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Guangdong University of Business

Studies

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BTEC PROGRAMME:

Unit Title: Organizations and BehaviourUnit No: 3Assignment Title: Analysing and evaluating the structure and culture in organisationsAssignment No: IDelivery Date: 31tH March, 2014Submission Date: 5th May, 2014Student Name:…………………. Student No:……………………….Assessor: Liu LouInternal Verifier: Wang Yu NOTES TO STUDENTS Check carefully the submission date and the instructions given with the

assignment. Late assignments will not be accepted. Ensure that you give yourself enough time to complete the assignment by the due

date. Do not leave things such as printing to the last minute – excuses of this nature

will not be accepted for failure to hand-in the work on time. You must take responsibility for managing your own time effectively. If you are unable to hand in your assignment on time and have valid reasons such

as illness, you may apply (in writing) for an extension. Failure to achieve a PASS grade will results in a REFERRAL grade being given. Take great care that if you use other people’s work or ideas in your assignment,

you properly reference them in your text and any bibliography. When you refer to the work of other authors in your assignment,

you must practice citation by following Harvard System for Referencing.

I am aware that plagiarism is a serious offence and certify that the contents of this

assignment are my own work. Where I have referred to ideas other than my own I have

acknowledged this with a referenced bibliography.

All grades are subject to confirmation by the external verifier

STUDENT SIGNATURE:

DATE

Learning Outcome and Grade allocation Form

Assignment No

1.1 1.2 1.3 2.

2

2.3 M1 M2 M3 D1 D2 D3

Assignment I

√ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √ √

Grades awardedOverall Grades

OUTCOMES & ASSESSMENT CRITERIA

Outcome(s)/

Assessment CriteriaPossible evidence Feedback

Assessor’s

decision

L01 Understand the relationship

between organizational structure

and culture

1.1 compare and contrast different

organisational structures and culture

 

1.2 explain how the relationship

between an organisation’s structure

and culture can impact on the

performance of the business

1.3 discuss the factors which

influence individual behaviour at

work

The main similarities and differences of the

organisational structures and culture of the two

organisations in Scenario 1 and 2 have been

identified and explained in a reasonable way.

The impact of the relationship between the

structure and culture of the organisation in

Scenario 1 on its performance has been

explained in a reasonable way.

The factors which influence the suicide

behaviour mentioned in Scenario 1 have been

identified and analysed in a reasonable way.

Outcome(s)/

Assessment Criteria

Possible evidence Feedback Assessor’s

decision

L02 understand different approaches

to management and leadership

2.2explain how organisational theory

underpins the practice of

management

2.3 evaluate the different approaches

to management used by different

organisations

The organizational theories underpinning

the practice of management in Scenario 1

and 2 are identified and explained in a

reasonable way.

The different approaches to management used by

the different organizations in Scenario 1

and 2 have been identified and

evaluated in a reasonable way.

Grade descriptors Possible evidence FeedbackAssessor’s

decision

Merit

M1

Identify and apply strategies

to find appropriate solutions

M2

Select/design and apply

appropriate

methods/technique

M3

Present and

communicate appropriate

① Relevant theories and techniques

have been applied when analyzing

the two cases in the assignment.

② Effective judgments have been

made during the case analysis.

① A range of sources of information

have been used to support the

analysis.

② Complex information have been

synthesized and processed.

① Appropriate structure and approach

has been used in the final report.

② Logical and coherent arguments

have been presented.

findings

Grade descriptors Possible evidence FeedbackAssessor’s

decision

Distinction

D1

Use critical reflection to

evaluate own work and

justify valid conclusions

D2

Take responsibility for

managing and organizing

activities

D3

Demonstrate

convergent, lateral and

creative thinking

① The validity of the results has been

judged to ensure that the

suggestions are effective and

appropriate.

② Self criticism of the analysis has

been taken place.

① Independence has been demonstrated

during the case analysis.

② Substantial investigation have been

planned, managed and organized

to support the judgment and

analysis.

① Ideas have been generated and

decisions have been taken relating

to explanation of the cause and

effect in the case analysis.

② Convergent and lateral thinking

have been applied in the case

analysis.

NOTES TO STUDENTS

Use an appropriate answer structure. Please attach the individual cover

sheet and sign it.

Word process the report, print out in A4 papers, Times New Roman, font

12, one and half line space, with 2.5cm page margin

Write approximately 4,000 words for the report; tables, table of content,

references list and appendixes are excluded in the word count.

Complete the title page and sign the statement of authenticity.

NOTE: if you are caught plagiarising, you could have your grade reduced to zero, or at worst, you could be excluded from the course.

