Scenario A Firm A is a manufacturing firm that produces auto components, which are supplied to global auto companies. Since the customers of this firm are large auto-companies with substantial funds and resources, the firm is aware that meeting the standards and expectations of these auto-companies is very important for its long-term survival. Identifying this strategic imperative has pushed the top management team in Firm A to focus on developing a customer-focused culture in the organization. They have tried to achieve this through several strategic, firm-wide actions. Beyond just stressing the importance of high-quality products in day-to-day meetings, the top management team has made sure that they include the point that \"Customer satisfaction is our number one priority, and we do evervthing possible to achieve it\" as one of the key values in their long- term mission statement. This mission statement is displayed prominently in all conference rooms and departments and also appears under the company's corporate logo and on its website. Additionally, leaders of the firm constantly emphasize through stories and anecdotes how the focus on customer satisfaction has helped the firm reach a strong market positionright from its early days. In fact, there is a popular story about how the firm's founder faced all odds in a very difficult situation but did not compromise on product quality to ensure that customer satisfaction was not affected. Moreover, for new employees who join the firm, one whole day of their initial onboarding process is dedicated to understanding the importance of how to achieve and sustain high levels of customer satisfaction in their industry. The HR has developed specific sessions and team activities that are conducted during the onboarding process to stress this point. Further, to motivate and promote employee behaviors in this direction, the firm also gives away the 'Best Performing Customer Partner of the Month' award to the department that gets the best customer reviews each month. This has resulted in healthy competition among the departments to beat each other for this award every month. Additionally, customer visits to the campus are welcomed and customer feedback is collected regularly, stored and analyzed using Big Data Analytics to find ways of improving the firm. In terms of the design of the firm, to manufacture its core products the firm has a large shopfloor and assembly line on its premises. There are various departments on this shopfloor (e.g., Melting Department, Molding Department, Auto-part Casting Department, etc.) that handle the different shopfloor processes for manufacturing the products. The finished products are then checked by the Quality Assurance Department to ensure that the products are up to the standards that the firm wants to uphold. Since these different shopfloor departments work closely together, employees in these departments interact with each other very frequently and have gotten to know each other very well more so than the employees in departments that are not on the shopfloor (e.g., marketing, finance, etc.) All shopfloor departments acknowledge and follow the firm's broader emphasis on a culture focused on customer-satisfaction. Shopfloor managers take active part in the firm's mission to promote a focus on customer satisfaction. However, given the common work goals of the shopfloor departments and the dangerous nature of some of the work processes done on the shopfloor (such as melting metal in a blast furnace, pouring the molten metal into casts of auto-parts, etc.), these shopfloor departments also prioritize a mindset geared toward workplace safety and rule adherence. That means, within the broader organization-level culture focused on customer- satisfaction, the shopfloor departments have their own specific cultural norms that are focused on shoptloor- specific requirements of workplace safety. As such, it is a norm among the employees of these departments to not go on the shoptloor without wearing safety gear and helmets. In fact, anyone seen without safety gear on the shopfloor is severely reprimanded by shopfloor managers. Also, there are posters all over the shopfloor about the importance of safety and how to use the safety gear. These shopfloor-specific cultural norms for ~ Lot ee oo 11 1 . ~ However, given the common work goals of the shopfloor departments and the dangerous nature of some of the work processes done on the shopfloor (such as melting metal in a blast furnace, pouring the molten metal into casts of auto-parts, etc.), these shopfloor departments also prioritize a mindset geared toward workplace safety and rule adherence. That means, within the broader organization-level culture focused on customer- satisfaction, the shopfloor departments have their own specific cultural norms that are focused on shopfloor- specific requirements of workplace safety. As such, it is a norm among the employees of these departments to not go on the shopfloor without wearing safety gear and helmets. In fact, anyone seen without safety gear on the shopfloor is severely reprimanded by shopfloor managers. Also, there are posters all over the shopfloor about the importance of safety and how to use the safety gear. These shopfloor-specific cultural norms for safety are, however, not different from the organization's overall culture focused on customer satisfaction but rather are a sub-part of the overall organization-level culture. These shopfloor-specific cultural norms for safety have emerged in the shopfloor departments because of the common work experiences and goals of the employees in these departments and these norms help create unity and bonding among the employees in these departments, enabling them to produce high quality products. MGMT445 Case Study #7 Scenario B Firm B is also an auto-component manufacturer who supplies auto-components to large auto-companies. In firm B, the cultures within the marketing and production departments are very different from each other with hardly any point of overlap between them. Both these departments have very different cultural values, norms and beliefs about how to work and interact in the workplace - with nothing in common between them. One reason for this is that the type of work these departments do is very different and requires different skills and attitudes on the part of the employees. For instance, the focus in the marketing department is more on creativity, networking and innovation given that they have to find creative and innovative ways to make a sale. As a result, the culture in the marketing department is geared a lot toward encouraging risk-taking and coming up with new and creative ways of advertising and securing client orders. Employees are encouraged to try different approaches to marketing and are not reprimanded if they fail or if at times they stretch or break some of the organizational rules. The power distance is very low in these departments and employees and managers are on a first-name basis with each other. Everyone sits on the same floor and there is an open floor office layout to encourage easy and frequent collaboration and exchange of ideas. e = e = In contrast, the production department's culture is focused on the efficiency and effectiveness of work processes to ensure the production of large volumes of high-quality product. It is not possible to achieve this without a heavy focus on compliance to rules and policies. It is only by following rules and strictly implementing processes can the department succeed in producing high volumes of the product without errors. One way to achieve this is by standardizing employee actions through elaborate rules and policies and following this very strictly. To ensure this, a culture focused on compliance and rule adherence is emphasized in the production department. Power difference between managers and employees is emphasized through differing job titles that cach have different job responsibilities associated with them. Employees are expected to seck their managers' permission before trying out new things that are different than the current policies. Power distance is further stressed through the office layout. Not only does the office layout comprise of closed offices, but managers have bigger offices than their subordinates and also more perks. By stressing these power differentials, the production department has created a culture where employees defer to their managers for key decisions. Further, anyone who does not follow rules or policies is severely reprimanded by the managers. This also sends a strong signal to other employees about the type of behaviors that are valued and expected in the production department. Given this vast difference in the type of work they do and the mindset of the managers and employees in these two departments, two very distinct and strong cultures have emerged in these two departments. This has often caused friction between these departments, and each thinks the other department is wrong in the way it does things. In addition to this complexity, the presence of office politics and bureaucracy has led to cultural divisions between these two departments resulting in a highly political environment that can pull the organization in different directions and be very costly in the long term. As just one example of this problem, these departments often do not respect each other's requests for updated information. As a result, there have been situations where production department has not provided updated data about the available production capacity for the firm for an upcoming quarter. In such cases, instead of pursing the production department for this data, the marketing department has just used data from the previous quarter and based on it, committed to customers a higher level of product delivery for the upcoming quarter than what can be producedcausing issues for not just these two departments but for the entire firm. Questions: 1. In scenario A, which of the 5 factors that shape organizational culture are used by Firm A to promote a culture focused on customer satisfaction? Give relevant evidence from the case in support of your answer. 2. In scenario A, how would you describe the relationship between the safety culture of the shopfloor departments and the overall customer-focus culture of the entire organization? Is it problematic in any way? 3. In scenario B, how would you describe the relationship between the cultures in the marketing & production departments? What do you think are the issues with this situation? Can you think of some ways to address some of these problems