Organization Design in FMC Green River
Organization design is a formal, guided process for integrating the people, information and technology of an organization. It is used to match the form of the organization as closely as possible to the purpose of the organization. This design process seeks to improve and facilitate the efforts of members within the organization. With respect to FMC Corporation’s Green River, Wyoming facility, under the guidance of this entity’s site manager, Kenneth Dailey, the design should be approached as an internal changes within the organization with the entity’s members working together to define the needs of the organization then create systems to meet those needs most effectively.
FMC Green River (the “company”), in Wyoming, mines and manufactures sodium carbonate soda ash, maintaining the largest sodium tripolyphosphate plant in the world, relying on the coal and natural gas abundant in the Wyoming/Utah/Idaho basin. The company is part of the Alkali Chemicals Division of FMC that supplies sodium-based chemicals to the detergent industry, the glass industry and large commercial chemical plants. The large underground mine of the Green River facility has 400 employees and produces about 5 million tons of trona ore a year. Green River’s first plant was built between 1948 and 1953, producing approximately 1.3 million tons of various grades of soda ash a year. The second refining plant was completed in 1970, producing approximately 1.5 million tons of a single grade of soda ash a year. Currently, Dailey was in the process of supervising the construction of three new smaller plants, one each for 60,000 tons annually of sodium bicarbonate, 30,000 tons of sodium cyanide used in refining precious metals, and 60,000 tons of caustic sodium hydroxide. Upon discussions held with employees who observed the modifications made at the Aberdeen plant of South Dakota, which deals in the production of a single product related to the defense industry, whose single customer was the US Navy, Dailey is ready to identify key areas of improvement for implementation within his Green River facility based on these procedures and methods placed in Aberdeen facility, as applicable.
As indicated in the background of the company above, FMC Green River is in the business of the production of specific chemicals, competing against Texas Gulf, Ge...
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...ilitation of the feeling of family, through the notion that management truly cares. This can be reinforced through the same notions provided by Aberdeen of creating a variety of social events that help build the family culture such as plant sponsored events of sports teams, fun sport tournaments and annual social functions and or plant/team parties.
Organizational ethics can be achieved by instilling trust within the organization and its employees. Aberdeen did this well, by allowing employees to make their own decisions and judgments on the job that they felt would benefit the organization. As noted within Clawson’s, Custom Business Resources, morale at Aberdeen was consistently high. “People commented on how much they appreciated being trusted by management, having management’s help in times of need, having management who listened to their concerns and having control over their work environment, pace and structure.” This form of environment may also benefit Dailey’s Green River facilities, as employees who feel important and always feel that management will support them will willingly work better and be more productive because they will truly feel like they work as a family.
Leaders who treat their employees with fairness, honesty, and provide frequent, accurate information are seen as more effective. According to Robbins and Judge (2014), “trust is a primary attribute associated with leadership and followers who trust a leader are confident their rights and interest will not be abused” (p.193). The old General Motor Corporation had eleven different CEO’s from 1923 until 2009 each with their own unique leadership style, which directed employees toward the organization goals. Unfortunately, many of the top level managers under the CEO’s had the tendency of filtering out information that did not match up with their pre-conceived notions about a particular issue and they lacked upward communication. One consumer goal of General Motors was to build trust in the company so people would be repeat customers, but building trust between employees and establishing an ethical culture was not a top priority of the organization. Goal directed leadership alone is important, but differs from a structure of leadership based on ethics. It is important to note, that effective leadership may not be the same as leadership founded on ethical principles. Business competence must exist, along with personal leadership accountability in ethical decisions. Within the General Motors organization, ethics and leadership did not interconnect; there were misalignment between the
In the book, If Aristotle Ran General Motors, Tom Morris argues that the teachings of the ancients can and should be applied to today's corporation. His message is that the four virtues - truth, beauty, goodness, and unity - form the foundation of human excellence. Putting them into practice leads not only to self-fulfillment, but ultimately to an open, nurturing, and ethical workplace that is more productive and successful in the long-term. The purpose of this essay is to examine how Morris treats the system of ethics in relation to these four virtues.
...ints this can be accomplished by applying the remedies discussed by Rion. Applying these principles will be helpful in building relationships with customers, employees, and stakeholders. Associates who know how to handle ethical concerns are also more productive, they possess strong core values that reinforce their sense of purpose. Rion’s concepts are ethically sound, relevant, and can be supported by biblical verses like Col. 4:1, 1 Jn. 5:4, and Ro.3:31. “If you build that foundation, both the moral and the ethical foundation, as well as the business foundation, and the experience foundation, then the building won't crumble” as cited by Henry Kravis N.D.
