Corning Case Study Corning is a decentralized company currently being plagued by both external and internal threats, such as market uncertainty and poor communication and planning systems. The company has just recently started to recover from a large layoff in 1975, which reduced worker job confidence. The Houghton family has a preference for an informal workplace with an ambiguous leadership style that contradicts the formal and strict resource allocation system designed for their international strategy. The current strategy being employed differs with the owner’s philosophy, which is important, since the President must buy into the plan to understand and communicate it effectively. This miscommunication creates goal incongruence, which is exemplified by the confusion of corporate divisions about whether they should be focusing on reducing cost or being an innovator. Also, each officer has been described as having work that overlaps, showing no focus and a lack of efficiency. The fact that each of the over 150 businesses groups have to write up a resource allocation request and business strategy creates the issue of finding time to read each report. Corning shifted their focus from a domestic and exporting company to a multinational manufacturing company. The lack of specialization and ambiguous leadership imposed by the Houghton family faced the problem of a required organizational structure change. However, changing the corporate structure while imposed by these demands led to an inefficient structure hybrid structure that refuses to give specialized responsibilities to MacAvoy as a Chief Operating Officer, as he has to not only watching over operations globally, but is solely in charge of the North American market, creating an inefficiency with the Chief International Officer. Corning’s resource allocation process shows another ill fated effort towards an organized and objective budgeting and planning process. The inefficiencies and disorganized implementation of the plan that resulted plague company performance. The underlying problem of inadequate communication dissemination of Corning has led the managers, workers and committees to focus on different goals. The Resource Committee and Business Committee through the splitting of a previously larger group, which was believed to be slowing down innovation due to conflicts of interest between two subgroups (cost reduction and innovation). However, by just splitting the two groups, nothing was effectively put into place to arbitrate the issue, and once again the resource committee (known for having only accountants) focused mainly on cost reduction while the business plan focused on which projects had innovative ideas.
In an evolving culture of dedication and communication, employees know desire up-to-date and precise information. Efficient communication enables employees to adapt because they have the needed information available (Smith & Milligan, 2015). This strategy will be more effectual because companies that can align individual and corporate goals will experience more prosperity. To achieve this aim, Jeffers needs to commit to becoming an exceptional communicator, otherwise leading effectively is unfeasible and he will continue to experience organizational culture
This book is important to business students because it shows that even the most seasoned executive runs into unexpected challenges and can find themselves in uncharted territory. Jim Barton’s experiences and lessons can be lessons for anyone. Any employee, whether they are support staff or a top executive, should always maintain an open mind and be ready to learn from a situation or the people around them at any time.
The Wallace Group, Inc., is a company that consists of three operational groups (Electronics, Plastics and Chemicals) and a corporate support staff. The groups operate independently from one another, but also require the support of each others products on specific contracts. Since the companies are currently working independently the focus and direction is not well defined for the Wallace Group as a whole. The Electronics group is dependant on government contracts and is currently working on projects for the Navy and Air Force for future contracts. The Plastics group is profitable and a solid performer for the products in which it makes. There is also the ability of the Plastics group to expand and seize more of the share in the market. The Chemical group, which has seen a satisfactory performance in the past year is not living up to the Wallace Groups expectations and is in need of reform.
external and focus on moneymaking. The responsibilities and decisions of a chief executive officer may seem daunting, how...
If Beverly knew about this management styles before heading into the job at Gridlock Meadows she might have been more prepared for what was about to come. This paper might have come off a little bias but remember that each management style has its positive aspects as well as negative ones. The key is recognizing the management style and how to work with each one you may encounter.
The company of Corning has gotten to the point of its popularity and run-of-the-mill house hold commonness not on pure luck alone but with a plan, a plan for innovation, and inspiration. This plan is known as Corning's Innovation Recipe; The Innovation Recipe was built upon the previous set of values dubbed Total Quality Management by the previous, now retired C.E.O James Houghton of thirteen years. He was much lauded as a great all inspiring man who at a time of great economic distress in which as Roger G. Ackerman puts it “ roughly half of the companies listed on the Fortune 500 fell by the wayside” or in layman's terms half of the big companies had gone bankrupt due to the recession at the time . The recipe is composed of five bullet points of guidance first of which is...
Without the overhaul of its management, which had fixed objective also made their objectives unattainable. The corporation was in a state of out of control before the long-range strategic objectives were set in place. GM’s nominal long-range strategic objective “to use its vast financial resources to spend its competitors right into the ground” fell short on critical characteristics of practicability, flexibility, cost effectiveness, and accountability.
