Unicaf University, Malawi

Masters in Organizational Psychology

Induction Module

UU-PSY-704-MW-23873

The role of leadership in integrated framework: A case study of Coca-Cola Company

Prepared by: Jobson Msanga Gondwe

Prepared for: Zoe Magou

Introduction:

Coca-cola Company is a market-oriented organization characterized by external focus and

control in pursuit of goals, for its main focus is on business whereby control is emphasized for
products to be of higher quality through creation of markets to make more profit. As argued by
Buchanan and Huczynski (2004), defines an organization as a social arrangement for achieving
controlled performance in pursuit of collective goals.

Coca-cola Company as a group of companies it operates globally in offering or satisfying

customers needs hence making more profits. Being a group or a team it offers same type of brand
to its customers. According to ACAS (2003), team work improves competitiveness at the same
time enhances quality of work life of workers.

Coca-cola as a group of company it offers their products to its consumers in a unique brand
according to people’s requirement around the globe hence creating more job opportunities to
people with various skills in terms of specialization and customers would prefer to enjoy the
products according to their satisfaction. According to Weiss (2002), satisfaction relates to an
attitude an individual holds towards his or her beliefs.

How the companies as an organization satisfy customer’s needs?

Coca-cola company fulfills customers needs through job production by packing minerals or soft
drinks in different required amount of 2lt,500ml plastic bottled minerals, 330ml tinned cane as
well as 300ml glass bottle of coca-cola. This is so for the culture of the company as an
organization with its external focus and control it is able to satisfy customers with their
requirements. According to Trompenaars and Prud’homme (2004), organizational culture
connects different values orientations, such as rules and expectations and peoples focus on
satisfying goals, decisiveness and consensus, controlling the environment while adopting to it so
that to work together in a satisfactory manner.

Where the company gets its resources to fit in:

Coca-cola Company being an organization composed of people in achieving it specified

objectives it needs people as resources to perform different tasks within it, for organizational
effectiveness rely much on recruitment. According to Dowling and Schuler (1990), define

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recruitment as searching and obtaining potential job applicants in required amount with skills, for
the organization to select most appropriate individuals to fit in its vacancies.

Coca-cola Company being a trade marks brands company operating globally it recruits workers
following human resource procedures so that to avoid cultural clash or conflicts, for its plants are
in so many countries. According to Bratton and Gold (2007), human resource department needs
to bring recruitment and selection process in line with the law. He further explains that the only
effective way of doing this is to continuous monitoring of employees gender, race, ethnicity,
disability as well as sexuality with an idea to illuminate direct or indirect discrimination.

The impact of recruitment to the company:

Recruitment has led organization as a company fulfills its mission and vision statement thereby
also implementing human resource planning it has adopted in accomplishing various tasks within
it, through process of recruitment. According to Beardwell and Claydon (2007), they regard
human resource planning as a process of identifying organizations current as well as future
human resource requirement thereby also developing and implementing plans to meet these
requirements with an effort of monitoring their overall effectiveness.

The mission, vision statement as well as human resource planning through recruitment are what
make the organization to have a strategic focus of what it wants to do in the near future?
According to Johnson, Scholes and Whittington (2005), strategy is the overall long term
direction the organization intends to take with an idea of meeting customers’ requirements as
well as stake holders.

Coca-cola company being a trademark company operating globally its intention is to create job
opportunities whereby it also recruit people as workers using external means so that the company
as an organization should also be composed of new blood within which brings change to the
organization. According to Robbins (2003), change involves change in the organizations
structure, for it is the structure that provides the framework within which the strategic process
must operate to achieve the organizations objectives.

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How the organization as a company operate on cross culture influence:

The organization as a company operating globally and located in various countries, the only
challenge they encounter its culture for individuals within the organization would prefer their
own value, norms as well as beliefs to be valued most than of anyone’s beliefs. According to
Rosseau (1990), culture is a complex net work of values as well as norms that guide individual’s
behavior.

Despite individuals holding their cultural values but the organizational norms through its culture
are paramount in achieving the specified objectives of it, so that there should be effectiveness.
According to Cumming and Worley (2005), corporate culture is a pattern of assumptions, values
and norms that are more or less shared by organizations members.

The company culture is what guides the organization in formulating decisions thereby making
individuals to abide to the culture for better performance of the individual and of the
organization. According to Sanchez and Yurrebaso (2009), the way organizations operate they
are closely linked to the underlying shared values as well as meanings that help individuals
understand how organizations functions and the way individuals behave for work is guided by
shared meanings.

The composition of organizational culture:

Coca-Cola Company as a market oriented organization characterized by control and external

focus, it achieves its objectives and enhancing effectiveness, it emphasized that organizational
culture should be comprised of communication for it interacts with customers and other branches
where their plants are located with an intention of knowing how they are operating as well as to
interact with their customers on global markets. Any changes that may occur due to technology
the company will come up with, for communication usually play a vital role. According to
ACAS (2005), communication is much concerned with exchanging of information as well as
views within the organization.

