London 2012 Olympics - Case Study Example

London Olympics After four rounds of voting, London finally managed to win the bid to host the official Olympic Games. This makes the the first in the world to host the Olympic Games three times. The other times were 1908 and 1948. Since the last time the city hosted the Olympic Games, much has changed in terms of the number of people attending the Olympic Games, requirements, as well as the expected impacts. A consideration of these has prompted the identification and adoption of the most appropriate organisational structure to facilitate successful organisation and delivery of the London 2012 Olympic Games and its legacy. The type of organisational structure adopted to organize and deliver the 2012 Olympic Games. Pugh (1990) defines an organisational structure as the framework on which an organisation arranges its communications and authority, and allocates responsibilities/duties and rights. This framework also defines how activities are controlled and coordinated and how supervision is done to ensure the achievement of the aims of the organisation. This means that the choice of an organisational structure depends on the objectives at hand and the strategy chosen to achieve them. The type of organisational structure that has been adopted to organize and deliver the 2012 Olympic Games is functional structure. In functional type of organisational structure, an organisation is divided into departments each department being assigned its own special duties. Writing (2012) identifies the marketing department, production department, sales department, finance department, human resource department as examples of departments in business organisations. In this type of organisational structure, there is normally a functional focus and the available workforce is allocated according to their qualifications. There is, therefore, a centralisation of coordination and specialisation of tasks. The features of functional type of organisation structure are highly visible in the way the London 2010 Olympic Games has been organised. For example, many actors are working towards the successful delivery of one product, the Olympic Games and its legacy. However, they do not all work as one team. Just like the various departments of a business organisation, the various actors have been organised into various organisations, individuals and communities and vested with different responsibilities. Each of these teams, therefore, work toward the attainment of a given set of goals and a combination of all these efforts are geared toward the attainment of a unified goal; the delivery of the games and its legacy. However, there is a body among these which acts as the ultimate authority and whose role is to coordinate all the actors. The key actors in the London 2012 Olympic include the Olympic Board, the government Olympic Executive (GOE), the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA), Greater London Authority (GLA), British Olympic Association (BOA), British Paralympic Association (BPA), International Paralympic Committee (IPC), International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Mayor of London, Olympic Park Legacy Company (OPLC) and London Development Agency (LDA). Other players include various departments of the central government, devolved administrations and local authorities across the United Kingdom and other groups from nations and regions selected by LOCOG for the achievement of maximum benefits from the global event. As mentioned above, each of the individuals and organisations have special duties to accomplish to ensure that the London 2012 Olympic Games take place as planned and successfully. The Olympic Board is responsible for coordinating for proper and successful delivery of the 2012 Olympic Games and its legacy. It, therefore, performs strategic oversight of the overall Olympic programme and secures a sustainable legacy for this Olympics. This body is actually the ultimate controlling authority and thus its members are drawn from the various organisations involved. It is made up of the Mayor of London, the Minister for the Olympics and London, the Chair of BOA, and the Chair of LOCOG. Also in attendance during this board’s meetings are the Metropolitan Police Commissioner and the Minister for Sport. Just as expected in a business organisation, these members act as the top management of the London 2012 Olympic Games. GOE acts as a client for this event on behalf of the central government. It therefore leads the strategic delivery of the 2012 London Olympic Games and its legacy across the whole programme on behalf of the government. To accomplish this, it undertakes all games-related works needed by the government and reports to the Minister for the Olympics and London. In addition, it acts as sponsor to ODA. ODA is a public non-departmental body vested with the duty of ensuring the successful organisation of permanent games infrastructure and venues. It has been building or renovating the required sports venues and infrastructure (Department of Culture, Media and Sport, 2011). LOCOG/ London 2012 Organising Committee is a private company tasked with the responsibility of staging the 2012 London Olympics. It reports to the IPC and IOC. The BOA is the National Olympic Committee for Northern Ireland and Great Britain. This committee is tasked with the duty of selection, leading, preparing and managing the finest athletes for every games for the nation (team GB) at the Olympic games as well as Olympic games (as an event). It also oversees the development of Olympic movement across the UK. Almost similar to this is the BPA. The BPA is the National Paralympic Committee for Northern Ireland and Great Britain. It is responsible for selecting, recruiting, preparing, funding and managing Paralympic teams for Britain at the Paralympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games. GLA has a strategic responsibility toward the hosting of the London 2012 Olympics for Londoners. It is also tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the regeneration of East London communities and their surrounding/environment. The LDA has several duties. First it is responsible for assembling and remediating the land required to develop the Olympic Park. Secondly, it acts as the client for the interim legacy. Thirdly, it develops and delivers programmes that are needed for the delivery of economic and social benefits for Londoners from the 2012 Olympic Games. Another feature that validates the description of the structure adopted for the organisation and delivery of the London 2012 Olympics as functional is the evident level of dependence among some actors. For example, ODA ensures the production or availability of the required infrastructure and venues. These are in turn used by other actors like GOE and LOCOG to deliver what is expected of it. In a business organisation, such a situation is witnessed where one section of the