University of Moratuwa

MBA in Management of Technology

Department of Management of Technology

Cover Sheet for Assignment

Name with Initials

: I.M.S.D Illangasinghe

Student Registration No: 159015T

Title of Assignment : Organizational Behavior & Management - Individual

Subject Code

: 5201

Subject

: Organizational Behavior & Management

Lecturer

: Ms. Thesara Jayawardane

Students Statement :
I certify that I have not plagiarized the work of others or participated in unauthorized
collusion when preparing this assignment.
Date:
Signature:..

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Deadline Met

Extension Given

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Late Submission

Organizational
Behavior theories applied to
:
Cinnamon Grand, Colombo

Sachenjith Dharshana Illangasinghe

159015T

Acknowledgment
The report is a part of the MBA in MOT course Organizational Behavior. This has proved to
be a great experience throughout the learning process.
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I would like to express my heartiest gratitude to our lecturer, Ms. Thesara Jayawardane who
has given a tremendous support and guidance throughout the period with a vast knowledge.
Also would like to extend my appreciation to the staff of Department of MOT.
Also my heartiest appreciation goes to the staff and management of Cinnamon Grand
Colombo for their fullest co-operation in providing me with required information.

Table of Contents
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

Executive Summary
Introduction
Brief insight of Cinnamon Grand, Colombo
Organizational Behavior trends affecting the business activities
Contemporary Challengers faced
Individual behaviors in the organization
Managing emotions at work

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Page
4
5
5
6
8
9
11

8. Practices to overcome workplace stress

9. Conclusion
10. Reference List

13
17
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1. Executive Summary
This report focuses on how Cinnamon Grand hotel has adopted Organizational Behavior theories
in to practice in there day to day work. Cinnamon Grand is a leading 5 star hotel in the industry.
A thorough analysis has been carried out to understand the behavior of the organization.
Moreover, necessary information has been gathered from the annual reports and also from the
Head of IT and Chief Accountant of the hotel. Furthermore, in order to identify and elaborate
further individual behaviors the five factor model and types of work related behavior models has
been taken as guidance in the report. In order to identify the occupational stresses, Categories of
Stressors Affecting Occupational Stress has been illustrated.

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2. Introduction
The objective of this assignment is to identify essential concepts in Organizational Behavior and
the application of theory in a practical organizational environment. The key focus is on
Organizational Behavior trends which affect the business activities, Individual behavior,
personality and values, workplace emotions, attitudes and stress.
The Organization considered under this assignment is Cinnamon Grand, Colombo and the report
will discuss on how the theories of Organizational behavior applied and practiced at the hotel.
3. Brief insight of Cinnamon Grand, Colombo
The hotel is located in the heart of Colombo's business, shopping and entertainment center.
Cinnamon Grand is an award winning five star hotel. Its known as a place of colors, sounds and
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unexpected pleasures. The hotel comes under the Cinnamon Hotels and Resorts of John Keels
Holdings PLC.
Hotel has luxurious rooms and restaurants serve up an eclectic mix of fine cuisine. Also they
provide ample spaces for relaxing and spaces for discovering and enjoyment. The total number
of rooms is 501.
The hotel has many modern and traditional restaurants namely Breeze bar, Cheers pub, Cheers
Kiddies club, Nugagama, Chutneys, Echo, Coffee stop, The London grill, Lagoon, Tea Lounge,
Tao, Taprobane, The caf and the latest addition is the Noodle Bar.
The Cinnamon Grand has been awarded best 5-star city hotel for consecutive 3 years in
2007/2008 & 2009. Also they have won the Hall fame award in 2009 Presidential Award for
Travel and Tourism. In the year 2012 the hotel won a Certificate of Excellence from Trip Adviser
website.
The hotel being a giant supporting the John Keels Holdings of Sri Lanka follows a very much
environmental friendly policy and interested in social responsibility as well. The management
also focuses on sustainability and triple bottom line concepts very closely in order to maintain
high industry standards amongst themselves.

4. Organizational Behavior trends affecting the business activities

There are few Organizational Behavior trends which affects the emerging economies.
1. Outsourcing
2. Off shoring
3. Multi-Sourcing
4. Open- sourcing
5. Business Process outsourcing
6. Inclusive workplace
7. Green Management
8. Innovation for organizational competitiveness
9. Cluster concept
10. Corporate entrepreneurship culture
11. Social Entrepreneurship
12. Corporate Social Entrepreneurship
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Main focus will be on Green Management and Corporate Social Entrepreneurship.

