Organization and Business Management

BMOM5203 Mohd Rahimee Ibrahim
ORGANIZATION & BUSINESS MANAGEMENT
Individual Assignment 3
Case Study: Newell Rubbermaid
Answer 1.
Organization structure has been defined as a set of formal tasks and responsibilities
assigned to individuals and departments or divisions. It has the formal reporting structure
including lines of authority, decision responsibility, levels of hierarchy and span of
manager’s control. The organization structure has been designed to ensure the
effectiveness in coordination of employees across departments or divisions.
The most common fundamental characteristics of organization structure are
departmentalization, which is a grouping position into departments or divisions into the
total organization. Basically there are few bases of departmentalize in an organization:
a) Functional Departmentalization
The vertical structure of grouping the personnel based on similar skills, expertise and
resource use. For example, the departments normally found in an organization are
finance department, marketing, human resource, sales, procurement, etc.
b) Product Departmentalization
The department formed by a specific organizational output, whether it is a product, a
program or a service to customers. As the products or services grows bigger, the level
of difficulties increases for the management to coordinate activities across the
organization. For example, Nestle has its ice-creams division, cookies and chocolates.
c) Geographic Departmentalization
Normally the geographic departmentalization concept took place whenever the
organization focuses their activities on local market environment. For example,
McDonalds that has a few regional offices to manage their outlets around the world.
Individual Assignment 3 & 4 1

d) Customer Departmentalization
Specifically designed to manage the organization’s major customers. For example,
telecommunication provider that has a division handling corporate and individual
customers separately.
e) Manufacturing Process Departmentalization
The departments in the organization being divided into all of its major production
processes. For example, a car manufacturer that has a division for assembles engines,
body, painting, testing, etc.
Newell Rubbermaid’s departmentalization structure has really guided the company
into a profitable growth. Departmentalization in Newell Rubbermaid has put them in
a situation whereby the efficiency in using the resources has been increased. The
divisional approach has given Newell Rubbermaid an excellent coordination across
the functional departments. Furthermore, it has emphasized on overall product and
division goals. Divisional approach has also given them a quick feedback in
pinpointing any product problems.
The geographical structure could always provide them with a fast decision making
and improving their communications with local activities. The delegation of authority
for headquarters to regional offices would enable the regional operation to run
smoothly without having too much bureaucracy in decision making. This will also
indirectly stimulate the innovative ideas from the employees to enhance the output of
the organization.
All of the departmentalization approaches made by Galli have put Newell
Rubbermaid into more systematic organization. These approaches have influenced the
employees to be more effective and efficient in running the daily operation. Each
approach to structure serves a specific purpose for the organization, combining the

whole approaches structure would gives the organization a confidence move towards
the future and indirectly contributes to the success of the organization.
Answer 2
Coordination refers to the quality collaboration between departments and the
cooperation among them in an organization. The organization needs systems to
process information and enables communication among people in different
departments and at different levels. Coordination has to be in place regardless of
whether the organization has a functional, divisional or team structure. All managers
need to strengthen their skills in coordinating all processes within the division or
department and synchronized the processes to the other processes in other
departments or divisions. This is important to achieve any and all organizational
objectives and goals.
Mary Parker Follett has provided the managers way to establish and maintain
coordination within organization. 5 valuable advices from Follett are:
1. Direct horizontal relationships and personal communications could lead with the
least difficulty in coordination.
2. Coordination needs to be planned and be discussed throughout the processes.
3. Coordination needs to be maintained treated as a continuous process.
4. Coordination has to be through purposeful management action.
5. Human elements have to be considered in planning for coordination. The
important part would the communication process as it involves the human ability
and motivation in providing better coordination.

