Aquarius Advertising Agency - Case Study Example

Running Head: AQUARIUS ADVERTISING AGENCY AQUARIUS ADVERTISING AGENCY Analyze Aquarius with respect to the five contextual variables. How would you describe the environment, goals, culture, size, and technology for Aquarius? Aquarius is not a full fledged firm. It is a relatively middle sized firm and is operating in circumstances and in an environment which is very unstable and hostile. They don’t follow any set rules and processes at all times of the year. This is because the advertising industry is very unpredictable. Its paradigms change constantly. The trends don’t last long and soon the ideas are exhausted. The paradigms of the industry are largely dependent on consumer behavior. It is also because the agency specialist have been trespassing Account Executives. One of the primary reasons behind hiring Account Executives is to keep track of clients and their needs from the advertising agency. The Executives ensure that the clients have whatever they need and their accounts are closed eventually. Now in the current situation, specialists have been bypassing executives. The executives henceforth, have no idea, regarding the account given to him by the agency to take care of. If things continue to be like this, eventually the agency will be left without any executives. The goals of the agency and the specialist’s conflict. The goal of the in house specialist is to ensure that his/her idea is brought by the client. Consumer behavior governs product innovation according to changing times and trends. There is no warning before hand. Where technology is concerned, even technology is non routine at Aquarius agency. There is a lot of emphasis on creativity and art. This makes it perpetually impossible to keep updated with a routine stagnant technology. The goals of the agency are customer satisfaction in the long run and this can be done by engaging them as often as possible. The agency should capitalize on technological advances to come up with better ideas and to promote the ideas produce by its in-house specialists. New technologies should be used and capitalized upon to project better more creative ideas of the specialists. In this way the agency will be successful in building its clientele base and attract new clients in the process. It will demonstrate its commitment to the client and their willingness to appease them and work them to give them what they want. In the given case study, it specified that the agency intends to make it more flexible. They want to adopt a less rigid and a more adaptable approach to be able to tackle any changes and meet any eventuality. They also plan on increasing cooperation and communication between different departments responsible for giving the clients their desired advertising needs. All that is needed is some cooperation on the part of the specialists. They need to follow the rules and align their goals with the goals of the agency. It is only then, when the future goals of the agency would be met. The agency is relatively medium sized. This may be a hindrance and give potential clients the impression that the agency wills somewhere not is able to cope up with the demands of the clients. However a small size is easier to manage and organizational changes within the firm. Any decisions regarding change management should be taken by the agency when it is undergoing re-organization. This will ensure that the impact on declining performances on employees is as little as possible.      2. Design a new organization structure that takes into consideration the contextual variables in the case and the information flows. Most of the contextual variables didn’t fare well and need to be improved. Research specialists ought to be looking for new and improvised ways to help improve the presentation of proposal offerings. They can do so by keeping in touch with their clientele base and getting their input and opinion too. On the whole the firm’s interest should be given utmost priority. The interests of every other person should be given the secondary priority. Employees should be made aware of the fact that they are working in a firm where team work will be appreciated open hand.             The goal each person working in the firm should be secondary to what the firm’s goal is. Team work and team effort should be the key to goal accomplishment for employees. All employees must be told clearly and distinctly that they should work together in harmony. No employee should disc the other employee and try to force their authority on each other. The rules specified in the organization’s charter are supposed to be followed and are not there to be just memorized. They need to be implemented. It should be noted that in the long run the agency aims at slowing down its’ response time to any external changes. This won’t be a wise approach and will hinder innovation and quality of products. The agency should adopt for an approach which would adapt to changes in the environment as quickly as possible. Skill development sessions and seminars should be conducted for specialists. The sessions should cool down the overall working environment of the agency and would be a compromise for the relatively strict policies observed in the organization. Various approaches can be adopted to change the company’s organizational structure. Account managers can be delegated the position of project managers. The entire product structure can be re-designed and reporting lines re-established. This means that each department should be reporting to the account executive. There