Analysing Organisation: Creative Technology LTD - Free Sample

As opined by Dutton (2013), paradigm is a broad framework of perception, understanding, belief within which theories and practices operate. To analyse an organisation it is very important as it is a framework of thought or beliefs through which one’s world or reality is interpreted. In this case Morgan’s sociological paradigm can be applied. According to Bardhan & Weaver (2011), these four paradigms as being defined by very basic meta-theoretical assumptions which underwrite the frame of reference of the social theorists who operate within them and it is a term intended to emphasize the commonality of perspective which blinds the work of a group of theorists together in such a way that they can usefully regarded as approaching social theory within the bounds of the same problematic. As stated by Green (2015), each theory can be related to one of the four broad world views.

Sociology of regulation provides explanation of society based on the assumption of its unity and cohesiveness (Dugdale & Lyne, 2010). As stated by Macionis & Gerber (2014), sociology of radical change provides explanation of society based on the assumption of its cultural conflict modes of domination and structural contradiction.

Figure 1: The Four Paradigms

(Source: Macionis & Gerber, 2014, p.45)

Out of the above mentioned paradigms the researcher will choose the Paradigm of Functionalist. According to McLennan (2013), it is chosen by the researcher because it has been the primary paradigm for organisational stud and this paradigm assumes national human action and believes one can understand organisational behaviour through hypothesis testing. This paradigm is taken by the researcher as it will help to know the adaption to the natural, physical and material world. It also helps in goal attainment deciding on the key issues and it will help in maintaining a balance of social control.

Company background

Creative Technology LTD is a Singapore based global company. It was founded in the year 1981 and belongs to the consumer electronics industry. Its journey from a simple computer repair shop to one of the popular electronic manufacturer is very inspiring. They have successfully expanded their business in UK and US. Their main products are Sound Blaster, Portable Media Devices, Video Cameras, Live Cam Series Web Cameras and other products. Their Live camera operations have got huge response from the world and they have various other sub ends under their umbrella. Sim Wong Hoo who is the current CEO of the company has played a major role in creating the company and taking it to the level in where it is right now. They have around 1200 employees they successfully generate revenue of 280 million dollars every year (Creative.com, 2015). Their main products are Sound blaster, Gaming Headsets, speakers and Headphones. Their customer service is also excellent. With all these factors the company has successfully created its own mark in the electronic consumer industry. According to McLennan (2013), they are responsible for taking the PC sound level to the next level. Their innovative strategies have made them one of the coolest companies in the gadget industry.

Methodology of the analysis

The researcher has taken the functionalist paradigm used by the researcher. The purpose of selecting this approach is because it emphasizes comparability among individuals but sees people as unique in their combination of traits (Mitka, 2013). It will help to see traits as having the same psychological meaning to everyone (Green, 2015). Hypothesis testing and scientific methods are the only two factors on which this methodology relies.

Literature Review of the report

As per the functionalist paradigm the literature review will discuss various theories related to the organisation culture. As opined by Mohanty & Rath (2013), organisational culture is the totality of beliefs, customs, traditions and values shared by the members of the organisations. It is very important to consider value while managing change in the organisation. It can be both as input and output. There are some specific characteristics of each organisations culture. According to Paolo (2012), some of those key characteristics are Innovation and risk taking, Attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, Team orientation, aggressiveness and stability.

Functions of Cultures: According to Seo (2011), it has a boundary defining role which creates distinctions between one organisation and others. It conveys a sense of identity for organisation members. As stated by Prowse, Mueller & Soper (2011), culture also facilitates the generation of commitment to something larger than one’s individual self-interest. An organisational culture also enhances the stability of the social system by providing appropriate standards for what employees should say and do and culture also serves as a sense-making and control mechanism that guides and shapes the attitudes and behaviours of employees (Mitka, 2013).

According to McLennan (2013), every organisation has a unique culture and all the culture is effected by various external environment like Legislation, Politics, Technology, education, society, marketplace, competitors, consumers and economy. Creating a sustainable organisational culture is not so easy. As opined by Paolo (2012), culture creation occurs in three ways and those are, hiring and keeping employees who have a same thinking, the organisation has to indoctrinate and socialize the employees with the organisation’s thinking and the founder’s behaviour also plays an effective role in creating a successful organisation culture as their behaviour acts as a role model for the employees. If the organisation becomes successful then the personality of the founder is embedded in the organisational culture. Sustaining organisational culture is also not easy. There are three forces the plays an important role in sustaining a culture. The three forces are selection of proper practices that can help the organisation to gain competitive advantage in the market; the top management has to play a very important role because it depends completely on them which actions they will take and the socialization methods.

According to Mohanty & Rath (2013), selection practices also have some points like identifying and hiring individuals who have relevant knowledge about the industry in which they will operate. The selected individuals must have proper skills and ability to perform successfully the job given to him, it should be also seen that the selected individual must work according to the goals and objective of the company. As opined by Paulin (2015), individuals having values consistent with those of the organisation are selected as per the decision maker’s judgements. Selection becomes a two way street as it provides information about the organisation to the applicants.

