IBO GROUP PROJECT

By- Group 2

Preeti Sundar Sahoo(MBA/HR02/012)

Anish Navalkar(MBA/HR02/011)

Aditya Kapoor(MBA/HR02/002)

Rounak Dipta Ghosh(MBA/HR02/013)

Summary

Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), a corporate drone, despises his work at the software business

Initech. When Peter's hypnotherapist passes away in the middle of their session, Peter is still in a

happy trance. He plays games at his desk, refuses to work extra hours, and unwittingly charms

two consultants into putting him on the fast track to management. When Peter's buddies find out

they're about to be laid off, they devise a "Superman III-inspired" plan of retaliation against the

firm.

In this project, we are discussing the different characters in the movie and analyzing their

organizational behavior, and relating them to real-time organizations.

Peter Gibbons

Peter is the main character in the movie, which is a frustrated employee in the Initech company.

He is constantly reminded about the mistakes he did on TPS reports by different bosses. This

annoys him and also affects his mood. And also, as it was Monday morning, he had no

motivation to work. Upon being reminded by his coworker, “Uh Oh, Sounds Like Somebody’s

Got A Case Of The Mondays!” he got frustrated and decided to take a break with Sameer and

Michael. He believes that he has limited job power and that his main boss Lumbergh has the

most power as he can make him come on weekends to work. And Peter can’t do anything about

it. He also wonders what if they still do this job during their 50s, but then Sameer sarcastically

reminds him of the job security. In all, Peter feels moody, nervous, and insecure. He is suggested

to attend occupational hypnotherapy by his wife Anne, who dies of a heart attack before

snapping Peter from his relaxed state.

After the therapy session, Peter doesn't feel that many negative emotions and shows traits of

calmness, security, and relaxation. Now he doesn't fear his boss anymore and does whatever he

wants. He was called to the office on Saturday but ignored all the calls and slept all day. Now he

shows more extroversion traits like being bold, assertive, and dominant. This has a positive

impact on the business consultant, Bobs, even though he frankly expresses his views on the

company and his work. Also, he gained the confidence to ask the waitress, Joanna, on a date and

was happy to share his feelings or views with her. Next, when he found out that he was being

promoted and his friends are fired, they decided to take revenge on Initech by using a virus on

the accounting system to divert huge numbers of fractions of pennies into a bank account. He

was reminded by his girlfriend that it was wrong. He, in the end, joined a construction company

where his interests matched the work, and was satisfied.

Application of solutions in real-life organizations

Now the main thing we can notice is that there is zero motivation for the workers in Initech.

Some solutions can be providing more rewards and incentives for effective performers. Here

Peter states that if he works hard and ships a few more units, he doesn't get any rewards for this.

Next, we see Peter reports to around eight bosses, and this causes more tension and frustration

for him.

In organizations, employees should report to a single boss so as to make communication easy

and also helps them to analyze their work profile better, and gives them freedom of creativity to

improve their overall performance. People also choose jobs that provide them the highest

satisfaction level.
SAMEER AND MICHAEL

In Sameer's case, as he mentioned in the restaurant scene, he values job security. This aspect of

his personality could be attributed to the culture in which he was born. Sameer lacks emotional

stability, which causes a lot of stress in both his professional and personal life. He also fell

victim to framing bias when he became risk averse and focused more on the reward side of the

plan when Peter and Michael presented their idea as a gain or in a positive light.

When it comes to Michael, he is afraid of losing his job, which leads to certain behaviors.

Micheal experiences cognitive dissonance when he has to lie at work about liking the musical

star with the same name as him in order to impress the consultant and keep his job. Micheal was

also a victim of overconfidence bias when devising his plan to steal from the organization.

Furthermore, both of the guys experience constant emotional dissonance while working as a

result of their frustration, which they are unable to express at work and must resort to surface

acting. Attitudes are also at work here. They both have a negative attitude toward their boss,

which manifests itself in the following ways in their minds. The cognitive part- My boss doesn't

appreciate me for my work and will be firing me instead. The Affective part- I hate my boss.

Behavioral part- I will resort to stealing from the organization in order to get back at them. Last

but not the least, both of them feel the Perceived Organizational Support that they receive is very

less due to which their employee engagement and job satisfaction is very less.

Applications in real-life organizational settings-

Many employees value job security, which causes them to change their behavior in order to keep

their jobs. This is also a result of cognitive and emotional dissonance. In such situations, they

frequently resort to surface acting, just like Sameer, especially in service-related jobs where they

must constantly interact with customers and clients. Framing bias is frequently used in proposals

to increase the likelihood of approval from bosses or clients. Everyone has a tendency toward

overconfidence, mainly when it pertains to their area of competence. Disappointment or

unanticipated bad outcomes could result from this. The movie also shows how important

perceived organizational support is for workers to be successful, and happy, and refrain from

doing anything detrimental to the companies.

