Case Study 1
Q1 Answer: When Mulally became the CEO of Ford, he basically focused on 4 step or 4 strategies that
might help him to restore the Ford’s status. The first thing he did was to immediately change the
organizational structure or downsizing. He knew that the most of the problem aroused for Ford was due
to financial issues and the reconstruction of jobs might be more suitable for such a condition. The next
thing he did was that he started focusing on more customer driven products that are more innovative
and fulfills the most of the demands of customers and in the same time, are more profitable to the
company. Thirdly he managed the financial sources that are needed by the company to move forward
and to make the balance sheets more attractive to compel the potential and current shareholders to
invest and to create goodwill of the company. The last thing he did was that he worked on the
accountability with the workers, he actually accessed, controlled and monitored them and corrected
their mistakes which is what a manager do.
Q2 Answer: Structural implications caused by the Ford’s world class approach might promote that idea
of “survival of the best”. Many Ford employees might be redundant during reconstruction of company’s
hierarchy. The major and most important structural implication might be that there would be more
diverse culture in Fords once they go global and start their activities in different countries. This would
lead to changing in their management systems that might a problem in later context. Another problem
might be the implications on them using other country’s resources. So these all factors might be the
structural and environmental implications that might be arouse later and even some are already in the
field.
Q3 Answer: Ford’s future organizational design is based on boundary less organizational structure that
basically believes that the boundaries in between the countries are just artificial and products sold to
the customers have no limits in terms of boundaries as Ford have specified that they are going Global by
using the resources from other countries and setting their production facilities there. One plan is
basically an inappropriate approach because when you go Global, there are some other factors such as
economic and cultural conditions of the other country so not every plane is implacable to every other
country. One Ford is the most appropriate approach because this is the reason why most of the
companies functions to achieve their goals. The last approach is One Team which is again inappropriate
if we talk about Ford of going Global, because global markets have different competitors, rules and
regulation and different political condition.
Q4 Answer: Company’s vision statement is basically the reflection of the owner’s that what are they
trying to achieve in the long term and how are they going to do it. If the company goals are like having
one plan or one team, it might be motivating to some extent but they are too vague and general when it
comes to globalization. Employee’s first attention is on the mission and vision statement and that’s how
they work and portray themselves, so vision must be specific and clear that the employees remain well
motivated and they know what to achieve in their long term career or at least they are aware about
their goals.
Case Study 2
Q1 Answer: Population trends or the demographics would have a great effect on US Navy’ managerial
roles. This would create an environment to understand what managers do and how the individuals
respond. There current practices are more into preventing wars than winning wars. This idea is basically
a reflection of diversity in the US Navy forces because diverse organizations need everyone’s opinion to
move forward. Their adaptation of diverse society would attract many others from different cultures
within US and this would lead to more ethically formed organization as it would have to cater the ethical
and moral values of the people from every culture. US Navy is now representing more Latinos, Blacks
and women in their Navy forces so; these are the potential trend makers in the future of US Navy. The
functions that might be affected by the diverse culture are planning, controlling, leading and organizing.
These functions are highly defendant on the organization’s culture because these functions have to be
achieved by all members in an organization and are not limited to just some individuals.
Q2 Answers: Certainly two challenges are the most important when it comes to diversity. The first one is
the culture and background, their thinking and believes, their ethical and moral values, their way of
doing things, their habits and adaptation of a new environment. Another challenge might be the
opposition to change like many people don’t want to lose their identity and they oppose some changes
when it comes to their learning or application part. If we relate it to Hofstede theory of culture, there
might be a challenge when there would be more females in the army and gender bias might be the
potential problem. Another challenge might be the power distance because some cultures don’t like
that.
Q3 Answer: In order to be sure that once the soldiers are trained and they don’t left the navy in the later
phase, managers have to be careful. They have to make policies which give equal rights to every
employee; the working environment is free from race, gender or religion biases. Managers must assure
that their employees are well motivated once they are done with their training. These all efforts would
help the organization to use the training cost effectively because training needs a lot of time and sources
and once the employee leaves the organization once he is trained, this might be a company’s biggest
miscalculation. They have to ensure that employee is busy in job engagement which means that he is
satisfied with what he is doing and he is gaining enough motivation from that job.
Q4 Answer: Mentoring or providing sources to the mentee would help the mentee to accept the goals,
values and norms of the Navy. This would help both mentor and mentee to develop and improve
interpersonal skills, informational skills and decision making skills. In Navy, mentoring could be done
through the senior’s subordinates or the real instructors. Navy can help the mentees by giving them
opportunity to ask questions and to make their minds to be a part of navy, to participate in activities
relevant to them, asking them to be attentive all the time in order to use to the culture.