Comparative Study of Wegmans’ and Giant’s Management Styles and the Effects on their Organizational Culture Leadership and Organizational Behavior Professor Rainwater 20 April 2010 Abstract Organizational culture can be defined as a set of understandings or meanings shared by a group of people that are largely tacit among members and are clearly relevant and distinctive to the particular group which are also passed on to new members (Louis, 1980). A review of two long-time super grocers, Wegmans and Giant, suggests that an organization's culture develops to help it cope with its environment. Wegmans’ has a defined culture that is visible in all aspects of the business and can be considered a major attribute to the …show more content…
This was an enormous change from the original Carlisle Meat Market because it offered customers the opportunity to purchase dry goods and perishables in a modern facility and more importantly, in one place (“Giant Food” Wikipedia, 2010). In 1970, Giant made a strategic decision to compete with larger regional supermarket chains and in so doing purchased the Martin’s chain. With 24 stores now in operation, this made it more difficult for the Javitch family to personally supervise the operations. At Wegmans, third generation Colleen Wegman serves as its president and references that the main goal of their business is to make Wegmans a great place to shop and a great place to work—good people working together towards a common goal is the main objective (“Hiring Practices”, 2010). Currently at Giant, Nick Riso is appointed President and Lee Javitch, David's son, assumed the position of Chairman (“Giant Food”, Wikipedia, 2010). Giant is a company that describes their philosophy as teamwork, diversity, customer service, and community service. Unfortunately, Giant does not provide us with its core values as Wegmans does. It is known today that core values are important to any organization because it is a set of rules that the company operates off of as well as hold each employee of the company accountable. Wegmans’ employees are empowered by their core values whereas Giant employees can only
The term "culture" has been used more and more recently but what exactly does it mean? Some have even regarded culture as "the most central problem of all social science" (Malinowski, 1939). According to Merriam Webster (2016), culture is defined as the arts and other manifestations of human achievements. If culture was as simple as Merriam-Webster defines it then the lives of anthropologists, sociologists, and psychologists would be much easier. As we know, culture varies greatly across religion, countries, and some cases in just states; the difference between the north and the south. We can conclude that culture is a set of shared thoughts, values, and cognitions (Geertz, 1973). With culture in itself varying tremendously based on values and location, then surely organizational culture is no simple concept either. The term "organizational culture" has just recently become to be used more (Barley, 1988). Though there may be disagreements on defining culture universally, researchers tend to agree that culture is of vital importance in an organizational context, whether that organization is a company or a government (Kilmann, Saxton, & Serpa, 1986).
In addition to this new concept, their stores offered other pioneering ideas such as vaporized water spray for fruits and vegetables and refrigerated food display windows. In the 1970’s Wegmans began opening stores that were 40,000 square feet or more, intending to incorporate a “mall in a store” concept (Wegmans Food Markets, Inc. History, 2016). By the early 1990s the company was offering over 1,000 of its own store brand items that have become wildly popular.
Culture is an observable, powerful force in any organization. “Made up of its members’ shared values, beliefs, symbols, and behaviors, culture guides individual decisions and actions at the unconscious level. As a result, it can have a potent effect on a company’s well-being and success” (One Page, n.d.).
Wegmans’ model of contribution and giving back to its community proves to be a successful and profitable way of doing business. Wegmans’ philosophy of taking care of their employees, the customers and community that keeps them in business, insures that they will continue to expand and build positive relations with whomever they encounter. Wegman helps support the communities it surrounds by providing support for charities, employee scholarships, customer promotions and maintaining sustainability.
Organizational culture could almost be considered the roots of a company. The way a company’s employees think, the way the customers feel, and the company’s decisions are made are all based around the culture that the company has laid for itself. An employee’s values, thoughts, and actions should reflect those stated in the company’s mission. Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, while both attempting to create a culture that is comfortable and pleasing to their
Our textbook provides us with the definition of organizational culture “as the set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a group holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to its various environments” (Kinicki & Williams 227). The Publix Corporation formally states its commitment to its organizational culture in their published mission statement. One of the bullet points of the Publix mission dedication “to the dignity, value and employment security of our associates” ("Mission Statement & Guarantee").