Green Management
As being a city hotel everyday there will be new challengers and decisions to be made
accordingly and those decisions and choices in some way impacts the environment and the
communities. It is the responsibility of the company to contribute to the safety and the
sustainability of the limited resources in the planet. As an initiative Cinnamon Grand has created
an Environment Policy with a green agenda with a goal to reduce 5% in the carbon footprint of
the hotel. The green agenda of the hotel is mainly focus on four areas which is Waste
management and recycling, energy and water management, conservation and community
awareness.
As energy saving method the hotel has started to install LED lights in various functional areas of
the hotel which has shown the way to save electricity and with the celebration of the Earth hour
they managed to save electricity also it has led for financial saving as well. The Nuga Gama
outlet has been redesigned and constructed as a fully sustainable and carbon neutral venue and its
one of a kind outlet which is used for community awareness of the environment friendly
concepts.
Another innovative recycling initiative is their B2b concept (banners to bag) which they use the
used promotional flex banners at the hotel and covert it in to durable water proof bags. (Annual
Report 13/14)
Corporate Social Entrepreneurship
This is a powerful tool for an organization to undertake corporate social responsibilities and its
build upon corporate entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship.
It is a corporate responsibility to help the less developed community to strengthen their social
standards and living condition. Cinnamon grand being a giant in the hotel industry has taken
positive and significant steps and carried out several Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
projects. As a part of their CSR initiatives they have conducted an Industrial Training for 90
students in the University of Jaffna and also conduct Vocational training programs for school
leavers and internship opportunities were provided.
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Also as a part of their CSR projects they carry out Breast cancer awareness fundraising projecs,
Donations were given to Sri Lanka national organization of the deaf, Avurudu lunch packets
donation for The salvation army boys home, seasonal toys, books, stationary were gifted to
children who is suffering from cancer at CCC House (Courage, Compassion and Commitment)
and there are many more initiatives taken and successfully contributing to the society.
The Organizational Behavior trends mentioned above affects the business activities in large scale
and as a fact its not only creates value to the organization but also embraces all stakeholders
including the employees of the hotel, business partners and the supply chain of the hotel.

5. Contemporary Challengers faced

The organizations are needs to maintain a good fit with the external environment by adjusting
and adapting to environmental changes by monitoring continuously. (McShane, Glinow and
Sharma 2005)
Mainly there are 3 major contemporary challengers faced by the organizations,
1. Globalization
2. Increasing workforce diversity
3. Emerging employment relationship
Main focus will be on increasing workforce diversity and emerging employment relationship.
Increasing workforce diversity
As an organization Cinnamon grand has taken several steps for managing diversity. Mainly on
the areas of Training, Work/family programs, testing and mentoring.

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With the goal of to be the Employer of choice among all five star hotels in the country Cinnamon
grand continue its commitment as an equal opportunity employer and the gender analysis for the
organization are exhibit in Table 4.1.
Male

Female
5
4
5
102
1001

Total Head Count

1
3
26
86

Table 4.1
(Authors
representation)
Cinnamon grand
also focus on

work/family programs as well. They have created Work-Life initiatives for their staff which
includes a sports meet, Inter department cricket and soccer games and also to improve employee
wellness they are conducting annual medical checks, eye clinics and 24/7 in-house clinic where a
doctor visits the property twice a day which creates the work place and life a better and
interesting one.
Emerging employment relationship
Currently the employees around the world suffering from work related stress and finding hard to
balance the personal life with work-life which leads to a conflict of work and non-work
demands. To overcome such situations employer should have flexible time frames and working
hours. Cinnamon grand has taken initiatives which allow the staff to work on roster basis and
with the emerging technology has allowed the employees to work from home as well as on the
job. Sales team has been given a tablet to make online reservations directly in-front of their
potential customers and which saves the time and they do not have to come back to office to
confirm the reservation. Similarly employees at the Information technology team can work from
home to troubleshoot property management system related issues which creates a Virtual work
environment.
6. Individual behaviors in the organization
As a part of this report it was a pleasure to speak to two key employees at Cinnamon Grand.

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Shiran Tissera: Who is the head of Information Technology department of the hotel and holds a
key responsibility of safeguarding and continuity of operation in reservation, property
management system, material management system and financial information system.

Figure 6.1 Five Factor Model (McShane, Glinow and Sharma

When comparing Head of ITs personality and characteristics with the five factor model it is
obvious that Head of IT is a careful and self disciplined person and since he is working at an
independent department he has to maintain self discipline. Because of the extensive training on
guest services to hotel employees the key competencies that required for leisure sector has
covered and Head of IT have acquire the same and he is an outgoing, talkative and sociable
person.

Shanaka Silva: Who is the Chief Account of the organization, Purchasing Manager, Receiving
Manager, Control Manager and Credit Manager directly reports to him. As a key personal for the
organization and being a leader he sets standards by examples.