According to Macionis & Gerber (2014), the actions of top management establishes the norms for the organisation as to whether risk taking is desirable, how much freedom managers should give to their subordinates and what actions will pay off in terms of pay rises, promotions and other rewards.

As stated by McLennan (2013), the process through which the employees are proselytized about the customs and traditions of the organisation is known as socialization. It is assumed that the employees selected in an organisations if don’t associates with the culture of the organisation then there is a chance that employee will disturb other employees. So there are basically three stages of socialization. These are pre-arrival where the employees are given a proper description about the work that he is going to do while working in the organisation, Encounter where the employee actually gets to see the organisation and sometimes by seeing the organisations their thinking gets diverted as somewhere the customer might have through of something else which is different from the reality. The third stage of socialization is metamorphosis where the generally the long lasting changes takes place, here the employee actually gets acquired with the different skills that are required to execute the given jobs successfully.

Now the study will deal with the organisational structure. According to Dugdale & Lyne (2010), a way to organise employees into some kind of structure to meet goals, minimizes confusion, coordinates activities by clearly identifying which individuals are responsible for which tasks. Without an appropriate organisational structure a business will never succeed. There are basically four types of structures Line Structure, Line and Staff structure, Matrix Structure and Team Structure (Paolo, 2012).

According to Alavi et al. (2014), authority originates at the top and moves downwards. In the top it includes the CEO of the company, then in the next step comes the senior managers comes the mid level managers and in the end comes the non-management employees. This structure is common to almost all small companies. According to McLennan (2013), this structure contributes directly to company profits.

Then comes the matrix structure where employees from different departments get opportunity to work together in a particular project. As stated by Anthopoulos & Sirakoulis (2015), this structure has become very important as structure in the current marketing scenario because the company having this structure determines that how flexible they are as they have the capability to respond to the customer needs as quickly as possible.

Another important structure is the team structure according to which different people with different skills in order to meet a particular objective. According to Alavi et al. (2014), it is believed that the company will meet customer needs more effectively than traditional structures. This structure has one special facility and that is teams have the power to make final decisions and employees preferred due to its focus on completing a project rather than a task (A, 2013).

As stated by Paolo (2012), there are two types of structures Flat structure and Tall structure. The advantages of Flat structure are that the employee gets great job satisfaction and as the number of levels is small so the communication between each level of managements becomes easy. On the other hand Tall structure has many level of management and the power is centralised on the top levels and the management has greater control over the employees. The advantage of this structure is that as it has greater control over the employees so the managers are able to keep an account of each employee’s performance as a result of which there is always a better performance of the employees (A, 2013). According to Mohanty & Rath (2013), an organisation becomes effective when they successfully know their customers and accordingly give proper response to the needs of the customers. To become successful in any business companies must change to keep up with customer needs. As stated by Mohanty & Rath (2013), there are various factors that affect the organisational structure. The size of the business and the kind of products and services it produces are two of the most important factors that effects a company’s business.

According to Macionis & Gerber (2014), as a company grows its organisational structure must change with it. Now a company can grow through different stages like growth through creativity, growth through direction and growth through delegation, coordination and collaboration.

Like this way both company culture and structure helps a company to grow. All the managers of a company need to understand the nature and role of the structure and culture of a company. Company culture and structure also impacts day to day decision making of the organisation.

Analysis of the organisation Creative Technology

As per the given topic creative technology is a Singapore based consumer electronic company established in the year 1981 and currently it has expanded to UK and US and doing outstanding business. The organisational structure of the company Creative technology can be a biggest example of the effectiveness of the organisational structure. The changing nature of organisational structure of the company can be divided into three stages.

Stage 1: As stated by Dutton (2013), when creative was young it depended heavily on technical geniuses who had a brilliant idea of user friendly digital entertainment products. That time they had a vision that multimedia has a huge future scope as the rate of using computers was increasing in a huge number. Then they turned this idea into a multimillion dollar company by introducing Sound Blaster sound cards which is said to be the pioneer of multimedia revolution.

Stage 2: According to Dugdale & Lyne (2010) when creative grew more it hired managers with excellent managerial skill. He then took the creative journey to the next level by introducing PC box and walkman. The idea was so innovative that it revolutionised the digital media and since then Creative has become a strong brand name and has a user base of 400 million and has a created a market of their own of PDE or Personal Digital Entertainment.

 Stage 3: Now creative has expanded its business worldwide and are considered as the worldwide leader in the digital entertainment products. They successfully launched their new set of headsets for play station 3, Mac and PC that makes the entire digital entertainment experience quite different.

Figure 2: Organisational Structure of Creative Technology LTD

(Source: Mohanty & Rath, 2013, p.33)

According to Green (2015), the company has a flat structure. It has less departments and this is the reason they have only 1000 employees. There are 4 main department Marketing department who has an Advertising manager under which some hugely creative people work, then there is a strong technical department which has one head of the department under which some experienced and skill full engineers works. Then there is one Account department and one production department. Their structure is flat and that is the reason there is always a communication between every department and the employees working there also gets huge job satisfaction. This structure also throws light on the culture of the company.

