LSE (London

School of
Economics)

University of Birmingham University of

Durham University
Southampton University Reading

Doctorate in Business Administration

(DBA)
DBA ORGANISATIONAL TRANSFORMATION:
Part1: Company Report (General Motors)

Part2: The Evidence Review

Part3: Reflection for employability enhancement & leadership

For Assignment writing or Dissertation Help, Please Contact:

Dr. Sajid Saeed

+447762198474 (WhatsApp/Viber/imo)
Email: todrsaeed@gmail.com
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Table of Contents
Part One: The Client Report...................................................................................................................... 3
1.0 Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 3
1.1 Overview of General Motors Company ...................................................................................... 3
2.0 Performance Analysis ....................................................................................................................... 4
2.1 General Overview: Quick Facts and Statistics ........................................................................... 4
2.2 GAP analysis.................................................................................................................................. 5
2.3 VRIO Analysis ............................................................................................................................... 6
2.4 Organizational Structure Analysis .............................................................................................. 8
2.5 Identification of Gap in service performance/ delivery ............................................................. 9
3.0 Recommendations for Organizational Transformation ................................................................ 9
4.0 Risks of failure to transform General Motors .............................................................................. 11
5.0 Conclusions ...................................................................................................................................... 12
References .................................................................................................................................................. 12
Part 2: Evidence Review ........................................................................................................................... 13
1.0 Literature Review ........................................................................................................................... 13
1.1 GAP Model .................................................................................................................................. 14
1.2 VRIO framework and Empirical Evidences............................................................................. 15
1.3 Analysis of Organizational Structure ........................................................................................ 16
2.0 Potential DBA Perspectives ............................................................................................................ 17
References .............................................................................................................................................. 19
Part 3: Employability Enhancement Reflection ..................................................................................... 22
1.0 Critical thinking and core capabilities .......................................................................................... 22
2.0 Evaluation of current knowledge, skills and competencies ......................................................... 23
2.1 My ability’s assessment for completing the consultancy report ............................................. 24
3.0Leadership skills............................................................................................................................... 24
References .............................................................................................................................................. 26
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Part One: The Client Report

1.0 Introduction
Organizational Transformation basically refers to different is a term referring collectively to such
activities as redefining, redesigning and reengineering business systems. Usually, one of the
dominant factor in organizational transformation is IT for the purpose of improving current
position of an organization. However, the transformation could also be done to improve
management structure, merger and acquisition process, product/ service change and improvement,
etc. This client report analyzes current challenges faced by the General Motors while providing
recommendations for improvement through transformation.

1.1 Overview of General Motors Company

General Motors Company is more commonly known as GM or simple General Motors (Davis
1999). General Motors was originally formed as a holding company by William C. Durant in the
year 1908 that became the largest manufacturer of automobile during 1931 to 2007. The company
was bankrupted in 2007. However, later in 2008, nearly 8.35 million trucks and cars of the
company were sold under various brand names internationally. The company again reached its
milestone with more than 10 million automobiles being sold in 2016 (General Motors 2018).

The company is based in America, i.e., headquartered in Detroit that markets, manufactures,
designs, and distribute vehicles and its parts besides selling financial services. The company is
operates globally in more than 37 countries under different brand names, that include Ravon, Jie
Fang, Baojun, Wuling, HSV, Holden, Cadillac, GMC, Buick, and Chevrolet. However, some of
the former brands of the company include Opel, Vauxhall, Saturn, Saab, Hummer, Pontiac,
Oldsmobile, Oakland, McLaughlin, and Daewoo (General Motors 2018). Though the company is
currently operating as General Motors Company; however, its old name is General Motors
Corporation before liquidation. Besides selling assembled automobiles, General motors also dealt
with several non-automotive and automotive-component brands amongst which several of them
have been divested during 1980s to 2000s. Some of these include Electronic Data system (for
information technology); GM Defence (vehicles for military services); North American Aviation
and General Aviation (airplanes); GMAC (finance); ACDelco and Delco Electronics (electronic
and electrical components); New Departure (Bearing); Frigidaire (air-conditioning and
refrigeration appliances); Allison (gas turbine engines, transmissions and aircraft engines); Detroit
Diesel (industrial and automotive diesel engines); Electro-Motive Diesel (industrial diesel, marine
and locomotive engines); and Terex and Euclid (mining/ construction and earthmoving vehicles
and equipment) (General Motors 2018).
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1.1.1 Aims of the Client Report