“Culture consists of the symbols, rituals, language, and social dramas that highlight organizational life, including myths, stories, and jargon. It includes the shared meanings associated with the symbols, rituals, and language. Culture combines the philosophy of the firm with beliefs, expectations, and values shared by members. It contains the stories and myths about the company's founder and its current leading figures. Organizational culture consists of a set of shared meanings and values held by a set of members in an organization that distinguish the organization from other organizations. An organization's culture determines how it perceives and reacts to the larger environment (Becker, 1982; Schein, 1996). Culture determines the nature
McCoy’s Building Supply Centers and Chick-fil-A are two 70 years old, successful companies withstanding the test of time. They continue to sustain growth and longevity through economic turbulence, and remain competitive with new and upcoming companies. What is the secret to their success one might wonder? As we examine each company, we begin to recognize the existence of a strong organizational culture. The organizational culture of a company is the anchoring core values, which permeates throughout the company and its employees (Schermerhorn, Osborn & Uhl-Bien, 2012, pp. 9).
Since it first began in the late 1800’s, Kroger had been a store motivated to expand itsrole in the community. After first starting out by selling grocery items to customers, it began toalso sell bakery items and opened bakeries within the grocery store itself. This was a bigconvenience for the consumer to be able to shop for most of their grocery items within the samestore. The company then set its sights on the meat industry by purchasing several meat marketsand packing plants. This allowed them to provide cuts of meat to their customers so that theydidn’t have to go to another store to purchase meats. Once again, they found a needed serviceand expanded their role to capitalize on it. Over the years, Kroger’s expansion has followed
The organization culture as a leadership concept has been identified as one of the many components that leaders can use to grow a dynamic organization. Leadership in organizations starts the culture formation process by imposing their assumptions and expectations on their followers. Once culture is established and accepted, they become a strong leadership tool to communicate the leader 's beliefs and values to organizational members, and especially new comers. When leaders promote ethical culture, they become successful in maintaining organizational growth, the good services demanded by the society, the ability to address problems before they become disasters and consequently are competitive against rivals. The leader 's success will depend to a large extent, on his knowledge and understanding of the organizational culture. The leader who understands his organizational culture and takes it seriously is capable of predicting the outcome of his decisions in preventing any anticipated consequences. What then is organizational culture? The concept of organizational culture has been defined from many perspectives in the literature. There is no one single definition for organizational culture. The topic of organizational culture has been studied from many perspectives and disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, organizational behavior, and organizational leadership to name a few. Deal defines organizational culture as values,
Wegmans Food Market, Inc. is a regional supermarket chain headquartered in New York State, which has 83 stores. Since 1998, it has appeared on Fortune’s annual “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, and is ranked the fifth in 2013. This article will analyze Wegmans’
Not only is a strong corporate culture good for business by increasing customer satisfaction, it also can help to decrease turnover and save on human resources expenditures. Internal integration should start the minute a new employee enters a company. Training of new employees should include some way of helping them to understand the company's culture. The new hire training program currently in use at Wal-Mart stores includes videos and other information about the founding of the company as well as other general and specific information about the company's culture as well as expectations related to this culture. This is important because a company's culture is not always easily apparent to newcomers and this is what keeps Wal-mart's culture strong (Berg, 2001).
In 1883 Bernard (Barney) Kroger invested 372 dollars that consisted of his life savings to open the first ‘Kroger’ grocery. That first store, located at 66 Pearl Street in downtown Cincinnati, would soon turn into the giant retail chain that consists of nearly 2,500 stores all over the country and most recently produced sales of over 76 billion dollars. Barney Kroger was revolutionary in the formation of the modern grocery, in that he was the first grocer to have his own bakery, as well as selling meat and other groceries all under one roof. Kroger was also the first to manufacture the products that he in turn sold in his own store. This was the beginning of what is today one of the largest food manufacturing companies in America.
The Giant store brand was founded by the Teng family as a simple grocery store in one of the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur in 1944. Its mission was to offer a wide variety of products at the lowest possible prices. As its reputation grew, so did its business.
This paper will discuss the structure of Wal-Mart's corporate culture and how it influences their employees. In order to understand an Organization Behavior there are different elements that will create the employees perspective of the organization’s culture such as the management’s philosophy, vision, values, and goals. The driving force of these elements will create the culture of the organization. An organization’s culture will define the leadership, and dynamics of the organization. With each element listed the employees of the organization will identify this as work life that will guide their level of motivation. Depending on which level of motivation the employees are at