This case study examines Tony Lee's difficult transition from his previous employer, O'Grady Construction, to his new employer, Reece Enterprise. At O'Grady, Tony experienced a supportive work environment where he was respected by his boss and colleagues. He enjoyed strong relationships, autonomy, recognition for his work through promotions and pay increases. This led to high job satisfaction. In contrast, at Reece Enterprise Tony found a less friendly environment where he did not fit in with peers and lacked respect. He felt more like an outsider. This case illustrates concepts such as individual differences, motivated behavior, the importance of feeling valued, and factors that influence job satisfaction versus dissatisfaction.

1. SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE, BUILDING
AND DESIGN
PEOPLE DYNAMICS IN MALAYSIAN
ORGANIZATIONS
UCM60303U3
Individual Tasks: Case Study
Title: Difficult Transitions
Name: Lee Kailyn
Student ID: 0320273
Course: Bachelor of Quantity Surveying
Section: Section 2
Lecturer: Dr. Shanthi Bavani

2. 1. Identify several concepts and characteristics from the field of organizational
behavior that this case illustrates.
There are several concepts and characteristics from the field of organizational behavior
that this case illustrates includes:
Nature of People
Individual differences:
Every individual in this world is completely different and unique from others in many
ways because there are no two people can have the same perspective and same mind.
Every individual has their own way of personal thinking. Each person being different is
so important part of human experience that it is difficult to even imagine a human being
in which other people are identical. For example, there is difference between the attitude
and friendliness of the peers at O’Grady and Reece. O’Grady is considered a small firm
compared to Reece, they can build their relationship with the peers easily since it does
not have more employees in the company. The peers at O’Grady is very friendly and
more approachable. They will share what they are interest in to each other. When Tony
was still in his previous company, he will play golf with the other three managers every
Saturday. In contrast, Reece is a bigger firm compared to O’Grady and was structured
much more bureaucratically. The peers at Reece is not as friendly as people in O’Grady.
They dislike Tony and treated him with polite indifference. He feel that they resented him
as an outsider and makes him had the problems of fitting in. He even asked his current
colleagues about playing golf and politely declined by them for saying they did not play
often.
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3. Motivated Behavior:
Motivation is an internal process that makes a person move forward towards a goal. It
shows how people actually make choices to work hard or not to work hard based on their
individual preferences, the rewards and the possible work outcomes. Motivated behavior
includes two types of behavior which is positive motivation behavior and negative
motivation behavior. For example of positive motivation, when Tony was still working in
his previous company, his boss and managers always use positivity when communicating
with them and it helps to make a huge impact on their emotional and well-being and their
performance. The boss shows his trust to his employees by letting them to decide how
they deliver their work and always giving them support. Besides that, his previous boss
treats them with respect by staying out of the way and letting them work in their own
way. It will motivates the employees want to do better every time because they do not
want to let their boss feel disappointed. For example of the negative motivation behavior,
the top managers at Reece did not care much about their employees because they will
only promote and reward people based on how long they had been working in the
company and how well they played the never-ending political games. It makes the peers
at Reece will always backstabbing each other and they did not build a good relationship
between each other.
Value the person:
As a boss or managers or leader, they must makes their employees feel valued. The boss
or managers need to respect their employees by asking their opinion and communicate
their needs clearly. If the employees did a good job or giving good opinion, the boss or
managers need to praise them and it will leads them want to experience the same feeling
again. Besides that, the boss need to praise on his team and reward them adequately. It
will makes the employees feels that their boss is appreciating their hard work and
motivates them to work harder. For example, Tony gets respect from his previous
company colleagues but he did not get respect from his current company. It makes him
wondered if he had made a mistake for choosing Reece Enterprise.
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4. Nature of organization
Social system:
Social system consists of two or more individuals interacting directly or indirectly in a
bounded situation. We need to interact and understand our colleagues so that we can
build a great teamwork. A good teamwork will maximizes contribution, developing
everybody’s strengths and distributing responsibility to all. For example, Tony build
strong and good relationship with his managers and colleagues. They got along well both
personally and professionally with his previous colleagues and truly work together as a
team. Working together as a team helps to build on the talents of their teammates. We can
learnt and share our knowledge to each other. In contrast, Tony could not fit in the peers
at Reece. People at Reece does not want to join him for golf and treated him polite
indifference. It makes him cannot build a good relationship with his current colleagues
and they had no conversation except during discussion for their work. They had the same
hobby with Tony which is playing golf but they did not want to join Tony to play it. It
makes Tony feels upset when he had overheard that his colleagues are making
arrangement to play golf every Saturday.
