An Analysis On Organizational Behaviours Model Of Intel Corporation

Abstract

Models are frameworks or possible explanations why do people behave as they do at work. [footnoteRef:0]There are so many models in an organizations. Different results across the organizations are caused by different in the models of organizational behaviour. The basic model of this paper is to know more about how organizational behaviour influences the Intel Corporation based on the organizational behaviour model. Furthermore, this paper aims to have insights about the employees in Intel Corporation which will be influenced by surroundings no matter from physically or psychologically including how company facilities and services influences the organizational behaviour in Intel Corporation or the influence of motivation among employee and company performances. This paper contains a phone interview with one of the managers in Intel Corporation, an American multinational technology company with its Malaysia main headquarter located in Penang to get more about the internal issues regarding organizational behaviour in the company such as overcoming of stress, design of a decision and also company culture and structure. Intel Corporation has turned to be a splendid company in its working environment with both internal and external supports received from employees and the community. We will learn about the influences of Organizational Behaviours towards a company community based on Organizational Behaviour models. [0: ]

Keywords: Organizational behaviour, overcoming of stress, design of a decision, company culture, company structure

Introduction

According to CEO Brian Krzanich, Intel is known for its corporate culture of meritocracy, which considers employee ability and output. This culture differentiates Intel from competitors, maintains a high-end brand, and influences customers and suppliers to adopt technological efficiency in their mindsets. The following are the main characteristics of Intel’s organizational culture: Customer orientation, Risk Taking, Discipline, Great place to work, Quality, Results orientation.

Intel is an American multinational technology company with its Malaysia main headquarter located in Penang. Intel is one of the established companies producing and manufacturing high valued semiconductor chips apart from making motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphics chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Founded in 1972, Intel in Malaysia has initially accumulated 100 employees as its workforce and today, it has appeared to be the largest and most diverse site outside of the United States with an employee base of around 8000 highly skilled Malaysians.

The Company develops advanced integrated digital technology products, primarily integrated circuits, for industries such as computing and communications. Intel also develops a n integrated suites of digital computing technology platforms, that are designed to work together to provide user a solution compared to components that are used separately. Intel designs and manufactures computing and communications components, such as microprocessors, chipsets, motherboards, and wireless and wired connectivity products, as well as platforms that incorporate these components. The Company sells its products primarily to original equipment manufacturers, original design manufacturers, PC and network communications products users, and other manufacturers of industrial and communications equipment. [footnoteRef:2] [2: ]

Intel was founded in 1968 by Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. Both men had impressive backgrounds – Noyce, a physicist, was the co-inventor of the silicon integrated circuit, and Moore was the head of R&D at Fairchild Semiconductor. They recruited other Fairchild workers, including businessman Andrew Grove. The company was originally named “Moore Noyce”, but the founders decided that it sounded too much like “more noise”, a bad feature for electronics to have. They then settled on “Intel”, a combination of the first letters of each word in the term “Integrated Electronics”. Intel's third employee, a chemical engineer named Andy Grove, also came from Fairchild Semiconductor. With Grove on board, Intel released its first product in 1969, the 3101 64-bit Schottky bipolar RAM, and launched denser MOS SRAM & DRAM soon after. Grove was the Intel's president in 1979, CEO in 1987, Chairman and CEO in 1997, he is credited with transforming Intel from a manufacturer of memory chips into one of the world's dominant producers of microprocessors. During his tenure as CEO, Grove oversaw a 4,500% increase in Intel's market capitalization from $18 billion to $197 billion, making it, at the time, the world's most valuable company. [footnoteRef:3] [3: ]

To maintain itself as a leading company in technology, Intel has set its mission and vision. Intel’s mission is to utilize the power of Moore’s Law to bring smart, connected devices to every person on Earth. Meanwhile, Intel’s vision is “If it is smart and connected, it is best with Intel”. This defines that Intel is irrefutably concerned on building the best sophisticated application and devices in order to connect all people worldwide. With wise and meticulous strategies and plans, Intel believes it can ultimately achieve its goals as long as it receives unceasing efforts from its workforce.

Intel serves customers in more than 160 countries and had employed 100,100 employees in more than 60 countries by the end of 2011. Intel’s primary customers include Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and the Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs). Intel is not only focused on making microprocessors but it also manufactures data centres, tablets, Smartphone, automobiles, automated factory systems and medical devices. Intel’s latest innovation is the Ultrabook computing systems. Intel has a variety of segments that carry out different tasks. PC Client Group, Data Centre Group, Intel Architecture Operating Segments and various sub-groups that manage the entire mobiles and computing department, Software and Services Operating Segments also functions with sub-groups that manage various software related matters.

Background

In every organization, manager plays the most important role and holds crucial responsibility in steering the destination of the organization. Each manager usually receives assistance and help from its employees to ensure the accomplishment of all goals demanded by the organization. The failure of manager causes organizational problems. Therefore, leadership can be defined as the use of power and influence to direct the activities of followers toward goal accomplishment. In brief, the manager is someone with the highest ability in influencing oneself to fulfil his or her wants and needs. Throughout his or her characteristics, the organization will be able to reach its mission and vision.

