In no more than 3000 words you are required to provide an integrated analysis of your or an organization you are familiar with in terms of the central topics of this subject.
To complete this task you might consider addressing the following:
Describe the nature of the key tasks undertaken by the organisation. Include in your analysis, the types of products and services provided by the organisation.
Clearly describe the formal organisation structure. In what ways does your organisation incorporate “new forms” practices into this structure? With what effects (identify tensions and paradoxes)?
What investments “in people” does your organisation make? Do workers function as individuals, groups, teams or some mix of all three?
What level of “involvement” do employees have in organisation decision-making? Justify your answer.
Are people motivated in the organisations? What motivation strategies are employed and do you think that they are appropriate? Justify your answer.
Provide a brief cultural analysis of the organisation; note key influences on the organisational culture. Is the corporate culture congruent with the organisation’s culture? Provide and illustration to justify your answer.
What assessment would you make about the connection between culture, the behaviour of organization members and organisation performance?
What is the relationship between leadership, power and formal authority in this organisation? Outline the behavioural criteria you use in making this assessment.
Drawing directly on your analysis of the above criteria, identify the key challenges your organisation faces in regard to the management of human resources. What strategies would you employ to meet these challenges? Explain how and why these strategies would be beneficial.
Note:
1) Your research methodology and data collection strategy must be clearly outlined in an appendix.
2) Copies of any research instruments, eg questionnaires or interview questions, used must be included in an appendix in your report.
3) The report must involve the interaction of conceptual material covered in the subject with the data that is collected.
MANAGING ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE
Organizational change is one of the important concepts in the present world. In an organization, the change in the structure, operational methods, strategies, organizational culture affects in the organization. Organizational change can be for certain period of time and also can be continuous. In this assignment the company Apple has been chosen for analyzing the change of the organization and its leadership. The company Apple Company was established on 1st April, 1976 by a team of three people. They are Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne. In 1977, the company was incorporated to Apple Inc.
Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple is a fascinating leader who holds a strong passion in the field of motivation and creativity. According to the Models forwarded by Bass, Weber and Burns, Steve Jobs can be said as a transformational leader because he has the skill to influence and motivate the employees of the organization, who has the capability to achieve the efficiency of highest degree. It is also told that the rise of the Apple Company is mainly done by the compelling personality, superb energy and persuasiveness of Jobs (Rees, Althakhri, and Mamman. 2012)..
The corporate culture of the Apple Company is unique. The steps taken against traditional classical culture of the organization and it is also said that the ad hoc approach taken by Apple is not used now. It is said that is today’s world the position acquired by Apple is mainly because of the success achieved by the company (Seppälä, Lipponen, Bardi, and Pirttilä‐Backman, 2012)..
The employees of Apple are very committed with their work. This dedication is inbuilt among the employees of Apple. This culture of working hard is associated with the models of Deal and Kennedy (Blackmore, and Sachs, 2012). The functional structure of the Apple organization is that people are put into a team together by seen their common proficiency, resources and experiences. Employees who are working in the functional structure have special tasks to perform. So, mainly the operational work is done within the group. But this type of within the group work may lead to lack in communication among the different groups and this is the case of Apple (Benn, Dunphy, and Griffiths,2014).
The main problem with the culture of working hard is typically because of working hard for long hours. Apple forces their employees to work hard and also to work for long hours. Their typical working hour is sixty to seventy hours on an average per week with no payment on overtime. This is a dual facial system where it is good for the company and the stakeholders as they can earn huge profit for the organization but for the employees it is hard working and they are unable to maintain the balance of a better work life. Due to long working hours many Chinese workers of the organization has committed suicide which is not good for the organization (Vakola, MArmenakis, and Oreg,2013)..
According to McGregor, effective leaders do not throw orders to their staffs. They should have the capability to withdraw the best results from his employees by encouraging and supporting them to give the best results. According to McGregor, an employee can give his best when he is treated as a responsible person and self motivated and they will act accordingly.
