“anti-hierarchy” environment in an organization Essay

It is quite obvious from the case that Apple is facing many obstacles. It has way more competitors today than it had two or three decades back. Part of it has to with the highly globalized environment that companies are operating in these days. Another major obstacle is the technological environment which is rapidly changing compared to the one that Apple experienced when it first emerged on the global scene. But the most important of it all seems to be a mental thing. It appears that Apple, over a period of time, developed a rigid mental model that related success of Apple with sheer innovation. This same mental model has lead to demise of many companies in the past, Xerox Corporation being the prime example of that.

Particularly under Steve Job, the structure was so centralized that Job was in charge of all final tasks, supervisions and decision makings. Although such autocracy getting better through the years by the effort of transformational leaders like, Tim cook, by attempting to implement a more flatter structure, the chain of command remains the same. Such hierarchal and centralized structure is a set back for innovation as well as it obstructs effective communication. The distance between the top management and front line employee not only demotivate employees but limits commitment. Therefore for Apple as technology and innovation-based company their ability or willingness to share ideas The more decentralized organizational approach promote new ideas while motivating

In today’s rapidly changing business environment, the ability to transform obstacles into opportunities can be a firm’s biggest advantage (Samašonok & Leškienė, 2015). As organizations recognize the need to be adaptable, creativity in the workplace has become one of the most important determinants of performance and success (Anderson, Potočnik & Zhou, 2014). To date, even though creativity has been linked to firm performance and survival (Nystrom, 1990), many managers admit that employees have “room to improve” in terms of creativity (Shalley, 2004).

“An organizational structure defines how job tasks are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated” (Robbins and Judge, 2007, p. 583). The six key elements that Robbins and Judge explain that managers need to address are; work specialization, departmentalization, chain of command, span of control, centralization and decentralization, and formalization. Coming from a military background, I find it easy and effective to bring in a strong chain of command. Robbins and Judge (2007) define chain of command as “an unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of the organization to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom” (p. 542). This chain of command eliminates confusion, keeps employees working on their respective tasks without distracting others with any involvement on certain areas, and can help to break up the cliques. Currently there is a jumbled Sociogram depicting unilateral and bilateral communication throughout the organization. The chain of command can stream line this communication and ensure the right tasks are being delegated and communication can be effectively transferred through the appropriate levels to increase efficiency.

Why do organizations fail? In Patrick O’Hara’s prologue of his book, Why Law enforcement Organizations Fail, he talks about how organizations are accidents waiting to happen. O’Hara gives examples of how one of the most well-known federal government agencies, the FBI, still has mishaps in their organization. In Dietrich Dorner’s book, The Logic of Failure, he talks about how humans make decisions and solve problems. Dorner believes the issue with humans solving problems is that once immediate problems are solved we do not anticipate the new ones that appear. Sam Antar in his interview with CNBC and in Lydia Segal’s journal article, Roadblocks in Reforming Corrupt Agencies: The Case of the New York City School Custodians, they talk about

In your opinion is the organization structured in a way that inhibits innovation? YES or NO

The transformed organizational model is quite different and the operating process is quite different. Figure below gives us insight into why interconnecting the stovepipes is a better option. We redisplay the organization in 'link patterns' and we see a totally new perspective. By adding the horizontal ties we have transformed a simple hierarchy into an interconnected group. Recent research by psychologist Patrick Laughlin of the University of Illinois shows that groups outperform even the best individuals in decision making. Intelligence information is rarely clear or complete -- a key reason for having many perspectives and diverse experiences for cross-pollination and sense-making. (Organizational Hierarchy, page 1 para. 10)

Due to this culture, the work unit climate is affected as well. It can be seen that there is a weak cross-functional collaboration among the departments since Jack’s leadership. This is demonstrated by Jack, who goes directly to R&D department for new projects without considering any discussion with other departments. Therefore, other departments do not functioning at their optimal level hence, it affects the organization effectiveness. Besides that, it is clear that Innostat employees only working within their own departments, and prefer to work on their achievements, hence prove that there is no common goal among them. Apart from that, Jack’s opinion on “Good ideas don’t need incentives, they need passion” (Beer, 2006) is one of the factors that affect the individual and organizational performance. Jack as a leader does not put much attention on the rewards, hence it

Meyer (2015) states that the Apple’s structure is one of the main reasons why the company is generating success. Also, the structure allows Apple Inc. to vacate business growth.

By keeping Apple populated with employees and people — keeping senior managers — who are excellent at the five skills of disruptive innovation: observing, questioning, associational thinking, experimenting and the last, networking.

The major problem every company encounters is the structure or hierarchy of the organization. Usually, it is in the form of a pyramid and gets narrower as it rises resulting in the few people on the top of the pyramid gets more advantages in the company. But the lower level employees are not given that importance when it comes to the utilization of the benefits provided by the company.

Structure and hierarchy come from how work and the work processes are coordinated together and relating how tasks and coordination of these tasks is to be obtained. When determining the authority in the structure of an organization, there are two major options, centralized and decentralized. A centralized organizational setup is where the authority to make important decisions is retained by managers at the top of the created hierarchy whereas a decentralized organizational setup is where the authority to make important decisions about organizational resources and to initiate new projects is delegated to managers at all levels in the hierarchy. Each choice is made based upon the main goal/task of the organization and what would better fit the organization. Whether work/the

Employees are said to depict positive behaviors like innovative behavior and OCB when the individuals feel the support of the organization, i.e., perceived organizational support (POS) and negative behaviors like CWB in a non-supportive organization (Scheuer, 2010). From this perspective the workplace deviance can be triggered with respect to the unfavorable or unsupportive working conditions. (Colbert, Mount, Harter, Barrick, & Witt, 2004). Thus this leads to the organizational context that has to be taken into account in deviance research (Bennett, Aquino, Reed & Thau, 2005). Even leader behaviors are said to influence the perception of the organizational climate (Lewin, Lippitt & White, 1939). Effectiveness within the organization builds up a trusting relationship between the leader and the sub-ordinates that will have positive consequences. When the employee perception of organization related factors are taken into account organizational injustice has been a frequently cited cause of misconduct.

o May hamper employees drive to innovate and be creative if implementation is not done correctly.

Apple is the best example in sharing its vision across all the employees that are working under same organization who contributed for its success. All its innovation, ideas are shared across different teams.