Option #1: Case Study Analysis: New Kind of Structure, 3-4 pg, 2 scholarly sources, case study attached

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Business Finance

Description

Read and respond to a case study to demonstrate your understanding of, and ability to apply, the concepts of organizational design and culture.

Review the “A New Kind of Structure” case study about Pfizer in the course textbook (Robbins, De Cenzo, & Coulter, 2017, p. 192).

Write an integrated essay that addresses the following items:

  1. Describe and evaluate how Pfizer is allowing employees to be more productive with its PfizerWorks.
  2. Analyze an organization for which you work, or are familiar with, by considering the structural implications—good and bad—that the PfizerWorks approach would have in the specifics of productivity. (Think in terms of the six organizational design elements.)
  3. Compare this arrangement with other types of organizations (including nonprofit, volunteer, etc.) and whether this structure would work.
  4. Discuss the global aspect of adapting a structure similar to Pfizer and how the culture of the organization may, or may not, be impacted.

Your well-written paper should meet the following requirements:

  • 3-4 pages in length
  • Formatted according to the CSU-Global Guide to Writing and APA Requirements
  • Contain a minimum of two scholarly sources, at least one of which is not provided in, or linked from, the course. The CSU-Global Library is a great place to find these scholarly sources!

Write clearly and logically, as you will be graded on content, analysis, and your adherence to the tenets of good academic writing, which should be succinct where possible while also exploring the topics appropriately. Remember that you can always improve your work by providing support from outside scholarly sources, which help both to bolster your own assertions and supplement your ideas.