The purpose of this report is to evaluate General Motor’s performance so that the gaps in its
delivery of services, as well as other challenges faced by the company could be highlighed and
approporate recommendations for its transformation could be provided.

1.1.2 Rationale for the Report

General Motors though being largest automobile maker have constantly undergone organizational
transformation to improve its performance. However, regarding current status, the company lack
sustainable long term strategy due to frequent changes incorporated in its structure. Moreover, the
company’s former impact of financial in 2008 still have ripple effect on its international operations.
General Motors has also faced continuous issues regarding change in management as it has had
about 9 CEOS in the past 21 years making an average tenure of about 2.5 years. Besides this, the
company also lack consistency in brand strategy and product strategy, debuted with Chevrolet and
Opel due to which it has now shifted to Chinese models. General motor’s customers are also
influenced from its frequent withdrawal and launches (ET Contributors 2017). Besides this, an
article in Auto News (2017) highlighted that General Motors has poor management, constant
prodding, bad decisions, endless blunders, short term financial goals and endless poor designs that
has affected its competence to compete with better European built or Australian or German built
automobiles. Besides this, General Motors also recalled its vehicles several times. For instance, it
recalled 92,000 vehicles in the Canada and United States due to ignition defect (ETF Basic News
2015). It also recalled nearly 700,000 GMC trucks and Chevy due to potential software problem
which loses automobile’s electric-power steering assistance for one second (CNN Library 2018).
Likewise, recently in 2018-2019 the company recalled 210,000 Buicks and Chevys for Bad Brakes
in Canada and United States (Fortune 2018). Besides this, Danigelis (2018) also highlighted that
General Motors need to strengthen its sustainability role to achieve its vision of zero congestion,
zero emission and no crashes. However, the company face challenges in separating its social and
environmental issues. Thus, it could be said that General Motors Company is facing several
challenges that need organizational transformation to improve its current situation.

2.0 Performance Analysis

2.1 General Overview: Quick Facts and Statistics
General Motor was formerly one of the leading automobile maker globally. The company had
manufactured several automobiles that were first in their kind. The company employees more than
225,000 employees globally (as of 2017) and its automobiles are served in 6 continents (DMR
2017). Moreover, General Motors delivered about GM Delivered Nearly 700,000 vehicles only in
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the third quarter of 2018 (Investors General Motors 2018). The company has about 17,000 dealers
globally (DMR 2017).

2.2 GAP analysis

Though, General Motor’s success largely depends on its internal efficiency, I.e., manufacturing,
designing, research and development, etc., however, its external delivery of service also
contributes to success/ failure of the company. Therefore, its external service delivery is assessed
through GAPS Model discussed below:

Figure I: Service GAP model (MBA Knowledge Base n.d.)

GAP One: The first gap is between the perceptions of an organization in relation to the
expectations of the customers to identify the problem that has led to customer dissatisfaction and
is misunderstood by the organization. With respect to customer’s satisfaction, General Motors
aims to provide best performance which is also its mission; however, practically, the company has
so far remained successful. Nevertheless, the constant recalls of the vehicles have failed the
company to meet customer’s expectations resulting in their dissatisfaction (Crumm 2010).