When Joseph Galli appointed as Newell Rubbermaid’s CEO in 2001, he has aligned all
26 diverse units into a more streamlined and collaborative structure. He organized and
restructured major units or divisions into four distinct divisions identified by major brand
and according to type of product. These units and divisions are also organized by brand
and geography.
Galli’s moved to coordinate and restructured all the units in Newell Rubbermaid have
given the company a new looked and prospects in their business. Galli’s had applying the
concept of Follet’s advised and directly implementing the coordination efforts into
Newell Rubbermaid’s daily activities. Galli had used Follet’s advises mostly in planning
and organizing Newell Rubbermaid. These can be seen clearly in his action by
restructuring and reordering all units and divisions into more effective and efficient
coordination. Galli had also setting up new goals and projections in riding Newell
Rubbermaid to success by having more interim targets and focusing into the most
promising units and products.
The promising moved by Galli’s in combining Newell and Rubbermaid’s businesses was
essential as these two major businesses need to be well coordinated to be more
competitive globally. The competition faced by Newell Rubbermaid from its competitor
was relatively affecting the business activities and by having more solid coordination
inter-departments and divisions, they could save their operational costs and contributes to
the success of the organization.

Answer 3
Organizing has been defined as the deployment of organizational resources to achieve
strategic goals. The importance of organizing is crucial as it provides the tools to make
strategy happen. Organizing helps in an organization to remain competitive in the volatile
and in the world wide industry. Reorganization is necessary to reflect a new strategy,
changing market conditions or innovative technology. Strategic plans need to be activated
by a strategic organizing as it creates and maintains the coordination of activities between
all divisions and departments towards achieving the organization’s goals and objectives.
Resources have been defined as the ‘assets’ in an organization comprises of employees,
capital and all sort of things within the organization that support the daily business
activities. As the importance of resources is crucial to an organization, managing the
resources would be critical for the organization. Well managed resources could well lead
the organization to reach the goals and objectives. In view of this, Henri Fayol has listed
16 guidelines for the managers to deal with organizing resources. These guidelines
focused on two major components in resources; the human resources and organizational
policies and procedures.
Newell Rubbermaid faces challenges not only from its competitors around the globe, but
also from its internal environment. The competition getting tougher from their rivals and
at the same time the challenge to firm-up internal activities is growing bigger. Newell
Rubbermaid’s losses due to reorganization costs should be addressed efficiently. The
internal factors would guide the organization to face any competition externally.
Joseph Galli has re-build Newell Rubbermaid to be more competitive in the market and
to be more cost-consciousness. However, he needs to have strong support internally to
implement all changes in the re-building processes. Using Fayol’s guidelines, Galli could
concentrates on few areas in combating the challenges face by Newell Rubbermaid.

1. Judiciously prepare and execute the operating plan.
The operating plan made by Galli has to be established within the organization and
well understood by all levels of management. This is important so that the unity of the
divisions and departments can be strengthened.
2. Organize human and material facets so that they are consistent with objectives,
resources and requirements of the concerns.
Organizing all resources into one common goal would give the organization in a
better position to compete strongly in the market.
3. Coordinate all activities and efforts and to promote both material and human
coordination.
As mentioned earlier, the importance of coordination plays a vital role in determining
the success of the strategic planning made by the managers. As such, Galli needs to
coordinate efficiently all the activities and efforts for both material and human in
Newell Rubbermaid.
4. Arrange for efficient selection so that each department is headed by a competent,
energetic manager and all employees are placed where they can render the
greatest service.
All divisions and departments need to be monitored by someone that fully understood
the organization goals and objectives. This could drive the employees in each and
every division and department to be more efficient in achieving the organizational
goals and objectives.
5. Define duties; formulate clear, distinct and precise decisions.
Employees need to have specified targets and be well-coached along the operational
activities. They need to be supplied by firmed information and correct decisions. The
most important element is to have them fully understood about their roles and
responsibility in driving the organization towards success.

6. Avoid regulations, red tape and paperwork.
In a tough market competition, all business and operational activities need to be in a
fast pace environment. Too many regulations, red tape and paperwork could lead in
delaying decisions that would affect the running of the daily activities. This would
give an advantage for the competitors to move ahead from Newell Rubbermaid. Work
delegations and more decentralized operational activities would give Newell
Rubbermaid a better position to be an active and aggressive player in the market.
All of the guidelines listed by Fayol and used in Newell Rubbermaid, would
indirectly reflects the human elements in Newell Rubbermaid. The guidelines listed
above will automatically encourage initiative and responsibility amongst the
employees and maintaining the disciplines within the organization. The success of
Newell Rubbermaid would also reflect the employees’ rewards and increase the
motivation level among them. The most important agenda is to equip Newell
Rubbermaid in competing strongly in the industry.

