Identifying the role played by an organization's culture on the leadership in reinventing an organization: Case study on JC Penny Inc

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Identifying the role played by an organization's culture on the leadership in reinventing an organization: Case study on JC Penny Inc

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Abstract

Strategy according to For de Wit and Meyer (1998), is an intelligent treatment of the subject, strategy is any course of action for achieving an organizations purpose. (Strategic management 2004 Palgrave McMillan, Colin White, pg 5). Strategy exists at a number of levels in an organisation. There are three different levels of strategy:

1. Corporate level: Here the strategy is concerned with what type of business the company, as a whole, should be in and is therefore concerned with decisions of scope.

2. Competitive or business strategy: Here the strategy is about how to compete in a particular market, it is related to unit within the whole.

3. Operational level: It is concerned with how the different functions of the organisation like finance; marketing and etc contribute to the levels of the strategy. (Exploring corporate strategy 2nd edition, pg: 9 Gerry Johnson and Kevan scholes, and prentice hall).

Introduction.
Components of any organisation.
1. Four important components.
2. Organization's culture: Values, beliefs, assumptions, principles, myths, legends and norms.
J C Penney Corporation when Ullman joined.
The case of At and T.
The issue of Employee turnover and Ullman.
Conclusion.

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[...] In a 1992 study by Coopers & Lybrand of 100 companies with failed or troubled mergers of the executives polled said that differences in management style and practices were the major problem. (Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn. (1999), Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture, Addison Wesley.) . The 'clan-like cultures' mould employees with the company's core values. The successful combination is to find or create employees who buy into the core values, and then allow them autonomy within the context framed by those values. [...]

[...] (Jeffrey Pfeffer, (1995), Competitive Advantage through People, Harvard Business School Press 1995.) In the case of At and T consisted of lifetime loyalty to the company, up from-the-ranks management succession, dedication to the service ethos, and management by consensus. As At and T moved from a regulated monopoly to a highly competitive environment in the 1980s,the company made numerous changes to create a culture that supported the new strategy, it red- designed its organizational culture, articulated its value system explicitly, provided management training to modify behavior in support of new values, revised recruiting aims and practices, and modified old symbols. [...]

[...] First we consider J C Penney Corporation when Ullman joined in December 2004,he revealed a long-term plan for JCP with motive of taking JCP to industry leadership level and one of his strategies was to make JCP a great place to work in and correlation between engaged associates and store profitability. To achieve these goals set he had decided to build JCP on customer-focussed culture. So we can understand how organization's culture influenced Ullman strategies and further on we can see how Ullman himself involved in bringing out cultural change in the organization by setting up more democratic and relaxed climate and taking some training and development initiatives and most noticeable were “Winning Together” principles and the “Retail Academy” and we can see how leadership played an important role. [...]

[...] The organizations founder is particularly important in determining culture because the founder imprints his or her values and management styles on the organization. Walt Disney's conservative influence on the company he established continued until well after his death, for example Managers were afraid to experiment with new form of entertainment because they were afraid that “Walt Disney wouldn't like”. It took the installation of a new management team under Michael Eisna to turn around the company's fortune and allow it to deal with the realities of the new entertainment industry. [...]

[...] basic set of assumptions that defines for us what we pay attention to, what things mean, and how to react emotionally to what is going on, and what actions to take in various kinds of situations”. (Organizational Culture & Leadership, 2nd Edition Jossey-Bass, pg 22). In J P Penney Corporation, Inc organisational culture was very formal and rigid, as we can understand employees were supposed to wear formal dress on all days including weekends, they were not allowed to decorate their cubicles and were continuously monitored by officers who made sure that the employees followed the strict rules laid by the organization. [...]

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