Gap Two: The second gap is between specifications of service quality and perceptions of the
management to provide outstanding services to the customers. General Motors though has met
service specifications of quality as it is one of the largest automobile makers in the world, however,
its issue regarding operational transparency and financial management is largely criticized (Sloan
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2015). Likewise, it requires improvement in vehicles and its designing/ manufacturing to meet
current demand of environment friendly automobiles to meet customer satisfaction.

Gap Three: The third gap is between the delivery and quality of services that is often left
unfulfilled due to employees’ poor performance leading to dissatisfaction of customer. This gap
has not yet been highlighted by the company, yet, the resulting consequences are due to poor and
constant change in the management at General Motors (Crumm 2010). In other words, poor
management of the company has not only affected the performance of employees, but also has
resulted in dissatisfaction of customers.

Gap Four: The fourth gap is between the communication done externally and the delivery of
services. By external communication, it refers to the promotional and advertising activities done
usually at the launch of new cars of General Motors (Sloan 2015). Though the company explicitly
announces the launch of new models of automobiles, however, delay in launch date often causes
dissatisfaction. This has also affected loyalty of customers and discourages them to wait and
purchase new models of General Motors.

Gap Five: The fifth gap is the result of one or more gaps identified in the former four service
delivery areas. As several gaps have been identified, therefore General Motors need to consider
reviewing them and improving its service delivery to meet customer expectations and satisfaction.

2.3 VRIO Analysis

As there are several automobile makers operating in the industry, therefore, the competitive
advantage of the General Motors could be analyzed through VRIO framework.

V- value: General Motors know how to create value from its resources and capabilities. Therefore,
these are carefully deployed so that customer’s demand could be met (Crumm 2010).

R-rareness: General Motors produces automobiles that is not rare. Several automobile makers
including Toyota, Nissan, Tesla, Honda, etc., are operating in the industry, however each of them
have their unique resources and competitive advantage that has enabled them to achieve a
distinguished position in the market.

I-imitability: General Motors face risk of imitability as there are several automobile makers
working in the industry and most of them are producing better cars than the company. This poses
the company with a great risk as General Motors could fail to lead with strong position in the
market (Sloan 2015).
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O-organization: General Motors carefully uses its resources and capabilities that has made it one
of the largest and oldest automobile maker in the world. However, there is a high need of proper
management system at the organization to assure its long term sustainability and achievement of
goals (Crumm 2010).

The following table provides VRIO analysis of General Motors with respect to different resources
and capabilities:

Capability/ Valuable Rate Expensive Organization Markets Competence Performance Weakness

Resource to Imitate
Financial
Equity Yes No No No No No Lower cost Strength
Cash/ Liquid Yes No No No Yes No Neutral Neutral
Human
Resources
Leadership Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes High cost strength
Organizational
Environmental Yes No No Yes Yes No Low cost Weakness
Concern
Employee Yes No No Yes Yes No High cost Weakness
Benefits
Employee Yes No Yes No Yes No High cost Weakness
Union
Relationship Yes No Yes No No No High cost Weakness
with deals
Relationship Yes No No Yes Yes No Moderate Strength
with suppliers
Technological
Logistics Yes No No Yes Yes No Low Cost Strength
Information Yes No No Yes Yes No Low Cost Strength
Technology
Intangible
Patents Yes No Yes No No No High Cost Strength
Corporate Yes No No Yes Yes No Moderate Strength
Values
Brand Name Yes Yes Yes No Yes No Moderate Weakness
Physical
Resale value of Yes No Yes No Yes No Low cost Weakness
Vehicle
Customer Yes No No Yes Yes No High cost Strength
Service
Strategic Yes No Yes No Yes No High cost Strength
Alliance
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Large Scale Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Low cost Strength
operation
Brand portfolio Yes Yes Yes No Yes No High cost Weakness

Reliability of Yes No No No Yes No High cost Weakness

product
Manufacturing Yes No No NO Yes No High cost Weakness
plan
Engineering Yes No Yes Yes Yes Yes High cost Strength
Research and Yes No Yes Yes Yes yes High cost Strength
Development
Promotion/ Yes No No Yes Yes No High cost Strength
Advertisement