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Figure 6.2 Types of Work related behavior (McShane, Glinow and Sharma

When we consider the Types of work related behavior with the Chief Accountants
characteristics it is obvious that he can be categorize in to Task Performance, Joining/staying
with the organization and organizational citizenship.
The chief accountant focuses on achieving the financial budget and also achieving the
common goal of the organization which is to be the hospitality trendsetter. As an individual he
work cooperatively with his staff and focus on maximizing the profit of the organization and
providing best quality goods and services to the customers.
Being with the organization for more than 10 years the Chief accountant possesses valuable
information about the company, corporate values and customer needs and also manages to
maintain a low staff turnover ratio within the department.
As a hardworking team player the chief accountant extends his work beyond the regular day to
schedule and being chosen as the one of the captains of the houses they used for the sports meet
he actively participate in the organizational activities which avoid unnecessary conflicts and
work stress.

7. Managing emotions at work

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When it comes to emotions in hospitality industry the staff facing the customers should always
greet the guests with a smile regardless of the true emotions. We consider 3 major areas when it
comes to Managing emotions at work.
Emotional Labor
McShane, Glinow, and Sharma 2005 defines the efforts, planning and control needed to express
organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions as Emotional Labor.
To maintain the standards of the hospitality industry employees facing guests mainly the front
office and food & beverage department staff requires to always smile and greet the customer and
it is defined in their job role this is defined as the Emotional Labor.
Emotional Dissonance
As per McShane, Glinow, and Sharma 2005 emotional labor creates conflicts between required
emotions and true emotions which is called as emotional dissonance.
As a hotel practice it is a must to greet the guests with a smile but there can be days where
employees are not in a good mood and there can be days they have their personal concerns but
have to smile and cannot show the true emotions due organizational rules. This can lead to
emotional dissonance.
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Goleman 1998 defines Emotional intelligence as the capacity for recognizing our own feelings as
well as others, for motivating ourselves and managing emotions well in ourselves and in our
relationships.
There are four dimensions of EI
Self awareness: This means the understanding of our own emotions.
Self management: This is the ability to control and manage our own emotions.
Social awareness: This means to recognize and understand the emotions of others.
Relationship management: This means the management of other peoples emotions.
The head of IT & the chief accountant of Cinnamon grand are back office employees of the
organization and do not always get to face the clients. Yet at the organizational level they have to
face the co-workers and top management. It is not defined in their job roles but as a practice they
do follow and practice the Organizational Behaviors.

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As experienced individuals and leaders of their respective division both the head of IT and the
Chief Accountant has understand the emotions of their subordinates and non executive staff
who works under them and through this they have managed to build up better relationship
management skills by using emotional intelligence.
As a practice both the heads of departments conduct morning meetings to discuss on day to
issues of their employees to identify the issues they face to minimize the emotional dissonance
of the co-workers.
As a practice both the heads of the departments make sure to brief the co-workers on how they
needs to face the guest with an appropriate emotions regardless of their personal situation or the
work stress adhering to Emotional Labor.

8. Practices to overcome workplace stress

There is considerable evidence that most employees report feeling work related stress and the
recent dynamic environment making it worse for the already worked up employees. The
globalisation, industry and business rivalries have led to a dramatic increase in employee
stress levels.
Besides globalisation and advanced information technology development occurred within
Cinnamon Grand, there is also evidence that increased diversification of the workforce in hotel
has lead to unique stress problems and that employees are increasingly pressed into overtime
work and that shows significantly higher level of stress.
Beehr and Newman in 1988 define job stress as a condition arising from the interaction of
people and their jobs and characterised by changes within people that force them to deviate from
their normal functioning.
The antecedents of stress or the so called stressors affecting todays hard working employees are
summarised in under the figure 8.1. The Cinnamon Grand has identified that these stressors
come from both outside and inside the organisation from the groups that employees are
influenced by and from employees themselves.
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Fig.8.1 Categories of Stressors Affecting Occupational Stress (Luthans, F., 2008)

As Luthans further explains the key types of stressors prevailing in organisations such as
Extraorganisational stressors, Organisational stressors, Group stressors and Individual
stressors cause significant mental and behavioural differences on employees reactions and daily
lives both personally and professionally.
There are many ways to remove stressful factors and some of the more common actions involve
assigning employees to jobs that match their skills and preferences, reducing excessive
workplace noise, having a complaint system and taking corrective action against harassment and
giving employees more control over the work process.
Another important way that organisations can remove stressors is by facilitating better worklife
balance. Worklife balance initiatives minimize conflict between the employees work and nonwork demands.
As a step of managing the work stress amongst the employees of the hotel, including the higher
management, the HR team has come up with several different methods to practice, by
introducing them as unique projects / concepts / initiatives with creative names in order to
maintain work life balance. Hence the key initiatives for work place stress management by
Cinnamon Grand are as below;

