NEW C C ASSIGNMENT
1. Before C&C’s reorganization, why was its performance poor?
To examine the poor performance before C&C’s reorganization, it’s essential to look at the structural and contextual dimension in the organization. This approach helps to reveal what the problems were, and where the problems arose in the organization. (Daft, 2010:20)
C&C’s structural dimensions before the reorganization
First of all, C&C had a tall organization, with narrow spans of control and centralized authority. The authority to make decisions was kept at the top-level. There were seven levels of authorities within the company: President Cummins, five Vice Presidents, five Vice Regional Presidents, District Director, District Managers, Merchandisers Specialists, Store managers and finally Department Managers. The store manager didn’t have enough authority regarding development of the stores. According to Mintzberg, C&C also was an organization with a diversified form, in which each region was considered as an independent division with the different bureaucracies. The diversified form normally helps to solve the problems of inflexibility when the machine bureaucracy was too large. But in fact, because of the machine bureaucracy in each region, C&C was slow to adapt the changes in the environment. Because this form is suitable for the simple and stable environment, not a dynamic one which C&C had to face in recent years.
Moreover, the hierarchy in the organization tended to generate a high level of formalization, which made each department too separated, and unfortunately affected the collaboration between the departments and the managers in a negative way. This is illustrated through the following: There are four main parts of each district in C&C: grocery, meat, store and produce. These parts worked separately and reported directly to the higher-level authority. Therefore they did not have any cohesive connections to one or another. These difficulties seemed to lead to
To examine the poor performance before C&C’s reorganization, it’s essential to look at the structural and contextual dimension in the organization. This approach helps to reveal what the problems were, and where the problems arose in the organization. (Daft, 2010:20)
C&C’s structural dimensions before the reorganization
First of all, C&C had a tall organization, with narrow spans of control and centralized authority. The authority to make decisions was kept at the top-level. There were seven levels of authorities within the company: President Cummins, five Vice Presidents, five Vice Regional Presidents, District Director, District Managers, Merchandisers Specialists, Store managers and finally Department Managers. The store manager didn’t have enough authority regarding development of the stores. According to Mintzberg, C&C also was an organization with a diversified form, in which each region was considered as an independent division with the different bureaucracies. The diversified form normally helps to solve the problems of inflexibility when the machine bureaucracy was too large. But in fact, because of the machine bureaucracy in each region, C&C was slow to adapt the changes in the environment. Because this form is suitable for the simple and stable environment, not a dynamic one which C&C had to face in recent years.
Moreover, the hierarchy in the organization tended to generate a high level of formalization, which made each department too separated, and unfortunately affected the collaboration between the departments and the managers in a negative way. This is illustrated through the following: There are four main parts of each district in C&C: grocery, meat, store and produce. These parts worked separately and reported directly to the higher-level authority. Therefore they did not have any cohesive connections to one or another. These difficulties seemed to lead to