Organization and behavior - Tổ chức và Hành vi

Bài luận môn Tổ chức và Hành vi (Organization and behavior) BTEC

BTEC HND IN BUSINESS (MANAGEMENT)

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

NAME OF STUDENT Trần Quyết Thắng - Joe

ASSIGNMENT TITLE Microsoft – Ford Motor Company

ASSIGNMENT NO 1 of 2 (individual report)

SUBMISSION DEADLINE 21 st November 2012

I, Trần Quyết Thắng - Joe _ hereby confirm that this assignment is my own work and not copied or plagiarized from any source I have referenced the sources from which information is obtained by me for this assignment.

_

Signature Date

Unit Outcomes

Outcome Evidence for the

criteria Feedback Assessor’s decision Verification Internal

First attempt

Re-work

Understand

the

relationship

between

organisation

al

structure

and culture

LO1

compare and contrast different organisational structures and culture

1.1

explain how the relationship between an organisation’s structure and culture can impact on the performance of the business

1.2

discuss the factors which influence individual behaviour at work

1.3

Understand

different

approaches

to

management

and

leadership

LO2

compare the effectiveness of different leadership styles

in different organisations

2.1

explain how organisational theory underpins the practice of management

2.2

evaluate the different approaches to management used by different organisations

2.3

Distinction grades awarded D1 D2 D3

OB Assignment 1 Oct 2012

Outcome Evidence for the

criteria Feedback Assessor’s decision Verification Internal

First attempt

Re-work

Assignment

( ) Well-structured; Reference is done properly / should be done (if any)

Overall, you’ve

Areas for improvement:

Outcome Evidence for the

criteria Feedback Assessor’s decision Verification Internal

First attempt

Re-work

NAME:

(Oral feedback was also provided)

STUDENT SIGNATURE DATE / /

NAME :

FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY

VERIFIED YES NO

DATE :

VERIFIED BY :

NAME :

OB Assignment 1 Oct 2012

Organizational and Behavior – Microsoft & Ford Motor Company

Title page

Prepare for: Professor John Andre Organization and Behavior BTEC HND in Business (Finance) Banking Academy, Hanoi

Submitted on November 21st 2012

Prepared by: Trần Quyết Thắng – Joe

Class: F05 – B Registration No.: ITP – F05 – 194

Table of Content

Title page i Introduction 1 Outcome 1.1: Using the facts of the company presented in the case above and that of another company of your choosing compares and contrast different organizational structures and cultures 2 Outcome 1.2: Explain how the relationship between an organisation’s structure and culture can impact on the performance of the business 4 Outcome 1.3: Discuss the factors which influence individual behaviour at work 6 Outcome 2.1: Compare the effectiveness of different leadership styles in different

organisations 7 Outcome 2.2: Explain how organisational theory underpins the practice of management 8 Outcome 2.3: Evaluate the different approaches to management used by different

organisations 9 Conclusion 10 Reference 11

OB Assignment 1 Oct 2012

Introduction

This report aims to find out the structure, culture, the influence of individual at work, the theories of management and leadership style of two organizations: Microsoft and Ford Motor Company Microsoft and Ford Motor Company are the big companies in the world One produces the technological devices like tablets, PCs … and another company manufactures and trades cars Each company has a specific structure and culture which suit to company in order to motivate the employees, maximize the productivity and increase the outputs Both companies are directly affected by the individual behaviour of the employees at work There are many factors which influence the workers; something can encourage them but something

is opposite Besides, the management of working is very important A lot of management theories were invented and most of them are useful for managers of companies Furthermore, the leaders are the keys of running business of companies There are several ways for the leaders choose to control the companies If they bring the right leadership style, the company can gain profit easily and efficiently

Outcome 1.1: Using the facts of the company presented in the case above and that of another company of your choosing compares and contrast different organizational structures and cultures.

