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MODULE NO:  MAN00015I

MODULE TITLE: Behaviour in Organisation II

Essay Title: Behaviour in organisation II - Summative Assessment 100%

Introduction:

Within this essay, I will produce a detailed and rounded analysis of Space and materiality looking into how professional spaces are designed or formed to create desired feelings and characteristics from employees (players) and consumers. In addition, this essay will also investigate how control is exerted by organisations over employees by using discreet, subliminal methods in conjunction with direct active decision making by the organisation with the aim of shaping corporate culture. The business I have chosen to effectively highlight such themes is Arsenal FC whereby I feel there are clear steps taken by the organisation to provoke the aforementioned themes. I will explore these themes by identifying subcategories within them such as Emotional Labour and disenchantment when writing in respects of Control and in a similar vein develop on Space and Materiality by speaking about Community and Motivation. Arsenal FC are a football club that plays its football in the English Premier League, drawing fans from all corners of the globe through its illustrious history winning 13 league championships and host of famous players past and present building their brand image and global reputation. The history and status of the football club is embodied by their stadium. The Emirates Stadium which was completed in 2006 can host over 60,000 people and has a multitude of features and properties that act as a catalyst for the relevant themes that I aim to give an encompassing analysis of in this essay. In and around the stadium there is a plethora of statues, banners and murals that clearly stir up specific emotions within staff, players, and visitors. I will develop on to explain how space and materiality is carefully contrived to stir up a community feel and also how the spaces inside the stadium are built to aid and abet motivation within the playing squad. The Organisation also has a significant level of control over the players they sign, I will establish this in my essay by detailing how the clubs can demand players to behave in a way the business would wish but may not suit their individual needs or reflect their true personality. Additionally, I will also look at how employment is viewed and handled within the football club, especially how contracts can cause disenchantment within employees and players.

Control- Emotional Labour:

With the footballers at Arsenal FC fulfilling essentially a service roll whereby they are paid to offer entertainment and satisfy customers, there is an expectation for players to perform and exert certain traits even if it does not fit their usual social norms. This kind of transactional work known as Emotional labour has seen to, in recent years, been more prevalent in businesses as employees that come into regular contact with customers are instrumental in establishing brand loyalty and capturing new customers (Noon and Blyton, 2002).  Football in the modern world has become a global industry with advance in technology meaning it is available on a multitude of platforms, the players at Arsenal FC been pushed front and centre when it comes to interactions with customers both attending matches and online. This has been seen in recently at arsenal with Arsenal’s goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale featuring in a video advertisement with a local restaurant seeing great success with Carp (2022) stating that “The whole campaign actually resulted in content that felt more authentic, entertaining and endearing than anything the football club could create with its major partners” (p.1). These secondary, non-essential roles that footballers take on at Arsenal are show how within the organisation, the business is leaning on its employees to use their personalities to offer additional value over and above their primary roles. In addition to Employees at Arsenal providing financial value to the organisation though their emotional labour, Players are also able to offer value though ‘deep’ acting. This sub section of emotional labour sees employees immerse themselves into the role whereby they totally alter their behaviour to the point where it is not their own anymore (Noon and Blyton, 2002). This type of behaviour occurs within the organisation when players are required to fulfil media duties and are bound by collective responsibility to speak about issues or situations that are occurring at the club in a positive light and withhold how the truly feel. These practices and actions are seen when looking at nonplaying staff recruitment, Daisy Rutledge is Arsenal’s media and communications officers whose remit it falls within to direct and dictate how staff and the club portray themselves in the media.

On top of staff being employed to shape the media narrative, players contracts also contain clauses which dictate the amount of media obligations they must fulfil. Within players contracts more clauses are related to media obligations due to the ever-growing audiences demanding more entertainment and fans wanting greater access to players. This sells the company’s image using soft power to consumers with interesting and insightful interviews with players (McHenry and Morris, 2018), carefully construed by Arsenal’s media team. Reflecting on the use of emotional labour at Arsenal, it’s clear to see how the organisation exerts control over its staff by putting in place measures to fully utilise their players marketability. These measures also see Players exchange certain freedoms of expression due to being public personality together with collective responsibility limiting them further then average employees in organisations with the intense media scrutiny that comes with being an employee at Arsenal.

