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Procedures and company polices

The Paradoxical Twins case study give an opportunity to evaluate from different angles the organization and structure of a business. Exposure of a complex behaviour to different environments, circumstances, personal & social relationships, the two companies Acme & Omega electronics considered on this case study used to have the same organizational structure, under different management. Since they were sold to different investors, as a consequence of this, each company has its own procedures and company polices.

The analysis of this case study will be focus to emphasize and apply relevant theories to identifying problems in the aspects Organisational, Management within the structure of Acme & Omega Electronics. A number of main aspects will be highlighted, trying to identify the problems regarding to Power & Politic, Leadership, Motivation and Communication, and have a better view of the weakness and strength of each company.
 

Being possible to identify the main scenarios and problems that this case study illustrate, it will be possible to make some suggestions of possible solutions. The main scenario is that John Tyler the new president of Acme Electronics and Jim Rawls new president of Omega Electronics, are the directly responsible for the performance of the respective companies. Both come from different backgrounds, their style of management and leadership are totally different one of each other.
 

The style of John Tyler had been more firm and aggressive than Jim Rawls president of Omega, John Tyler had been described by one of his employees as a "one man band", underline his leadership as a Legitimate Power [French & Raven, 1959], this mean that John Tyler don't share to much information of what's going on with the company, for some of the employees of John Tyler this becomes a demotivator factor, since they like to take part on the decisions made by management.
 

However John Tyler recognise that the firm greater effectiveness to his managers abilities to run a "tight ship", this reflect the interaction and relation between the president and the different departments. "The manager alone exercises decision-making and authority for determining policy, procedures for achieving goals, work task and relationship, control of rewards or punishments" (Mullins, L J, 1999 pp. 267)

The Authoritarian (or Autocratic) style of John Tyler, is reflected and influence the style and relationship of his employees, alter the harmony of the departments where the communications and motivation are low and the collaboration between colleagues is minimal, for example after John receive the blue prints, he sent a memo to different departments and tell them what to do, and what exactly expects from this job, this will be reflected in a chain of orders through the structure, this reveal the need of hygiene factors [Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959, Herzberg 1966].

A pure example later that week, after John had been communicated about the missing component he delegate to the department of methods design to look for a better way of assembly the memory units without delay the production, while the missing component is delivered. However before the department of methods design finish the methods for assembly, John Tyler order to start production and assembly of the memory units, the reaction of the engineers were frustrating and disappointing. While Jim Rawls president of Omega, the leadership style is more relaxed and with practical approach to solve problems.

The participating (or Consultation) style [Hersey, 1984] is a very highly motivational factor, where the manager asks for suggestions and ideas. Though the staffs doesn't agree in some aspects of his Management style. Some of the staff identify Jim Rawls as a person who spend to much time "filling in" people who could not contribute to problems and solutions, a newer member of the Industrial Engineering Dep. said that when he start working with Omega he doesn't know what he supposed to do.

The lack of structure and organization create this kind of situations, Jim Rawls since he start his new role manifested that he don't believe in organizational charts, this attitude bear to provoke confusion as expressed by the newer in the Industrial Dep. According to Yulk, G (2001), some theorist had proposed different taxonomies of decision procedures, and there not had been an agreement about the optimal number of decision procedures or the best way to describe them [Heller & Yulk, 1969; Strauss, 1977; Tannenbaum & Schmidt, 1958; Vroom & Yetton, 1973].

The Action-Centred leadership [John Adair], of Jim Rawls, perfectly show how different react to handle the problem to meet the deadline of the project, gathering his senior management, participate in a common task, become more effective to solve any problem of the company, in this case the same missing component for assembly of the memory units. This democratic leadership style, further in the case study, can be observe the level of motivation of the staff and the willingness to contribute to solve problems.

A good example of this is when the staff after finish the methods design they took the decision to test the unit before take it to production, there were they found the error in the unit and immediately reported to Jim Rawls. This behaviour shows the motivation and autonomy to take decisions for themselves, they save to the company effort, money and the satisfaction of a very good job.