According to the Mintzberg Model it can be said that the administrative adhocracy mainly occurs when there is a need of innovation in the organization as there is a competition in the market about the product and the different dynamics in the technology. Apple Inc has adopted this adhocracy as this structure is suitable for the company structure and also solving the complicated problems of and it is also matching with the new culture of the company.
According to the study of McGregor on human side there is a link in the management style with the leadership to motivation. McGregor explained the differences the contemporary style of the human relationship i.e. the theory Y with the management of the authoritarian people i.e. the theory X (Carter, Armenakis, Feild, and Mossholder,2013).
According to the theories of McGregor it can be said that the management style of Apple is participative which the theory Y is because they motivates their employees and takes out the best from them (Shin, J., Taylor, M. S., and Seo, 2012).
After the leadership of Steve Job the leadership of Tim Cook came into view. Tim Cook became the new CEO of Apple. Cook knew what changes he need to bring for the betterment of the organization and he implemented those ideas in the organization (SEO, Taylor, Hill, Zhang, Tesluk, and Lorinkova, 2012)..
But in this type of leadership the main drawback is the work is put forward than personal consideration. It is told that the employees of Apple see the organization as a club rather than watching it as a family. In transformational leadership another drawback is the fundamentals of a leader centric system. By the analysts it is suggested that the main challenge of Apple is to face the strong connection with their fascinating leader, Jobs. He is the main person to take the Apple Company to the new level and the stakeholders are very much concerned about the growth of the company in his absence.
In an organization one of the essential changes is the Leadership. Leadership are those people who initiate a new direction for a group of individuals and gain commitments from that group and motivates them to achieve the results of the new way. In simple words it can be said that a leader is that where a person gets the charge of taking decisions and also implementing those decisions in the group, organizations to increase the ability (Cameron and Green 2012).
In an organization, rewards and benefits are an important component in an organization and this is a main reason for the people to work hard. This is the return in exchange which is linking between the employers and their employees for the job to be done. This work has been supported by Newman and Milcovich (Hartnell, and Kinicki, 2011).
In contradiction of the tall ranking structure, the flat structure of the organization is mainly differentiated by few layers or only by one layer in the management. Therefore, it can be said that the command chain from top to bottom is short according to Fayol (1949).
In the Company Apple mainly the models theory X and theory Y is been used for the changes in corporate culture. In the corporate culture model of Deal and Kennedy it is described that play hard, work hard ethics style is fun in working style because there risk is less and the feedbacks on those are quick and it is quiet a success. In the integral part of Apple fun is one of the important components. By the company many recreation events are being organized by the organization for their employees. In the Apple corporate structure there is no requirement of wearing formal attire and they can work freely in their casual clothes (Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-Jiménez, and Sanz-Valle, 2011)..
In the favorable side of Apple working ethics it is casual and relaxed culture. According to Jeffery, if a dysfunctional and toxic working environment structure is created then from the employees side also the organization will be getting the same behavior which will not be beneficial for both the organization and also for the employees. So, it is told to create a relaxing working environment so that the employees can give a productive result (Cheung,Wong, and Lam, 2012)..
In the year 1970, when the company was formed then it used to follow the traditional structure which was mainly used by all the companies during that time. But in the following years it started following a totally different and a unique method for managing the organizational structure. The operation of the company was mainly based on the ideas of informal culture of the corporate within the technological industry where the organizational structure mainly favored the flat and hoc structure and then the tall structure.
It is also said that Apple uses the threats of dismissing the employees from work and no reward as the organization’s objective. This goes with the authoritarian style of management which is the theory X. So, it is seen that Apple is not fitting completely with any of the side of the McGregor’s theory.
It is believed that the transformational leaders has the power and authority to change the old ways to new ways and this is mainly done by Jobs that he has done the analysis and found out the new ways and motivated and influenced the employees to come with innovative ideas for different products by their different thinking and it is also said that he has motivated his employees to “change the word”.