To identify the characteristics of manager in Intel, we firstly recognize some types of power used by the manager. This step is formulated to ease us in further knowing the leadership style practiced by the manager. Generally, there are two types of power presented by the manager in the organization namely organizational and personal power. The organizational power is established between legitimate, reward and coercive power, whereas the personal power imbued with expert and referent power.

Intel manager is preferably using both legitimate and referent power. Legitimate power is based upon perception and reality. It is based on the reality that a person holds a particular position in an organization and based on the perception of employees that someone holding that position has authority to exert control over them. However, the power of a person is subject to the job structured hierarchy in the company. Broadly speaking, Intel employees agree that their manager tends to use the legitimate power peculiarly in determining the activities, policies, programmes and rules of the company. In fact, their manager uses this power to allocate resources needs in the company.

Also, the manager of Intel seems to use the referent power towards employees. This kind of power provides ample opportunity to the manager to cultivate the respect and admiration of followers in such a way that they wish to be like him or her. Referent power is leading by example so in Intel, this power is based upon a leader modelling his behavior to demonstrate appropriate conduct and decision-making. Intel employees observe a manager’s behavior and act as they believe their managers would act in the same situation. The referent power is slightly influencing the rapport between the Intel manager and employees so that the employees will see their manager as a charismatic character to be emulated.

The leadership is one part which cues to the characteristics depicted by the manager in the company. In Intel, the company believes no one style of leadership fits all situations. Pertaining to that, it is useful to understand different leadership frameworks and styles hence the managers can adapt those different approaches to fit the situation they are in.

In business, the transformational leadership is frequently claimed to be the best leadership style to use, but in Intel, the manager tries to practice equally among the transformational, transactional, bureaucratic and charismatic leadership. Manager in Intel performs transformational leadership to inspire employees with high integrity and high emotional intelligence. On top of that, for each department in Intel, the manager tends to motivate their employees with a shared vision of the future and to do so, they use well communication. With this kind of leadership, Intel manager is said to be self-aware, authentic, empathetic and humble.

For some specific purposes, especially in the department of Order Fulfilment and Supply Chain, the Intel manager uses bureaucratic leadership. This means that the manager rigorously follows Intel rules and ensures the employees obey the procedures precisely. Plus, this leadership is also useful for managing employees who perform the routine tasks. Charismatic leadership resembles transformational leadership as both types of manager inspire and motivate their team members. So, the same leadership may apply in certain Intel activities but the charismatic leadership is more focusing on the ambition of managers without having a change.

Lastly, the manager of Intel pays the employees for investing their efforts and time in completing some short-term tasks. This refers to the transactional leadership. When the performance among employees does not meet an appropriate standard, the Intel manager has rights to punish them. This yields very good results as the Intel employees can often do a little to improve their job satisfaction. In short, the manager in Intel portrays him- or herself to be the most influential person in the company. With different characteristics in different situations, the Intel manager is eager to achieve the organizational objectives and ultimately accomplish the mission and vision of the company. The utilization of power and leadership as mentioned above shows that the Intel manager is energetic, ambitious, stringent and enthusiastic. These characteristics help Intel to produce devoted workforce that will be readily prepared to encounter upcoming challenges and unpredictable circumstances within or outside the company.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Back to all the models that we discovered in this report, it shows that the employees in Intel are committed to work with the organization and that's related to their high job and task performances. The opportunities for advancement in Intel has made the employees more satisfied with their current job when they see a path available to move up the ranks in the company and be given more responsibility and along with it higher compensation. Many companies encourage employees to acquire more advanced skills that will lead to the chance of promotion. Companies often pay the cost of tuition for employees taking university courses, for example, during an employee's annual performance review, Intel supervisor should map out a path showing her what she needs to accomplish and what new skills she needs to develop in order to be on a track to advancement within the organization.

Although the workload and stress level is high among employees in Intel. Dealing with a workload that is far too heavy and deadlines that are impossible to reach can cause job satisfaction to erode for even the most dedicated employee. Falling short of deadlines results in conflict between employees and supervisors and raises the stress level of the workplace. Therefore, the supervisors play the role to elite all the stressors existed in the work environment and this will indirectly be creating a warm environment for the employees to work.

Undeniably, financial rewards are a part which can affect Intel employee’s job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is impacted by an employee's views about the fairness of Intel wage scale as well as the current compensation receiving. Intel need to have a mechanism in place to evaluate employee performance and provide salary increases to top performers. Opportunities to earn special incentives, such as bonuses, extra paid time off or vacations, also bring excitement and higher job satisfaction to the workplace. Intel values are the identity that uphold by every employee in Intel. Employees are more satisfied and are less likely to quit when their personal values are consistent with the organization’s values, and when they have positive attitudes about work environment. Values are desired ways of behaving or desired end-states. When an employee’s values collide with organizational values, employee may have interpersonal value conflicts, or the individual organizational value conflicts that may affect job satisfaction, turnover, and potentially performance. Attitudes, on the other hand, are defined as a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner with respect to a given object.