2.4 Organizational Structure Analysis

As the literature articles and analysis of other frameworks highlighted the management problems
at General Motors, therefore, it is important to assess to find out and suggest optimum structure
and management. Presently, General Motors Company uses a hierarchical structure with formal
communication methods at its organization (Farber 2002). This means that president or executives
are on top followed by vice presidents or senior managers. They are then followed by managers
and lower level employees. The team members working at different departments and locations
does not interact regularly due to which they have loss of important information that needs to be
shared with everyone. Moreover, the employees are not encouraged to participate in decision
making that restricts their creativity and idea generation which further affects the organization.
Likewise, being a highly structured organization, the employees are not allowed to engage in open
communication and share their ideas with each other. Besides this, the employees are offered less
rewards and compensation on their good performance that demotivates and dissatisfies them
(Eckes 2018). Besides this, the company’s recruitment and selection procedure is also very
selective as it does not welcomes talent and diverse people from the pool. All these factors
contribute to the poor focus on vision and mission of General Motors. The following is the
organizational structure that reflects many levels and centralized chain of command.
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Figure II: Organizational Structure of General Motors (EditImage n.d.)

2.5 Identification of Gap in service performance/ delivery

The outcome of the analysis of different framework is consistent with the review/ rationale of
initial identification of the problems. There is a clear gap between the customer satisfaction and
the management perception that needs to be improved. Constant vehicle recall, delay in launch of
new models, low environmental measures taken so far, social implications, etc., are some gaps that
is resulting in customer dissatisfaction (Eckes 2018). Likewise, the poor management of the
company identified through organizational structure analysis and lower competitive advantage
analyzed through VRIO framework reflects that there is a high need of adapting better practices
that is possible through organizational transformation at General Motors. Thus, the different
recommendations for organizational transformation are proposed in the proceeding sections.

3.0 Recommendations for Organizational Transformation

While transforming the organization, there are different measures that could be taken and steps
that must be integrated to assure successful outcomes of the transformation. As the major issue
identified at General Motors is about vehicle recall therefore, the following are some suggestions
for improvement:

 Firstly, the company must cultivate a culture of quality to overcome inefficiencies or

abnormalities in parts (Fleming 2011). The quality culture at General Motors will
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encourage employees to identify the defects at initial stage and provide suggestions for
improvements.
 Secondly, General Motors must maintain strong relationship with single supplier to assure
that long term contract for quality products is made rather than continuously changing short
term suppliers for quality issues. This will also help the company to understand the internal
process of suppliers to suggest different ways to improve quality of auto parts to meet
quality standards (Fleming 2011).
 Thirdly, General Motors must integrate high level of technology to assure that products
meet customer demands at high levels. However, the technology could be integrated within
facilities/ plants of General Motors or to connect supplier for data input, etc (Fleming
2011). This will help to obtain real- time information with on-site and off-site options.
 Fourthly, to minimize vehicle recall, General Motors must assure that there is regular check
report, information sheet and inspection report to meet high quality standards for supplier
parts. Testing the parts and other automotive assembling units at initial level will overall
help to produce non-defective products (Fleming 2011). Moreover, other quality standards
such as Kaizen, and Six Sigma, etc., must be practiced by General Motors to assure zero
defects at all levels.
 Fifthly, the company must leverage manufacturing intelligence. This means that
information gathered in process provides manufacturing intelligence which can be further
used to promote quality and efficiency across supply chain and within organization
(Fleming 2011). The use of software also helps to compare and contrast the information
that could be used for improvement.
 Sixthly, the manufacturing intelligence could also be used to identify information about
defects so that warranty claims and vehicle recalls could be reduced (Fleming 2011).
However, the use of quality software, could help to find the material or supplier
inconsistency.