Individual Assignment 4
Case Study: Toyota’s Drive for Global Leadership
Answer 1
Leadership has been defined as the ability of managers or supervisors or any superiors to
influence people toward the attainment of organizational objectives and goals. It is also a
process of directing and causing individual’s behavior to be paralleled with the
organization mission and vision.
Managing on organization would involve the processes from planning, organizing,
leading and controlling. As ‘leading’ is one of the primary sector in management, the
influence of it would have a big impact in an organization. Possessing management skills
would be crucial for managers but leadership provides more valuable impact when
combining these two. Leadership has an element of human behavior; therefore, it requires
skills and ability in dealing with human being. The leadership should functions
effectively in employee motivation, communication and encouraging teamwork. A
quality manager would have analytical and problem solving skills, persistent and
structured activities and has the power from the individual’s position in the organization.
While leadership power comes from personal sources such as passionate, visionary,
imaginative, creative, flexible, courageous and inspiring. It promotes personal
influencing to others through communication and physical contacts.
Ohio State Universities (OSU) revealed that 2 major behaviors are the key dimension in
leadership style. Consideration behavior and structure behavior have been the basis to
understand leadership style. Michigan Studies resulted in two categories of leadership
behaviors whereby the leader who are employee-centered leaders were those who
focused on the subordinate’s human needs. Leaders who are less effective were called
job-centered leaders whereby their concerned were less in achieving goals and human
needs.

Toyota Motor Corporation is one of the leading car manufacturers in the world and
having its plants globally. They have group of leaders driving the organization towards
achieving their dream to be the number one car maker in the world. Fuji Cho, the
president of Toyota has been improvising the organization businesses around the globe
by localizing the activity. This is where he realized that Toyota need to have global
outlook. When Toyota appointed Akio Toyoda as the head of China operation in 2001,
Toyota were involve in the joint-venture with a financially-troubled firm in China.
Toyoda has convinced Toyota’s top management to proceed with his proposal for a
merger with more aggressive and larger organization to boost Toyota’s performance.
Akio Toyoda’s leadership style was merely by “Boss-Centered Leadership”. He has made
himself dependable, persistence and drive for continuing achievement. He has the desire
to increase his status and socioeconomic position that later on be translated into
organizational mission. He was hungered for results and was very impatient. He made
decision on his own and drives an initiative to sell his decision. However, his
characteristics in leading the organization were very charismatic where the decisions and
actions made by him were consistent with the organizational goals and objectives. His
ability in turning the business operation to be more effective and efficient has changed
the management structure in Toyota’s China operation. He has a leadership style of
autocratic but very firmed to what the organization’s missions are. He believes in fast
decision making to contributes effectively in daily operation and running aggressively in
the industry.
The leadership behavior shown by Akio Toyoda however has impressed the Toyota’s top
management. The aggressive and focused decisions made by him have revealed his
tough-minded and analytical skills. The delegation power in making decision introduced
by Toyoda, were creating a new business models in Toyota. This has certainly a huge
achievement in leading such a multi-national organization to change in management
style.