Suggestions

1) You may need to search for more materials to support your analysis. Try to find more information concerning the two organizations in the following two scenarios from their corporate websites. You may also search references by Google, or from some professional sites, e.g., Financial Times (http://www.ft.com), Business Week (http://www.businessweek.com),McKinsey Quarterly (http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com),Harvard Business Review (http://www.hbr.org).

2) Keep the report concise and original. You can refer to other business reviews, but please write your report by yourself.

3) For all articles you cited, please use the correct format of referencing in Harvard system.

Scenario 1 The following media reporting concerns management issues of Huawei.

Huawei Technologies Co. LtdSource: From Wikipedia,the free encyclopedia From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. is a Chinese multinational networking and tele-communications equipment and services company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong. It is the largest telecommunications equipment maker in the world, having overtaken Ericsson in 2012. Huawei was founded in 1987 by ex-military officer Ren Zhengfei and formed as a private company owned by its employees. Its core missions are building telecommunications networks; providing operational and consulting services and equipment to enterprises inside and outside of China; and manufacturing communications devices for the consumer market Huawei has over 140,000 employees, around 46% of whom are engaged in research and development (R&D). Huawei is organized around three core business segments:

1. Telecom Carrier Networks, building telecommunications networks and services

2. Enterprise Business, providing equipment, software and services to enterprise customers

3. Devices, manufacturing electronic communications devices

Huawei was founded by Ren Zhengfei sometime in 1987, with an initial registered capital of RMB21,000. Established in Shenzhen, Huawei started off as a sales agent for a Hong Kong company producing private branch exchange (PBX) switches. By 1990, Huawei began its own independent research and commercialization of PBX technologies targeting hotels and small enterprises. After accumulating knowledge and resources on the PBX business, Huawei achieved its first breakthrough into the mainstream telecommunications market in 1992, when it launched its C&C08 digital telephone switch, which had the largest switching capacity in China at the time. By initially deploying in small cities and rural areas, the company gradually gained market share and made its way into the mainstream market.

Huawei classifies itself as a "collective" and does not refer to itself as a private company. Richard McGregor said that this is "a definitional distinction that has been essential to the company's receipt of state support at crucial points in its development." McGregor argued that "Huawei's status as a genuine collective is doubtful."

In October 2007, 7,000 Huawei employees resigned and were then rehired on short-term contracts, thereby apparently avoiding the unlimited contract provisions of the Labour Contract Law of the People's Republic of China. The company denied it was exploiting loopholes in the law, while the move was condemned by local government and trade unions.

Huawei's treatment of its workforce in Guangdong Province, Southern China also triggered a media outcry after a 25-year-old software engineer, Hu Xinyu, died in May 2006 from bacterial encephalitis, as a result of what is believed to have been work-related fatigue.

In its 2010 Corporate Social Responsibility report, Huawei highlighted the importance of employee health and safety. In 2010, Huawei provided annual health checks to all full-time employees and performed 3,200 checks to employees exposed to occupational health risks.

Also, in 2011 Huawei initiated a Scholarship program, "Huawei Maitree Scholarship", for Indian students studying in China.

Huawei’s Culture Is corporate “wolf-culture” devouring China’s over-worked employees? Adapted from China Labor Bulletin 27 May, 2008

On 6 March 2008, Zhang Liguo, a 36-year-old employee at a Huawei Technologies’ plant in Shenzhen’s Bantian Industrial Park, jumped off the third floor of the company’s cafeteria; he died on the spot. Just nine days earlier, another Huawei employee, Li Dongbing, had jumped to his death from the company’s research and development centre.

The violent deaths of two of its employees in close succession were a public relations nightmare for Huawei. The company’s aggressive and predatory “wolf culture” and “mattress culture,” which compels overworked employees to sleep in their workplace, became the focus of heated debate. Particularly since Zhang Liguo was the sixth Huawei employee to have died of unnatural causes in recent years, and allegedly the 38th to have died of unnatural causes since the company was founded. Is there something about Huawei that leads so many young people to end their lives prematurely?

Before Huawei employee Zhang Rui committed suicide in 2007, CEO Ren Zhengfei wrote a letter to a member of the Communist Party committee which began with the following admission: “At Huawei, employees are continuously committing suicide or self-mutilation. There is also a worrying increase in the number of employees who are suffering from depression and anxiety. What can we do to help our employees have a

more positive and open attitude towards life? I have thought about it over and over again, but I have been unable to come up with a solution.”

