Case 1
Kaiyur Computer Company
A small group of managers at Kaiyur Computer Co. met regularly on Thursday morning to develop a statement and capturing what they considered to be the "Kaiyur Culture". Their discussions were wide ranging, covering what they thought their firm's culture was, what it should be and how to create it. Implicitly,they were probably influenced by other firms in their environment, as they were located in the Electronic and Computer Zone of Mumbai, Maharashua.Kaiyur Computers was a new firm, having been started just a year ago. Since the organisation was still in the infant-stage, managers decided that it would be timely to create and instill the type of culture they thought it would be most appropriate for their organisation. After several weeks of brainstorming, debating, and @writing, the management group eventually produced a document called "Kaiyur Ethical Codes" which described the company as they saw it. The orga~lisatioru'al culture statement covered such topics as "Treatment of Customers", "Relations among work colleagues", "Preferred style of social comrnunicat~on", "Our I Decision Making Process" and the "Nature of our workiqg Environment".'.
Vijay Saxena read over "Kaiyur Ethical Codes", shortly after he was hired as a Senior Consultant for software training. After observing managerial and employee behaviour at Kaiyur's for a few weeks, he was struck by the apparently wide discrepancy between the values expressed in the document and what he observed as actual practice within the organisation. For example, the Kaiyur Ethical Codes' contained statements like : "Quality : attention to detail is our trademark. Quality is never an accident but to work on it deligently and regularly. Our goal is to do it right the frrst time. We intend to deliver defect-free products and services to our custonlers on the date promised". However, Vijay Saxena was already seen sending reports showing that a number of defective computers were being shipped to customers. And his personal experience supported his worst fears, when he borrowed five brand new Kaiyur computers fram the despatch room for use in a training class and found that only two of them started up correctly without additional technical work on his part.
Another example of difference between the "Kaiyur Code of Ethics" and actual practice concerned the statement on communication. It stated that "managing by personal communication is part of the Kaiyur's way. We value and encourage open, direct, person-to-person communication as a part of our daily routine".Executives and officers bagged, about how they arranged their chairs to show equality and facilitate open communications wherever they met to discuss the "Kaiyur Ethical Codes". Vijay had heard the "Open Communication" buzzword a lot, since coming to Kaiyurs' but hadn't seen much evidence of it. As a matter of fact, all others meetings used a more traditional layout ,with top executives at the front of the room. Vijay believed that the real organisational culture that was developing at Kaiyur 's was characterised by secrecy and communication that followed the formal chain of commanci, i.e. level of status by level of status downwards or upwards. Even the "Kaiyur Ethical codes" Vijay was told, had been created in secret.
Vijay soon became d:sillusioned. He confided in a colleague one afternoon that "Kaiyur Ethical Codes document was so at variance with what people saw and did every.day, that very few of them took it seriously". Employees quickly learnt what was truly emphasised in the organisation-hierarchy, secrecy, and expediency - and focussed upon these things instead, ignoring most of the concepts incorporated in the document of "Ethical Codes". Despite his frustration, Vijay Saxena stayed with Kaiyur's until it filed for bankruptcy two years later. "Next time", he thought to himself as he cleaned out his desk. "I will pay more attention to what is actually going on, and less to what 'top management' says is true".Furthermore, he thought to himself, "I guess you just cannot create ethical codes and values that can be followed in practice".
Questions
(a) What is more important, the statements in a corporate culture or managerial behaviour ? Why ?
(b) Why did the executives of Kaiyur Computer Co. act as they did ?
(c) Why don't employees like Vijay Saxena confront the organisation, and challenge the inconsistency between values, ethics and behaviour ?
(d) How can executive go about changing the old values that govern an organisation ?
Case 2
Unique Auto Corporation
As a large supplier of automobile accessories, lighting equipment and plastic parts, this company enjoyed favourably high reputation to supply superior products and competitive prices and in keeping with buyers' schedules. Each year tooling for new models of automobiles, millions of rupees was spent, and re-arrangement of factory flow plan was undertaken. This work necessitates a large force, the management of which is given very close attention.Until seven years (1991) ago, a portion of the formal organisation structure of the production plant was as shown in Figure .
Kaiyur Computer Company
A small group of managers at Kaiyur Computer Co. met regularly on Thursday morning to develop a statement and capturing what they considered to be the "Kaiyur Culture". Their discussions were wide ranging, covering what they thought their firm's culture was, what it should be and how to create it. Implicitly,they were probably influenced by other firms in their environment, as they were located in the Electronic and Computer Zone of Mumbai, Maharashua.Kaiyur Computers was a new firm, having been started just a year ago. Since the organisation was still in the infant-stage, managers decided that it would be timely to create and instill the type of culture they thought it would be most appropriate for their organisation. After several weeks of brainstorming, debating, and @writing, the management group eventually produced a document called "Kaiyur Ethical Codes" which described the company as they saw it. The orga~lisatioru'al culture statement covered such topics as "Treatment of Customers", "Relations among work colleagues", "Preferred style of social comrnunicat~on", "Our I Decision Making Process" and the "Nature of our workiqg Environment".'.
Vijay Saxena read over "Kaiyur Ethical Codes", shortly after he was hired as a Senior Consultant for software training. After observing managerial and employee behaviour at Kaiyur's for a few weeks, he was struck by the apparently wide discrepancy between the values expressed in the document and what he observed as actual practice within the organisation. For example, the Kaiyur Ethical Codes' contained statements like : "Quality : attention to detail is our trademark. Quality is never an accident but to work on it deligently and regularly. Our goal is to do it right the frrst time. We intend to deliver defect-free products and services to our custonlers on the date promised". However, Vijay Saxena was already seen sending reports showing that a number of defective computers were being shipped to customers. And his personal experience supported his worst fears, when he borrowed five brand new Kaiyur computers fram the despatch room for use in a training class and found that only two of them started up correctly without additional technical work on his part.
