Mr. Marchionne's Case Study

1. The observable artifacts associated with the Chrysler culture was that the CEO was located in a penthouse office of the building which Mr. Marchionne moved to the middle of the engineering department; he streamlined senior leadership, and to the remaining 15 members he gave them added responsibility feeling that the more decisions they had to make the faster they would work to meet the deadlines; he also gave them the opportunity to take full authority to take risks without worrying about bureaucrats barriers and they were allowed to make smart decisions and to be held accountable for them (Lueneburger, 2014).

Every organization has values and beliefs that define what they do and how they do things in the organization. These values have significant influence on how the employees behaves and the general performance of the organization – it is these set of values and beliefs, rooted deep in the company’s organizational structure that depict the “dos”, “don’t” and the “hows”, of the organization and these unequivocally represents the culture of the organization. This concept became popular in the 1980s when Peters and Waterman in their book: “In search of Excellence” presented the profound argument that, the success of any organization is inextricable linked to the quality of its culture. (Carpenter, M., Taylor, B., Erdogan, B. 2009 p183). The purpose of this paper is an attempt to analyse the impact diverse cultures played in the success of the Lincoln Electric Company.

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).

Some individuals elect to take a long less traveled road to success. Others elect to take the fastest most frequently traveled road to success. The majority of people electing the fastest most traveled road to success are individuals that are accustomed to taking the same road every day. Mr. Marchionne is not that type of individual, he is a tough no-nonsense type of guy. When he took over as Chief Executive Officer of Chrysler he was well aware of the earthquake he was going to cause to change the organizational culture. Mr. Marchionne is trying to improve the PE fit of his direct reports by relocating his office, conducting weekly meetings, and continual company security.

The culture type is consistent because if Chrysler hadn’t made the changes, who knows where they would be now. The old management at Chrysler had made many decisions that were costing the company money and it caught the attention of the higher executives and Mr. Marchionne.

The new Chrysler culture stems from Sergio Marchionne and his philosophy of developmental relationship strength, as well as strategic planning and onboarding. The unconventional methods used by Mr. Marchionne has proven successful throughout the organization. As Mr. Marchionne explained, “mediocrity will kill you. We can’t accept it” (Welch & et al., 2009). Mediocracy, as Mr. Marchionne revealed, is not a standard in which Chrysler can afford to accommodate. Instead, it has set the bar high to increase the teamwork, motivation, socialization and internal knowledge to meet the improvement in productivity as well as the product itself. Quite the change, from the hierarchical values, basic assumptions and culture, set previously by the organization of employee’s roles and knowledge being taken for granted and unappreciated.

Before this chapter I thought organization’s culture was only internal and outside factors only affect the brand and sales of the company. But I have now learned a lot more about the

The mechanisms for changing organizational culture that Mr. Marchionne used at Chrysler were to change the workflow and the structure of the organization. The old ways of Chrysler were not working as the company was forced into bankruptcy. In a reaction to failing sales, the previous management at Chrysler slashed prices, which was not a valid solution to the problem. However, Mr. Marchionne has a different approach. When he took over, he fired top executives, took away the layers of bureaucracy, and injected fear into those that were left. The hierarchy model was no longer working at Chrysler, so Mr. Marchionne got in the trenched with those he select as his management team and together they worked together to bring Chrysler out of bankruptcy. In return, the culture at Chrysler moved to an adhocracy in that leaders were empowered to seek innovation to create sustainable growth for the organization (Kreitner & Kiniski, 2013).

The espoused values of Chrysler were to work together as a team with management working just as close. Chrysler needed a leader to make sure that mistakes weren’t being made to cut profits, as well as, lead the new alliance that was going to take place with Fiat. “Mr. Marchionne took an

I believe Chrysler would be a great organization to work for because Mr. Marchoinne’s passion and work ethic make Chrysler an exceptional organization to be a part of. To see the top executive have such dedicated devotion and passion for his profession inspire me. He was brilliant and was able to dedicate seven workdays a week to this corporation. It is both amusing and amazing how he could manage 5 separate cell phone lines while doing this. I believe that this type of dedication, fortitude, and attitude will trickle down to the workforce. This type of leadership may lead others to continue expanding on the success of Chrysler.

This intellectual further conceptualized about a managerial hierarchy. The issue is evident today where businesses have multi units (Matthews, 18). Each unit

Marchionnee has successfully changed and established a new culture for the Chrysler organization. He was able to achieve success by recognizing the need for change and creating change using several mechanisms for organization change. Chrysler’s espoused values were opposite their enacted values. Now that Marchionnee has achieved his goal of organizational change, a few recommendations should be made to ensure that the culture remains intact and the organization is successful in the future. An important reminder is that, “Culture easts strategy for breakfast.”

When reflecting on the history of Ford Motor Company, the name Henry Ford is synonymous with the success of the company. Henry Ford created a culture of innovation and creativity (Brady & Haley, 2013), and also one in which he doubled workers’ wagers to further highlight them as valuable assets to the company (Harnish, 2012). However, by 2006, the culture that Henry Ford created had drastically changed and the company was facing potential bankruptcy. To recreate the once powerful culture of Ford, Alan Mulally was brought in as CEO to overcome the dysfunctional culture and was able to prevent the company’s downfall (Brady & Haley). The following will outline the changing culture that Mulally created.

Chrysler’s pivotal role in the automobile manufacturer corporation has many influences that contribute to the results or outcome of the organizations culture. Consistent with the accomplishment of Chrysler’s mission is product innovation, the employee perception of the workplace and the need to maintain stability. “The Chrysler mission was refocused to quality cars and customer satisfaction in order to return the automobile company to profitability” (Farfan, 2017 para 5). The dominant consistencies with the accomplishment of the mission or vision of the Chrysler organization in the student’s opinion are adhocracy. To ensure the culture accelerating conditions are met and to keep up with the changing times, the workplace is creative in addition

Based on the condition that Mr. Marchionne inherited from Chrysler, there is not too many changes I would have made. Mr. Marchionne had to shock the culture in order to revitalize it. His intentions were very good, however, the way he handled or reacted could have been better.