Managers: Influencers of Organizational Culture & Performance - Free Essay Sample

Introduction

Management is influenced by various factors that pose a problem, hence affecting the performance of the business. The management action may encourage or discourage the quality of the organization's culture, thus attracting new talents and making workers happy while performing their day-to-day business activities. According to Joy and Poonamallee (2013, pp.406) mentioned that managers influence culture hence moving it from what is expected from it to something else. CelluComm is one of the organizations where the founders made themselves from "zero," making them respected and having more authority. Ric Jenkins, its founder, is well known in the industry as an aggressive manager who was also a demanding tusk maker and used to take control himself (Huang et al., 2011). CelluComm had been a local cellular company that managed to became within the top 20 in the industry with 12 rural licenses. Jenkins hired Erik Peterson to manage one of his subsidiaries, the Green Mountain Cellular Telephone Co., Inc. (GMCT) in Hanover, New Hampshire (McCabe, 2014). Therefore, through the employment of Peterson, the organization faced a lot of challenges, which contributed to a lack of efficiency and effectiveness. For instance, Hartnell et al., (2011) mentioned that a lack of social and psychological setting support resulted in the organization's ineffectiveness. Thus, this essay aims at first looking at the major issues in the team management of CelluComm and then look at the proposed recommendations that would help BlackDart to improve the situation and, finally, provide a conclusion which will include main points of the issue and recommendations to imply.

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Major issues in the management of CelluComm Organizational Culture

According to Kim et al., (2019, pp.113) study stated that organization culture composes of values as well as behaviors which results in specific social as well as the psychological surrounding of the business. These values and beliefs are communicated in an organization and become reinforced by leaders through various methods that result in perception, understanding, and employee behavior. Thus, the organization culture affected individual as well as group interaction with each other in the business. Schein (2010) mentioned that leaders are the main culture architects hence influencing the kind of leadership likely to be put into practice. Therefore, Jenkins's aggressive and direct management style formed a direct and dynamic organizational culture with an autocratic management style (Omolayo, 2007, pp.33). The inconsistency of the structure of the organization resulted in a complication of the organization's reporting and became damaging to GMCT. For instance, despite the given promises, Peterson was assigned to Jeff Hardy, director of budgets and plans. Who was not experienced and unable to provide Peterson with reliable advice (Peterson and Murtha, 2010). Peterson felt that Hardy was the only concern with how the project will affect the budget and ROI of investments. Therefore, where the radical decisions needed to be made, Hardy blocked them with regard to his main concerns. For example, GMCT found a good place to install a cellular tower – local fire department towers, for Peterson, this project was costly and time-saving (Emtairah et al., 2008). Hardy, instead, feared newspapers. This situation can describe almost every problematic situation in Peterson's work and lack of consistency due to the failure of Peterson to communicate issues and delegate responsibilities (Agarwal and Beaulne, 2015, p. 229).

As by Hatch and Zilber (2012, p.95) organizational culture theory, mentioned that the goal of the theory is to show how communication is vital in developing as well as maintaining the culture of the organization. Kivimaa et al. (2008) argued that building employee dynamic strengths resulted in a problem. He was involved in building empowering surroundings for workers, calling meetings weekly to note company progress, and issues. Peterson failed to consider a change in a team dynamic, especially when making salary and hiring decisions. For example, Trevor was hired at a higher rate, which caused anger to the other workers, which resulted in essential damage of trust and respect among the managers and employees (Fevre et al., 2012). Moreover, his first major decision as a manager was replacing a subcontractor that delayed the construction of vital cellular towers with the local company who would be having better resources and connections (Morrison, 2009). The headquarter decided that they would prefer to work with the old company because of the previous great deal that they had done. CelluComm's organizational culture did not allow him to replace a scandalous and inefficient manager. The chief engineer has a crucial role in the cellular company, and he is responsible for all installations of the new towers and maintenance of the exciting towers (Whittle, 2015). Curt Andrews, despite the fact of being a talented engineer, he was an unprofessional manager. He failed to plan supplies for construction, had arguments with at least three people in the organization, rejected to obey new rules that Peterson was trying to imply. Because of his unprofessional behavior company has lost a significant amount of time and resources.

Furthermore, on occasions when he underperformed others needed to fill his gaps, as Peterson was working sixty to eighty hours weekly (Aghaie and Felderhof, 2004). Peterson complained several times to the headquarter, but still, Hardy refused to take any action. Andrews can be referred to as a toxic employee who poisons the organization (Bhandarker and Rai, 2019, pg70). The company felt that because he worked for an extended period and because he just moved from a different state, they cannot replace him. Besides, Peterson promoted his secretary Melissa Miczek to the manager of Accounting and Activations with a salary rise he got himself in trouble. Because headquarters thought that the pay rise is too significant compared to the previous salary and accepted her on the role only after the 20% cut (Aghaie and Felderhof, 2004). Eric became a captain without a steering wheel, and the steering wheel never left headquarter. Thus, the organizational culture of CelluComm impacted the company negatively; hence poor performance in return was recorded as a result.

Recommendations

Based on the organizational culture theory, communication in an organization is vital for business success (Cameron and Quinn, 2011). BlackDart should focus on the organizational culture and level of freedom inside the corporation. For instance, CelluComm organizational culture was a major issue due to lack of communication, which resulted in an inconsistency in the organizational structure. Thus, solving the problem at GMCT could have stimulated the use of open line communication, establishing clear roles as well as goals in the interior of GMCT. Organization reporting was complicated due to the inconsistency of the structure and damaged GMCT. For example, hierarchy reporting was unclear since Peterson thought he would report directly to Ric Jenkins but reported to Hardy without informed communication from top management.

Second, Peterson most significant number of CelluComm problems might have been fixed by being proactive and ensuring mutual consideration among his subordinates and supervisors to solve the problem for deadlines. Furthermore, many management tests in the midst of my subordinates need appropriate decisions to explain and solve issues. Many of my junior and I are inexperienced while working for new system operations. BlackDart should, in the future, provide managers with more freedom for decisions and with interventions only in critical situations. The way of focusing on performance makes an organization able to survive and succeed.

Conclusion

In conclusion, organizational culture plays a vital role in business operation success, hence influencing the general performance (Zheng et al., 2010, p.767). CelluComm organizational culture contributed to the failure. The Jenkins management style built an organization where the manager in headquarters decided who should work on the position and what salary raise is appropriate. The inconsistency of the organization and its structure, which resulted in poor organizational culture due to poor communication, led to damage to GMCT, which could not have to be the case if communication was open. Lack of freedom for managers to make decisions that depended on headquarter, which was much far from the company and lack of formal communication contribute to problems which affected the company. BlackDart should, in the future, start working with clear communication and responsiveness to the local managers, who know everything in their workplace. It is a complicated process to build an organization that can work efficiently with a minimum of control, which will help build sustainable organizations with effectiveness.

Reference

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Joy, S., and Poonamallee, L., 2013. Cross-cultural teaching in globalized management classrooms: Time to move from functionalist to postcolonial approaches?. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 12(3), pp.396-413.

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Hartnell, C.A., Ou, A.Y. and Kinicki, A., 2011. Organizational culture and organizational effectiveness: A meta-analytic investigation of the competing values framework theoretical suppositions. Journal of applied psychology, 96(4), p.677.

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