervisor and the subordinates. Subordinates have a feeling that, the top
management has not considered them as a symbol of trust worthy.
5. 5
o Issue of trust develop in SSGC due to the power distance as we know that, trust
has been widely recognized as a significant factor of relationships and a critical
element to the success of organization.
o Employees of SSGC having a negative psychological state, comprising the
intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions
or the behavior of another.
o They lack a set of expectations and trust. As the employees of SSGC prefer their
superiors to exercise autocratic and behave in paternalistic leadership manner, and
do not expect their selves to participate in decision making. Such individuals due
to high power distance do not show much attempt to influence decision-making,
since they expect to act autocratically, the employees of that organization believe
that their superior have the right to make decisions without consulting them as
they are subordinates.
o Due to the power distance there is not much strong relationship but comparatively
very weak relationship exist, that led to further discretion in the organization. The
result of high power distance in organization is in the form of, lack of mutual trust
and less organizational commitment from employees and they have thus in SSGC
there is the moderate and low level of job satisfaction.
LACK OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT:
o High power distance among the supervisor and employees also affect negatively,
on employee engagement. Employees not feel that, they are totally absorbed in
their work and in their jobs; they don’t want to work harder and in persistence
manner. In addition, due to the unclear sense of responsibility employees of that
organization generally, avoid additional task and assignments and they do not
want to focus all the needs fulfill by them that are required by their organization.
In every organization employee engagement is more important than employee
morale as the employee engagement comprised of both the attitude and behavior
of employees.
o Power distance distract the level of employee engagement high power distance
led to the negative effect on the attitude and the behavior of employees they do
not want to improve their outcome at individual employee level and at large level
collectively such individual outcome let the impact on the overall organizational
outcome. High power distance is leading to the low level of job motivation and it
produce the environment of less effective leadership, as leaders are dominant but
they are not respected by employees as they should be.
o In SSGC management of the company do not provide feedback which is also
cause of high power distance. As at every level, feedback is considered as the tool
that led the employees to engagement. Due to the less availability of constructive
feedback and mentoring employees feel themselves as they are less valuable and
they will not stay longer interested in their jobs. Employee’s performance hence
not evaluated as it should have to be followed in order to evaluate the employee
performance
6. 6
CULTURE AND DIVERSIITY:
o According to survey power distance is seems to be high in Asian culture as
compare to US culture. Due to the centralized form of organization and high
power distance top management do not respond to the diversity as employees (and
engineers) are came from different geographical regions and they relate to
different cultures and due to the huge size of organization and a lot of numbers of
employees, diversity is present at its peak. Generally, diversity is good and the
taste of life and if any organization responds to the diversity in an appropriate
manner than definitely such diversity become the source of advancement and
success towards the organization.
o However, if we see in SSGC it’s totally different. Top m managements possess
no interest towards the diversity present in there organization and hence, they do
not respond towards the diversity to make it meaningful and become the source of
power. Due to the diversity present among the employees, they faced sometimes
cultural issues and feel difficult to respond towards diversity. Sometimes, they
feel lack of team work and having less level of synergy that overall affect their
performance of their individual as well as their collective level. Due to the
inappropriate steps taken towards diversity and it became the source of negativity
and thus the culture of SSGC does not support much level of tolerance and
acceptance of differences among the employees.
o Diversity also creates communication barriers in the workplace as employees
have come from different cultures. The process of communication is affected and
leads them undesirable impact in internal and external communication process.
o Diversity create discrimination among employees and in SSGC there is no trend
to train employees that how they can overcome this discrimination factor. Due to
the high level of diversity and discrimination employees personally feel that their
emotional security is not protected. They become less concerned about fair
available justice which is provided by their top management.
WEAK EMPLOYEES PERSONALITY:
o High power distance affects the overall level of employee’s personality.
Employees become less concerned about their mind set and face the problem of
low confidence which generate in them due to the culture of power distance.
Employees also having stress related issues to their professional life hazels. Many
people are failed to manage their stress and it leads to the negative effects on their
performance. They do not enhance their abilities which already they possess and
they do not try to sharpen their mind and polish their skills which can lead
towards better opportunities in their life.
o Employee’s personality which is affected by high power distance which they
usually face in their working environment also affects their personal life. They
feel hesitation and having confusion in their minds while taking their important
personal decisions. They used to get advice and direction all times and at every
7. 7
level. When they become senior in their family, so they also face difficulties in
providing guidance and counseling, to their junior members of their family.
IRRESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOR OF EMPLOYEES TOWARDS WORK PLACE:
o Employees’ behavior is highly affected by power distance because due to
discrimination culture present in SSGC they are feeling like mistreated by their
management. They become less concerned about the organization environment.
Such employees act in silly way and also damage workforce morale. Small level
of among employees will overall affect the productivity of organization later. In
SSGC the effect of power distance results in the careless behavior of the
employees because the manager tells us that there work timings are 8:30 till 5:00
pm but the employees does not care about the organization favor they prefer late
sittings , although they were no need to do late sittings as there is enough time
provided by the organization to work in, But the actual situation is that there
would be eventually the loss of their organization that if they sit for the extra
hours so the electricity consumption, inventory usage, security and overall factory
overhead will increase which causes loss and lesser productivity.
o In short as there is no counter check and balance, no proper employee report
system on daily basis, and no as such restriction on attendance from the upper
management so they take advantage of it and hence there is ultimately the loss of
organization occurs just because of the high power distance. In short as SSGC is a
very huge and monopolistic organization and it is also the semi government
organization so all the people including employees and management think about
that there social responsibility in the work environment is not much important and
that’s why all the employees and management having a sense that“ They should
mind their own business”.