Because Huawei has yet to grant an interview to answer questions about the suicides, we don’t know how serious Ren Zhengfei considers this problem to be. The only time Ren has ever mentioned “wolf culture” was in the early 1990s, in a conversation with a manager from a well-known American consulting company. Ren said that if multinational corporations were elephants, Huawei was a mouse in comparison and argued that because Huawei was no fighting match for an elephant, it had to have a “wolf spirit”, a keen nose, a strong competitive instinct and a spirit of cooperation and sacrifice.

Huawei’s current success is widely thought to be the result of its corporate “wolf culture”. Were it not for its “wolf culture”, it is likely that if Huawei, a privately owned company that faced a fiercely competitive market from the start, would have never pulled ahead of the pack. However, as Zhang Liguo’s death has shown, it can also drive its employees to the edge of a cliff. 

Almost half of Huawei’s employees work in the research and development division, which is the company’s biggest division as well as the one that pays the highest salaries. But the high salaries also mean higher pressure and higher performance demands on the employees. According to one employee who wishes to remain anonymous, competition has become more intense throughout the IT industry and all companies are under pressure, but Huawei employees are particularly stressed out and just about every Huawei employee thinks that his fate is closely bound up with the company’s. Consequently, no one thinks that he can relax for one moment.

Most Huawei employees who agreed to answer journalists’ questions acknowledged that they dared not lag behind their colleagues. Not that this is peculiar to Huawei employees; it is true of the IT industry in general and arguably also of contemporary society as a whole.

The “wolf culture” has a broad social base in today’s fiercely competitive environment, as is evident from the fact that business books about “wolf culture” sell like hot cakes. “People thrive in adversity and perish in soft living. It’s the survival of the fittest out there. It’s like rowing upstream; not to advance is to drop back”, explains one employee. 

Ren Zhengfei has a stated policy of weeding out five percent of the worst-performing employees. Within the company, employees have been told by managers that in practice only one to two percent of the worst performing employees are laid off. But that is small comfort to this employee, who sums up his feelings as follows: “I still feel like somebody is cracking a whip behind me.”

The phrase “Mattress Culture” was first coined to describe Huawei’s fighting spirit during the company’s early days. Company managers regularly put their health on the line for the company, and this policy continued and was even lionised until 28 May 2006 when Hu Xinyu, a 25-year-old employee at a Huawei plant in Shenzhen, died of viral encephalitis. Before his death, Hu had frequently worked overtime and spent nights sleeping on a mattress in his office. After Hu’s death, Huawei issued a rule stipulating that employees had to get permission from their supervisor to work overtime past 10 p.m. and forbidding employees from spending the night at the office. However, the implementation of this policy has not particularly effective. Everyone at Huawei, from top to bottom, understands that hard work is rewarded. As one employee put it, “If there’s a job to be done, you can’t drag your feet and let down your colleagues.”

Scenario 2

The following media reporting concerns management issues of Foxconn.

Foxconn faces Management Problems

By Huang Beibei, Oct. 9/ Nov. 4, 2010, People's Daily Online Foxconn Technology Group is the world's largest professional manufacturer of electronics. It has factories in Shenzhen, Tianjin, Wuhan, Chengdu and other places on the Chinese mainland. As of May 26, 2010, there were 12 incidents where people jumped from buildings in Foxconn factories on the Chinese mainland, leaving 10 dead and 2 injured. Guo Jun, minister of Democratic Management at the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) said Foxconn violated laws, and the management system has serious problems, while talking about the series of suicide incidents at Foxconn. According to the Shenzhen Institute of Contemporary Observation (ICO), in 2009 Foxconn employees' overtime hours totaled 117 hours per month — up to 140 hours for some. China's labor law implemented in January 1, 2005 said workers should not extend working hours more than three hours per day and overtime should not exceed 36 hours per month. "Working overtime more than 100 hours per month, is this not against the law?" Guo said. Guo Jun said that Foxconn's problem is not just working hours or wages. The biggest problem lies in its management. Foxconn adopts the Ford-style business management, which optimizes all aspects of production and maximizes efficiency. Its employees are like Charlie Chaplin in the film "Modern Times," and their freedom outside of working hours is not guaranteed.

