Affecting Change

Essay by maulwoofA+, May 2009

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Smith and Falmouth (S&F) is a small Mail Order Network and Tele-shopping company that operates in Canada the U.S. Smith & Falmouth's online has an organizational structure that is decentralized. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Irene Seagraves, at the top of the hierarchy, followed in line by the Chief Operating Officer, and the Project Manager, James William Argyle. James works closely and directly with the Logistics and Marketing managers, Brian Kervor and Adam Searle. Together, theses three make up the driving force of authority at S & F Online and have two groups of people to carry out their ideas. The logistics team is made up of three employees and the web development team that has six different employees within it.

The company started an e-tailing division named S&F Online, in the hopes of staying competitive in the industry and to add overall financial stability to the parent company.

To get the program off to good start, the founder and CEO, Irene Seagraves assembled various teams to help develop a program that would essentially manage the inventory and successfully market the new branch of the company. She is confident that the new teams will be able to accomplish her goals of creating a profitable online division that will complement her parent company. Most decisions of any significance are made by each of the three managers. Consistent with low formalization is empowering employees with the discretion to make day-to-day decisions about job-related activities. It抯 a necessary component of a customer-responsive culture because it allows service employees to make on-the-spot decisions to satisfy customers completely.

According to Robbins and Judge, employees form an overall subjective perception of the organization based on factors such as degree of risk tolerance, team emphasis, and support of people. This overall perception becomes, in effect,