It is seen that in the characteristics of the transformational leaders Jobs has able to achieve the efficiency of top level by demanding determination, commitments, and courage from his staffs.
The initiatives of change are very time-consuming and as well as costly, because it importantly impacts the organizational process towards success, from which partially fail almost. Given that change is obvious and inevitable in reality, the organization has to resolve the situation successfully and adapt and uphold the change. Change management is an important part in an organization which flow across and all the way through the organization, project management and program. The successful implementation of organizational strategy can be done if the company hires and recruits skill full managers who can drive and steer the change, also ensuring that the changes which are brought about are aligned strategically to the business objectives (Greener and Hughes, 2006).
Methodology used was based on secondary research, based on qualitative study and analysis of the same. The information was extracted and analyzed from journals, public reports, company websites and other authenticated reports.
The success and the failure of the change implemented or to be implemented stands not only on the process of initiating, monitoring, planning, evaluating or executing which will drive the change but also it sets up the organization to ensure and transform stakeholder buy-in, engaging employees to be become champions and also sustain and uphold the change before implementation and also during and after the same (Le and Bartlett, 2014). Although it is not simple to manage the organization which invites for a high extent of behavioral change yet with today’s business models it is impossible to implement change in an organization until and unless certain strategic changes and initiatives that is inescapably required for considerable cultural and behavioral changes. If we take, Apple as an example, we can see that even after the change in CEO of the company, Apple is still a market-leader. But the company had to go through many hurdle due to the change but still it could manage the change. Change is a cyclic, comprehensive and structured approach for shifting the human resources and groups from the present state to the future state with the profits intended (Mandal et al., 2012).
The most important model of change which organization going through change adopts is Kurt Lewin’s Change Model, which describes the three stages of change, i.e., unfreeze, change/transition or refreeze. The diagram of the same is given below, which clearly shows the three stages of the model (Mupepi et al., 2008).
Fig 1: Kurt Lewin’s Theory of Change Model
The first stage of this model is “unfreeze”, which means to unlearn the previous behavior. This begins when any company is experiencing disconfirmation, which is faced in the process of cognitive dissonance. This is a concept which refers to the incompatibility among two por more individual’s attitudes and behavior. The process of disconfirmation is caused due to the pressure from external environment or within the company. The second stage of the model is “change” where new behaviors and attitudes are incorporated to new organizational process. The attitudes and behaviors and culture which are embedded in the former corporate culture are to be replaced. Here there should be proper alignment of people and processes to sustain the change. The reinforcement of new policies and strategies are created and documented for the operation of the management. There should be specific rewards to the change which have been already set. The most important part of the change is to redirect the people’s attention. The final stage is “refreeze”, which describes the strengthening and measuring the change in behavior. When undergoing change, after the requirements of training are definite then the system of rewards, reporting liaison and other policies can be described to back up the new change or behavior. When the change is implemented then the certain requirements of behavior from the employees are to be met, then the appraisals in performance, bonuses and promotions which is to be based on the desired level of performance outcomes (Murthy, 2007).
Organisational behavior is the process of studying the behavior of an organization which covers the parameters like employee attitudes, performance, motivation and other psychology like behavioral sciences, etc. Thus when organization is going through a change it looks upon thre essential parts of the organization which are, individual, organizational interface and the organization itself. On the individual context when going through a change an organization should look on factors like perceptions and personalities, attitudes, motivation. On the context of organizational interface in the process of managing change the management should look upon politics, group dynamics, conflict, decision-making, leadership, etc. and finally on the context of the organization itself the structure and design, communication, culture, governance, policies and rules are to be considered upon (Notes on Contributors, 2015). To sustain the change after implementation an organization has to acquire the approach of learning organization which will create, acquire and transfer knowledge proactively that will cascade through the organization. The learning capability of the organization should be made compatible where the people in the organization can learn and grow. The competencies and the other processes enable an organization to adapt to the change (Pugh and Mayle, 2009).
