...Examining Enron's Failure Organizational-behavior theories help to understand the effects of leadership, objectives, individual characteristics and action, and employee behavior and attitudes within an organization. It also explains the effects of internal environments, such as culture, the structure of the organization, resource and task allocation, and external environments such as competition or government regulation. These factors contribute to the performance, success or failure, and survival or fall of an organization. Organizational-behavior theories help to explain the collapse of Enron and how leadership, management, and organizational structure contributed to its failure. Organizational Structure With a market capitalization of nearly $74 billion, Enron was one of the world’s leading energy companies by the late 1990s. However, it had gained this status through the perpetration of illegal activities at the very highest levels of the organization. Enron’s fall was because of the organizational-level corruption that grew from its structure and trickled down to the collective behavior of its employees. Enron’s top-down, hierarchical structure by unit grouping meant that the top management team either directly or indirectly through their subordinates influenced the actions of the organization. For example, the structure of the accounting department allowed it to disregard legal requirements through “structural secrecy” that Enron’s executives could exploit (Beenen &...
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...employees will be assigned to a project to accomplish a specific goal. This type of structure can take advantage of the best parts of divisional and team based structures. If Appex were to consider a matrix format I would recommend a balanced/functional matrix. This form of a matrix structure is one in which a project managers are assigned to oversee projects and these project managers must share power with the functional managers who are the normal chain of command. One of the disadvantages of this arrangement is the division of power between the managers but if Appex’s managers could overcome the difficulty inherent in such a power sharing scheme then this could be a beneficial way to structure the company. 4) A classical hierarchy. I believe that this time-tested structure is what Appex needs as it has grown too large and complex to operate efficiently in any of the structures described above. Although some consider this to be an impersonal form which would not allow for the employees of Appex to operate in the unstructured way that they did at the beginning, the simple fact of the matter is that the employees of Appex had already slipped out of that productive mode long before Mr. Ghosh arrived on the scene. Although they began as a cohesive group, that cohesiveness had become chaotic by 1988. The company is large and getting larger. If it wants to achieve common goals then it needs to clearly set those goals and communicate its wants to its employees...
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...Problem: In the case of “Thomas Green: power, office politics, and a career in Crisis”, it describes the dilemma of Thomas Green who works in a company called Dynamic Display. Thomas was recruited as an account executive, and then five months later, he was promoted as a Senior Market Specialist directly by the President Shannon McDonald. Thomas’s boss Frank Davis hadn’t expected to choose Green as the new senior market specialist, and he was very dissatisfied with Green’s work style and performance three months after the promotion. After being informed that Frank Davis had emailed McDonald about his concerns about Green’s performance, Green was getting really worried about his situation and not sure how to explain his perspective to McDonald. I’m going to analyze the issue for Green and suggest solutions to solve the problem. Conclusion and Recommendation: Green had strong ambition and willingness to achieve a high selling growth for the company. However, Green was so concentrated on goals without observing the surrounding situation; it caused a failure for him to adapt his work style. Plus lacking a managerial experience, Green wasn’t able to look at issues based on a structural and long term view. Thus he would decide to avoid interactions with Davis after the first criticism, rather than improving his performance and rebuilding the relationship with Davis. In addition, both roles that Green and Davis had were dependent upon collecting information; however, it seemed that...
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...To achieve organizational goals and objectives, employee activities within the organization need to be coordinated and managed. To achieve this coordination, the organization must have a structure to it. Organizational structure is essential in specifying reporting relationships, delineating formal communication channels and in linking all activities together toward organizational goal achievement. There are two primary structure types; organic and mechanistic. There are four main elements to organizational structure; centralization, formalization, hierarchy, and departmentalization. These elements often coexist in organizational structures and their configuration will determine whether an organization is organic or mechanistic. Organic organizations are less formal and more flexible than traditional organizations and are characterized by such things as flexibility, informality, and knowledge based authority. An organic structure is laid out like a network and emphasizes horizontal specialization, personal coordination, and extensive communication. Organic organizations are generally flat and decentralized, with little reliance on formal authority, which enables faster decision making. Mechanistic structures are primarily hierarchical, with an emphasis on specialization, and vertical communication. Mechanistic structures also place an emphasis on control by relying on rules, policies, and procedures in conducting operations. Mechanistic structures are highly formalized and...