Besides focusing on quality standards for reduction in vehicle recalls and improving quality of
vehicles, General Motors also needs to focus on its management/ organizational structure. The
following are some suggestions to improve the company’s internal structure:

 General Motors must decentralize its organizations; however, power to make key
decisions will remain with top management. This will help to reduce levels in hierarchy,
thereby improving top down and bottom up communication within the organization.
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 The company must encourage its employees to participate in decision making and share
their ideas and experience so that practices could be improved and flaws within the
organizations could be removed. This will also enable employees to cultivate culture of
creativity where every employee could use freedom to think out of the box and share
their unique ideas to improve production of vehicles.
 General Motors, though undergoing through financial recession, however must offer non-
monetary rewards to encourage and motivate employees to improve their performance.
Flexible organizational structure, appreciation, recognition, etc., will also increase their
level of satisfaction which will have positive impact on their performance.
 The company must welcome people from diverse backgrounds and provide equal
opportunity to all. The selection of employees must be done from talent pool in which
everyone is welcomed.

The implementation of above provided recommendations along with proper change management
throughout the organization, General Motors could improve its present situation. These
suggestions will not only help the company to regain its lost legacy, but to operate as a customer
friendly automaker to meet present day customer demands and expectations.

4.0 Risks of failure to transform General Motors

Though, it is important for General Motors to quickly implement the provided practcies through
organizational transofrmation. However, if the company fails to implement them, there can be
several serious consequences. Some of the risks of failure to transfor General Motors are provided
below:

• Firstly, there will be more issues of vehicle recall that will have long term negative impact
on the brand.
• Secondly, there will be loss of customers due to their dissatsifaction with the vehicle quality
and specifications.
• Thirdly, General Motors will lose its position from being one of the largest automaker
globally because of its poor product quality,
• Foruthly, the service quality gap between company and customers will exceed that could
have poor impact on performance, position and brand implications.
• Fifthly, the company could encounter more losses which might lead to its shut down/ or
merger/ acquisition.
• Sixthly, poor utilization of internal resources and capabilities could affect General Motors
leadership position in nearly all the markets where it serve.
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Thus, the company must carefully consider all the risks that it could face from non-implementation
of the provided suggestions for the organizational transformation.

5.0 Conclusions
In a nutshell, it could be concluded that General Motors is one of the oldest and largest vehicle
manufacturer that not only produces automobiles, but also various types of vehicles for different
industries (such as aviation, locomotive, etc.,) and their parts. However, the current issue of vehicle
recall, quality issues, financial issues and management problems could have long term drastic
impact on the company and its operations. Therefore, the client’s report provides General Motors
with important suggestions that could help it to overcome some of its major issues through
complete organizational transformation process to strengthen and maintain its dominant position
in automobile industry globally.

References
Auto News 2017. Management is the problem at GM. Available from
http://www.autonews.com/article/20170320/OEM02/303209959/management-is-the-
problem-at-gm [5 October 2018]

CNN Library 2018. General Motors Fast Facts. Available from

https://edition.cnn.com/2014/04/08/us/general-motors-fast-facts/index.html [5 October
2018]

Crumm, TA 2010, What is Good for General Motors?: Solving America's Industrial Conundrum,
Algora Publishing

Danigelis, A 2018. General Motors: Social and Environmental Issues Inseparable. Available from
https://www.environmentalleader.com/2018/05/general-motors-social/ [5 October 2018]

Davis, MWR 1999, General Motors: A Photographic History, Arcadia Publishing

DMR 2017. 17 Amazing General Motors Statistics and Facts (August 2017). Available from
https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/general-motors-statistics-facts/ [5 October
2017]

Eckes, R 2018, General Motors, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

Edit Image n.d. General Motors Organizational Structure. Available from

http://editimage.club/arapet.html [5 October 2018]
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ET Contributors 2017. The real reason why General Motors has given up on the Indian consumer.
Available from
//economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/58766801.cms?utm_source=contentofintere
st&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst [5 October 2018]

