...Introduction to Company 4 Organization Culture 5 IBMers – Values and Ethics 9 Value 9 Ethics & Business conduct 9 Culture @ IBM 10 About IBM Culture Traits 10 Diversity 10 People orientation and Team Orientation - Freedom & Responsibility 11 Outcome Orientation - Context, not Control 12 Knowledge sharing - High Collaboration using technology 12 Risk Averse to Risk Taking 12 Innovation - Learn from mistakes (or near Mistakes) 13 Aggressiveness for duties, goals, and assignments 14 Culture & Climate Survey 15 Culture impact Business Performance 16 IBM Leadership Framework 16 Online References 17 Executive Summary Our charter is to determine culture at IBM & how it impacts business performance. Corporate culture is significant in that it “influences the behavior of everyone within an organization and, if carefully crafted, can have a significant positive effect on organizational success”. Louis Gerstner (2002) comments “I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game-it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than collective capacity of its people to create value. Vision, strategy, marketing, financial management- any management system, in fact- can set you on right path and carry you for a while. But no enterprise- whether business, government, health care or any area of human endeavor – will succeed over the long haul if those element aren’t part of its DNA.” The culture of the company can determine its...
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...Abstract IBM is a company that is innovative and strategic; it has had superior success in the computer and electronic industry. The company offers an array of services and products ranging from the sale of computers to business consulting services. Their success over the years can be attributed to their core values and vision. IBM recognized that to remain successful and profitable they would have to make changes and the biggest change would be to add value by having the employees contribute to the changing the values of the company. When employees share the same values, as the company, they are more dedicated to the company. What kept IBM from falling behind is the fact that they developed changed. The purpose of this case analysis is to describe the changes that IBM has made and to discuss the effectiveness of those changes. First we will explain why IBM wanted to make changes and to whom the changes would affect. We will also discuss how the goals has been developed and disseminated within the company, whether it is an effective way to set the stage for external social projects, and lastly, we will make recommendations. IBM Case Study International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) is a technological company from America that deals with manufacturing and marketing of computers, both hardware and software’s. It also involves itself with other services such as, hosting, consulting services and not forgetting the infrastructure. Having been founded over one hundred years...
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...entrepreneurially. My key arguments here is organisations do need to behave more entrepreneurially due to globalisation, hyper competition, economic turbulence, technological change, industries merging, ever-changing customer needs and markets becoming saturated. This essay will mainly focus on the analysis of three large companies; IBM (International Business Machines), Marks & Spencer and Continental Tyres. I will analyse where the companies were going right or wrong, and where they could have become more entrepreneurial. I will touch upon relevant theories that firms have used and will mention other companies that aid my analysis on behaving entrepreneurially in larger businesses. Entrpreneurial Culture- What is it? There are two main cultures that concern this argument; the Traditional Culture and the Entrepreneurial Culture (see appendix 1.1). In a traditional culture, employees are expected to adhere to all instructions given, to not make mistakes, to not fail, to not take the initiative, and to stay within their limits. This type of culture is a very restricted one and is not conducive to the characteristics of an entrepreneurial culture; which are creativity, flexibility, independence, ownership...
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...| | |IBM’s Decade of Transformation: Turnaround to Growth | |Team 5 Case Analysis | | | | | | | |“More importantly, the passion that had come from surviving its ‘near-death experience’ and then riding the wave of what many in the company | |were beginning to call the ‘next big thing’ captured the imagination and focused the energy of a demoralized workforce looking for a reason to| |reengage in building for the future.”—Lou Gerstner | | | | ...
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...ABSTRACT Geert Hofstede's legendary national culture research is critiqued. Crucial assumptions which underlie his claim to have uncovered the secrets of entire national cultures are described and challenged. The plausibility of systematically causal national cultures is questioned. Introduction Do nations have cultures? Within each of the ‘management disciplines’ there is a significant literature which assumes that each nation has a distinctive, influential, and describable ‘culture’ As Hickson and Pugh declare: '[i]t ‘shapes everything’ (1995: 90). Other than a priori belief, what is the basis of claims that influential national cultures exist? What is the quality of the evidence appealed to? Frequently, within the management disciplines, the causal-national-culture accepting literature justifies its reliance on the notion of national culture by citing approvingly the work of Geert Hofstede who claims to have successfully 'uncover[ed] the secrets of entire national cultures' (1980b: 44). Whilst Anderson has vividly described nations as ‘imagined communities’ (1991) and Wallerstein states that he is ‘skeptical that we can operationalise the concept of culture ... in any way that enables us to use it for statements that are more than trivial’ (1990: 34), Hofstede claims to have identified the four (later five) 'main dimensions' of national culture along which countries can be hierarchically ordered (1980a, 1984, 1991). By 1998 he could confidently claim that the scale...
