OB Assignment help essay on: Value Clashes in Apple

 Contents

Introduction: 2

Types of clashes: 2

Clashes based in leadership at “Apple”: 2

Clashes based upon control policies in “Apple”. 3

Inter departmental conflict in “Apple”. 3

Individual‘s value being different from the department’s value in which he works. 4

Two departments working together having different sets of values. 4

Role conflict in “Apple”. 4

Conclusion: 5

References: 5

Introduction:

According to Rokeach (1973) values have different perceptions for different people. But the general consensus is that values can be defined as the sentiments or beliefs that govern how an individual reacts to a certain situation. Values can be both for a positive reaction towards a scenario as well as a nugatory or negative reaction to another situation. Values many believe is the focus point of how an individual grows as an individual.

In an organization values can be defined as an expected reaction or an expected outcome from a particular situation. As per Hultman (2002) organizations would like the people present in them to adhere to these values and behave accordingly to the different situation and scenarios that they may face ion the organizational environment.

Organizations try to keep the values that employees bring into it when the values of an organization are being setup. They also try to employee those people whose value system is compatible with that of the organization. The organizations try their level best to accommodate individual values as well.

Individuals too try adhering and adjusting to the organization values to try and create an amicable atmosphere in the organization.

However there are times when there is such a severe gap between organization values and individual values that there is bound to be a clash and it is here that both organizations and individuals tend to face negative consequences. Both the individual and the organization should try to minimize the loses from such clashes and should try to make the required changes in their value systems so that such clashes do not re occur.

According to Levering & Moskowitz (2000), the organization has grown many folds in the past few years. And with it has grown the values and the culture of the organization. And as is the case with any kind of growth there has been resistance to the same. The major category of clashes that have happened at Apple over the past few years have been explained below.

Types of clashes:

Clashes between individuals and organizations in terms of values can be of the following types:

Clashes based in leadership at “Apple”:

As per Kouzes & Posner (1995) there are many different styles of leaderships that different leaders follow. There can be an autocratic leader who does not listens to the opinions of his peers and takes decision based upon his likes and dislikes and his level of understanding. Another form of leadership can be the democratic form where the manager or the leader takes into confidence majority of his followers and then takes a decision based upon the general consensus.  Both forms of leadership can have their share of conflict, autocratic more then democratic.

The major reason for a conflict in the organization due to the leadership form can be based upon the thinking of the individuals. For an individual who believes in himself and thinks that his opinions are right in majority matters would not like to be lead by a person who has belief in the general consensus, or he or she would not like to work in an organization where the general values are that one shall have to take into account the opinions of all majority members of the organization. Then there shall be a conflict between the organizational values and the individual in the general level of control that is present in the organization as the individual would like to work alone and achieve targets based upon his or her own beliefs while the organization would encourage him to take a team and then work forward on the same. This can result in high level of conflicts in the organization.

Another form of conflict in the organization values and individual values in leadership can be if the individual would like their ideas to be heard and respected while the organization believes in the policy of the “boss is right”. If such a scenario exists then there is sure to be a conflict as the individual would like to come forward with ideas while the organizational policy may not allow him to do so. And thus there is a conflict.

In Apple also such kind of conflicts are not a thing that do not happen. There are a lot instances reported where one manger in an apple store had a brush up with an employee on the basis of the leadership style that he was following. Perhaps the greatest example of a conflict of values in Apple would be when the legendary Steve Jobs left the organization due to differences in opinion with the board of the company. This could have been due to any reason but one of the reasons given forward as the Mr. Jobs was not in sync with the style of leadership that the board wanted the CEO to follow and thus he left the job.

Therefore it can be said that leadership style clashes can happen at any level but they should be resolved quickly and with as little harm as possible.