Communication within the coca-cola company is the interaction of individuals in sharing ideas
on how to accomplish the set objective as well as to how to carry out the assigned tasks. The
interaction within this company is among workers themselves as well as the management. This

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process of interacting with each other is known as socio anthropological process whereby there is
an interaction of both subordinates and managers. According to Farroq and Khan (2011),
managers must play a greater role and should be part and parcel of influencing communication
among individuals within the company.

The interaction of individuals within the coca-cola company has given them an opportunity to
compare individual preferred views to that of the existing one with an idea of tallying them if
they are effective to the organization or not, so that they can implement it or not through the
process of competing value framework. According to Cameron and Quinn (2011), competing
value framework involves values which are of great importance to the final culture formation
that the organization can adopt.

The significant of organizational culture to the organization as a company:

The impact of culture to the company as a market oriented organization is that workers carry out
work according to structured rule laid by the company hence there is uniformity and team spirit
in accomplishing various tasks thereby also increasing performance of both individuals and of
the organization. According to Ahmad and Bakar (2003), employee commitment is achieved
through team spirit when there is interaction among individuals hence performance of both
individuals and of the organization improves.

Due to its culture the company is distinguished from other companies through what it offers to its
customers by maintaining their trademark brand hence being competitive on the market.
According to Zahra etal (2004), organizational culture can neither be changed nor develop fast
enough so that to remain competitive in the environment for organizational culture is composed
of organizational artifacts which are values as well as assumptions.

The impact of culture to the organization as a company is to influence decision making of

individuals within the organization through participation whereby individuals involved are
encouraged to contribute towards the organizational achievements. According to William and
Adam-Smith (2006), participation refers to the arrangement that influence individual workers to
take part over organizational and work place decision making.

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The importance of organization as a multinational corporation:

Coca-cola Company being a team / group as well as a global brewer of different types of drinks,
it has created more jobs through its different decentralized regional plants where it is located
thereby recruiting people within the location of the company with an intention to reduce un
employment rate and implementing its strategic plan of having adequate human resource so that
to fulfill its future plans. According to Lengnick-Hall etal (2009), strategic plan covers the
strategies adopted by the organization in trying to control performance.

The coca-cola company as an organization makes more profit for it has many plants of its
decentralized brewery around the globe hence it has committed staff to achieve organizational
objectives through its company culture. According to Shepherd and Mathew (2000), for
commitment to be increased there is a need for employees to have an understanding of strong
belief in organizational values and willingness in putting effort to achieve the goals.

Shortfalls encountered by the company:

The only shortfall the company encounter is the problem of searching for suppliers who to
supply them with resource to accomplish organizational effectiveness in satisfying customers
needs. According to Hollinger (2000), e- buying makes buying of goods from a wide range of
producers and retailers much easier mainly to those linked up to internet.

The organizational leadership of the company:

The company leadership is there as a result of organizational management through formulation

of policies which comprises of managers in decision making. According to House etal (2004),
leadership is the ability to motivate, influence as well as enabling individuals to contribute
towards the organizations in which they are members.

So the coca-cola company as an organization its leadership is linked to management for both of
them plays same role in fulfilling organizational objectives. According to Management Standard
Centre (2004), the key role of management and leadership is to provide direction, facilitate
change as well as achieve results.

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The impact of leadership to the company:

Leadership is the influencer of organizational culture through which people in the company are
guided what to do and they are there to accept the culture of the organization for better
effectiveness in accomplishing various goals. According to Ivancevich etal (2008), leadership is
regarded as a process of influencing people to enable the achievement of relevant goals.

Leadership is what shapes coca-cola company as an organization whether to adopt new culture or
not, through trade off process which occur after competing value framework process. For change
to occur within and outside the organization the leader through his leadership should be aware of
it. According to Goleman (2000), a leader usually takes people where they are supposed to go at
the same time getting results.

Leaders sometimes try to change organizational culture for the betterment of the organization
thereby also formulating rules and procedures to be followed by employees through cultural
dynamic models. According to Pettigrew and Whipp (1991), the implementation of change is an
interactive, cumulative reformulation-in-use process.

Cultural dynamics has four processes through which stable type of culture is formed, so that the
organization effectiveness is also enhanced. The four processes of cultural dynamics works
together in accomplishing the tasks of fulfilling that the stable culture has developed. According
to Hatch and Schultz (2000), brought cultural dynamics model to interact with an idea of turning
the dominant culture through assumptions to a predominant one thereby making it a stable
culture.

Cultural dynamics interrelate with individual assumptions at work within the organization
thereby bringing stable type of culture through its model which leads the organizational culture
change. According to Dawson (2003), change is an accelerated; therefore managers need to be
leaders of change in a competitive environment of their organization.

The company leadership emphasize that cultural dynamics should usually interact with the
workers so that there must be better organizational effectiveness on performance. If individual
cultural assumption is characterized by reporting late on duty then the expectation also affects
performance. According to Levine (2000), leaders must focus on moving people forward with an

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idea of increasing competency of staff and that of the corporation in order to improve
organizational effectiveness.