Budgeting Assignment A company's budget serves as a guideline in planning and committing costs in order to meet tactical and strategic goals. Tactical goals such as providing budgetary costs for daily operations, and strategic objectives that include R&D, production, marketing, and distribution are all part of the budgeting process. Serving as a guideline rather than being set in stone, the budget is a snapshot of a manager's "best thinking at the time it is prepared." (Marshall, 2003, p.496)
Implementation of organizational growth falls to the responsibility of upper management and they develop the strategic plan for the company to flourish in the projected economic market. Oversight of this senior team can hinder the organizational projected strategy into a viable organizational process that today’s global market places high demands that make it very difficult to attain these goals or plans and bring all effort to no avail of achieving projected growth and strategy of the organization. Essential that key employees do not lack the skill to delegate responsibility as well as expect results that promote organizational growth and adherence to the strategy set by senior
And due to the unforeseen outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the situation is beyond his control. From a financial perceptive he is forced to take actions to reduce production, revenue and future endeavours. What can he do? Nevertheless, he must strategically implement a plan with a sense of urgency and restructure the worker’s responsibilities in a sensible and professional manner. Schroeder could implement the communication strategy framework and the pyramid principle to accomplish the downsizing. The strategic communication planning can be complex or simple, it depends on clearly defined the method, one that calls on analytical skills for any problem needing to be solved (Barret, D., 2014). The pyramid principle designed by Barbara Minto illustrates how to structure an effective discussion in business context and emphasizes the “top-down” approach to organizing the message (Barrett, D., 2014). The remaining employees could start to feel overworked and inundated. This can cause excessive tension and stress. Working in this type of environment the end result would be an increase in errors, irritability and reduction in
Faced with changing markets and higher competition, more and more firms are struggling to reestablish their dominance, keep market share, and in some cases, ensure their survival. Many have come to understand that the key to competitive success is to transform the way they function. They are reducing reliance on managerial authority, formal rules and procedures, and narrow divisions of work. In effect, companies are moving from the hierarchical and bureaucratic model of organization that has defined corporations since World War II to what can be called the task-driven organization where what has to be done governs who works with whom and who leads. But while senior managers understand the necessity of change to cope with new competitive realities, they often misunderstand what it takes to bring it about.
A major issue is how the budget process impacts the well-publicized innovation at Johnson & Johnson (in this case at Cordis). Is innovation suppressed or enhanced? Is there organizational learning going on and how and where does it occur? How does this relate to innovation? Do you see any evidence that innovation is encouraged or suppressed?
ING is a company with a “broad customer base, including individuals, families, small businesses, large corporations, institutions and government” that has been doing business for over 150 years. ING's structure makes acquisition much easier due to the amount of capital on hand and their ability to absorb competition instead of fighting them. Acquisition does not always end with the most favorable result but is able to further ING's footprint on the market and gives the company more opportunity in the future. ING's structure in their newly acquired Asian/Pacific branch is setup to be highly bureaucratic leaving management by committee as the standing law of the branch (see figure 1). Having many people manage a department or geographical area does have advantages and disadvantages. In ING Asia/Pacific's case a vast majority of the time thiis has lead to many employees not understanding the structure at all and left the company unable to make strategic decisions to capitalize on further business. Although the company has continued to show positive results through an unstable global market, there is a great deal that could be done to attain even more success.
Organizational structure can be defined as the “formal arrangement of jobs within an organization” (Robbins & Coulter, 2009, p. 185). Having a defined and unified structure helps employees work more efficiently. Jacques Kemp, former CEO of ING Insurance Asia/Pacific, realized this need early on in his role. The company had been performing well and recently acquired another insurance company to become “one of the largest life insurance companies in Asia-Pacific” (Schotter, 2006, p. 4). However, Kemp’s proactive personality led him to seek out ways to achieve more efficient coordination between the regional office and business units (Robbins & Coulter, 2009). Kemp noticed that “most business unit managers did not even know the current corporate standards” and he began searching for a way to manage the managers (Schotter, 2006, p. 5). ING Insurance Asia/Pacific’s organizational structure was mechanistic and fairly well structured, but for a company that had recently been involved in a major acquisition and was divided across 12 geographically dispersed markets there was a great need to tweak this structure to unify the company (Schotter, 2006). If I had been in Kemp’s position as CEO, I would have made modifications to the organizational chain of command, formalized business processes, and used technology to stimulate collaboration amongst the region to help this company overcome organizational design challenges.
In asking the consulting firm for assistance, President Paul Willard stated that the main issue within the organization was a “power struggle between people and departments.” This is precisely where the issues in both the sales and production departments are stemming from. After analyzing the situation, several issues can be pointed out in the sales department, the first being the leadership style of sales executive vice-president Ernie Lane, the second being the dramatic shift in the work force, and the third being the lack of motivation and compensation to maintain morale, satisfaction, and productivity. Most importantly, all the problems are