ETF Basic News 2015. General Motors Company (GM): Major Issues Facing This Stock.
Available from https://etfdailynews.com/2015/07/22/general-motors-company-gm-major-
issues-facing-this-stock/ [5 October 2018]

Farber, D 2002, Sloan Rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the Triumph of General Motors, University of
Chicago Press

Fleming, SA 2011, Auto Safety: NHTSA Has Options to Improve the Safety Defect Recall Process,
DIANE Publishing

Fortune 2018. General Motors Recall Impacts 210,000 Chevys and Buicks for Bad Brakes.
Available from http://fortune.com/2018/09/11/general-motors-gm-recall-chevrolet-buick/
[5 October 2018]

General Motors 2018. About the Company. Available from https://www.gm.com/ [5 October 2018]

Investors General Motors 2018. General Motors. Available from

https://investor.gm.com/investor-relations [5 October 2018]

MBA knowledge Base n.d. GAP model. Available from https://www.mbaknol.com/marketing-

management/the-gap-model-of-service-quality/ [5 October 2018]

Sloan, AP 2015, My Years With General Motors, eNet Press

Part 2: Evidence Review

1.0 Literature Review

The part two of this DBA module report provide discussion on the literature using various
secondary sources. This part highlights the theoretical background and key insights of the models
used in the client report (first part of this report). Moroeve, the literature also explain the purpose
and necessity of the different models and their role in transforming organization. Thus, the chapter
will discuss literature on GAP model, organizatioanl structure evaluation, and VRIO analysis.
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1.1 GAP Model

The first model of GAP was identified in the year 1985 which has undergone several modifications
and developments by the same group of scholars (Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry 1993). Th
GAP model basically deals with the theory of expectation-confirmation theory that defines how
quality is assessed by customers while considering different factors that helps to find out quality
in its diverse connotations (Oliver 1993). By different connotations the author means the level of
quality that customers percieve, quality of product/ service offered by the organization and level
of quality that customers expect from customers. Basically, the quality refers to the capability of
an organization to satisfy or meet consumer expectations. On this basis, Gaps Model was
developed with an aim to find out the possible reasons for a gap that might exist between percieved
quality and expected quality. In addition to this, the GAP mdoel hypothesizes key decisions,
strategies and concepts that are important to offer quality by following a sequence that commences
from an organization’s customer/ consumer, find out important actions for the organization to offer
and plan a service, and return to the consumer while comparing between perceptions and
expectations. McCollin, Ograjensek, Goeb and Ahlemeyer (2011) provides that quality of service
is a multidimensional concept that is percieved and assessed by consumers using set of important
elemens that were previously grouped in ten and later reduced to five. These include, empathy (an
organization’s personalized assistance which is conveys to consumers); assurance (capability to
influence confidence, politeness and competence of the employees); responsiveness (perforance
of prompt services and willingness of organization to benefit customers); reliability (an
organization’s capability to perform and meet the promised service accurately and carefully); and
tangible aspects (personnel/ human resources, equipent and physical facilities).

Parasuraman et al., (1988) identified SERVQUAL, a scale that is used to find out possible gaps in
service quality. The scale basically comprises of 44 questions that is based on provided elements
and were distributed as questionnaires directly to the customers. The first group survey was based
on 22-item to find out customer expectations whereas other half of the items, the second group,
were distributed to find out perception of customers regarding their service consumption. The
questionnaires basically aimed to find out the customer’s view on each item to evaluate it from 1-
7 (i.e., on scale of strongly disagree to strongly agree). The final model of the GAP servcie quality
model was identfiied in 1994 that included critics and included more detailed information to find
out servcie quality gap. The final model include four servcie quality gaps where the fifth one
identfiies the “Customer Gap” which is main to find out discrepancy between actual customers
perception and their expectations of service quality. However, the deviation in the fifth gap is due
to the other four possible gaps that highlighst the particular area of flaw that anagement needs to
 15

