Individuals In Organizations

Individuals in Organizations

Introduction and Background

FMC Corporation was originally a Chicago-based corporation, now in Philadelphia, PA, which deals in Industrial Chemicals, Performance Chemicals, Precious Metals, Defense Systems, and Machinery and Equipment. (Clawson, 2005) FMC Corporation started with insecticide pumps, in 1883 and opened their first export department in 1929. As of 2007, they have 89 facilities around the world.

Green River and Aberdeen are two facilities that are part of the FMC Corporation. Each enjoys the freedom in how they run their facilities and have operating values and systems, because of FMC's corporate image and objectives. The Green River facility is much larger in size, has more products and has about 12 times the number of employees than the Aberdeen facility. Green River is an experienced company that has been around for approximately 59 years and is one of several plants, while Aberdeen is a single plant and has only been operating for approximately 5 years. The Aberdeen site produces only one product and its only customer is the United States Government's Defense Division, namely the Navy. They produce surface-ship missile launching canisters. Green River distributes, mostly chemicals, globally and has many products and customers. Aberdeen is not unionized, while Green River has the United Steel Workers of America. The productivity in Aberdeen is growing and the costs have continually gone down. (Clawson, 2005)

Organizational Behavior Analysis

Management is planning, organizing, leading and controlling aspects of an organization to increase effectiveness. (George & Jones, 2005) To be a successful manager, you must understand that individual differences at work influence the employees, their outlook on the company and their job performances. A manager must look at the personalities of the workers and style their management from that. (123HelpMe.com, 2007)

Roger Campbell, who started out the first quality manager, is the plant manager of the FMC Aberdeen facility.

Aberdeen has adopted the (self-managed teams) Participatory Management style. They have increased job satisfaction, culture unity and identity, increased productivity, and high motivation. This is when there is the manager of the facility, Roger Campbell, makes everyone who works at Aberdeen responsible in deciding how the process is going to go. Each employee is to decide, with each other, how they are going to go about the work process and who is going to do what and how they are going to do it. Managers are more like coaches or mentors. Roger thought it would take the fear out of the employees.

It is easier to keep up with the changing social and cultural environment, with participative management. This is ethical organizational behavior and it enhances the well-being of the employees, workplace, customers, surrounding neighborhood, and corporation. (George & Jones, 2005)

"Giving employees decision-making power boosts their morale and commitment to the organization, which aids productivity. Everyone benefits: Businesses accrue higher profits and stability because they are more secure in their industry niche and workers are more fulfilled and attached to the companies because they have a voice in decision-making." (Markowitz, 1996)

Participative management gives the employees room to grow, learn, develop creativity, working and personable skills. The workers have the responsibility of determining raises, evaluations, suspensions, and terminations. Aberdeen is always improving their production system and products. Even if the employees make mistakes, they do not have the fear of what will happen to them.

Green River has an Authoritarian Management style, which has a low morale, suspicion, resentment and guilt, and low motivation. Green River has a chain of command. Their's is like a hierarchy. There are supervisors (managers) at different levels to control the work, evaluations, raises and punishments of the company. In this type of environment, it is easier to catch errors sooner. Even though an employee is encouraged to give their ideas on the process and production to better the company, but they are still told what and how to do things. They are expected to follow certain rules and regulations in the workplace. In this type of management style, it is harder to adapt to the changing environment and culture. It is a more structured and safe environment for the company. In this environment, the workers do not feel as secure in their job and have fear of retribution for errors made. (Stratature, 2007)

Alternatives and Recommendations

First, Mr. Dailey must get together his workers and discuss the new process with them. For any process to work there has to be cooperation and enthusiasm from the group. He needs to find strategies to convince all levels of workers (managers, individual, groups, and the corporate office) He needs to get information about what the culture and community for support. The

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