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...Key Concepts of Organizational Design Shelley Witt MMPBL/550 May 9, 2011 William Gillis Key Concepts of Organizational Design Organizational design is an important part of organizational theory. Organizational design changes with a company as its growth and goals are determined. Some important aspects that control organizational design are structure, strategy, and processes. Each individual organization needs to determine its own design based on its needs and mission. Every plan has its own advantages and disadvantages which are weighed carefully in making the corporate design decision. Importance of Organizational Design Choices In order for an organization to remain effective throughout changes and growth it must continuously evaluate the organizations design. “Organizational design involves difficult choices about how to control—that is, coordinate organizational tasks and motivate the people who perform them—to maximize an organization’s ability to create value” (Jones,2004, p. 4). Organizational design involves the process of aligning the organizational structure with its mission. Organizational design looks at the complex relationships between workflow, tasks, authority, and responsibility. Organizational design makes sure they all support the organizations objectives. Companies with good organizational design tend to have effective communication, increased productivity, and substantial innovation. Companies with poor organizational...
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...my study is to show how violence prevention, proactive social intervention and education can avert bullying. The topic area of public safety is based on two substantive areas: (1) bullying is an epidemic among all American students with roots in social maladjustments based on sociodemographic conflicts within key groups, and (2) the need for more violence prevention and proactive social intervention where collaboration and educational prominence need to be modeled, implemented, and acknowledged by educators. The conflict theory of social stratification is applicable when it comes to the challenges bullying creates for public safety because the conflict is rooted in the subjugation of those who lack something valued within the social hierarchy of schools (i.e. physical development, socioeconomic status, sources of popularity) – the victims— by aggressive, often socially challenged bullies who possess what may be desired or valued by popular consensus among peers of similar sociodemographic background. Espelage and Holt (2001) in “Bullying and Victimization During Early Adolescence Peer Influences and Psychosocial Correlates” address social stratification within schools that enable more instances of bullying. This is basically an example for the haves versus the have-nots.. However, with this pattern of behavior in mind, what follows often results in victims becoming bullies themselves. In essence, these victim-bullies attack individuals they see as weaker, venting their own...
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...P4 - Explain how their style of organisation helps them to fulfil their purposes By Daniyel Hircock Above shows Apple’s organisational chart. Though not a clear cut hierarchy, it is certain that Steve Jobs used to be top of the company. Having him on top of everything else was one of the major factors that Apple did so well as a company. Steve Jobs was the inventor who was always praised for how well he handled his employers. After his passing, however, Timothy Cook has taken over. Cook knows he has a hard position to uphold and is not attempting to come up with new things to keep Apple ahead of its monopolies and ensure they continue to have a good reputation as well as making a huge profit. Because the chain of command would be far too much responsibility and varied for one person, the power is distributed out amongst different directors and heads of different sectors. Steve Jobs would employ people in different sectors to make serious decisions depending on what they’re strengths are. He delegated people to different positions so that Apple would have experts in every subdivision. Apple would be nothing without their loyal customers who worship the company. Because the company is exclusive, things such as a new store opening attracts fans from all around the world. Apple ensure that whatever they do is done at the biggest and best it can be but insist to give away as little as possible information about new projects. This secrecy manages to keep the exclusivity that...
