FINAL EXAMINATION

PROGRAMME
Postgraduate Diploma in Business Management (PGDBM)

MODULE Organisational Behaviour

INTAKE January 2019

DATE 05 November 2019

TIME 14h00 – 17h00

DURATION 3 hours

TOTAL MARKS 100

INSTRUCTIONS TO THE CANDIDATE

1. Questions must be attempted in the answer book provided.

2. All queries should be directed to the invigilator; do not communicate or attempt to communicate with any
other candidate.
3. You have THREE HOURS to complete this paper. You are not allowed to leave the examination room within
the first hour and in the last 15 minutes of this examination.
4. This is a CLOSED BOOK examination.
5. Read ALL instructions carefully.

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SECTION A [40 MARKS]

Read the Article below and answer the questions that follow:

Preserving A Culture People Love As Your Company Grows: Lessons from Zappos - Chris Cancialosi May 30, 2017
Being intentional about your company’s core values from day one can help to build a solid foundation to guide behaviour
as your organization grows; few leaders understand this as well as Zappos’ Tony Hsieh.
Zappos has long been an example of the power that company culture has on behavior and business performance. But
what’s behind the curtain? What is the team at Zappos doing, specifically, that is driving their admirable levels of
employee engagement and retention? 2016 was Zappos’ lowest turnover rate since its founding more than 18 years ago
— and I wanted to know the how and the why.

To find out, I asked Jamie Naughton, Zappos’ Chief of Staff, to share her insights.
For Jamie, it all starts with her personal journey to Zappos which, she believes, is a testament to the way the
organization is run. Having initially worked as an external staffing professional to Zappos, Jamie realized early on that it
was a place she’d like to be. “It was more than 12 years ago when I first knew I wanted to be a part of the Zappos
team,” Naughton shares. “The people I would send to work there always came back telling me how much Zappos cared
about their culture and how great it was to work in an environment like that.”
Today, Naughton focuses her efforts on building myriad efficiencies within the organization for its 1,500+ employees.
When Tony Hsieh took over as CEO at Zappos, he knew he wanted to create an organization where people genuinely
enjoyed working. By paying close attention to every single new hire, he was able to ensure his vision became reality.
Several years later, the team at Zappos formalized what they held near and dear by creating Zappos’ 10 Core Values.
Doing so helped provide a clearly articulated beacon for members of the team to evolve all of their processes and
ensure their unique culture was able to scale as the company grew.
Getting clear and explicit about the company’s core values gave all members of the organization a common language
and understanding of what “right” looks like at Zappos. “There isn’t a day that goes by where there isn’t a mention of our
Core Values in some way,” says Naughton. “They allow everyone to easily prioritize what’s really most important.”
Because the process was so intentional, the results weren’t all that surprising. “We knew as we were building the
company that focusing on culture was paramount,” Naughton adds. “In order to provide amazing service to our
customers, we knew we had to provide that same level of service to our employees and vendors.”
To fully embed this value of service in all members of the team, each and every new employee, regardless of position,
attends a full four-week call center training program, including dozens of hours on the phones supporting live customers.
And to reinforce this message, every employee spends a minimum of ten hours during the holidays on the phones as
well.

Surprisingly, these mandatory trainings have helped with innovation. “When our developers started going through this
training, and were forced to use the systems and tools they created for our call center, they began noticing opportunities
for improvement. So, the developers would finish their training and then go back to their usual desks and start building
efficiencies in our tools to make it easier for call center employees to do their jobs.”
Zappos’ Three Keys to Employee Engagement and Retention
Zappos’ focus on engaging and retaining great talent revolves around a continuous focus on three things:
Culture.

The culture at Zappos is grounded in their Core Values. But simply articulating values, as many organizations do, is not
nearly enough. True value is created when they are actually integrated into everything the organization does. Naughton
advises, “Don’t let your values become a dusty plaque on a wall, somewhere near the front desk. Talk about them and,
more importantly, live by them. Make decisions with the values in mind.”
Passion.

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“We want our employees to find meaning in their work. Our company is self-organized, which means employees aren’t
tied to one area of the company,” says Naughton. Team members are given the freedom to flex and support in ways
that are outside of their “box,” which keeps Zappos innovative, efficient and purposeful.
Ownership.

Zappos leadership gives employees the tools to do their jobs while owning their work, setting them up for success by
stepping out of the way. Naughton provides an example of how this plays out in their day-to-day operations: “In our call
center, every representative has all the tools they need to make customers happy. They don’t need to ask a supervisor
for permission to override policies or compensate for lapses in service.” Giving employees ownership and empowerment
to make decisions is not to be understated here. Zappos believes that the people doing the work and servicing
customers every day are the ones best suited to make the decisions necessary to take care of those customers.
While this approach may not work in all organizations, parts of this example are generalizable. The prime being that,
whatever you value and whatever culture you feel will drive the results you want in your business, you must be
intentional. Taking the time to be clear about who you are and how you do things and understanding when and how to
evolve in order to drive results is what matters.

Zappos has designed a foundation that elicits the customer-focused behaviors its leaders feel are critical to its success,
and the organization continues to reinforce these values and ways of working continuously in every aspect of their
activities.
What might you do in your organizations to help bring some intention to what you value and how you need to work
together in order to succeed
Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriscancialosi/2017/05/30/preserving-a-culture-people-love-as-your-
company-grows-lessons-from-zappos/#26e8faa7712b - Chris Cancialosi May 30, 2017

QUESTION 1 (20 Marks)

Critically analyse the above article making reference to a theory of your choice on types of organizational culture

QUESTION 2 (20 Marks)

Discuss theories of motivation by making linkages to the above article

SECTION B
Answer ANY THREE (3) questions in this section.

QUESTION 3 (20 Marks)

“Contrary to popular wisdom and behaviour, conflict is not a bad thing for a team. In fact, the fear of conflict is
almost always a sign of problems.” – Patrick Lencioni author of The Advantage.

With reference to the above statement, analyse conflict, the management of conflict and techniques to resolve
conflict.

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QUESTION 4 (20 Marks)

“To make better leaders, we have to modify their behaviour, not their personality. We have well defined values and
guiding principles for the kind of behaviour that is important to our culture.” -Allan Lorem

State whether you agree with the statement above, and motivate your viewpoint by referring to relevant theory of
personality traits and emotional intelligence within the organisational context.

QUESTION 5 (20 Marks)

“Culture does not change because we desire to change it. Culture changes when the organization is transformed the
culture reflects the realities of people working together every day.”– Frances Hesselbein

Critically analyse two change theories of your choice to discuss this statement

QUESTION 6 (20 Marks)

With reference to the above statement by Hesselbein, discuss the functions and maintenance of organizational
culture.

END OF PAPER

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