Control- Disenchantment:

With how Arsenal acquires their players and retains them within the organisation, it is evident that this process is very different to other industries and how employees are sought out. It is two-edged sword for footballers when it comes to the significant amounts of money in football as players can and do make vast sums of money with the total wage bill at Arsenal for playing staff being £111,788,000 for current Premier league season (Spotrac, 2022). The flip side of such lucrative work is that the great sums of money involved place immense pressure for players to grow and improve while presenting a return on investment to the organisation which does affect players mental wellbeing by constantly worrying about being replaced by colleagues to play in matches (Kaplánová, 2020). 

To develop on the idea that the phycological effects of contracts give the organisation huge control over player it is evident to see that the terms of the contract themselves give additional control to Arsenal over its players. Within players contracts there are a diverse range of targets laid out by the organisation which if hit players will receive financial bonuses such as in 2022 when the Arsenal players were offered £50,000 if the team were able to qualify for the Champions league, Europe’s premier footballing competition (Kajumba, 2022)  in conjunction to a period of time the players must stay at the club for ,unless purchased by another Football team . The implications of having ambitious targets to reach in tandem with a fixed term a player has to stay at the club can add further distress to a player as they can either see they are obligated to fulfil an often-lengthy period at one organisation, or see the flip side of it and see a date by which they may be removed from Arsenal if their performance is seen as sub-standard (Sanderson and Siegfried, 2006).

The above analysis of the control at Arsenal as an organisation shows how Aspirational control and the use of a high demands on players allows the organisation to keep players in line by diminishing their job security. In addition, it sees players lend their co-operation to the goals of the club thought heavy financial incentive that the clubs uses to encourage the players to perform at their best ability. At the same time this process also keeps players onside by giving them a platform to show they are some of the best in the industry they operate in (Robertson and Swan, 2003) and due to the use of contracts unique to the industry, has the power to extend or withdraw this opportunity at their digression.

Space and Materiality- Community

In this segment of this essay, I aim to lay out of the way space is used within my chosen organisation, Arsenal to show how it is used to create a sense of community within their stakeholders. With such a big infrastructure project as constructing a new stadium, it is appropriate that extensive planning was undertaken into how the layout of the surrounding area and the stadium itself would be arranged. This can be seen up to the present day with ever more improvements for fan experience, with Arsenal (2022) reporting they were unveiling “59 new fast track beer lanes have been installed this season at kiosks across Upper and Lower Tier to improve the speed of service” (p.1). it’s clear to see that these actions taken by the organisation have the hall marks of a planned space as they include the rational decision making from a business to have a desired outcome, that of engaging customers with the commercial side of the business. In addition to the rationality behind the decision to set up so many outlets with the goal of maximising the utility fans derive from visiting the stadium there is the second characteristic of a planned space and it is that of the business establishing power over the user of the space. Arsenal makes it possible able to do this through having a monopoly Over merchandising and goods fans can consume inside the spaces in the stadium (Peattie, 2001).  The care put into the layout of the stadium by Arsenal links back to the theme of community as it outlines how the organisation cares for the needs of its stakeholders and puts in place faculties such as food outlets and the club shop for fans to enjoy matchdays, as well as purchase merchandise to be aligned and associated with the club.

While the Emirates stadium was carefully planned to allow fans to feel fully emersed in the match day experience and facilities; built into the stadium are objects of the club’s history and iconic staff to drill into its key stakeholders the significance of the clubs past success. With football being such a tribal sport, it is easy for fans to idolise former players, managers and moments that have brought the club success and these moments are portrayed in and around the stadium though the use of statues around the outside. Previous famous players such as Thierry henry and infamous arsenal manager Herbert Chapman have statues located outside the group to forever immortalise their contribution to the organisation, while draped over the hoardings inside our banners depicting Arsenals 2004 Premiership title. Stadiums in recent years becoming carbon copies of one another in their layout, efforts have been made to differentiate by giving visual and accessible objects such as the previously mentioned artifacts to remind those who visit of the club’s heritage (Stride, Wilson, and Thomas, 2013). The rational from an organisation to justify the expenditure on statues alongside banners is that of encouraging customers to immerse themselves in the sense of being a part of Arsenal and through having visual depictions to sub consciously remind them of the clubs’ greatest moments which this successfully does. This connection to the Organisation though visuals link back to the feeling of community at the club as the constant reminder of the pedigree of the club allows fans as well as players to be exposed to this on the way in and out of the ground meaning they feel a part of the wider organisation though the use of space and materiality.