Clashes based upon control policies in “Apple”

As per Harris & Mossholder (1996) each and every organization has a different level of control that they exercise upon their employees. This is a way of keeping track of the progress of the employees and the organization as well. However there are times when the control process becomes too much for an individual to handle and their happens conflicts. Such kind of conflicts are not uncommon in Apple, there have been cases where developers of both hardware and software have had clashes with the Apple management. However such clashes occur mostly due to the level of funds or support that developer’s need and how much they get. Although these cases may not be always related to values but they should be curbed as much as possible.

Inter departmental conflict in “Apple”

Conflict in an organization goes hand in hand and when it comes to big companies like APPLE then the causes of conflicts tend to increase. This is so because more the people in an organization more are the chances of conflicts as the values of the employees need not necessarily be in a line with those of the company. Same goes true for Apple.

There are various sources leading to the interdepartmental conflict in Apple. Some among them are highlighted as under.

Individual‘s value being different from the department’s value in which he works.

According to Cable & Judge (1996) an individual working in a particular department may have a set of values being different from those of department .This may be due to following reasons.

a)            Department values not matching his values

b)            His values matching with other department values

This conflict may lead to reduction in his efficiency and also would lead to interdepartmental conflict as the person would want a shift from his department to other department.

Example: Conflict in Accounts & Finance department of Apple.

A  person in accounts department considers his work to be monotonous as it doesn’t requires any initiative whereas  in finance he gets a work full of variety where there’s new work every day . Thus he would tend to shift to finance department thus leading to interdepartmental conflict.

Two departments working together having different sets of values.

According to De Geus (1997) this in another reason which leads to interdepartmental conflict leading to reduction in efficiency of any organization .Moreover if the conflicts arise to a larger extent it could bring an appalling name to Apple. To support this issue we have following examples that arose in Apple.

Example 1: Conflict in marketing and costing department.

The marketing department of Apple would prefer that the costs of various products like the i-phones, the i-pads the i-pods, the Apple Mac books and other technology products should be on the lower side so that they could market the above mentioned products with ease and hence could target a larger customer base. They want the cost to be on the lower side also because marketing the product in itself would require further reduction of funds as marketing any product requires a good amount of money to be spent on it whereas on the other hand the costing department would want that the selling price of the Apple products should be a bit towards the higher end as they could make out the cost incurred and also could earn ample Profit for Apple.

 Example2: Conflict in the R&D department and the finance department.

 The Research and development department of Apple wants that their budget should be amplified    because all of the technology company be it Google, Microsoft etc are running neck to neck and to be a step ahead you need to have a strong research and development department but Apple’s finance department is inflexible with the fact that the budget should be amplified. The finance department wants that there should be effective and efficient utilization of the allocated budget and hence wants the R&D department to tighten up their belts and find out ways to have optimum utilization of the resources provided as this would be beneficial for Apple. Thus this leading to interdepartmental conflict between the two.

Role conflict in “Apple”

As per Denison (1984) role conflict is another conflict which has come into place in big companies like APPLE. This kind of conflict mainly occurs due to the fact that the organizations have predefined roles for the individuals and the set of values that an individual carry may not be the same for the role for which he is appointed. Thus due to this an individual is forced to take different and incompatible roles leading to the reduction in his efficiency. Hence individual has to do multi tasking in his roles.

According to Hultman (2001) a very good example can be put forward in this context. An individual having both the roles  that is work and management roles is caught up between both the roles or in other words we can say that he has to perform a role of the supervisor  as well as the co-worker and thus their arises conflict in the roles. As a supervisor he need to manage his team , look into their issues , be a common point between his team members and the management so that he can put forward his team’s issues with management. As a coworker he needs to do the activities similar to the activities performed by the team itself.

Conclusion:

As per Collins & Porras (1994)conflict is not always a bad thing for an organization, it was conflict between Jobs and the Apple board of directors that made both realize the importance of each other and gave the world a visionary organization like Apple. However it has to be said that conflict on the basic level is not always beneficial. The level of conflict should always be observed and curbed. When it comes to conflict in values in the organization the less is always the better.

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