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...Behavior and Communication Paper BCOM/230 October 6, 2011 IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) has been a fixture in American and the international field of information handling since the 1880’s. The original company name was Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (C-T-R). More recently, IBM employees determined that their values include, “dedication to every client’s success”. (Palmisano, 2011). “Also espoused in the values statement is trust and personal responsibility in all relationships”. (Palmisano, 2011). IBM has taken the route that their values must permeate all dealings whether in the United States or not. This company has tried to take on a culture of trust and responsibility worldwide. Previously, IBM conducted an intranet convention of sorts to try and get input from all 319,000 employees world wide and the result was the previous mentioned values. So obviously, IBM uses electronic communications very heavily in their operations. Also, “In 1997, IBM actively recommended that its employees use the Internet when many companies were seeking to restrict their employees' Internet access” (IBM, n.d.). IBM insists its employees follow their business conduct guidelines when conducting business on the internet. In the case of IBM, their levels of communication have to be directly related to their values because they are committed to the success of every customer. This, in this writer’s...
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...In 1993 the American iconic company IBM hired a new turnaround CEO named Lou Gerstner. In this Harvard Business Review article entitled Diversity as Strategy, Harvard Professor David A. Thomas writes about an aspect of Gerstner’s strategy is really a story about people, starting with the diversity of people within IBM, and the positive replication into their global markets. These markets include customers, employees, and the search for new talent to recruit. Gerstner realized that an organization the size of IBM must embrace diversity, to not only influence people, but as a strategy to open the doors to new opportunities both internally and externally. Gerstner launched a Diversity Task Force initiative with the goal, “to uncover and understand the differences among the groups and find ways to appeal to a broader set of employees and customers” (Thomas, 2004. Pg. 1). Gerstner explained that it was more than just about the talent pool, and that it was a market based issue. Realizing the diversity in the markets, and IBM’s need to expand in the markets, would require the people representing IBM to be as diverse and multi-culture oriented as the markets. The first usable takeaway from the articles emphasis on culture change is the idea of Constructive Disruption. It’s an interesting approach to how IBM, and most employers really, approached employee management issues. Companies had become very careful at not distinguishing differences among groups of diversity to remove...
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...Principals of Management Article Analysis Today, with the work force facing a borderless world, companies and its managing teams continue to look towards the future to implement the numerous benefits of workforce diversity into the short and long terms successes of their businesses. Therefore the workforce of big companies are looking beyond anti-discrimination laws and realizing it’s more of a marketing issue. CEOs, senior line and HR management, and diversity leaders play a key role in this process. For that reason, for example, IBM decided to view the issues surrounding diversity on a global scale from the workplace to the marketplace. That’s is why IBM has created an innovative global strategic framework that it is “as broad and diverse as the costumer base it serves in 165 countries” (Human Resources Management, 2005, Vol. 44, No.1, p. 75). In the article written by J.T. (Ted) Child Jr., the Vice President of Global Workforce Diversity for IBM acknowledges the importance of workforce diversity to their business, culture as well as a keystone of their values. He recognizes that HR department plays a large role in instituting diversity, however the company must come together to achieve that purpose. Managers at IBM are asking all the right questions when implementing the key principles of diversity. The company reflects the broad variety of costumer it has at all levels. Effective marketing happens when the company identifies the needs of costumers, therefore delivering...