Microsoft used to be the biggest technology company in the world Since 2000, Steve Ballmer has been CEO of Microsoft Company At this time (Microsoft) they have changed too much compare with the period when Bill Gates was in charge According to Charles Hill and Gareth Jones in Essentials of Strategic Management, Microsoft has a relatively flat structure (2008, p 217) This shows that Microsoft has controlled and allocated their work with few levels of managers Therefore between staffs and managers, there are no middle managers and the decisions would be made directly and quickly from head of business Additionally, “Some say that Steve Sinofsky, credited with bringing order to the sometimes-chaotic software development process at Microsoft — partly by cutting layers of management, should be the man to replace Steve Ballmer.” (Hartung, 2012) It refers that Microsoft can have a flatter structure than it had before Ford Motor Company, which is one

of the biggest manufacturing cars, also has many troubles with the way leaders control work Bill Ford told Alan Mulally-current CEO of Ford Motor Company that: “Ford is a place where they wait for the leader to tell them what to do." (Kiley, 2009) Nevertheless it has changed under Mulally’s period He flattened Ford’s structure and recentralized control (Hill

& Jones, 2009, p454) Mulally has speech up the communication from the top headers to employees It helps the work in Ford become quicker and more effective

Moreover, each organization has different types of culture that make running business efficiently Microsoft and Ford Motor Company are not the exceptions Under Ballmer, Microsoft’s culture has changed Now he does not pay much attention to designing, he has only found out how to increase profit although Microsoft is an information technology company Vanity Fair about the Microsoft employees like that: “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.” with a title “Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant” (2012) It was amazing with a company that needs the creativities like Microsoft Ballmer only cares about how employees get jobs done He does not motivate

Microsoft workers to help them become more innovative so that the employees cannot bring the new ideas to improve products or invent unique tech software and hardware This shows that Ballmer applied the non-innovative culture In contrast with Microsoft; Alan Mulally had the best decisions to help Ford Motor Company turn over the difficulty Author Bryce G Hoffman told National Public Radio: “He always saw one of his key roles as kind of being the cheerleader-in-chief, keeping everybody motivated and focused.”(Garner-Davies, 2012) This pointed out that Ford Motor Company used task culture to encourage their employees Mulally divided work into different groups to complete particular duties In this case, he empowered employees to help them make decisions quickly and make give them responsibilities to complete jobs effectively Mulally revived Ford Motor Company, he realized the way to innovate and make products that customers need with high quality, saving fuel, medium prices, etc

Outcome 1.2: Explain how the relationship between an organisation’s structure and culture can impact on the performance of the business

The relationship between an organization’s structure and culture are very important, it has a huge effect to organizations Microsoft has a flat structure but they use non-innovative culture It seems not to match Non-innovative culture means organizations do not provide anything to make workers become more creative and try to do everything even mistakes While flat structure gives employees more opportunity delegation Back to Microsoft’s business performance, Microsoft peaked at $60/share in 2000, just as Mr Ballmer took the reins and 2002 it had fallen into the $20/share (Hartung, 2012) Additionally, the performance showed on Wall Street; despite booming sales and profits from its flagship products, in the last decade Microsoft’s stock barely budged from around $30 (Eichenwald, 2012)

(Source: http://www.bigcharts.marketwatch.com/) Ballmer has changed Microsoft culture that is not relevant with the structure This is the main reason to explain the bad business performance of Microsoft Corporation

Compare with Microsoft, Ford Motor Co has reasonable changes since restructuring Alan Mulally has flattened Ford’s structure to make decision quicker, less time wasting and communicate easier Besides that, he has implemented the task culture to promote Ford’s employees have more innovation, creativities It has expressed through Ford’s business performance Within three months of his arrival, Mulally sold Wall Street on a $23 billion recapitalization (Kiley, 2009) Furthermore, Ford stock that once sold for $1.96 a share in

2009 goes for just over $12 a share today (In case you were wondering, that’s a 500% increase!) (Garner-Davies, 2012)

