My article I found was on how the recession is affecting employees. Researchers at Southern Arkansas University and University of Arkansas have created a model backed on data collected in 2009. It found that job satisfaction is impacted by many different things. Rewards/Salary is a large portion of the article. As employees become more worried about financial issues it shows that commitment and engagement with the company are all affected detrimentally. The employee becomes so w orried that they become less engaged with the company. This is a double edged sword because they are worried about their job but the stress of finances reduces their productivity in the job thus reducing how well the company is doing.
http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/12/01/how-to-avoid-employee-depression-in-a-recession
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Cisco without John Chambers---?
When AIG, Citi, and General Motors went into tailspins after the financial bubble burst in 2008, they abruptly changed leadership. Lehman Brothers had just declared bankruptcy after 158 years in business. Merrill Lynch had been snapped up in a fire sale by Bank of America. But Cisco Systems did not, and now in his 14th year as CEO, John Chambers has led one of the biggest comebacks of modern times. Cisco CEO John Chambers is one of the most revered executives in the history of the technology industry. Since talking over as CEO of Cisco in 1995, Chambers has grown the company's revenue from $1 billion to more than $40 billion. For 15 years, he has been a soothing, straightforward presence in the industry, free of the bombast and arrogance that so often characterizes big-league CEOs. But Cisco is in news these days.
The CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, admits that his company has disappointed investors, as well as leaving their employees confused. Chambers pointed out that Cisco lost some credibility that was crucial to its success, according Cnet. Chambers also said that Cisco and the marketplace are in a transition, and the company needs to help define the transitions. Chambers has grown Cisco's earnings per share over the past decade--Cisco's EPS have climbed from $0.36 in 2000 to $1.36 in 2010--but he has increasingly lost the confidence of the market.
Cisco, one of the valley's best performers over the past decade, has stumbled in recent months: Profits are down from a year ago, its core business is under attack, and the company's stock has plummeted to nearly its lowest point in more than two years -- costing shareholders billions of dollars and prompting Chambers to announce a corporate overhaul that could lead to significant layoffs this summer.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_18211227?source=rss&nclick_check=1
http://blogs.cisco.com/news/message-from-john-chambers-where-cisco-is-taking-the-network/
The CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, admits that his company has disappointed investors, as well as leaving their employees confused. Chambers pointed out that Cisco lost some credibility that was crucial to its success, according Cnet. Chambers also said that Cisco and the marketplace are in a transition, and the company needs to help define the transitions. Chambers has grown Cisco's earnings per share over the past decade--Cisco's EPS have climbed from $0.36 in 2000 to $1.36 in 2010--but he has increasingly lost the confidence of the market.
Cisco, one of the valley's best performers over the past decade, has stumbled in recent months: Profits are down from a year ago, its core business is under attack, and the company's stock has plummeted to nearly its lowest point in more than two years -- costing shareholders billions of dollars and prompting Chambers to announce a corporate overhaul that could lead to significant layoffs this summer.
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_18211227?source=rss&nclick_check=1
http://blogs.cisco.com/news/message-from-john-chambers-where-cisco-is-taking-the-network/
AOL and Time Warner
HI,
"Introduction 10th January 2000 was a historical day in media world when AOL planned to acquire Times Warner for around 182 billion in stock and debt . It was a marriage of old-and new media-titans It is one of the largest deals in corporate history of USA , and this combines the USA ‘s top internet service provider with the world ‘s top media conglomerate . The new company was worth 350 billion and represents an unprecedented media powerhouse . The other side of the story is it is even the merger of two very different corporate cultures and methodologies .AOL Culture versus Times Warner Culture There are significant difference in culture of AOL and Time Warner . The major reason for a cultural difference is the generation gap among the people working in both the organization. AOL has young employees while Times Warner has employee‘s can act as fatherly figure to AOL employees. The cultural differences broaden as AOL take over Times Warner and the reporting authority changes".
I think organization culture differences between the two organization was huge and that's why there was a culture crash because of the gender differences and also difference in the style of culture......The two cultures clashed with the Time Warner employees thinking that the AOL employees are aggressive and the AOL employees thinking that the Time Warner people are lazy it is actually the way each organization perceive the things.