In addition, Foxconn also has "quasi-military management" features. A survey report by 60 teachers and students from 20 universities in mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan- including Tsinghua University and Peking University, pointed out that "Foxconn's labor system is characterized with highly-intensified workload, low payment, violent training, all at the cost of the workers' dignity". "Although the company has made some managerial adjustments, no improvements have been made for its employees." The company had, in June, announced a 30-percent raise for employees, while based on the survey, employees saw a rise no higher than 9.1 percent and were deprived of many of their welfare terms like subsidies, bonuses and so on.Also, a list with 127 rules liable to severe punishment reigns within the firm. According to the report, 38.1 percent of all workers at Foxconn have experienced having their privacy invaded by management personnel or the safeguards; 54.6 percent are indignant towards its management and 16.4 percent have been subject to some kind of corporal violence by the same. The company's strict monitoring makes it resemble a prison, the report said. Even in the same plant, employees from different departments are forbidden to communicate with one another, and mobile phones, as well as any metal object are not allowed into the facility.

The Asian tycoon with a one million robot visionBy Kathrin Hille, Financial Times, Aug. 11, 2011 Terry Gou clearly enjoyed himself last week, when joining a crowd of break-dancing young workers who man the factory lines at Foxconn Technology Group, the company he built into the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer. Rather than leaving it at just dancing, however, a radiant Mr Gou went on to announce plans to equip his factories with as many as 1m new robots, some of which would “replace” human beings. His audience was shocked.

The stunning numbers, combined with the bizarre tactic of announcing automation plans in a workers’ pep talk, were typical of this charismatic and unpredictable Taiwanese entrepreneur, as he looks to enlarge the company he has built over the past 37 years. But for Mr Gou the move is personal too: it will decide whether his own Asian rags-to-riches story culminates in the creation of a truly world-class company.

Foxconn controls close to half of the world’s market for outsourced technology products, from iPads and game consoles to personal computers. Throughout his career, Mr Gou has ruled his business like an empire, rarely consulting others, relying instead on his own considerable powers of persuasion. At shareholder meetings he is known to enjoy lecturing investors from the podium, breezily dismissing challenges with an authoritarian air.

In his industry he became famous for once offering a Dell executive a lift to the airport, before “abducting” him for a factory visit – to convince this potential

customer of his superior manufacturing techniques. Now, armed with his new robots, Mr Gou wants to move up the technology ladder. “We are a high-tech manufacturer, not a traditional contract manufacturer,” he says of a company that made $80bn in revenues last year.

Delivering this vision will be far from easy, especially given that rising wages and a dwindling supply of workers are pushing up costs in China, where most of Foxconn’s factories are based. But it also comes after an event that introduced Mr Gou’s company to the world in tragic circumstances, when 11 Foxconn workers last year took their own lives, by jumping from buildings in the Shenzhen plant.

Initially Mr Gou dismissed the suicides as statistically insignificant – and indeed, measured against the company’s 1m headcount, the numbers were below the national average. But the image of overworked and poorly paid Chinese factory employees slaving over iPods destined for wealthy consumers struck a chord around the world – and the company found itself facing a huge public relations crisis. “I believe it was the first time Terry Gou started seriously thinking about the workers as human beings,” says Qing Tong, a former Foxconn employee who has written a book about her life as a migrant worker.

Over the past three decades Mr Gou has built a record of flexibility and adaptation to new challenges – and having finally taken the problem seriously, he responded firmly. Bright yellow nets were installed around each high-rise dorm building, to catch anyone falling off, while panels of psychologists and other experts were drafted in to explain the suicides. For the Foxconn chief it was nothing less than a highly personal defence of the business he had spent a lifetime building.

Task 1

1) Please write the main similarities and differences of the organisational

structure of Huawei and Foxconn. (1.1a) Organizational StructureIntroduction:In Chapter 1,we introduced the organisation,in general termes, as ‘social arrangements for the controlled performance of collective goals’.We suggested that those social arrangements were formalised in an organisation structure.In tis chaoter,we look in more detail at what that involves.

My objectives:In this chapter you will learn about the following:(a)The nature of and influences on both formal and informal organisation (b)Different organisation structures and networks,and organisation charts

Table1: Organisational structure Foxconn Huawei

2) Please write the main similarities and differences of the organisational

culture of Foxconn and Huawei (1.1b) Organizational culture Definitions Foxconn Huawei

3) Please explain how the relationship between Foxconn’s organizational

structure and culture impacts the performance of its business. (1.2)

Task 2

Organisational structureForma stucture

Informal stuctureWhat influences the structure?

Types of organisation

Authority and powerOrganisation and departmentation

Organisational networks and

linkages

The new organisation

Organisation chart

Please discuss the main factors leading to the suicide behavior of some employees of Huawei and Foxconn. What are the different factors of the two corporations?(1.3)

Task 3Please identify and evaluate the same and different approaches and theories of management underpinning the practices of management in Huawei and Foxconn. (2.2, 2.3)