consider (Luk and Layton 2002). The first gap is related to the identification of the incorrect
assessment of customer quality expectations by the manageent due to poor communication and
market research within the organization. The second gap is related to the discrepancy between
customer expectatiosn and management perception to settle the adequate standards of service
quality. The third gap is related to the identification of discrepancy between an organization’s
personnel performance and quality standards in delivery of service that is usually due to poor
technology adoption and operating system. The fourth gap is related to the characteristics of quality
communicated to customers using external medium of communication/ promotion/ advertisement,
that do not match with services delivered to the customers.

Thus, the GAP model is one of the widely used model by contemproary organizations to evaluate
the extent to which they are able to meet customer expectations and able to deliver promised level
of services.

1.2 VRIO framework and Empirical Evidences

According to Curado and Bontis (2006) a competitive advantage is achieved frrom organized,
imperfectly imitable, rare and valuable resoruces. These resources are basically important
attributes of an organization which are useful in providing a sustainable competitive advantage to
an organization. By characteristcis, VRIO framework identfiies the route to achieve distinctive
position in the makret by identification of adequate skills and resources; selection of those skills
and resources that might be relevant in the future; and finally the implementation methods and
programs that could help to protect, enhance and develop these skills and resoruces. Usually, it is
said that organizations with poor performance usually copy resource configurations from other
large and successful organizations and benchmarks their performance. Nevertehelss, if VRIO
resources and skills are posessed by those successful organiztations, it is not possible for the
competitors to replicate their mechanisms and processes. In contrast, Simon (2010) provides that
VRIO framework is a part of strategic process starting form startegic choices, vision, goals,
environmental analysis (macro and micro) ending at strategic implementation. The strategic
selection of all the resources and skills helps to achieve competitive advantage. Thus, different
benefits are achieved by an organization through appropriate identification of each resource and
capability. One of the benefit of VRIO framework is that it enables an organization to look for
critical capabilities which helps to create value and helps to ahcieve competitive advantage.
Another beneift of VRIO is that it enables an organization to quantify those intangible reosurces
as all as the assets that have an element of uncertainity in them. This means that the resources are
looked for their value, rareness and uncertainity so that their proxies could be used in future.
 16

Beisdes this, another benefit of using this framwork is that it helps an organization to find out the
areas that have strengths and weaknesses of the different resources possessed by the organization
so that appropriate actions could be taken to overcome weaknesses and improve strengths. This
also helps the management to take appropriate decisions by taking advantage of strengths and use
them to generate opportunity. Besides this, Peteraf (1993) argues that VRIO framework enables
an organization to identify and take appropriate actions to overcome its issues or manage resources
that could cause problems to the company in future. Though VRIO framework is a largely used
model to assess the resources and competencies of an organization, however, its limitation is that
it fails to recognize the quickly changing external environment circumstances and are left
unpredictable.

Thus, it could be said that VRIO framework provides an important insight about the organization’s
management of its internal reosurces which is one of the major factor behind its usagage while
taking different strategic decisions.

1.3 Analysis of Organizational Structure

According to Jean, Sinkovics and Kim (2008), organizational structure mainly deals with
coordination mechanisms (that include formalization and standardization) and work division (that
include distribution of activities and tasks). Several researchers have provided different
dimensions of organizational structure. The earlier study by Geeraerts(1984) have identified the
distribution of task among employees, particulalry differntiating between defferentiation and
specialization. Both these are directly related to organizational structure’s complexity. With
respect to the necessity of locus of control in making decisions, or referred to as centralization,
most authors agree to the relevance of procedures and codes to coordinate with each other, referred
to formalization. Another important diemnsion is the organization of routine coordination (that
could be partly informal) between departments and individuals. However, Mintzberg (1979), one
of the oldest scholar, identfiied three key types of coordination, i.e., standardization, mutual
adjustment and direct control. Broadly speaking, decentralzation and specialization deals with the
distribution of specific authorities and tasks in the organization, such as division of work.
However, standardization coordination and foralization are optimizing and controling
organizational procedures.