The Custodial Model:
The custodial model is based around the concept of providing economic security for
employees through wages and other benefits. This will helps to create the employee
loyalty towards the company and motivation to do better for their task. For example,
Tony thinks his work at O’Grady was appreciated and recognized. He even believed that
he had grown greatly as a person because of his work at O’Grady. He loves his work at
O’Grady. Tony’s previous boss at O’ Grady praises Tony for trying his best for his job by
rewarding him. Tony had received three promotions and many more pay increase. The
rewards from his previous boss motivates him to work harder every time.
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5. The Collegial Model:
The collegial model is based around teamwork. Collegial refers to a highly cooperative
set of people working together by dividing the labor among themselves for the sake of
efficient working and to achieve organizational goals. The basic foundation of the
collegial model lies on management’s building a feeling of partnership with employee.
For example, Tony build a good relationship with the other three managers at O’Grady.
They often went to lunch together and played golf every Saturday. They got along well
both personally and professionally and truly worked together as a team. A great
teamwork helps to create higher quality outcomes that are more efficient, effective,
thoughtful, as well as faster. Furthermore, a group of member works well together as a
team will able to accomplish more than the individual member working alone. So, it’s
important to build and maintain good relationship with the boss, colleagues or team
members because good relationships are often helps to develop our careers.
The Supportive Model:
The supportive model is focused on motivated and aspiring leadership, not on the
managerial leadership style that provides an atmosphere to help employees grow and
accomplish their task successfully. For example, their boss from O’Grady had been very
supportive, giving them the help and also staying out of the way and letting them work.
He is allowing its manager considerable autonomy and freedom. The boss allows the
manager to decide how they want to deliver their work which will helps to build the trust
between the employers and the employees. Having a trusting relationship with the boss
and colleagues will contributes to happiness towards the job.
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6. Job Satisfaction:
Job satisfaction refers to how well a job provides fulfillment of a need or want, or how
well it serves as a source of means of enjoyment. Job satisfaction is the degree to which
individuals feel positively or negatively about their jobs. Employees must loves and
enjoy what they do and it will helps them to find and achieve their goals through their
job. For example, Tony is in love with his previous company and job. The working
environment is great. He believed that the job had met his personal goals and
expectations perfectly and he even thinks that the job had made him grown greatly as a
person. The company culture was easy going and he have flexibility when needed. The
boss also encourage open communication in the company because open communication
helps to create a productive work environment and a positive workplace. It also helps the
employees to increase a greater job satisfaction and team building. Tony feel happy and
confident with his previous jobs and he thinks everything at O’Grady was great even the
colleagues from O’Grady were much friendly than the Reece.
Two factor theory:
There are two types of factors that influence motivation and satisfaction among
individuals at work. These are comprised of motivator factors and hygiene factors. The
motivator factors are arise from intrinsic or dependent, conditions of the jobs itself. The
motivator factors are elements in a work place that can cause satisfaction such as
responsibility, job satisfaction, recognition, achievement, opportunities for growth and
advancement. For example, Tony is satisfied with his previous job. The employers
appreciate the efforts he puts in day after day for the success of the business. His previous
boss recognize his good work by rewarding him three promotions and increase the pay
for him. Sometimes rewarding the employees is not just to acknowledge about their work
but also to motivate them to continue with the same passion towards their work. This
management will lead to greater satisfaction because the workers will work harder to get
the reward again. For the hygiene factors are elements in a work place that can cause
dissatisfaction such as company policies, relationship with boss, supervision, work
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7. conditions and salary. For example, top managers at Reece Enterprise treated their peer
1 unfairly because they do not give them the chance and platform to their peers to let
them show their ability. They also promote and reward people based on how long they
work at the company not people who did a good job. This is so unfair to the workers who
really work so hard in the company and this will lead to greater dissatisfaction because of
the unfair treatment.