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...week’s reading to analyze the IBM video case, generate and evaluate alternative solutions, and render a recommendation. Your analysis should focus on IBM’s PC Business after it was split off as an independent business unit. Your analysis should have the following parts: 1. Problem Statement: What is the focal problem here? In other words, what bottom-line result was senior management looking for and didn't get? - Provide a clear, succinct statement of the problem - Identify a specific focus or goal - Make sure your problem statement is understood by all team members IBM’s old ways didn’t work in the new game that was driven by technological advances and progress. IBM didn’t change its traditions and bureaucratic culture. IBM drove away many great, talented employees who were frustrated with top management’s serious mistakes and slow decision making. IBM’s Personal Computer market shares dropped from 50% to less than 10% in a decade. This was due to senior management’s technical ignorance, inattention, arrogance and detrimental decision making mistakes. IBM had desirable products but their slow, bureaucratic decision making and refusal to change and adjusting to a dynamic market place resulted in lost sales/customers. IBM Personal Computer division, once brought inside the company, was crushed by the old ‘mainframe’ mentality of corporate hierarchy that wanted to hold on to IBM’s traditional business IBM’s traditional structure did not work well in an unstable environment...
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...IBM Case Study 1. What factors led to IBM’s success during the 1960s and 1970s and its problems during the late 1980s and early 1990s? Watson Jr. hit a home run when he invested $5 billion to develop the System/360 computer family, which utilized an integrated semiconductor chip and modular components. Taking full advantage of this innovative momentum, IBM debuted other products during that time which enabled the company to rise to the top of the IT industry. These products included hard and floppy disks, a new computer language and the company’s first personal computer. In the mid 1980s, IBM started to run into trouble when its returns and market share began to slide. Customer needs were changing and emerging technologies led to the demise of IBM’s main product focus—the mainframe. Customers were looking for interconnected mainframes and mobile personal computers with distributed data sources and applications. Instead of devising a strategy to satisfy customer demands and set itself apart from competitors, IBM chose to transition from a lease oriented business to a sales oriented business. This lack of customer focus was coupled with an inefficiently designed workforce that would rather fight with each other than work together. Additionally, the company was so successful in the past that no attempt was made to cut costs/expenses and identify/correct inefficiencies. Adding more salt to the wound was the fact that top level executives were so far removed from daily operations...
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...Study Assignment Turnaround at IBM – page 124-125 Lou Gerstner was entrusted by IBM to take a faltering business and turn it into the multi-billion dollar corporation that it is today. In the early 1990’s, IBM sales were declining at a rate, which would undoubtedly force the company into bankruptcy. This trend was largely caused by IBM’s lack of diversification and primary focus on building and selling computer systems with an emphasis on mainframes. As new corporations began to flood the market with cheaper versions of IBM’s computers, the Board of Trustees recognized the need to alter their strategic plan to ensure IBM would remain in the forefront of the computer industry (Allen, Attner, & Plunkett, 2013, p. 124-125). Gerstner knew the value of service and returning customers, and with these ideals he created a new branch of IBM which would focus on specific problems for each of their customers. The new IBM would help customers with everyday tasks such as shipping, purchasing, networking, and marketing. Gerstner realized that IBM’s true potential was deeply imbedded in its strengths, which were research and integrated computers. Within about 1 year of Gerstner taking charge, IBM developed software which would allow computer systems to “talk” or network, and this change would cement IBM’s fate and allow the computer giant to remain at the top of the industry (Allen, Attner, & Plunkett, 2013, p. 124-125). Questions 1. Work with another student to answer...
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...Global leadership Development Ways in which IBM engages into global integrated enterprise (GIE) International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM, is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation with headquarters in Amonk New York, United States IBM operates in five segments: Global Technology Services (GTS), Global Business Services (GBS), Software, Systems and Technology and Global Financing. GTS provides IT infrastructure services and business process services. GBS provides professional services and application management services. Software consists of middleware and operating systems software. Systems and Technology provides clients with business solutions requiring advanced computing power and storage capabilities. Global Financing invests in financing assets, leverages with debt and manages the associated risks. The company was founded in 1911 as the Computing Tabulating Recording Company Computing (CTR) through a merger of three companies: the Tabulated Machine Company, the International Time Recording and the Computing Scale Company. CTR adopted the name International Business Machines in 1924.In 2012, Fortune ranked IBM the #2 largest U.S. firm in terms of number of employees (433,362), the #4 largest in terms of market capitalization, the #9 most profitable, and the #19 largest firm in terms of revenue. In December 2012, it acquired Kenexa. In February 2013, it acquired StoredIQ Technology advancements have forever changed the way business...