Fig 2: Organization Learning Capability
In a secondary research done on the company, Apple it was seen that two different CEO’s behaved exactly the opposite with the employees. Although the existing employees have a long-term relation with the then CEO, they have a soft corner for him but Tim Cook who succeeded Steve Jobs have an impressive track records among the company’s stake holders. When MobileMe was a dud, Steve Jibs tarnished the team members of MobileMe and told that they have let each other down and humiliated him in public, which infuriated him (Readiness for Change, 2010). The corporate culture of Apple was ruthless then but it was a mystery that how a company with such culture could exist with so many employees in this business world. The employees addressed him as the corporate dictator the one who used to take all the critical decisions, even the apparently noncritical calls too (Reissner, Pagan and Smith, 2011). But all these may seem a little dictatorial but Steve Jobs, on a more strategic level, concentrated on the institutionalizing the process of doing business. His only mission and vision was to convert the people’s traits who are closely associated with Jobs, the random feedback, the attention to every detail, the secrecy into the processes which will ensure the excellence of Apple far in the future (Schmid, 2006). But according to Jobs accountability matters when you are in a position like Vice-President, he said that it does not matter if someone is a janitor because he will find excuses to give, and somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering and then when a person should think that he has become the VP. Now in Tim Cook’s reign Apple has become more open and apparently more corporate. He has maintained a unique corporate culture in Apple. He is looking into matters and issue which was unresolved or looked down upon by the last occupant due to sheer obstinacy. Change has been brought about by the current CEO, with due respect to the previous while he charts a new course.
When going through a change, the people factor is impacted more because the manpower of an organization is very important resource and there are situations such as change in the organization which make them uncomfortable which give rise to resistance to change. This happens because they the employees anticipate the fear of unknown, climate of trust is distorted, fear of failure comes to the picture, peer pressure, etc. In Steve Jobs leadership he used the process where he blasted his employees for not doing their work properly. His was a complex leadership where in sometime critically focused when he was confident and committed enough to bear risks and compelling enough to stakeholders with persistency in the pursuit of aspirations. Sometimes his behavior like this peek the performance level to an extent it was undermined, it depends on how he applied them. He understood the cultural influence in maintaining the strategic capacities which implicit his vision of inventing. In his personality traits, he was a volatile leader which was both perplexing and fascinating because in fell in and out of love with his employees both professionally and personally. He had a fickle commitment, and in his obstinate hunt of top talent he was able to make an organization so successful which is dominated by highly skilled employees (Cameron and Green, 2004).
Apple was considered the most admired and innovative ways to benefit its employees. It attracted and retained its employees through benefits and incentives of expected or non-performance. Apple offers its employees with its products, discounts on the same and also insurances but also it included Apple’s creative culture which was outstanding. It argued that the motivation of the employees is a key factor for Apple so they need to be given incentives to promote imaginative thinking and maintain high motivation. Tim Cook does not lag behind in motivating his employees (Clement, 2013). In a recent study it was found that Apple is not the leading company when the employees was set in turmoil Tim Cook reminded his employees that they are still the superior and dominating technology organization on the planet, and if this did not show any optimism in them then he used weapon of incentives where he gave his employees steep discounts on iPhones. The employees of Apple were apprehensive on accepting Tim Cook as their new CEO because he did not interact much with the people and had less or no friends in the company, with a vibrant CEO formerly they anticipated that under the current CEO the company might run in losses but he proved to be one of the best among its employees. He wasn’t obstinate like Jobs and made the employees realize that they are the only person in the room to whom he is talking. The mission for Steve Jobs was personal computing and the by-product was Apple whereas Cook’s mission was Apple and the by-product was iOS7, of the commitment ensuring which Apple endured. Apple’s CEO’s job is to understand what makes Apple, Apple, which is more important than the sense of product, or taste, or excellence in operations, etc. So on this attribute Cook is the exact man for this job, for he has understood revolutions, culture and Apple.
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