are various management styles available. Top down management, bottom up and even a hybrid structure. The kind of management style incorporated, in the process affects employee motivation. . Top down management style is basically a management structure in which managers are appointed is impromptu. Relevant qualifications are the only points of consideration but work experience does not count. On the contrary, bottom up management style believes in experience, and most promotions are based on the work experience acquired. (Gareth R.Jones, 2009) The bottom up management style can have a huge impact on employee motivation. It works to inculcate this feeling in employees that there exists still another chance to prove them, and they will be promoted based on their performance not on the experiences. Any insecurities die and a hard working, energetic work force drives the organization at large. However, advocates of top down management argue that the person alone is not wholly responsible for subscribing the ideas in hand; they are time consuming and bring forth a considerable waste of resources. Given the circumstances at Aquarius both these styles are unfavorable and a hybrid structure seems more feasible. (Higgs, 2001) A hybrid form of structure can be a possible viable option. In this structure, the account executives report to client group vice presidents. This is comparable to the “product” form striations. Most departments working at the functional level can in turn report to the account executives. The functional departments include research, merchandising, media, and copy and art department. However some functional departments like legal, counsel, finance and personnel who would report directly to the president cannot be ruled out. The structure would be compatible with the unpredictable environment of the agency and would help enable the unit go through customer driven adaptation for changes. The customer would be of prime importance in such an environment and there would be high coordination and communication across different functions pertaining to any given customer’s account. Both horizontal and vertical information flows would be considered as vital to produce the desired results and to retain customer satisfaction. 3. Would a matrix structure be feasible for Aquarius? Why or why not? Various requirements need to be considered to determine if a matrix structure would be feasible or not. First and foremost in his case, dual domain can be a competitive issue. This is because service and creativity go hand in hand with technical competence within every function. Effective coordination would be needed henceforth across every function. The environment is not very uncertain. It’s an advertising agency and the environment of an advertising agency is not that uncertain. This means that there is a lot of room for constant changes. The potential for instability is bigger in other industries such as computer chip manufacturers, sub manufacturers etc. it is only marginally uncertain in this industry. Customers keep changing agencies very rapidly. There is constant preferential choice take over. As a result, employees move from one agency to the next. New developments and techniques also keep taking in this industry. Another thing that needs to be kept in mind to see if matrix structure would be feasible is resources would be shared in all products. Yes, for an advertising agency all resources would be share. One of the major problems of moving into a hybrid structure which has account executives is the duplication of functional resources. These account executives functioning as the central line of authority tend to prioritize their resource requirements over and above everything else. Unless the agency is big enough to accommodate all these resources, it cannot afford to have teams of art, copy, merchandising, media and research specialists individually. The resources have to be shared. This is one of the biggest requirements of a matrix structure. So yes, on this ground the matrix structure does seem appropriate and feasible for Aquarius Advertising. However in this particular situation, the biggest recommendation would be immediate implementation of the structure. However certain things need to be kept in mind. The matrix structure can be only effective when and if managers are experienced and insist on working as team players and undermining others from their authority. At Aquarius the individuals do not have the organizational suaveness necessary for a matrix structure to flow smoothly. As mentioned before, the account executive that is designated to be the link between clients and specialists is easily bypasses. This cannot be allowed in a matrix structure, for if it happens in a matrix structure, Aquarius would have a complex management system taking over it. There will still be a communication and coordination lapse and coordination needed between various functions would not be as wanted and required. With adequate training, managers and account executives could mature themselves and grow into a matrix form. However at the bet, the best way out would be to strengthen the current work force and make sure that job descriptions are clearly communicated to both account executives and specialists. Part 2: "By implementing strict controls to avoid misbehavior at work, the control mechanism provokes misbehavior even more!" In this context, explain with relevant examples various forms of misbehavior and their dimensions. Use relevant academic material to underpin your arguments. Implementation of strict