(Source: http://www.bigcharts.marketwatch.com/) The changes have worked efficiently and help Ford make more profit

The two charts above illustrate the share prices of Microsoft and Ford Motor Company in the last dedicate The share prices has a significant fluctuation from approximately 2$/share (2009) to over 18$/share (2011) while share prices of Microsoft is quite stable around 25$ to 30$/share, except the last months in 2007 and in 2009 Both Microsoft and Ford have the lowest share price in 2009 In the period from 2009 to 2012, Microsoft’s share price increased from 15$ to nearly 30$ it means that the share price rose to 100%

Outcome 1.3: Discuss the factors which influence individual behaviour at work

In all companies, there are many factors that affect the individual behavior at work and Microsoft is no exception To motivate the employees, Microsoft gives all employees new Surface tablets, Windows 8 phones and PCs These are meaningful gifts, they make employees innovate to have more new ideas in order to create improve and create new technical products Some employees tweeted and posted Facebook status updates after the announcement, verifying these details and calling it the “Best Company meeting Ever.”

(Clay, 2012) This is a positive attitude that Microsoft bring to employees to encourage and satisfy them Besides, it is used to ensure that all employees can take more efforts to design and create the intelligent technological devices in the future It means that the productivity and outputs can be increased As the result, Microsoft can improve their performance and increase profit

Furthermore, Microsoft has several security disclosure policies and all employees are compulsory to conduct them Employees have to conduct the security policy carefully One

of the security policies that the employees have to follow is the requirement when reporting security vulnerabilities in third-party products Policy states that: “Any vulnerability information provided to the vendor is not intended for public use, but for the vendor's use to identify and remediate the vulnerability” (Goodin, 2011) It means that employees warrant that the information that they report to vendors secretively and vendors only use this to fix the security hole of products Microsoft wants to make sure that its products are safety to protect the users Employees have to remind their selves comply with the policy Therefore, sometime they have to keep the secrets; it can make them feel uncomfortable and disable their thinking

Outcome 2.1: Compare the effectiveness of different leadership styles in different organisations

Alan Mulally – the current CEO of Ford Motor Company since 2006, has changed Ford very much He made Ford become stronger and survived after the crisis He is a democratic leader Importing a practice from Boeing, he introduced weekly meetings that were mandatory for all senior managers (Reed, 2012) He does that to find out what they need and what they are going to do Alan Mulally tries to look for the acquiescence through his direct reports He has to focus on the important problems and after that, he would provide them to employees with small sections By doing these, Alan Mulally could exploit the ideas and experience from the workers and make decisions effectively Additionally, Mulally wants

to makes employees understand and believe his decisions and take more efforts to do the plans This style also creates the favorable working conditions to help employees innovate ideas; join to make the plan and find the ways to do it and bring the positive impact on employees’ emotion Under Mulally period, Ford was survived and had numerous success

Besides, Steve Ballmer – the current CEO of Microsoft has the different leadership style to control work and manage the employees Steve Ballmer was criticized about the loss

of Microsoft share prices however he has changed very much Today, Ballmer’s leadership style is more diplomatic, and he’s more likely to delegate decision-making authority One of his goals is to do a better job of developing managers and leaders (Reece & Brandt, 2006, p82) It shows that Steve Ballmer is a coaching leader Ballmer wants to develop the Microsoft workers In the nutshell, it is a method that leaders use to support, guide and challenge the employees to maximize their performance and increase productivity and output Besides, the leaders can help the employees get the clear goals themselves and orient how they achieve these goals Steve Ballmer applies coaching style to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of each individual to give them the aids so that employees could be developed Additionally, Ballmer wants to Microsoft staffs trusts and believes him By doing this, he and employees can have the good relationship; it helps employees achieve the individual goals and organization meet objectives

Moreover, it is the easy way for Ballmer to guide the employees and collect the