Another example of difference between the "Kaiyur Code of Ethics" and actual practice concerned the statement on communication. It stated that "managing by personal communication is part of the Kaiyur's way. We value and encourage open, direct, person-to-person communication as a part of our daily routine".Executives and officers bagged, about how they arranged their chairs to show equality and facilitate open communications wherever they met to discuss the "Kaiyur Ethical Codes". Vijay had heard the "Open Communication" buzzword a lot, since coming to Kaiyurs' but hadn't seen much evidence of it. As a matter of fact, all others meetings used a more traditional layout ,with top executives at the front of the room. Vijay believed that the real organisational culture that was developing at Kaiyur 's was characterised by secrecy and communication that followed the formal chain of commanci, i.e. level of status by level of status downwards or upwards. Even the "Kaiyur Ethical codes" Vijay was told, had been created in secret.
Vijay soon became d:sillusioned. He confided in a colleague one afternoon that "Kaiyur Ethical Codes document was so at variance with what people saw and did every.day, that very few of them took it seriously". Employees quickly learnt what was truly emphasised in the organisation-hierarchy, secrecy, and expediency - and focussed upon these things instead, ignoring most of the concepts incorporated in the document of "Ethical Codes". Despite his frustration, Vijay Saxena stayed with Kaiyur's until it filed for bankruptcy two years later. "Next time", he thought to himself as he cleaned out his desk. "I will pay more attention to what is actually going on, and less to what 'top management' says is true".Furthermore, he thought to himself, "I guess you just cannot create ethical codes and values that can be followed in practice".
Questions
(a) What is more important, the statements in a corporate culture or managerial behaviour ? Why ?
(b) Why did the executives of Kaiyur Computer Co. act as they did ?
(c) Why don't employees like Vijay Saxena confront the organisation, and challenge the inconsistency between values, ethics and behaviour ?
(d) How can executive go about changing the old values that govern an organisation ?
Case 2
Unique Auto Corporation
As a large supplier of automobile accessories, lighting equipment and plastic parts, this company enjoyed favourably high reputation to supply superior products and competitive prices and in keeping with buyers' schedules. Each year tooling for new models of automobiles, millions of rupees was spent, and re-arrangement of factory flow plan was undertaken. This work necessitates a large force, the management of which is given very close attention.Until seven years (1991) ago, a portion of the formal organisation structure of the production plant was as shown in Figure .
 |
| Organisation Structure of Unique Auto Corporation in 1991 |
Definite functionalisation was believed necessary. For example, if a problem arose in die casting, one person or a group of persons in die-casting was responsible and stayed with the problem until a satisfactory answer was found. Experience showed,however, that too much time was spent in the shop by productive personnel who as a consequence did not have sufficient time for designing or developing work.Further, it proved extremely difficult to estimate time and cost for following upon tooling and trouble shooting.
As a result, the organisation structure was changed to that shown in Figure .This change took place in 1995.
This change was triggered by the new works managers who joined the company at that time. Ofcourse, the unsatisfactory results from the existent organisation made the suggested move to improve it was highly accepted. The new Works Manager believed that emphasis upon specialisation and industrial engineering were what was needed. A comparison of organisation structures given in Figure and. Figure reveals that immediately below the Works Manager, a department of Industrial Engineering was established with units of work standards and plant layout. In addition, Production Engineering was established with four engineering department, viz. process, tool, plant and development. This represented some shuffling around of the activities that had been under the Director of Facilities
This change was triggered by the new works managers who joined the company at that time. Ofcourse, the unsatisfactory results from the existent organisation made the suggested move to improve it was highly accepted. The new Works Manager believed that emphasis upon specialisation and industrial engineering were what was needed. A comparison of organisation structures given in Figure and. Figure reveals that immediately below the Works Manager, a department of Industrial Engineering was established with units of work standards and plant layout. In addition, Production Engineering was established with four engineering department, viz. process, tool, plant and development. This represented some shuffling around of the activities that had been under the Director of Facilities
However, to date, tliis arrangement has not resulted in solving the problem that existed before, its adoption.Personnel from Industrial Engineering gave extra effort to locate and analyse the various production problems being encountered but in general their efforts were late and, in a number of cases, duplicated the efforts of specialists from tool engineering and also process engineering. Further, the spec+alist approaches a problem from a relatively narrow view point. Feedback and communication are poor. Estimators and planners were not aware of production or design problems. In several instances, the designers were putting this year's mistakes into next year's tools. Further, the production person's problem were not being reflecled in the new cost estimates being prepared.
The Works Manager is very much concerned aboul the present situation. For the first two months of the model year which concluded in 1995 the company, in order to maintain its reputation for meeting buyers schedules, has spent over 200 crores in air shipments and 500 crores in overtime.
Questions
The Works Manager is very much concerned aboul the present situation. For the first two months of the model year which concluded in 1995 the company, in order to maintain its reputation for meeting buyers schedules, has spent over 200 crores in air shipments and 500 crores in overtime.
Questions
(a) What is the problem faced by Unique Auto Corporation ?
(b) Other than those of organising, what factor would you feel might have influence upon the problem faced by this company ? Why ?
(c) Point out the major changes made in the company going from the organisation structure shown in Figure 8.4 to that in Figure.
(d) What action do you recommend the works manager take ?Why ?
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