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Smile Survey- In order to understand the varying moods of Cinnamon Grand, they conducted
the annual report smile survey with several icons. There results from guests and staff have been
collated and have reached very positive results in terms of organisational culture, working
happiness, positive environment and respectful treatment. However certain reviews have brought
out some important insight on the department battle and every day fire fighting causing stress
over the job of employees which the Simile team is now looking at addressing the concerns of
employees during the next financial year. However it was fact that most employees accepted that
over the past year the management of the hotel has taken important steps to manage work stress
in a very creative manner.
Flexibility, It is! initiative - This initiative has been brought out for employees to change and
swap shift times with fellow members within the their teams in a way which ensures that
employees could make dates free to attend to their personal work as well without applying for a
personal leave. The organisations thoughtfulness communicated in a way of an action has
brought many positive results strengthening employees mentality and willingness to work, to go
that extra mile and be enthusiastic at work. The key motive of this initiative is to make sure that
employees do get a chance to attend to their family matters through improved flexibility thus
resulting the happiness in terms of work achievements which has brought marvellous results over
a short period of time in achieving hotels short term goals such as customer delight and
satisfaction rates in some restaurants.
For certain job roles the option of working from home was introduced and for certain job roles it
was implemented half way through up to the best possible limit depending on the work
requirements. This has resulted delight in working mothers and single parents working for the
hotel and has brought very positive results for the annual employee satisfaction survey. Some
employees went on to the extent of mentioning this initiative has made unknown the feeling of
being stressed out! (Internal Records, HR Division, 2015)
We Value You initiative Many reward and award ceremonies have been arranged and
conducted in order to value the hard working employees and make sure the stress they feel at
times is really worthwhile and the right person is rewarded. The views of some award winning
employees including the employee of the year have mentioned the awards kept in front of their
work station encourages them to work better every day and a good method of releasing stress
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every time they look at and recall that their hard work has been always appreciated. The
Associated Quarterly Awards and Long Service Awards are two examples for the initiatives.
No Stress Slots initiative These stress releasing activities have been introduced specially to
be attended at the work place during the break times. The facilities such as Yoga training
sessions, Gym and Spa memberships from Angsana Spa owned by Cinnamon Hotels have been
provided for concessionary rates in order to make sure the employees are fresh and do not get
worked up during their work shifts.
Work Hard Play Hard concept The events and campaigns such as Inter Department Cricket
6s, Inter Departmental Soccer 7s, Cinnamon Grand Sports Meet, Improving Employee Wellness
and Drink Wise Campaigns were created and introduced as a means of help employees to release
stress while encouraging employee engagement within the organisation. These events have
brought good memories to cherish while building up a positive team membership and a we are
family feeling within employees. The Smile survey has revealed that some employees has told
that they feel the organisation like second home or that they feel like leaving home and getting
back to home again on a working day. (Internal Records, HR Division, 2015)

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9. Conclusion
In the conclusion, key functional areas of Cinnamon Grand and two key personal has been
analyzed and evaluated in order to understand the usage of Organizational Behavior theories are
in practice and it is clear that the hotel practice the theories in real world scenario. Organizational
behavior trends, contemporary challengers faced, Individual behavior in the organization,
managing emotions at work and practices to be followed to overcome work related stress has
been thoroughly studied in this report and it is a fact and the conclusion is that Organizational
behavior is not just common sense but a vast area and the successful organizations are following
the theories.

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10. Reference
Annual Report 2013/14 Cinnamon Grand Colombo.
Beehr T.A., Newman, J.E., (1998) Job Stress, Employee Health, and Organizational
Effectiveness: A facet Analysis, Model, and Literature Review, Personal psychology, Winter.
Cinnamon Hotels & Resorts (2015) [home page] [online]. [Cited on 2nd March 2015].
<http://www.cinnamonhotels.com/>.
Daniel Goleman. (1995) Emotional Intelligence, Bantam books New York.
Internal Records Cinnamon Grand Colombo.
Internal Records, HR Division, 2015
Luthans, F. (2009) Organizational Behaviour. 11th edition, McGraw Hill NY.
McShane L. S., Von Glinow, M. A., & Sharma, R. R., (2005) Organizational BehaviorEmerging Knowledge and Practice for the Real World, 5th Edition Tata McGraw Hill.
Internal Records, HR Division, 2015

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