Organizational Theory and Datalectric Company - Assignment Example

ORGANIZATIONAL THEORY, DATALECTRIC COMPANY of Describe the external environment that Datalectrics is operating in today and indicate: a. What domains are of highest priority for Datalectrics to pay attention to? (5) Technology in that they must keep abreast with the changes in designs and development Customer base satisfaction-lack of satisfaction and delayed contract honoring is a domain that must be considered Definition of reporting order in the company as opposed to the company running like a family The human resource domain where there has to be open definition of the different human resource functions at the different levels of operation. Legal domain where a negative ruling by the court after the legal action may readily ruin the company public relations b. What are Datalectrics’ two main resources? (5) Human resource The company has highly diversified its human resource. There are departmental heads who work as a family and it is their thinking that runs the company, for example Doc Reeves is said to have more ideas in an hour than most people have in a year. That is the power of human resource. Each department has a very dependable human resource that keeps the company running very effectively. For instance, the sales department is made up of specialized engineers who have vast knowledge in the products they are selling. The physical products The company products are so important that other companies are incurring losses due to non-compliance with the supplies. Different physical products occur such as data transmission gadgets, electrical devices and radio broadcasting devices are the products produced by the company. These diverse products give the company diversity and more specialization in its operations. The diversity created has resulted in higher knowledge centralization at the company leading to higher ability to share the information. c. How can Datalectrics control access to these resources? (5) Access to human resource can be controlled through a well-organized and controlled recruitment exercise, internal control and structures to encourage quality applications to the company. This also includes customer and market access and retention. The company has developed an organization structure with different sections. These sections operate under the leadership of the members that are knowledgeable in the specified section. However, with complaints about the problem of understaffing, there is supposed to be consideration increasing the number of employees. Access to the physical products would be controlled through initiation of procedures to access the best technological know-how that would help the company produce the best products in a timely manner and to the customers’ satisfaction. The research and development department of the company is supposed to make sure that there is continuous progress in innovation so that access to the best products is made accessible. Moreover, access to financial resources can be made accessible by the company through efficient supply. When the company wants to improve these financial resources, then it will improve its services to the customers so that such as honoring the contracts that it has made to its customers. When this is done, the customers will pay for the services and the company will improve its financial services. d. In your opinion, does Resource Dependency Theory help to explain some of? Datalectrics’problems? Explain. (5) Yes, the resource dependency theory can effectively help explain the problems. The first fact about this theory is that organizations depend on resources. The success of Datalectrics has been realized by use of human resources. Secondly, the theory states that an environment contains other organizations. In the case of Datalectrics, these other organizations are the companies that depend on it for supplies. Since there is insufficient supply through delays, the foundations of the problems are then defined. Another fact about this theory is that resources are a basis for power. In the case of this company, there is loss of power when the company is not able to effectively mobilize its resources to take care of the required supplies. That leads to the company engaging in a legal lawsuit for the first time in its operations. The diminished and ineffective utilization of the human and operations resources make the company fail to maintain its power in the market. 2. Describe Datalectrics’ internal environment and indicate whether it is a learning organization or not, citing evidence for your answer. (10) The internal environment is divided into departments that hugely depend on each other for operations. With the functional structure, the company has a research and development, engineering services, production and sales departments. Each department is headed by a professional in the specified field of operation. For instance, Doc Reeves heads the Research and development department and can generate more ideas per hour than most people can generate annually. Each department also has a specified number of employees depending on the amount of work to be done and its size. Most of the departments are casual and less formal in their operations. This is a learning company. Taking an example from the research and development department, there is a task of generating new ideas from time to time so that the company can remain in market leadership. There is encouragement of the need for personal development where more learning takes place for development to occur. Another indication of the internal environment is the consideration of the employees. The company has grown in employee number from 100 in 1957 to eight times the same number at the present. This is an indication of the internal growth and development that clearly defines the internal position of the company. 3. Does Datalectricss basic structure fit the environment it has to function in? Please explain your answer. (10) The basic functional structure of the company is rather more decentralized with every department at liberty to discharge its mandate independently. There is also personal management approach where each employee is highly held responsible for the work at his disposal. At the top is the CEO Bill Hunt who always encourages all the employees to work at the discretion of their ability and space. In essence, all the departmental managers’ report directly to the CEO after affirmations from the respective decentralized managers. This type of structure suits the environment because most of the people employed here are top professionals in their respective areas of operations. In so doing, the structure is allowing every manager to be responsible for the work that they do and equally exploit their deeper talents (Lussier & Achua, 2012). Every effort is appreciated without summing up the efforts of a department and heaping the appreciation to the departmental manager. 