Answer 2
An autocratic leader is the one who tends to centralize authority and rely on legitimate,
reward and coercive power to manage subordinates. Democratic leader is the one who
delegates authority to others, encourage participation and relies on expert and referent
power to manage subordinates. The autocratic and democratic leadership styles have put
behavior of the leader as the factor in determines leadership effectiveness.
Modern situational approach to leadership has described leaders to be more affected by
different amount of employee participation in making decisions. Each leadership is
different and requires unique combination of leaders, followers and leadership situations.
The Tannenbaum and Schmidt leadership continuum resulted from the study made by
Tannenbaum and Schmidt on the situational approach to leadership. Each and every type
of leadership behavior in this model is emphasize on how decision making process being
made. This model focused on the employee’s role in making organization’s decision
compared to the leader’s amount of holding its power.
Yoshi Inaba was made Toyota’s United States (U.S.) managing director after being the
top sales executive in U.S. He is particularly concerned about instilling a bottom line
orientation and helps his subordinates to make decisions about market share and
profitability. Yoshi Inaba has placed himself in two different categories in continuum of
leadership skills. He has the style in “The manager presents a tentative decision that is
subject to change”. When Inaba first came to United States, he released all profit and
expense data to U.S. sales personnel to make them understand how their activities affect
the company’s financial performance. Indirectly he was giving the information for his
subordinates to make their own decision in doing sales activities. However, Inaba was
still holding the final say with regards to any steps made by all his sales personnel.

Secondly, Inaba has the style in “The manager presents the problem, gets suggestions and
then makes the decision”. When a warning from U.S. official regarding discounted rate
for sales to car rental company was made to him, he suggested to his personnel to find an
alternative of higher profit opportunities for selling to businesses that buy in volume. He
was throwing the problems to his sales personnel for them to find the answers and taking
part in solving the matters. At the end of the day, Inaba will still be played a major role in
making decision to overcome the situation.
Both of these leadership styles proven Inaba’s ability to lead an organization and at the
same time motivate his employees through solid leadership skills. The influenced of his
leadership skills has boosted U.S. sales and contributed into Toyota’s impressive results
globally.
Answer 3
A few models of leadership that explained the relationship between leadership styles and
specific situations have been developed. Called by “contingency approaches”, this is a
model of leadership that describes the relationship between leadership styles and specific
organizational situations. Fiedler and his associates has developed one of these
“contingency approaches” model whereby the basic idea was to match the leaders’ style
with the situation most favorable for his or her success by diagnosing the leadership style
and the organizational situation.
According to Fiedler, leadership situations can be analyzed in three elements; quality of
leader-member relationship, task structure and position power. Each of these elements
would describe the leader as either favorable or unfavorable. One of the important aspects
of Fiedler’s model is for the leader to know whether they have a relationship or task
oriented style and secondly, the leader should diagnose and determine whether leader-
member relations, task structure and position power are favorable or unfavorable.

Gary Convis, who heads the factory in Georgetown, Kentucky, has arranged for his line
managers to sharpen their quality improvement skills by working on projects for plant
suppliers. In addition, Convis was involved in establishing an Organization Development
Group to educate shop-floor managers as the plant leaders of the future. Series of
development programs made by Gary Convis for his subordinates has been proven to be
the main factor that contributed to the success of Toyota in USA.
Fiedler’s contingency theory of leadership has described leader-member relations as the
group atmosphere and members’ attitude toward and acceptance of the leader. Gary
Convis has made his subordinates involved in many decision making situations by
putting them working on projects. The support given by his subordinates to him was a
clear example of leader-member relations as trust, respect and confidence in leaders are
the main criteria in determining leader-member relations.
When Gary Convis made series of activities that would improve his subordinates skills
and quality, he has actually adopting the “task structure” element in Fiedler’s
contingency theory. His objectives of sharpening his subordinates quality and skills and
to train them to be the plant leaders in future; were a specific and well-defined human
development planning. These are the important criteria in the task structure elements of
Fiedler’s theory.
The final element of Fiedler’s theory is “position power”, whereby the leader has formal
authority over subordinates. Gary Convis has implemented a series of activities that need
cooperation from his subordinates to achieve the targeted goals and objectives. From the
perspective of top level management, Gary Convis should have the power and authority
to direct and ensure all subordinates are giving their full commitment in realizing the
goals and objectives.

Of all the three elements in Fiedler’s contingency theory, Gary Convis was really strong
in leader-member relation approach. Lines of activities and programs made by him to
equip and educate his subordinates were crucial in determining the success of Toyota’s
business in future. The human development programs made by Gary Convis through his
leader-member relations approach was very convincing and made himself favorable for
his subordinates and organization.

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