A2 Objectives and StrategyUnit 6

Mission and Culture

Mission statements

Overall purpose for an organisation

It communicates it to all stakeholders

Can shape the organisation culture

What the company is doing and ought to be doing

Clear, concise and memorable

Match the company to the mission

To make people happy

To be Britain’s best-value fresh food and clothing store

The world’s favourite airline

Disney

ASDA

British Airways

Spot the difference

Engineering excellence

To grow our company by providing innovative, strong and high performance products and solutions to meet our global customers' needs. We will support our world class products by providing superior customer care. Our care extends to the environment and the community. We want to help build a better future for our children, where hard work and dedication are given its just reward.

Old New

Spot the difference

A computer on every desk and in every home

At _________, we work to help people and businesses throughout the world realize their full potential. This is our mission. Everything we do reflects this mission and the values that make it possible.

Old New

Organisational Culture

The way we do things around here – a result of tradition, history and structure

Accepted ways of behaving

Sources of culture include – company routines, formal controls, organisation structures, power structures, rituals and myths

Charles Handy’s - Type of culture

Power - An individual/small group determines the dominant culture.

Role - Governed by rules/procedures and job descriptions. Results in structured stable and predictable company

Task - Where related to a job/project. Emphasis on teamwork/adaptability

Person - Occurs in the ‘professions’. Firm exists for people to develop their own expertise

Culture may also be either bureaucratic or entrepreneurial

Task: Read pages 470 – 471 in the AQA textbook and briefly define each

CultureOften have either a marketing, financial, people or production focus

Culture determines:

The structure and behaviour of a firm

The degree of resistance to change depending on workers values and how they are threatened by objectives of new proposals

Focus and direction of a firm e.g. A Financial focus may see a neglect in marketing

Culture and Leadership

Leadership impacts and can be used to bring about cultural change in an organisation from leading by example and determining the allocation of resources

Promotion, empowerment, delegation, recruitment, restructuring etc are powerful tools for this

Can communicate the case for change before hand

Planning and implementing suitable strategies for change

Is culture something the company is or something it has? Therefore can it be changed?

Revision Tasks

Coimplete the A-Z ‘Mission’ 20 mins.

Complete the A-Z ‘Aims & objectives’

20 mins.

Question: To what extent do conflicting corporate cultures play a part in the failure of many mergers and takeovers to achieve the success anticipated? (15 marks)

Areas to discuss:

Type of culture involved in both companiesWho’s culture should be adopted?LeadershipCommunicationObjectivesWorkers values and resistance to changeSize of firmsCan culture be changed? Planning and strategiesAny other factors which may influence success?Was the company in a healthy position before change

Use the information on pages 472 to help, use examples such as Body Shop and L’Oreal

Safeway and Morrison Video questions

What were the motives behind the takeover?

Why were Tesco not allowed to takeover Safeway?

What kind of growth is this for Morrison?

What other strategies could a supermarket such as Morrison use to continue growth?

Was the takeover a success?

What were the reasons for this success/failure?