4. What is Datalectrics’ founding myth and how has it influenced the development of the organization? (10) The founding myth of the company was based on a cultural aspect. The CEO is upbeat in upholding the founding myth, ‘…collaborative, family spirit of the old organization…’ the family spirit has been seen in the different sections of the company. The founding myth has influenced setting up of family like operations such as there being no boss for the other employees but everything operating at almost the same management level. There are departmental operations where employees still operate like families, depending on each other for advice, thinking, contributions to the ideas and ideally marketing as far as the external environment is concerned. It has inculcated a spirit of ownership in the employees where they take the company to be like their own and not just employees. The company current CEO was a student of BB and this must also have been adopted through belief in the myths that the company will operate more efficiently and also the fact that he wanted to be part of the development. This shows that strength of the trends that the myths had was overly deep set and reaching out to the outward environment. 5. Looking at Datalectrics’s history, which two theories would you say best describe its development and growth. Explain why. (20) The internal theory that would define the operations is the agency theory. The company internal environment is operating under different administrations. Each department has a departmental head but the ideal issue is that the departments are run like families. Therefore, there is lack of ideal definition about who is supposed to run the some of the given tasks. Therefore, it looks like once a task is identified, then the relevant personality comes to hand to resolve it and develop it into a positive issue useful to the whole group section. For instance, the sales department has a collection of employees who feel that they are understaffed. There is also a breakage in communication between the sales department and R&D. therefore; there is lack of understanding between the different stakeholders. As important agents to the company, there is a high level of complaints from customers because of lack of effective information flow. Agency theory dictates that the company requires shareholders who are responsible and effective in their operations and co-ordination of company issues. The second theory is the contingency. In this theory, companies are able and constantly planning about the future contingency changes in the operations of the business. This is lacking because the company is advised in the letter from the consultants that its business is bound to go low in the near future (Wicks, Keevil, & Parmar, 2012). In the contingency theory, there is a high sense of development and factors dependable on the administrative decisions dealing with the emerging problems. All the problems that affect the company are related to administrative issues. Therefore, the theory adapts to different forms of administration issues, both positive and negative and the proposition that each situation is dealt with as it happens. For instance, the internal meetings are called for after a complaint letter is received indicating non-compliance with a validly signed contract. 6. According to the letters and memos included in the case, Datalectrics is facing some tough issues in the near and medium future. a. Is Datalectrics at the edge of chaos? Explain your answer. (10) The first letter indicates changes in design and manufacturing methods. This means that new technology has been developed which counters the traditional methods used before. The remedy was an expected decline in sales over the coming years. When there are declines in the sales of the company, there will be a financial problem that will be experienced. This means that the company would be in a complete crisis. The second letter from Communication Networking was a complaint and eventual proposition to open a lawsuit against the Datalectrics. The company to say the least is on the edge of chaos because it is not likely to retain Communication Networking as a client company as promised in the letter. Secondly, it is not able to produce the latest and high quality equipment since the technology seems to go a notch higher. Such circumstances can lead to business failure (Daft, Murphy, & Willmott, 2010). The memorandum indicates a collection of problems that face the company including a loss of $1.5 million for the fiscal year. b. What advice would you give the leaders at Datalectrics as to how to make sure Datalectrics thrives in the future? (10) The greatest and most urgent advice is to invest in new technology to be able to match the changing trends of fast production and client satisfaction in the market. The new technology will be able to enable the company to produce new products as required by the market at the highest possible speed. For instance, the company is already facing a lawsuit for the first time because it is not able to effectively deliver goods as per the contract. The second idea is to run the company, not as a family but as a professional venture. It is common knowledge that when a family situation is assumed anywhere, sociality overrides reason. In this case, the company will be able to effectively utilize the full potential of employees. The third advice is to increase the number of employees. There are already complaints about a missing link between the amount of work available and the number of employees. The employees feel overstretched. To encourage them, the amount of work done need to be reduced effectively by employing more workers. 7. From the perspective of your textbook “Reading Organization Theory”, what elements are missing in this case description? (10) From a stakeholder perspective, one missing element is the input of the suppliers and government as stakeholders to the company. In the wake of the explanation accorded to stakeholder theory as related to the company, there is lack of involvement of such stakeholders. Suppliers make use of a high sense of the ability to make a company run. This is because when there are enough and sufficient supplies, there will be good performance of the company because it is sure to operate effectively. Moreover, this can be proved by the lapse in the supplies which are a source of the lawsuit that the company has been accused. Another element missing is planning. Planning in this case sends the indication that the lack of future plans which leads to the company having many issues is as a result of lack of planning (Mills, Tony, & Helms, 2005). When the company fails to plan, then there are so many lapses in the running of issues leading to a high rate of losses and mismanagement of single aspects in the company. References Daft, R. L., Murphy, ‎., & Willmott, ‎. (2010). Organization Theory and Design. New York: Cengage Learning EMEA. Lussier, R., & Achua, ‎. (2012). Leadership: Theory, Application, & Skill Development. New Jersey: Cengage Learning, . Mills, A., Tony, S., & Helms, M. J. (2005). Reading Organizational Theory: A critical approach to the study of Organizational Behaviour and Structure (Third Edition ed.). Aurora, ON: Garamond Press. Veblen, T. (2005). The Theory of Business Enterprise. Washington: Cosimo Inc. Wicks, A. C., Keevil, A., & Parmar, B. (2012). Sustainable Business Development and Management Theories: A Mindset Approach. Business & Professional Ethics Journal, 31(3-4), 375–398. Read More