Space and Materiality- Motivation:

Looking further into Space and Materiality at Arsenal, it is clear to see that for an Organisation operating in the Football industry that Motivation would be a clear priority for the hierarchy with the industry being a performance orientated one, whereby margins of success are thin. This key theme has been considered when it comes to the spaces made available to players where they can prepare and focus on their role, to give them the best preparation to perform on a match day. One of these such spaces is that of the Dressing room, this space used by the players when arriving during and after a game. In this space there is a diverse range of relationships occurring between manager Mikel Arteta, the players and non-playing staff creating a unique social setting. This Transitional space where players must evolve from their normal state to that of their professional image is a clear example of a liminal space and one which is of great strength to the organisation. A liminal space has three qualities that of a transitioning from one emotion set to another, a clear separation between previous emotions and the next set required then finally incorporation into a new group or team (Czarniawska and Mazza, 2003). The changing room therefore is a liminal space where the organisation has facilitated changes in state asking the players to organise themselves into a match ready state. The informality of the liminal space links back to the motivation of players as it allows players at Arsenal to have a place where they feel comfortable to talk to colleagues and management about work and non-work-related issues. This can ensure players feel more comfortable within their role owing to the function of the dressing room with the manager ,Mikel Arteta quoted by Arsenal (2020) saying “ We had to create the right culture for our club and it has to be an environment that first of all everybody has to respect each other, that we have to work together and we have to express the passion” (p.1) owing to good relations in the dressing room. 

Space and Materiality is an effective tool for a business to draw upon in order to instigate the desired emotions from staff and those who visit the organisation. The reason behind why an organisation puts effort into how their workspaces are laid is ordered to have a design most advantageous to performance and output, which in the modern workplace can derive from having a setup that is motivating to employees (Duffy, Cave and Worthington, 1976). Arsenal FC are no different to this with the layout of their Stadium a great example of how spaces can be planned to elicit employees to feel that there is support behind from how their work environment is constructed. The Emirates stadium with its circular shape and seats surrounding the pitch amplifies support for the team with home supporters all around the players when they are carrying out their job. Moreover, the opposition teams that come to play at the Emirates fans are penned into the corner of the clock end of the stadium reaffirming the idea that the organisation puts thought into how its spaces are structured to aid their employees. This assertion is supported by the works of Church and Penny (2013) stating that the stadium is conducive to “shared agendas, especially the desire on match days to create team success and a sense of atmosphere and belonging.” (p.821). The impact that space and materiality have on employees is apparent at Arsenal as the designers of the stadium put thought into how the main motivator of a playing squad, the supporters could be fully utilised by where and how they are positioned while also minimising support for opposition teams by penning in their fans to a small bottom corner of the stadium in smaller numbers.

Conclusion

To conclude, this essay has given a well-rounded analysis of my organisation of choice Arsenal FC by segmenting the organisation into two core themes of Control and Space and Materiality and intertwined within my work has been academic literature and relevant articles to add wright to my analysis. Looking into Control at Arsenal it is clear that the business uses covert methods of authority over its players through emotional labour, deriving value from its players personality where at times the business demands players to act out of character or when players do want to show certain emotions and capitalising on their marketability. In addition, players are in certain situations are required to hide their true opinions in the best interests of the organization. With more overt actions employed by Arsenal to assert control over its employees such as how long they are permitted to stay within the organisation and incentives to demand the highest of performance through Aspirational control. On top of excessive use of control at Arsenal, at the centre of the organisation is coordinating Space and Materiality to great effect. When it comes to instilling a sense of community in the organisation at Arsenal, the layout of the spaces in and around the stadium offer customers of the organisation to embrace the feeling and culture of the club through planned spaces where its merchandise outlets are placed letting customers express themselves and enjoy matchdays. Further to the essence of community is the use of objects, more specifically statures and banners to be a constant reminder to those at the stadium of the traditions and past of the club. In respect of how Space and Materiality is used at arsenal to motivate Players, I have looked in detail at the use of liminal space with the dressing room and how this area is conducive to motivation and communication between colleagues. Finally, I have outlined how the position of home and opposition fans in the stadium have been choreographed to maximise support and minimise opposition to the players at Arsenal, highlighting how this motivates them.