Freedom Industries is a service provider of specialty industrial chemicals for mining, steel, and cement. The company was founded in 1986 by Gary Southern and Carl L. Kennedy and is also a producer of freeze conditioning agents, water treatment polymers, dust control palliatives and other chemicals (Freedom Industries, 2005). The chemical that was released into the water supply is known as methylcyclohexane (MCHM) and not much is known about the potential health risks of exposure to the chemical.(The Associated Press, 2014). However, there is no guarantee that there are no long term health effects caused by the chemical since regulators do not have adequate data (The Associated Press, 2014).
Trevino, L., & Nelson, K. (2011). Managing business ethics - straight talk about how to
Establishing and implementing a strategic approach to improving organizational ethics is based on establishing, communicating, and monitoring ethical values and legal requirements that characterize the firm's history, culture, and operating environment” (p. 129). Ethics programs ensure satisfactory relationships with all stakeholders by aligning with all of their demands and needs, and determine conduct with customers and relationships with regulators, shareholders, suppliers, and employees (Ferrell, 2004). Values are a core set of beliefs and principles, one or many. A number of factors contribute to the development of values. These include membership in a community or culture, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.
In conclusion, the Gore organization design may help create various types of relationships with external companies. Those relationships will vary greatly depending on the resources needed, work specialties required, personalities of the personnel involved as well as the level of technology needed or used by Gore or their external companies.
For this paper Washington Mutual has been selected to show how the ethical decision making process can be achieve. When it comes to business ethics in the workplace Washington Mutual has designed what can be considered a well balanced workplace with behaviors that are aligned with their moral values and business ethics. Business ethics are sometimes depicted as resolving conflicts where one option can appear to be the correct choice. There are many different ethical dilemmas that are faced by managers and leaders everyday that are highly complex and have no clear choice or guidelines to assist in making the choices for resolution. There are times when an employee has to decide whether or not to cheat, lie, steal, or break their contract. These ethical decisions are real-life situations where they are forced to make on a daily basis. This is why it is ultimately important that all employee know the six steps to ethical decision making that the company uses.
Global Remediation is Canadian-based remediation cleaning services company towards contaminated industrial land and water sites, which was founded in 2004 in Fredericton, New Brunswick by four partners. Through its unique remediation technology that has been achieved by rigorous testing and obtainment of exclusive regulatory approvals, Global has successfully established its name as a major player in the industry. As such, Global was faced with the inevitable need to inject more capital into the company to fund its rapid growth. There was a set of criteria that we followed in order to reach to this conclusion: opportunity cost, expected growth, cost of borrowing, and corporate governance.
I discovered how sticking to one’s morals should be the topmost priority for everyone involved in business, whether personal or professional. Regardless of what the consequences may be, the intensity of the problem, and the complexities it may bring, sacrificing one’s integrity should never be an option, as integrity goes hand-in-hand with the morals of an individual (Duggan & Woodhouse, 2011). They further go on to say that having individuals take part in building a code of ethics that supports employee integrity, they will act ethically. Also, I believe that companies should place more emphasis on the moral behavior of their employees, and clear-cut policies should be set regarding such ethical situations. Furthermore, I realized how serving justice while making decisions really helps in the long run, and that opting to go for the ideal rather than they deserved is not always the best option, and could hurt a company in more than one
A society of organizations is one in which organizations enter our lives as influential forces in a great many ways — in how we work, what we eat, how we get educated and cured of our illnesses, how we get entertained, and how our ideas are shaped’ (Henry Mintzberg 1989)
Paul Gaudin and Jean Fontaine negotiated a favorable contract for Pacific Oil Company in 1982 with Reliant Chemical Company. Gaudin and Fontaine prepared well for this negotiation, but they assumed it that negotiations would be quick and easy. Gaudin and Fontaine believed that even with the current and future market condition, a positive outcome could be obtained by offering the best service possible and having an established positive relationship. However, their aspiration to gain a favorable “re-negotiated” contract was hamstrung by competition; market expansion for vinyl chloride monomer “VCM”, and a different style of negotiation by Reliant.
Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2007). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right Fourth ed., Retrieved on July 30, 2010 from www.ecampus.phoenix.edu
Organizational structure within an organization is a critical component of the day to day operations of a business. An organization benefits from organizational structure as a result of all it encompasses. It is used to define how tasks are divided, grouped and coordinated. Six elements should be addressed during the design of the organization’s structure: work specialization, departmentalization, chain of command, spans of control, centralization and decentralization. These components are a direct reflection of the organization’s culture, power and politics.
Organizational structure is the way that an organization arranges people and jobs so that work can be performed and goals can be achieved. Good organizational design helps communications, productivity, and innovation. Many organization structures have been created based on organizational strategy, size, technology, and environment. Robbins and Judge (2011, p. 504) listed three common structures: simple, bureaucracy, and matrix. In this post the author will describe the matrix structure, and discuss its advantages and disadvantages.