Case Study 1.

A perfect response to an Imperfect storm

Ques 1.Describe how you think new employees Mississippi power “learn” the culture.
Answer. Organizational culture has been described as the shared values, principles, traditions, and ways
of doing things that influence the way organizational members act.In most organizations, these shared
values and practices have evolved over time and determine, to a large extent, how things done in the
organization.
Our definition of culture implies three things, First culture is a perception. It’s not
somethingthat can be physically touched or seen, but employees perceive it on the basis of what they
experiencewithin the organization.Second, organizational culture is descriptive.It’s concerned with
howmembers perceive the culture, not with whether they like it.Finally even though individuals
mayhave different backgrounds or work at different organizational levels, they tend to describe the
organization’s culture in similar terms.That’s the shared aspect of culture. Employees “learn” an
organization’s culture in a number of ways. The most common are stories,rituals, material symbols and
language
Stories
Organizational ‘stories’ typically contain a narrative of significant events or people, including such
things as the organization’s founders, rule breaking and reactions to past mistakes
Rituals
The “Passing of the Pillars” is an important ritual at Boston Scientific facility near Minneapolis. When
someone has a challenging assignment, they’re “awarded” a 2-foot-high plaster –of-pillar to show that
they’ve got support from all their colleagues .Corporate rituals are repetitive sequences of activities that
express and reinforce the important values and goals of the organization.At Aditya Birla, an Indian
multinational company, there are three high profile awards that are given by the company to recognize
individual contributors every year, awards for superior teamwork, awards for internationally
benchmarked outstanding achievement and a monetary award for performance recognition in delivering
excellence.The awards are presented by the Chairman in a very extravagant award ceremony.It conveys
to the company’s employees that delivering excellent performance is important.
Material Symbols
When you walk into different businesses, do you get a feel for what type of work environment it is-
formal, casual, fun, serious and so forth?These reactions demonstrate the power of material symbols or
artefacts in creating an organisation’s personality. Material symbols convey to employees who is
important and the kinds of behaviour (for example, risk taking, conservative, and authoritarian,
participative, individualistic) that are expected and appropriate.
Language
Many organisations and units within organizations use language as a way to identify and unite members
of a culture.By learning this language, members attest to their acceptance of the culture and their
willingness to help preserve it. The Mississippi power employees “learn” the Organizational culture by
two ways which we are mentioning below:
MATERIAL SYMBOLS
In Mississippi power one key elements is the company’s can do organizational culture, which is
evidenced by important values inscribed on employees’ IDENTIFICATION TAGS “unquestionable
trust” Superior performance, total commitment.”Because the values were visible daily, employees knew
their importance.
STORIES
The employees at Mississippi power worked in difficult and demanding situation in the wake of
hurricane Katrina. For their dedicated and devoted work during the situation the Mississippi power was
honoured with an “emergency response award” by the Edison electric institute in January 2006 it’s an
award that all the company’s -employees are proud of. During such situations do stories of various
employees and the culture of the company come forward and new employees can learn from these
stories the real culture of the company.
Ques 2. What stake holder might be important to Mississippi power? What concern might each of these
stake holders have? Would these stake holders change if there was a disaster to which the company had
to respond?
Answer.Stakehol ders:Stakeholders are any constituencies in an organization’s environment that are
affected by the organization’s decisions and actions.These groups have a stake in or are significantly
influenced by what the organization does.In turn, these groups can influence the organization. The idea
that organisations have stakeholders is now widely accepted by both management academics and
practising managers.
Stakeholders include both internal and external groups. As both can effect what an organization does
and how it operates. Managers care about stakeholder’s relationship for one thing; doing so can lead to
desirable organizational outcomes, such as improved predictability of environmental changes, more
successful innovations greater degree of trust among stakeholders and greater organizational
performance.
As a provider of one of the most important services, almost all stakeholders are important to the
Mississippi power company such as (employees, customers, trade and industry
associations,governments, shareholders) As for the concerns that each stakeholder might have
Employees: Employees are their main concern is to restore the power network as soon as possible. They
might also be concerns that their efforts should be encourage and reward must be given to boost their
motivation level.
Customers: their concern will be about being reconnected with power
Governments: Government can also be stakeholder as government can earn tax revenue from company
and it’s also the responsibility of government to provide electricity to citizen of state.
Shareholders: Shareholders are also key stakeholder in company as they have invested in company.
They mainly concerns with the profitability of company.
In case of a disaster, stakeholders will not change; however, the company’s priorities will change, in our
case, restoring the power network; i.e., employees are the most important stakeholders
Quest 3. What could other organization learn from Mississippi power about the importance of
organization culture?
Ans: The other organizationcan understand the company’s decentralized decision making approach to
contribute to the way in which employees were able to accomplish what they did.The old approach were
responding to a disaster with top down decision making being push further down to the electrical
substation level, a distribution point that serves some 5,000 people. This structure made things happen
faster then the expected people were getting more done.”At the endall employees if Mississippi power
worked in difficult treacherous and often dangerous situations did what they had to do they got the job
done the reorganisation of the company’s outstanding efforts to restore power in the wakeof hurican
Katrina Mississippipower was honoured with an “emergency response award”
by the Edison electric institute in January 2006 its an award that all the company’s employees can be
proud of. Other organization could learn from the Mississippi power company their values, principles,
and traditions and how they influence their employees and allow them to take risks and innovate in order
to complete their tasks.
Other organizations could also learn that in strong and dynamic cultures almost all goals could
beachieved through delegation of authority, decentralization, motivation of employees. And after
all,rewarding and recognizing successful employees, also conveying the company’s culture to
newemployees