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A case study of Organizational Behavior in Malaysia’s Commercial Banking Industry

In August 1975, Bank X was established in Malaysia. Being the sixth biggest banking group in Malaysia, it comprises of Bank Y and its subsidiaries Bank A, Bank B, Bank C, Bank D and Bank E. This group of bank offers a wide range of investment banking, commercial banking, retail financing, and related financial services, which includes Islamic banking, underwriting of general and life insurance, stock, share and futures broking, investment advisory as well as asset, property and unit trust management.

Bank X has its own criteria for staff nomination. A few years ago, Bank X appointed Mr. Simon, who previously worked in another bank, as the new general manager. Simon is currently the general manager of the DSS unit, and he handles and coordinates this unit. He has 26 years of experience in the banking industry. He previously held a clerical position, and due to his desire for self-improvement, he furthered his education by enrolling in diploma and degree courses. The outcome of his determination led to him being appointed as the general manager of DSS unit. Simon, being and an energetic man, displayed dedication and punctuality in everything. His attachment to the unit resulted in a high turnover. However, all the staff did not like his attitudes that were full of conventions. Twenty employees resigned because of his attitude and character caused job dissatisfaction among employees. To date, he has served in this unit for six years, and the new subordinates are tormented by his position and demeanour. Meanwhile, manager is an individual who likes to encourage his staffs to be involved in CSR activities. However, he has the habit of claiming others work as his personal achievement. He often fails to acknowledge the staff that did the job, and claims the rewards offered by the top management for himself. This consequently results in the subordinate feeling unjust, demotivated, as well as dissatisfied with their job.

SITUATION IN THE BANK

In this case study, the application of operationalisation is used to determine the terms of a process (or a set of proof tests) that are needed to regulate the nature of an item or phenomenon. In this case, researchers determined some operational definitions in terms of organisational behaviour, negative behaviour, positive behaviour, negative attitude, positive attitude, job satisfaction, job dissatisfaction, and job performance. According to Hoppock (1935), job satisfaction is defined as a blend of mental, physiological, and natural circumstances that enable employees to speak honestly about his/her satisfaction toward the job that they hold in the organisation.

In this case, Alex is well-educated, and he holds a master’s degree from the United Kingdom. Additionally, he has over 25 years of experience in the banking industry. As a senior executive, Simon’s negative attitude annoys and disappoints him, hence, resulting in him being dissatisfied with his job. Simon also penalized Alex by taking away his promotion, increment, and bonus; leaving the employee to work under pressure. Other subordinates were also not satisfied with the job because of Simon’s behaviour, and they ceased from the task. Generally, Alex has his own perception about the job, and he wants a peaceful working environment instead of opposing and conflicting opinions which often lead to arguments between them. How does Alex manage Simon’s negative attitudes which create employees’ job dissatisfaction? Additionally, how does Alex manage Simon’s negative attitudes to become positive attitudes that can enhance employees’ job satisfaction?

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

The Pie Chart 2 shows that Simon’s negative attitudes are positively correlated with Alex’s job dissatisfaction. Simon was found to have negative perceptions of Alex’s ideas at the highest percentage (60%). This finding can be further supported by Simon’s attitude, whereby he often criticized Alex’s work before summoning the facts because he had negative thinking and feelings about Alex. As a result, Alex was dissatisfied with his job, particularly in terms of communication. Fifty percent was the highest percentage that identified both people do not communicate well after confrontations. Communication stopped after Alex became dissatisfied with Simon’s attitude. Alex felt that Simon lacked leadership skills as a general manager because of his preconceived notions about his subordinates. Ten percent for leadership accomplishment as obtained in this study is an extremely low value for a managerial level. Good leadership styles among middle manager and subordinates are essential qualities. This finding justifies Alex’s claim on Simon’s lack of credibility for the managerial position. Distressed by all these situations, Alex lost his passion for working in Bank X as he did not want to be penalized by a person with a lower level of mentality. Alex decided that he lacked job satisfaction because of Simon’s negative attitudes.

CONCLUSION

Every organisation has issues to handle, and the way the management or leaders handle the issues can affect the organization’s performance as well as the employees’ performance. As a part of the top management, leaders should encourage employees and avoid demotivating attitude to ensure a better work environment. Emotional intelligence is the most crucial aspect that should be observed by everyone in an organisation. A high positive level of emotional intelligence establishes a high level of organisational citizenship behaviour, which further increases organisational performance. When bank employees can express their emotional experiences, both individual and organisational performance becomes enhanced. Hence, this brings down the workplace stress. Successful organisations know the importance of practising positive attitude in various condition, performance, and employee engagement. Such positivity is very crucial for employees when they later face with a negative work environment. Therefore, training assessment and evaluation of employees are very important as it guides them to learn as well as support the team members at the workplace, while they continue to attain the organisational goals, vision, and mission. In other words, training provides employees with a chance to learn coaching, guiding and motivating techniques that can be used to improve the team members; creating a supportive work environment for the group members further ensures emotional intelligence development and elimination of negative attitude in the workplace.

Read the above case study carefully and answer the questions provided below.

Each answer must not be more than 400 words.

5. Evaluate Simon’s character on the following grounds. (6 Marks)

1. 1. Personality
   2. Leadership Style
   3. Power Tactic
2. Relate this case to Affective events theory (5 Marks). List down any three issues that made Alex dissatisfied with Simon’s attitude. (3 Marks)