As stated by Green (2015), the company has a strong digital culture. It can be seen that the company don’t have large number of employees but still it is successful in generating huge revenue. The reason is that they select only those employees who has huge knowledge about the digital entertainment and who himself is technologically advanced. Creative Technology relentlessly focuses on customer experience that they gather while using their creative products. In creative everyone is technically sound even the marketing manager who has no background of engineering understands the aims and objectives very clearly. They have a strong PR team as well who is responsible for the public relations with their customers. They have expanded their business into live performances or live feedback also. Their special webcam can cover huge concerts easily. They themselves have a strong group of employees who does this live recording (Creative.com, 2015).

Conclusion

The study begins with a brief introduction of organisation structure and culture. Then the study chooses a paradigm which the paradigm of functionalist. As functionalist is the most suitable paradigm of sociology in analysing an organisation. Then the company overview is given for the selected company Creative Technology which is followed by a strong and detailed literature review that throws light on the organisation culture and organisation structure. In the literature review it has been seen that organisational culture have different types so as the organisation structure and it varies from company to company and from industry to industry. The culture and structure depends on the industry it belongs to and the product it sells. Then the report throws light on the organisational analysis of the case study company Creative Technology and there it the actual company structure and culture is shown which is very digital culture.

Recommendations

After dealing with the entire report there are some recommendations which can be useful for the case study company as well as other companies if they want to have one effective organisational culture. As we already know that a company is not formed with one person it takes more than one head to run a business. So the first job of the top management is to select only those people who have actual idea of the job. The person who is going to be recruited must belong to the background which is the relevant background of the company itself. Company structure should be made as per the vision and mission of the company. If the company is small then Line structure can be effective. Still it will be better that within that structure only there should be a scope for learning or communication between all the departments and employees. In the modern era it is better to have matrix structures which promote team work. The culture of an organisation should be knowledge sharing culture. So that if any employee struggles to understand anything then other members must come and help that employee out by doing this there will be always an healthy environment in the company and as it will definitely increase the profitability of the company.

Reference List

Books

A, M. (2013). Organisational Behaviour. London: Global Professional Publishing Ltd.

Bardhan, N., & Weaver, C. (2011). Public relations in global cultural contexts. New York: Routledge.

Dugdale, D., & Lyne, S. (2010). Budgeting practice and organisational structure. Oxford: CIMA Pub.

Macionis, J., & Gerber, L. (2014). Sociology. Toronto: Pearson Canada.

McLennan, R. (2013). Cases in organisational behaviour. Taylor & Francis.

Miesenberger, K. (2012). Computers helping people with special needs. Berlin: Springer.

Paolo, S. (2012). The Digital Glocalization of Entertainment. Dordrecht: Springer.

Prowse, D., Mueller, S., & Soper, M. (2011). Computer structure and logic. Indianapolis, Ind.: Pearson Education.

Stackelberg, H., Bazin, D., Urch, L., & Hill, R. (2011). Market structure and equilibrium. Berlin: Springer.

Tyson, S., Ackermann, K., Domsch, M., & Joynt, P. (2012). Appraising and exploring organisations. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

Journals

Alavi, S., Abd. Wahab, D., Muhamad, N., & Arbab Shirani, B. (2014). Organic structure and organisational learning as the main antecedents of workforce agility. International Journal Of Production Research, 52(21), 6273-6295. doi:10.1080/00207543.2014.919420

Anthopoulos, L., & Sirakoulis, K. (2015). E-Government Portal Updates' Evaluation:. International Journal Of Public Administration In The Digital Age, 2(2), 54-74. doi:10.4018/ijpada.2015040104

Dutton, W. (2013). The social shaping of digital research. International Journal Of Social Research Methodology, 16(3), 177-195. doi:10.1080/13645579.2013.774171

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Mitka, M. (2013). Marketing Tactics of e-Cigarette Manufacturers Questioned. JAMA, 310(18), 1912. doi:10.1001/jama.2013.281874

Mohanty, J., & Rath, B. (2013). Organisation culture as indicators of citizenship behaviours within organisations: a multi sector analysis. International Journal Of Business Performance Management, 14(3), 245. doi:10.1504/ijbpm.2013.054914

Paolo, S. (2012). The Digital Glocalization of Entertainment. Dordrecht: Springer.

Paulin, A. (2015). Twenty Years After the Hype:. International Journal Of Public Administration In The Digital Age, 2(2), 1-21. doi:10.4018/ijpada.2015040101

Seo, M. (2011). Critical Reflection on Teaching in Modern Paradigm. Jeri, 13(2), 271. doi:10.15564/jeri.2011.11.13.2.271

Websites

Creative.com,. (2015). About Creative. Retrieved 21 January 2015, from https://www.creative.com/corporate/about/