Secondly in order for the merger to work Time Warner will have to change their Decentralized style of organization structure to a Management one because AOL uses the Centralized way of doing the things and on its own it did not had much problem working under one roof, But before the merger, it was a relatively small company focused mostly on Internet access. Now it has more diversity in its business with Time Warner in is picture. The last major change in AOL’s operations was the shift to flat pricing, and the company fumbled it miserably with widespread service outages as the company couldn’t keep up the increased demand for its service. This time, the stakes are much higher.
Third Ahead of the merger the companies announced their new chief talent scout Michelle James she works with AOL Time Warner to identify top talent both internally and externally , in my opinion her leadership traits and styles has proven her to effective in her work like openness and extra-version she was at times Directive in her style but also Supportive to people she recruit , Her charisma shows that she is a Transformational Leader as one of the executive of AOL once said that “Michele has made outstanding contributions to our company as AOL’s chief talent scout, and we are very excited that her energy, resources and experience are now available globally. With Michele at the helm, we are confident that AOL Time Warner will continue to attract and develop the world’s best talent and be a magnet for a broad range of people and perspective.
This Merger had both the negative and positive impacts but positive was more than the negatives, like there was a culture difference between the organizations but after appointing Michelle these differences were slowly becoming negligible because she knew her roles and responsibilities.
This Merger had both the negative and positive impacts but positive was more than the negatives, like there was a culture difference between the organizations but after appointing Michelle these differences were slowly becoming negligible because she knew her roles and responsibilities.
What do you think about the Merger and also about Michelle roles and responsibilities with respect to organization behavior?
AYUSHI SHARMA
References
ZAPPOS AND TONY HSIEH
In this article, I can recognize some of the factors that possessed by Mr. Hsieh as the successful chief leader in Zappos. Those factors are include personal traits, leadership style, organizational culture, and employees satisfaction.
After reading some article, I realized that Zappos organizational culture is a huge part of every association's success. Just like Mr. Hsieh said in the interview: I think it really boils down to our focus on company culture. How do they continue their unique culture in Zappos? One important thing is that they use formal orientation program to indoctrinate new employees to the company culture. Once they hire someone, they immediately enter into four weeks of training, during this time, they are immersed in learning about what is Zappos, what Zappos do, and what is Zappos culture. This means people learn and become part of the culture right away, instead of learning about it over time by watching others. In addition, company's physical layout is one of their culture. Zappos creates an environment of comfort for employees such as they can play musical instruments when they feel tired or wear what they want during the work, so that employee can focus on producing their best possible product. A casual observation of their work environment sends the message that employees who work there see their work as fun.
For leadership style, Mr. Hsieh's personal traits are including the following: openness, creativity, open to new ideas, and sociable. For example, in regard to the openness and open to new ideas, Mr. Hsieh is willing to talk with employees, and collect creative ideas from them. He also respects all of the employees who work with him, and considers them as one of the important partners of the company. For example, according to the article, employees know that they were hired not only because they are a great culture fit, but because they have innovative spirits, and a “look outside the box” mentality. By allowing employees to have the power and authority to make decisions, Zappos shows them that not only trust their judgment, also appreciate their contributions to the team and company. Therefore, Mr. Hsieh is a people-oriented leader. He concerns employees' feelings and treats them with respect in his actions or decisions.
This leadership style affects his decision making such as democratic decision making. For example, he encourages employees to participate in decision making processes. Also, productivity and engagement can increase with empowerment, as it allows for a creative and open work environment. Zappos' employees feel great level of trust, and be inspired to do what is best for the overall success of the business.
Furthermore, Mr.Hsieh thinks that employees can enjoy their works and will endeavor to achieve the organizational goals. Mr. Hsieh assumes that employees will act in the best interests in Zappos, thus he allows employees' autonomy and encourages strong employee commitments to achieve particular goals. For instance, some of the call center supervisors even took out the walls between their cubicles to allow for more employee interaction. Mr. Hsieh emphasizes on maintaining a work environment, where employees can be innovative and prosperous within their roles.
In the end, Amazon has agreed to a stock takeover of Zappos in 2009. After these two company acquisition, will Zappos change their unique culture in order to cooperate with Amazon? Or they should insist on their culture or continue it's unique organization culture for next ten years?
Reference:
KO CHEN
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