The Paradoxical Twins: Acme
and Omega Electronics
Group 09
Context
• Erie was sold to Cleveland manufacturers which in turn sold to Acme and Omega, who manufactured
PCBs
ACME
OMEGA
■ Retained its original management
■ Hired a new president
■ GM upgraded to President
■ The Annual sales of $8 Mn
■ The annual sales of $10 Mn
■ Less profitable than Acme
■ 550 employees
■ 480 employees.
■ Hierarchical structure
■ Believe Organizational charts are artificial
barrier
■ Decision taken by top management
■ Well defined job responsibilities
■ Participative management style of leadership
■ Don’t have well defined job responsibilities
Inside functioning during contract
ACME
OMEGA
■ Tyler sent a memo to various Dept. and
they started working
■ Informed all Dept. heads and met together to
discuss the blueprint
■ All reported to Tyler
■ All worked together, better internal
communication
■ During the unavailability of part they
decided to continue without it which was
time consuming
■ Didn’t focus on blueprint
■ Thus had to remodel entire structure to
accommodate the changes
■ Lack of internal communication
■ Not tested final products and Delayed
delivery
■ Ten of them were faulty
■ Decided to go with Japanese's part in case of
unavailable part
■ Found error in blueprint and corrected it
■ Tested all the machines
■ Products delivered on time
Design Structure
ACME
OMEGA
■ Organizational structure that is designed
to induce employees to behave in
predictable, accountable way
■ Organizational structure that is designed to
promote flexibility so that employees can
initiate change and adapt quickly to changing
conditions
■ Assigned duties and prohibited to take
additional duties
■ Clearly defined rules, regulations and
authority
■ Top management is the decision making
authority
■ Top down communication approach
■ Detailed organizational chart and job
description
■ Lack of cross communication between
departments
■ No clearly defined rules, regulations and
authority
■ Decentralized decision making authority
■ Different dept. contribute to common task
■ Didn’t believe in organizational charts
■ Task can be adjusted and redefined through
the employee teamwork
■ Believed in mutual adjustment
■ Informal way of communication
Why final order given to Acme?
■ Due to clearly defined goals they have long term vision
■ Deadlines were set by John himself thus, very less chances of delay
■ Had Organizational structure due to which flow of work is organized
■ Top management constantly monitor the activity
■ Hierarchical structure therefore each manager was responsible for their team and assigned
deadline
■ Due to planned structure, they were able to cut cost by 20%
■ Their design structure was appropriate for large scale production
References
■ Jones, G.R. and Mathew, M, 2017. Organizational theory, design, and change. Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson.
■ http://dineshperspective.blogspot.com/2011/04/paradoxical-twins-acme-and-omega.html
■ https://www.scribd.com/presentation/80350054/OB-Case-Study-Paradoxical-Twins
■ https://www.slideshare.net/nikita9352/acme-and-omega
Recommendations
and Conclusions
OMEGA
ACME
•
Need for innovation
•Improvement in communication channels
•Active participation by Employees/Subordinates in
decision making
•
Need for mixed organizational structure (mechanistic and
organic)
•Mass production to reduce cost of production and
improve competition in the market
•Transparent communication network
•Clear allocation of employee authority and responsibility > motivation to be in the chain of command
THANK YOU