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...International Business Machines Financial Analysis International Business Machines (IBM) has many competitors and given the breadth of markets the company does business in, the closest and most fierce competitor the company has is Hewlett-Packard Co (HPQ). This financial analysis looks at both businesses’ financial performance for fiscal years 2006-2010. Chart data will be provided for each of the major metrics being evaluated. To begin this analysis we will look at both companies Gross Revenue in this time period. Gross Revenue (Source – MorningStar, 2011) Company Name | 2006 | 2007 | Growth 2006 - 2007 | 2008 | Growth 2007 - 2008 | 2009 | Growth 2008 - 2009 | 2010 | Growth 2009 - 2010 | IBM | $91,424.00 | $98,786.00 | 7.45% | $103,630.00 | 4.67% | $95,758.00 | -8.22% | $99,871.00 | 4.12% | HPQ | $91,658.00 | $104,286.00 | 12.11% | $118,364.00 | 11.89% | $114,552.00 | -3.33% | $126,033.00 | 9.11% | *Dollar figures are in millions. IBM’s Gross Revenue of $91,424M in 2006 was comparable to the performance of HPQ for the same time period. HPQ saw significant growth over the next two time periods while IBM appeared on the decline performance-wise. Both companies saw negative growth in the year ending in 2009 which is attributable to the economic recession. Both companies have recovered well since that point with HPQ leading the financials over IBM with 9.11% growth in 2010 against IBM’s paltry 4.12%. Performance in 2010 will be the focal point of the discussion...
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...04hofstede (ds) 27/8/02 1:46 pm Page 1 Human Relations [0018-7267(200211)55:11] Volume 55(11): xx–xx: 028921 Copyright © 2002 The Tavistock Institute ® SAGE Publications London, Thousand Oaks CA, New Delhi Dimensions do not exist: A reply to Brendan McSweeney Geert Hofstede In January 2001 Human Relations invited me to write a response to an article by Brendan McSweeney which was a critical examination of my 1980 book Culture’s consequences, to coincide with the forthcoming publication of the books’ second edition. I reacted enthusiastically, but my enthusiasm quickly faded away when I saw McSweeney’s diatribe. I pointed out that the appearance of a re-written and updated edition of my 1980 book would make many of McSweeney’s comments obsolete. Also, I reacted to his style, which I found unnecessarily abrasive. Human Relations decided to publish McSweeney’s article anyway, in a somewhat mollified version. My response to his comments follow below. The second edition of Culture’s consequences contains a section: ‘Support and Criticisms of the Approach Followed’ which reads as follows (endnotes omitted): The first edition of this book’s disrespect for academic borderlines paid off in a multidisciplinary readership. It also caused very mixed reviews: Some enthusiastic (e.g. Eysenck, 1981; Triandis, 1982; Sorge, 1983), some irritated, condescending, or ridiculing (e.g. Cooper, 1982; Roberts & Boyacigiller, 1984). I had made a paradigm shift...
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...DOS, OS/2, Windows, AIX, and Linux. The two main operating systems are Windows and Linux/Unix. “And they have a competitive history and future” (Haas). Before we get into the technicalities of either operating system, let’s examine the environment that these two systems evolved from, or the culture from whence they came, if you will. “Corporate culture pertains to the identity and personality of the company we work with, either in the private or public sectors. All companies have a culture; a way they behave and operate. They may be organized and disciplined or chaotic and unstructured. Either way, this is the culture the company has elected to adopt” Brice, (2012). “Microsoft may appear to some people as a company without culture, but that impression changes upon entering the Sigma Building, which houses Microsoft Research Asia. Chatting with the great minds at Microsoft Research Asia, one is reminded of an open university that knows no boundaries. “Mentors” here are erudite but never short on passion; “pupils" are diligent and willing to take risks. This is where “Microsoft culture” resides” (Wu, 2009). On the other hand, “Linux is not driven by a corporate culture of in-house programmers. Profit and dividends are not its end goal. Its open-source mindset is a welcome challenge to...
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