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Case Application #1 A New Kind of Structure Admit it. Sometimes the projects you're working on (school, work, or both) can get pretty boring and monotonous. Wouldn't it be great to have a magic button you could push to get someone else to do that boring, time- consuming stuff? At Pfizer, that "magic button" is a reality for a large number of employees.62 As a global pharmaceutical company, Pfizer is continually looking for ways to help employees be more efficient and effective. The company's senior director of organizational effectiveness found that the "Harvard MBA staff we hired to develop strategies and innovate were instead Googling and making PowerPoints." Indeed, internal studies conducted to find out just how much time its valuable talent was spending on menial tasks was startling. The average Pfizer employee was spending 20 percent to 40 percent of his or her time on support work (creating documents, typing notes, doing research, manipulating data, scheduling meetings) and only 60 percent to 80 percent on knowledge work (strategy, innovation, networking, collaborating, critical thinking). And the problem wasn't just at lower levels. Even the highest-level employees were affected. Take, for instance, David Cain, an executive director for global engineering. He enjoys his job--assessing environ- mental real estate risks, managing facilities, and controlling a multimillion-dollar budget. But he didn't so much enjoy having to go through spreadsheets and put together PowerPoints. Now, however, with Pfizer's "magic button," those tasks are passed off to individuals outside the organization. Just what is this "magic button"? Originally called the Office of the Future (OOF), the renamed PfizerWorks allows employees to shift tedious and time-consuming tasks with the click of a single button on their computer desktop. They describe what they need on an online form, which is then sent to one of two Indian service-outsourcing firms. When a request is received, a team member in India calls the Pfizer employee to clarify what's needed and by when. The team member then e- mails back a cost specification for the requested work. If the Pfizer employee decides to proceed, the costs involved are charged to the employee's department. About this unique arrangement, Cain said that he relishes working with what he prefers to call his "personal consulting organization." The number 66,500 illustrates just how beneficial PfizerWorks has been for the company. That's the number of work hours estimated to have been saved by employees who've used PfizerWorks. What about Joe Cain's experiences? When he gave the Indian team a complex project researching strategic actions that worked when consolidating company facilities, the team put the report together in a month, something that would have taken him six months to do alone. He says, “Pfizer pays me not to work tactically, but to work strategically.” Discussion Questions • 6-22 Describe and evaluate what Pfizer is doing with its Pfizer Works. • 6-23 What structural implications – good and bad – does this approach have? (Think in terms of the six organizational design elements.) • • 6-24 Do you think this arrangement would work for other types of organizations? Why or why not? What types of organizations might it also work for? 6-25 What role do you think organizational structure plays in an organization’s efficiency and effectiveness? Explain. Case Application #2 Volunteers Work They’re individuals you might never have thought of as being part of an organization's structure, but for many organizations, volunteers provide a much-needed source of labor.63 Maybe you've volunteered at a Habitat for Humanity build, a homeless shelter, or some nonprofit organization. However, what if the volunteer assignment was at a for- profit business and the job description read like this: Want a job where you work only a couple of hours a day at your computer answering customers' technical questions, all for no pay. Many large corporations, start-up companies, and venture capitalists are betting that this new group of talented "volunteer" individuals who are quite knowledgeable about the Web and other technical areas will alter how customer service is provided. Self check-outs. Self check-ins. Pumping your own gas (although most of you are probably too young to remember having an attendant that pumped your gas, checked your oil, and washed your wind- shield). Filling out online forms. Businesses have become very good at getting customers to do free work. Now, they're taking the concept even further, especially in customer service settings, by getting "volunteers" to perform specialized work tasks. The role that these volunteer "enthusiasts" have played, especially in contributing innovations to research and development efforts, has been closely researched in recent years. For example, case studies highlight the product tweaks made by early skateboarders and mountain bikers to their gear. Researchers have also studied the programmers behind open- source software like the Linux operating system. It seems that individuals who do this type of "volunteering" are motivated mainly by a payoff in enjoyment and respect among their peers and to some extent the skills they're able to develop. Now, as the concept of individuals volunteering for work tasks moves to the realm of customer service, can it work and what does it mean for managers? For instance, at Verizon's high-speed fiber optic Internet, television, and telephone service, "volunteers" are answering customer questions about technical matters on a companysponsored customer-service Web site for no pay. Mark Studness, director of Verizon's ecommerce unit was familiar with Web sites where users offered tips and answered questions. His challenge? Find a way to use that potential resource for customer service. His solution? "Super" or lead users-that is, users who provided the best answers and dialogue in Web forums. The experiment at Verizon seems to be working well and these online "volunteers" can be an important addition to a company's customer service efforts. Studness says that creating an atmosphere that these super us- ers find desirable is a key consideration because without that, you have nothing. A company that worked with Verizon to set up its structure said that these super or lead-users are driven by the same online challenges and aspects as fervent gamers are. So they set up the structure with an elaborate rating system for contributors with ranks, badges, and "kudos counts." So far, Studness is happy with how it's gone. He says the companysponsored customer-service site has been extremely useful and cost efficient in redirecting thousands of questions that would have been answered by staff at a Verizon call center.
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Running head: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: NEW KIND OF STRUCTURE

Case Study Analysis: New Kind of Structure
Student’s Name
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CASE STUDY ANALYSIS: NEW KIND OF STRUCTURE

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Introduction
Pfizer is a pharmaceutical company based in the US with its headquarters in the New
York City. The company is one of the largest research-based firms dealing with the innovation of
new pharmaceuticals. Pfizer has a large workforce that conducts extensive research on the latest
pharmaceuticals. Upon realizing that the company's most skilled workers were spending time
working on menial tasks, the firm decided to implement a new kind of structure that was aimed
at improving employee productivity. The only panacea to address this menace was outsourcing a
team of semi-skilled workers to work on the menial tasks. The team of qualified workers from
New York was supposed to work on more strenuous tasks which involved strategizing and
innovation. This paper examines the success of the latest intervention by Pfizer and it impacts on
organizational culture.
How Pfizer Is Allowing Employees to Be More Productive With Its Pfizerworks
Upon realizing that most of its workers spent most of their time doing menial and
mundane tasks, Pfizer saw the need to develop a new kind of structure that would reduce the
workload of experienced workers. In fact, the supporting work was delegated to outsiders. Most
of t...


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