organisation produces components or materials to be used by another department to produce the organisation’s products instead of buying them from outside. The main benefits associated with the functional structure and the problems that organisers might experience as a result of this structure One of the benefits associated with functional type of organisational structure is that it allows specialisation. Because of this, each unit/section or department is able to utilise the talent and knowledge of its workforce to ensure maximum production and quality. This specialisation makes the production of limited amounts of services or products efficient and predictable. The chain of command is linear and clear in this structure, for example, LOCOG reports to IPC and IOC, which in turn report to the Olympic Board. According to Miles and Snow (1992), this structure allows for efficiency in that it allows for vertical integration of activities. This means that products are sold and distributed faster. In this case, the delivery of the Olympic Games will be quick and cheap. This is unlike structures that are too rigid like the divisional structure where departments are totally independent of each other and do not require each other for the delivery of the final product. This independency increases the costs of production. The various organisations involved in the planning and delivery of the London 2012 Olympic Games might experience some problems as a result of using this structure. One of them is related to restricted communication and coordination. According to Writing (2012), such a situation arises where several departments work separately. This normally arises where each of them has its own special responsibilities to perform implying that there exist organisational boundaries among the various organisations involved in planning the 2012 Olympics. This might restrict communication and coordination among them. Mohr (1982) states that decision making under the functional structure is bureaucratic to a considerable level. This limits the undertaking of changes by various actors and this limits creativity and innovation. For example, the Olympic Board must know and approve what the other actors are doing towards the accomplishment of their responsibilities. Before this, they cannot carry on with any changes. By performing specific functions, the various actors involved will not get to have a broader view of the Olympic Games and this narrows their vision toward the overall objective of the event. The potential problems associated with a project involving a mix of different organisations and cultures basing on Handy’s model Organisational cultures play a big role in determining the extent to which organisation and individuals are dedicated to their tasks and collaborate for the attainment of a given set of goals. This means that variations in cultures are more likely to result in many potential problems in projects involving a mix of different organisations and cultures. According to managementstudyguide.com (2007), Handy identifies four types of cultures followed by organisations. These are power, role culture, personal culture and task culture. There exist differences in the way organisations approach the issue of power. For example in some cases, power is in the hands of a few people, and these few are the major decision makers. The rest of the employees do not have much say, are not free to express their views, and are prone to discrimination. This is unlike others where there are high levels of dialogue and employees are free to express their views. There is also fair treatment of all employees. This means that if such organisations were to come together to accomplish a project, there would be a clash between the employees and leaderships of the two organisations. Where they have to undertake a common task, the employees from a more democratised organisation, for example, are likely to rebel against the leaders of the less democratic organisation. There are organisations where personal culture is so powerful. In such organisations, the employees view themselves as being more important than the organisation. Because of this, they are more concerned about themselves than the organization. They never develop attachment to it, are not loyal to management, and rarely act in favour of the organisation. If such kind of employees work together with employees from an organisation where personal culture is so weak and are made to form a work group, they are likely to brush shoulders. This is because one group will be totally dedicated and loyal to its duties hence it would work hard. On the other hand, the other group will be more like a bystander at the workplace. This means one group will feel used by the other. There are some organisations with a pronounced role culture. In such organisations, each employee is assigned duties according to their areas of specialisation, interest and educational qualification. Employees of such organisations normally select what they can do best and accept challenges. They also have high levels of accountability and use hard work as a means of attaining power. However, there are some organisations where there is no specialisation and employees are assigned duties randomly. Because of this, they have little motivation to work harder because power does not come with responsibilities. If employees of these two types of organisations where to work together to accomplish a project, those who are used to a strong role culture are likely to insist on specialisation and leaders from the other organisation may not agree to this. This will make the assigning of roles difficult. Because of their task culture, some organisations and people are used to forming groups for purposes of accomplishing assigned tasks. This means that if a project has some people who are not used to this, they are likely to find it hard collaborating with others for the accomplishment of some special tasks assigned to them. References Department of Culture, Media and Sport. (2011). “Government Olympic Executive: London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Annual Report.” Online: www.culture.gov.uk/.../DCMS_GOE_annual_report_february_2011 . Accessed on 24th January, 2012. managementstudyguide.com (2007). “Charles Handy Model of Organization Culture.” Online: http://www.managementstudyguide.com/charles-handy-model.htm. Accessed on 24th January, 2012. Miles, R. and Snow, C. (1992). “Causes of Failure in Network Organizations.” California Management Review. (34) pp 53-72. Mohr, L. (1982). Explaining Organizational Behavior. Jossey-Bass Publishers. San Francisco. Pugh, D. (1990).Organization Theory: Selected Readings. Penguin. Harmondsworth. Writing, A. (2012). “Different Types of Organizational Structure.” Online: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/different-types-organizational-structure-723.html. Hearst communications Inc. Accessed on 24th January, 2012 Read More