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...Delegation Nikevia Gilmore COMM/215 January 19, 2015 Carol J. Amato, M.A. Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………….3 What is Delegation……………………………………………………...3 Pros of Delegation……………………………………………………….3 Con of Delegation………………………………………………………..4 Conclusion……………………………………………………………….4 References/Work Cited…………………………………………………5 Introduction TV personality Anthea Turner once said, “The first rule of management is delegation. Don't try and do everything yourself because you can't.” (Delegation Quotes) Business owners, such as the owner of a Chick-fil-A restaurant located in Marlton, NJ, have to be willing to delegate tasks to their employees and trust that the assigned employee is going to complete the tasks adequately so he can be freed up to take care of other things associated with their business and to avoid unnecessary stress. What is Delegation? A Latin term originating sometime between 1605 and 1615, the term “delegation” is the act of giving control, authority, a job, a duty, etc., to another person. There are three basic elements of delegation: the assignment of duties, granting of authority to enable the subordinates to perform the duties assigned, and the creation of obligation on the part of subordinate to perform duties in an orderly manner. The process of delegation involves four steps. The first step is the assignment of duties to subordinates which entails the owner to decide exactly what duties he wants the subordinate to complete. The second step is the...
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...UNIX Protection Scheme The UNIX filing system is a hierarchical structure that supports directories and a sub-directories. It uses simple commands making it easy to create and navigate within this structure. With this type of file system you can control which users have access to your files and directories, and also determines what access modes are granted. Let’s consider a system that supports 5,000 users, and only 4,990 of those users are able to access one file. I will break down the process and show you the protection scheme that would be needed in UNIX. UNIX has three access modes read, write, and execute. The way the UNIX is set up with these access modes the user must have read access to read the file. They must have write access to modify any data within the file. Lastly you must have execute access to run the file. Every one of these access modes run separately, so just because you have the ability to write the file does not mean you have the access to be able to read the file. There is a slight difference in access modes when it comes to directories. Stallings says, “Directories are structures in a hierarchical tree. Each directory can contain files and or other directories. You have to have execute access to be able to do anything inside of a directory.” (pg. 556) If the user does not have execute power then it is simple they cannot do or have any access to anything within it. The user must have read access to list the contents of a directory. If do not have read...
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...High Performance Organizations “Ten Golden Rules of High Performance”: Not in agreement with 2. Cater to every need – make it easy, not hard, for people to perform” After reading the assigned text, there were some agreements and disagreements which came up from my professional experience, as well as understanding of leadership versus management. Being a Human Resources professional, mid-level manager and business owner, it is my belief that “catering to every need, making it easy, not hard, for people to perform”, is very borderline, to the point I disagree with it. When humans are in a sense of comfort, many times full productivity is not going to take place. It is times of being uncomfortable we regain focus and push to achieve goals and greatness. There is a difference with making an environment challenging to produce results and creativity, instead of making it easy. When employees are in an overly relaxed atmosphere the lack of concentration will raise its ugly head, causing low performance. Meeting ADA requirements is completely different. When being in leadership there is an expectation of performance and efficiency to meet company goals. This is why there is an important need of thorough screening, interviewing and possible skillset testing before hiring employees. Putting this measure in the talent attraction and management side will give a higher performance rating of employees who come into a role understanding fully what is expected of them, as well as the...
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...The cultural web We have decided to use the cultural web in order to look at the organizational culture as it is now and secondly look at how we want the culture to be in the future. Thirdly we will evaluate and identify the differences between the two; these differences are the changes we need to make in order to achieve the high-performance culture that we want to obtain. The cultural web identifies six interrelated elements that paints the bigger picture of the company of analysis. The six elements are the following: 1. Stories After having conducted qualitative interviews with both customers and employees at A.G. Barr there are a few points to be made regarding the reputation and beliefs of the company. 1.1 “We like things the way they are” First of all each and every of the interviewed employees agreed that they were part of a family-styled organization, however only few customers were aware they were buying products from a family-owned company. Secondly, when the employees were asked about their desires for the future of the company, 90% of the employees stated that they are happy with the way things currently are and do not show great support towards potential changes at the firm; customers on the other hand mainly stated that companies should always invest in differentiation in such a competitive environment. 2. Rituals and Routines The rituals and routines at A.G. Barr are regular as employees are working on normal time-schedules. The only extra activity...