The company leadership makes sure that cultural dynamics through realization process into the
transformation of values into artifacts has led organization to engage in artifacts like productivity
reports, time clocks, performance meeting as well as supervisory with an aim of dealing with
poor performance due to assumptions of individual like laziness. According to Shepherd and
Mathew (2000), in an effort to increase commitment, employees need to have an understanding
as well as strong beliefs in organizational values and goals while putting effort in achieving the
specified goals.

Through symbolization process, cultural dynamics insist company leadership to appreciate and
recognize best performers by awarding them. Also symbolization reinforces that best performers
are much valued compared to others like managers are given better positions compared to
underperformers who are thrown to any positions. According to Cohen (1985), symbols do allow
the management to supply part of symbols meaning.

On interpretation through prospective process, cultural dynamics allows interpretation process

through company leadership to make sure culture absorbs newly symbolized contents which may
lead to formation of new values that may lead to development of new culture. While
retrospective interpretation through leadership reconstructs symbols meanings whether they are
tallying or not to the new organizational culture. As a result trade offs comes in to judge whether
to remain with the dominant or maintain the predominant culture. According to Zahra etal
(2004), organizational culture is made of artifacts, values and assumptions.

Integrative cultural dynamics:

Company leadership emphasizes much in recognizing knowledgeable individuals within the

organization who can contribute towards the achievement of the organization. The main point of
those suitable individuals is to participate in policy formulation as well as bringing change to the
organization. According to Robin (2003), change in organizations mainly involves the structure
that provide framework through which strategic process operate to achieve organizational
objectives.

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Company leadership should make sure that those chosen suitable individuals have knowledge in
existing and preferred culture in line with values of organizational strategic planning as well as
being exposed to real problems of predominant compared to dominant culture that may rise due
to automation innovations, current assumptions, and lack of organizational competency.
According to Rankin (2002), competency refers to skills and behaviors that organizations expect
their staff to practice and explain their meanings.

The transformational leadership can manage culture change of the company psychologically
through integration of emotions of him and of others perfectly, if they are tallying in
understanding each other if not then trade off process of eliminating some emotions should take
place so that to remain with reliable emotions that can lead to organizational socialization.
According to Goleman (1995), emotional intelligence is the capacity for recognizing individual
feelings and that of others for motivation, managing emotions well in ourselves and others.

Organizational socialization to the company is concerned with aligning of individual interest and
that of the organization. Socialization is the interaction of individual process of values aligned to
new culture change and it’s characterized by trade off process of values in culture change
dynamics. Socialization, emotional intelligence and transformational leadership are interrelated.
According to Prince (2003), transformational leaders are capable of influencing socialization
process through emotional intelligence.

The advantage of integrative dynamic framework:

The introduction of artifacts by the company through realization process like time clocks,
productivity reports, performance meetings and supervisors implementation it has helped the
company to deal with poor performers due to individual assumption like laziness, absenteeism
and late reporting on duty hence organizational effectiveness is maintained. The same thing with
symbolization the company insist top management to appreciate and recognize best performers
as well as reinforcing best performers to be valued compared to others like managers are valued
with better positions while underperformers are thrown to any positions. According to Cohen
(1985), symbols do allow the management to supply part of symbols meaning artifacts.

The framework has brought much impact on coca-cola company whereby tallying of emotions
through trade off, it has implemented organizational socialization as a team in pursuing

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objectives of the corporation. Socialization of individual within the organization encourages
sharing of ideas that lead to individual performance that also leads to organizational
effectiveness. Socialization and emotional intelligence contributes to formation of
transformational leadership which enhances staff well-being while removing stress. According to
Matterson and Ivancevich (1982), stress is an interaction of individual emotions with the
environment.

The company in conjunction with dynamic integrated framework it has managed to adopt
changes on its external focus and control due technological changes on the market thereby
satisfying customer’s needs patterning to their requirements through job production. According
to Quinn (2000), for change to fulfill organizational effectiveness there should be a need to
recognize the type of change required to the organization.

The disadvantage of integrated dynamic framework:

There is resistance through competing value frame work in applying assumptions relevant to
formation of new culture through trade off, for most workers prefers the dominant culture than
the preferred one, this is common to organizations characterized by flexibility and internal focus
but for the coca-cola company new culture might bring new working technology through use of
machines hence threat to workers in terms of retrenchment through change.

On integration and differentiation process some of competing value in preferred culture is

thrown out meaning majority of workers cling to the existing culture thereby being rigid to adopt
change of the preferred culture. According to Warrick (2017), refers organizational culture as
culture of the whole organization or any unit of people working together within the organization.

Conclusion:

The company leadership emphasizes that there should be knowledge sharing among individuals
and the management thereby reducing stress while maintaining staff well-being.

Integrated framework has brought much impact on employee performance and of the
organization whereby also team spirit in decision making by means of participation.

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Company leadership has normalize individual behaviors by applying artifacts to change
individuals assumption through realization process by introducing time clocks, performance
reports etc.

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