controls can make employee stubborn and rigid. Sometimes it has an adverse reaction instead of a positive one and employees become more stubborn than ever. They tend to get frustrated and irritable at the sudden influx of new rules on their and feel insulted and deprived of their liberty and authority. In the process, they become rebellious and deliberately try to defy norms and break rules. The situation becomes worse when their own interests clash with the rules and controls imposed on them. They become agitated and dissatisfied with the company. They are unable to fulfill their commitment towards the organization. It is primarily because they feel too stifled with all the strict controls. They feel hand tight and deliberated. Organizational misbehavior is considered to be the intentional action by employees of an organization to deliberately violate the organizational culture and norm existing within the organization. There could be violating anything is they the societal values, the mores, and the standards of proper conduct. Problematic behavior at work place is no new concept and phenomenon. It has been experienced and witnessed before too at work places. Employees deliberately work slow; defy rules and norms to escape from more work load. There is enough evidence to suggest that this is an over bearing cost for the organization. When strict controls are implemented employees retreat and it has been observed at various instances. For example, in the United States, almost 95% of all business experience problems such as employee theft and friction to controls placed within the organization. This has been reported to be a loss of twenty five billion dollars per year due to this kind of behavior by employees. (Higgs, 2001) Literature claims that organization misbehavior is a result of various factors, both at the individual as well as the organizational level. It’s not predictable and neither can it be gauged beforehand. The motives, frequency and intensity of organizational misbehavior vary in different situations. However in most cases, organization misbehavior becomes more intense when strict controls are applied. For instance, if employees are imposed upon a reporting hierarchy, they start automatically developing grudges against each other within the hierarchy. As a result the discomfort level, lobbying and grouping starts creeping in. (R.E.Goodin, 1975) Verdi and Weiner came up with a motivational framework in 1996. In their framework, they considered different examples related to organizational misbehavior at the individual level. There were various factors involved that controlled this kind of behavior. These included personality, loyalty and satisfaction of personal needs. At the organization a different breed of factors controlled employee misbehavior. These included factors such as control systems, the goals of the employee and the organizational culture. Organizational culture has been considered by many as an important deterrent in determining the link between motivation and employee behavior and what about organizational culture that prompts employee misbehavior. Motivation is apparently a psychological force that helps determine the direction of a person’s behavior in an organization, a person’s level of effort, and a person’s level of persistence in the face of obstacles. In the context, direction of a person’s behavior refers to a myriad of behaviors that a person can engage in. The degree of hard work put in refers to the effort while persistence highlights the reaction of employees in hard times. Motivation stands at the heart of management because it elaborates on ‘why’ people behave the way they do so in an organization. It can come from both intrinsic as well as extrinsic behaviors. Intrinsically motivated behavior is the behavior that originates from the work itself and is in essence performed for its own sake. Extrinsically motivated behavior is the behavior that is executed to acquire material rewards and to avoid punishments. In this case, the source of behavior is the consequence of behavior rather than the behavior itself. For example, a car sales person receives is motivation from the commission he earns on all the cars sold, while a factory employee derives his motivation from the secure income that comes in with his job. Irrespective of intrinsic or extrinsic motivation, people work in organizations to achieve what many refer to as ‘outcomes’. An outcome is the gain a person derives from working in an organization. Outcomes vary for different people and can range from things such as autonomy to a feeling of accomplishment that comes from doing an interesting job. (Gareth R.Jones, 2009) For the uninitiated organizational culture refers to certain set norms, beliefs and practices as shared by the members of an organization. Organizational culture plays a very important role in shaping employee sincerity and commitment towards the organization. If the organizational culture is well received by the employee, chances of being motivated enough to perform exceptionally well are high as opposed to if the situation is otherwise. Bibliography Gareth R.Jones, J. M. (2009). Contemporary Management. Mc-Graw Hill Irwin. Higgs, J. (2001). The Jobs Challenge. The Economist. R.E.Goodin. (1975). How to determine who should get what. Ethics , 310-21. Martin W Hodge gate “From care to action, making a sustainable world.” William Theodore De Bary “ Sources of Union tradition” http://www.ling.lancs.ac.uk/groups/slarg/lancawe/data/t3/126-SS04-CH-M-PG-MAN-Y-B-T3.txt , retreived May 2008 Read More