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... |Amit Maheshwari | |Shilpi Sahay |Jaya Laxmi Tripathi | Q1. Identify the Structures followed by Omega & Achme. Ans. From the case, it is evident that: ACHME was following a very Centralized & Mechanistic Structure. Omega was following an Organic Structure with some amount of decentralization. Q2. Which organization succeeded in developing the prototype better?? Give structural reasons for the same. Ans. Omega. Reasons: 1) The interaction factors were effectively deployed in Omega. Direct Contact was highly visible. Hierarchy of Authority, Jim Rawls reviewed the progress with team regularly. Organic Structure facilitated the participation of different departments to make it happen. The positive results were evident in following ways: • Electrical department suggested an alternative to a sourcing issue of a critical part. • Methods Engineer & Production workmen worked together displaying mutual adjustments to avoid problems that ACHME faced. • People from all crucial departments i.e. Electrical, Mechanical, Industrial & Production worked together to ensure no snag in producing the prototype again displaying mutual adjustments & Team work. Q3. Which organization got the final contract? Give structural reasons for the same. Acme...
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...Hierarchy and Centralization of the Company; Ann Mulcahy as CEO of Xerox Gersi MUCA Columbia Southern University Because of an aggressive competitor, a company may face with huge losses and go near bankruptcy. Immediate changes in direction and structure are needed for reducing costs and finding ways to revitalize the business. According to Max Weber (1900) are six principle of Bureaucracy in which people can be held accountable for their action because they are required to act in agreement with well-specified and agreed-upon rules and SOP. “The first principle of the bureaucracy is founded on the concept of rational legal authority. This principle indicates that choices affecting the design of an organization’s hierarchy should be based on the needs of the task, not on the needs of the person performing the task. Based on this principle, Xerox searched for a new CEO, who had the management skills to revitalize the Company’s product line. The second principle means that the organizational roles are held on the basis of technical competence. In a well-designed hierarchy, people occupy roles because they can do the job, not because of who they are or who they know. In the case study, we saw that persons chosen to direct company have begun in the company from low levels and arrived at the top level from their work. Anne has a vast experience in the company; she began her career as copier salesperson and climbs the scale of career through the use of leadership and communication...
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...Comments or Reactions about the Agenda of Rody Duterte as the new President of the Republic of the Philippines 1. Service for all and not only for the few individual. I really like this statement of President Duterte because we all know that this is one of the prominent problem of our previous government leaders. They tend to choose people where they lend their service and help, where in fact those people have already enough wealth to sustain their needs and even wants. The one who suffer are those very unfortunate individual who really experience extreme poverty. I hope that this vision of President Duterte will be materialize so that those people who truly need the help from the government can experience the true essence of change and can gradually uplift their economic status. 2. Diminish or reduce the corruption in the government This kind of delinquency in the Philippine government is also one of the reason why our country have this lazy improvement. Based on my observation some of our government leaders are just very good in the first or second year of their governance but as time goes by they have change. There are already many reported anomalies in the government and one of those is corruption. I hope that this will not happen to our President and to the other leaders of the government. I understand that this issue is not easy to eradicate but if our leaders is dedicated to make their promises into reality then it will never become impossible then. I believe...
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...Instead of explaining a situation in my professional life in which I failed, I would like to mention a trait of mine that really pulls me down. I am constantly working on my ability to convince people. During my previous professional assignment, I was working as an In-house consultant. I had to interact with professionals of various hierarchy levels. I being on the lower hierarchy and when asked to complete tasks working with people who are senior to me, I found it a bit demanding for me. For me ideally when I confront such situations I should be in a position to support my arguments with facts and figures and gain the confidence of the person. I wish I were a good orator and frame the sentences with words that are hitting the right notes. A charismatic orator has a great influence on his listeners and the listeners will be keenly waiting for each word coming out. The listener hooking on to your words is the first sign that I have an upper hand on them. This gives me lot of confidence to present my observations to the table and sail through the arguments. Charisma is defined as “that special spiritual power or personal quality that gives an individual influence or authority over large numbers of people.” To have the formal authority over something/somebody is provided by the law but the informal authority is gained by a person. Barack Obama and Winston Churchill are two of the best examples where charisma meets eloquence. Eloquence has a great role to play in...
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