PROBLEMS OF EMPLOYEES:
o As there is a gap of power distance between the upper management and
employees, there is a less interaction between them. In SSGC there is meetings
held on quarterly basis due to which the employees face a long waiting time to
discuss their major issues with the concerned authority. Mostly the issues are
related to the unproductive employee’s behavior. Sometimes employees get
undesirable tasks, they have too many worries, they need clear direction, they
effective actions to resolve their problems and at times employees get tasks which
are not fixed according to their job and abilities. Some time, employees get
opposing task, which become very difficult to manage for them, and thus they
have the low level of productivity.
o Due to the employee’s problems, management of SSGC faced a lot number of
unexpected additional problems, which affects the overall level of productivity in
an organization.
8. 8
WORK PLACE STRESS:
o Employees also having stress related issues to their professional life hazels. Many
people are failed to manage their stress, and become depressed at certain extent
towards their roles and obligations which they faced in SSGC organization, and it
leads to the negative effects on their performance.
LESS EMPLOYEES PARTICIPATION:
o Employee participation is also known as empowerment. In SSGC organization
participation of employees is totally neglecting. The organization not provide the
platform to their employees as they can participate in decision making process,
can give recommendations and raising their voice about the organizational
procedures and rules. Even if they face unjust behavior related to their work.
PERCEPTION OF JUSTICE:
o Employees perceived justice from the organization in terms of reward
performance evaluation and appreciation. As in SSGC the manager said that there
is no as such appraisal policy. At upper level may be the perception of justice is
fulfill at certain extent but at lower level the perception of justice totally need to
be improved, which is quite unfair for the lower level employees. And they still
feel the need to be perceived in just and fair manner. In short employees are not
getting their perception of justice which is their right to expect from their
organization.
READINESS TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY:
o In SSGC employees feels less goodness about their task they have received from
management. The always have to say yes and compelled to fulfilled the orders
which they have received from the top management. They do not have any other
choice except to accomplish the task and perform their responsibility. Their task
becomes less appealing for them. And they have to accept whatever they have
assigned to do. Although, they perform the task and fulfill the demand of their
organization but emotionally and personally they do not have the sense of self-
actualization.
DEPENDENCY ON EXTRINSIC AND HYGIENE FACTORS:
o Employees depend more on hygiene factors. Due to the power distance and less
level of satisfaction present among the employees, they gradually starting
dependent upon the extrinsic factors which include dominantly salary and they do
not care about intrinsic and motivational factors that is also important in shaping
the employees behavior and also important for the good job.
9. 9
CONCLUSION:
o In conclusion, we have found during our visit and while making our report that
power distance is very serious issue in SSGC that need proper attention and
appropriate steps to overcome on it.
o As power distance itself is a big problem which become the beginning of many
other serious issues that involves employees, management and the overall
organization due to these entire problem SSGC is facing a productivity challenges
and appraisal issues. Hence it is investigated that there a lot of issues regarding
the power distance and its negative effects on the organization in terms of
overhead expenses, loss of integrity, lack of employee satisfaction, less
advancement in management pattern, failure of employees to perceived
organizational justice. Power distance also become the cause of employees
irresponsible behavior towards their physical work environment moreover, power
distance not only assets the organization but also the mental level of employees as
they feel less confidence more hesitate, more confused and more dependent.
o Due to the semi government and having more diverse number of employees
SSGC is extremely sensitive and there must be some environmental changes
should hold from different perspectives.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
o The management of SSGC should take meaningful steps to reduce the high power
distance from a certain extent. They should try to get level of participation to their
employees to make many efforts, to enhance the employee level of satisfaction,
should try held meetings after on monthly basis they will also give feedback to
their employee and take several steps of performance evaluation that create the
sense of accountability, responsibility and integrity in the mind of employees.
Management should hold a conference session in which they ask the problem
from employees and make an effort to resolve their problem.
o Management should try to create the positive image of work environment in the
mind of employees so the employees feel good about the organization. Power is
good but if it is exceed at the certain limits it becomes the source of resistance of
productivity and also prevent the growth of organization so management should
be clear that what they should need to be done with their employees to make them
happy, satisfied and more productive. Their management should avoid the
stressful environment which is existing, and try to eliminate resonance and
negative effect of their power. SSGC should create space for something
adventurous and exciting, which will result in peaceful working condition
employee satisfaction and enhancement level of their performance level
12. 12
1) How many employees work in your organization?
2) Which type of your organization, centralized or decentralized?
3) What is the major issue of your organization that is related to the behavior of employees?
4) How the relationship among the upper management & their employees, they are trust on one
another or not?
5) How your employees engaged with their work?
6) Are your employees participating in any task of organization?
7) How your organizations try to increase your satisfaction level about your job, by rewards, by
incentives, by bonuses, or anything else?
8) On which factors your employees depend more, extrinsic or intrinsic?
9) How much your employees respond to their responsibility?
10) What is the behavior of employees at the workplace?