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8. 2. What advice can you give Tony? How would this advice be supported or
tempered by behavioral concepts and processes?
I would like to advice Tony to leave the current company and find a new job that will
meet his personal goals and expectation because it’s not worth to work at a place that
does not appreciate their workers and the company does not provides opportunities to
learn anything at the new company. Working in a place that you dislike or unhappy is a
waste of time and energy. Top managers at Reece Enterprise does not appreciate and care
about what the workers had done to the company and also who did a good job. They do
not give platform to the workers to show their ability. The peers at Reece Enterprise takes
Tony as an outsider and they treated him badly. It makes Tony feel disappointed to the
company and wondered if had made a mistake in accepting the Reece offer. I believe that
Tony can get a better job than the job at Reece Enterprise because he has the strength to
work for the company, it is just that Reece Enterprise does not appreciate what their
workers had done for them.
The behavioral concepts that can be apply to support this advice is job satisfaction. First,
you need to love what you are doing and Tony does not satisfy with his work at Reece
Enterprise because it does not meets his goals and expectation. Tony needs to find
another new job that meets his requirement just like his previous company which is
O’Grady. A person that is happy and enjoy at their work will helps to increase the
productivity because when people are in a good mood, it will leads way more motivated.
The reliable way to be motivated at work is to be happy and like what we do. For
example, Tony is happy when he is still working at O’Grady because the company
culture was easy going and the boss let his workers to decide and do what they want as
long as the outcomes is good for their company. The boss at O’Grady will rewards the
workers who did a good job by increasing the pay. In contrast, Reece Enterprise is not
praising and rewarding their workers based on who did a good job, they only care who
played well in the never-ending political games. It is important to choose the right career
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9. because we will happy and loves our jobs. We will pay more attention to our work and do
our best every time. Lastly, choosing a job that we satisfy is important because it help us
to set our professional goals and develop a strategy for getting where we want to be.
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10. 3. Is it possible to find an “ideal” place to work? Explain.
An ideal workplace would be a nice place to be for the common of employees and at the
same time successful from a business perspective. It is not possible to find a workplace
that is ideal for any person and workers because every individual will have different
preferences about their ide/al things. For example, some individual prefer to work
everything by alone and some individual prefer to work in a team. It is impossible to set
up things to satisfy every single individual or worker. We only possible to find a
workplace that are close to our ideal workplace and it will allow us to remain motivated
in our work. Sometimes, it’s hard to find our ideal workplace because not every company
can meets our need for the job. For example, most of the individual would like a job that
provides opportunity to learn, progress and contributes in organization but some of the
corporation are not providing the opportunity to let people learn because they think that
they are paying people to work for them not learning from them. When we are in working
industry, we will be facing the problem of working with someone that we dislike.
Working with difficult people isn’t uncommon anymore because different people will
have different personality. These things are unavoidable in any aspect of our life.
Although the percentage of possible to find an ideal workplace is quite low but we are
still possible to find a similar place to our ideal workplace if we are not giving up.
Furthermore, we can also make the place we work as our ideal workplace instead of
finding an ideal work place. We should love what we do and find enjoyment in our work.
Even if we don’t like our work, or working environment we are in but we should love the
way we do it because we must be responsible to our work and do well in our work even
though it’s not our ideal workplace. Sometimes, as we focusing more on doing better,
nuisances of the jobs will be becoming our rewards. Moreover, finding a right company,
a right working environment or a job that we will enjoy more is very important because it
will change and find the direction of our life.
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11. References
1. (Retrieved from My Organisational Behavior n.d.)
http://www.myorganisationalbehaviour.com/collegial-model-of-organisational-
behaviour/
2. (Retrieved from Two-Factor Theory of Motivation n.d.)
https://explorable.com/two-factor-theory-of-motivation
3. (Retrieved from Advantages of teamwork in the workplace n.d.)
https://toughnickel.com/business/15-Advantages-of-teamwork-in-the-workplace
4. (Retrieved from Models of Organizational Behavior n.d.)
http://academlib.com/2814/management/models_organiational_behaviour
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