Bill Lumbergh

In the movie Office Space, Bill Lumbergh is the manager of Initech who can be seen as the main

antagonist. He is seen as a manager who loves to loves to micromanage and demean his

employees and lacks any kind of empathy towards them. He is also the type of manager who is

focused on paperwork, especially on TPS reports more than actual value work. He seems to

possess all three traits of the Dark Triad and all of those traits can be interpreted from the

following instances:

Narcissism: Bill drives a blue Porsche and after parking the car, he looks at it with a sense of

superiority which boosts his ego. Again in the entire film, Bill wears a bright-colored funky

office outfit as compared to the dull-colored outfit of his employees which reveals his desire to

get attention.

Psychopathy: Bill lacks any kind of empathy toward his employees and he actually cherishes the

agony of his employees. He can be seen relishing the fact that Milton Waddams is unaware of
the fact that he is not an employee anymore and pushes him into uncomfortable situations to

derive fun. He can be clearly seen to get pleasure from bullying Milton Waddams which

confirms his psychopathy.

Machiavellianism: Bill always addresses his employees with phrases like “I am gonna need you

to…”, “If you could go ahead and…” etc which clearly indicates that he wants to impose his will

over others. He directly asks his employees to work on weekends without caring for their

emotional labor. All these indicate that Bill just wants to get his tasks done even at the cost of

others’ perils.

Instances in real life and ways to avoid

The movie Office Space is just an exaggerated satire of work culture within real-life corporate

offices. In real life too, a lot of managers show these negative traits and try to get work done by

lacking any emotion for their employees. Practices such as overtime without pay, salary delay,

not granting leave for genuine reasons, high power distance within the organization, etc. are all

reflections of dark triad traits present within managers and top bosses.

To prevent such harmful practices likely candidates for managerial positions should be screened

thoroughly before promoting them otherwise it will increase attrition within the organization

which will ultimately affect the bottom line.

Milton Waddams

In the movie, Milton shows a high level of Positional Obedience when he is consistently asked to

move his desk to different positions in the office. He displays Emotional Trading and takes all

the misbehavior he gets at the office as long as he was getting his paycheck. For example, during

the celebration of Lumbergh’s birthday, he doesn’t get the piece of cake in the end as he was

asked by his colleague to pass the cake to others first. It is later found that he was fired long back
but nobody bothered to inform him. He was somehow getting his paycheck due to some glitch in

the payroll department. When Lumbergh comes to know this instead of telling him he shifts his

desk to the basement and keeps avoiding him whenever he asks why he is not getting his

paycheck now. Because of such treatment at the office, Milton starts developing a high level of

Cognitive Dissonance. For instance, he keeps saying that he will burn the office down again and

again whenever he is misbehaved but never does it until his favorite stapler is taken away from

it. The last situation proves to be the breaking point for him and his active Workplace Deviant

Behavior takes the root of sabotage and finally burns the office down starting from Lumbergh’s

office.

Joanna

She is a restaurant waitress who is not happy with the work she is doing but as her work

demands she has to go through a lot of Emotional Labor and look cheerful and happy while

serving her customers. This leads to Emotional Dissonance. She does not feel motivated and tries

to cope with it by spending time with Peter. In her restaurant, there is a culture that employees

wear “Flairs” in order to express themselves but she wears the minimum number of flairs

required as she doesn’t feel like doing so going through a lot of emotional labor due to her

dislike towards this flair culture of her boss. Her boss constantly hassles her to wear a greater

number of flairs and stop doing the bare minimum and compares her to Brian who wears the

maximum number of flairs instead of finding out the reason behind her doing so. Her emotional

dissonance along with regular don’t do the bare minimum hassles reaches the tipping point and

crosses it leading to Workplace Divergent Behavior through the path of Aggression and

Disruptive behavior. She shouts and gets angry at her boss in Infront of everybody including the
customers. This incident ultimately leads to her quitting the job which is a case of turnover due

to high workplace stress and dissonance.

Application in Real life organizational settings:

A lot of employees face dissonance at work due to various reasons like diminishing interest in

work due to repetitive nature, lack of motivation in the long run as money is not enough after a

time people strive for higher levels of satisfaction, and also due to toxic work culture in different

organizations. To avoid such situations organizations should first focus on the development of

best Hygiene Factors and practices such as clear company policy, competent and fair

administration, proper supervision, and counseling. Also, integration of motivation factors like

recognition, the feeling of achievement, redressal of concerns, making the work less repetitive

and challenging motivates the employees and reduces dissonance and dissatisfaction at work,

and would make them more efficient production, and loyal.

APPENDIX

1. Sahoo, P. S. (2022, September 17). Office space. Wikipedia. Retrieved September 18,

2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space

Contribution

For this project, each group member was assigned particular characters from the movie and they

explored their understanding of the OB concepts used in the movie, while also relating them to

real-life situations.

Name Contribution

Preeti Sundar Sahoo Summary, Peter Gibbons

Anish Navalkar Sameer and Michael

Aditya Kapoor Milton Adams and Joanna

Rounak Ghosh Bill Lumbergh