Regarding use of organizational structure and variables in research, this area has received wider
recognition in the last few years (Stein, 2002; and Garicano and Hubbard 2003). An earliest
research conducted by Harris and Raviv (2002) revealed that unbalances between form of
organization and its size is resulted by diseconomies of scale. On this basis, several researches
 17

were conducted to find out the relationship between strcutrue of an organization and performance.
Teixeira, Koufteros, Peng and Schroeder (2008) provided that there are six dimensions that are
usually observed in an organization, i.e., . employee promotion and selection on the basis of their
competencies and skills; interpersonal relationships; procedure to deal with diverse work
situations; rules that cover duties and rights of positions; labour divison on the basis of fucntional
specialization; and well-defined level of authority/ hierarchy. Johnston (2000) identfiied that
organization’s limitations reflects that specialization of work demands increased need for
coordination between supervisor and employee. Likewise, Miesing (2006) revealed that
uncertainities are recued by high level of corrdiantion and communciation within the organization.
SImiallry, Dibrell and Miller (2002) assessed hierarchial strcuture and its consequences that
concluded that it has great impact on quality of decisions taken by the management. In contarst,
Moreno-Luzón and Peris (1998) analyzed division of labour and specialization and concluded that
cost of coordination identfies the effectievenss of organizational structures. Likewise, Ayers
(2001) investigated real and formal authority in organization, specifically with respect to other
communication and coordination mechanisms and concluded its positive relationship. Thus,
different areas of organiztaional structure are studied and analyzed to find out the optimum way
of managing and organizing an organization to ahcieve higher performanice.

2.0 Potential DBA Perspectives

The purpose behind enrolling in DBA study is to gain knowledge and practical insight on the
contemporary business environment so that I could work as a consultant or at senior management
position to take decisions. The module not only covers any particular area of the organizational
operations, but teach to address concerns related to organizational structure, transformation,
leadership, marketing, etc. Particularly with respect to organizational transformation, I have
gained knowledge and in depth understanding about why and how transformation is done across
organization. Overall, the module and its report not only increased my knowledge in this area, but
also increased by analytical thinking to practically analyze problem situation in contemporary
organization using different tools of assessment and provide recommendations for improvement.

The present DBA report on organizational transformation has assured that it fully meet its criteria
provided thereby covering all information and parts in a compiled report. The module has enabled
me to gain wider information along with increasing my skills and competencies that will benefit
me in future modules and research. First of all, I have increased my ability to think from broad
perspectives, look for/ research relevant information from internet, understand different tools of
evaluation and its use, and find out how present situation can be improved. Though the chosen
 18

client organization, i.e., General Motors Company is a well-known and reputed business mainly
known from its vehicles, leadership and legacy; however, its internal problems are less known to
its customers. The preparation, writing and assessing of the company from practical view point
not only increased my information about the company and its operations, but also helped me to
look from management perspectives of the ways through which General Motors Company can be
transformed. However, I have studied and used different reliable and important sources of
information to gather data on General Motors Company, particularly from news websites / articles,
journal articles from Science Direct and online books. In addition to this, several important authors
including my module books on organizational transformation were studied including Whitsett and
Burling (1996), Latham and Vinyard (2009), Gaubinger, Rabl, Swan and Werani (2014), Murphy
and Murphy (2004) and Uhl and Gollenia (2012) to obtain greater insight on the transformation
process and models used to analyze General Motors. Thus, the client report and its supporting
information in the evidence/ literatrue review section has guided me to improve my writing skills
that will enable me to produce an outstanding research/ thesis in future.

My learning with this module is largely associated with the practical aspects of the report, such as
searching for information (research skills), assessing the company (analytical and logical thinking
skills), sorting relevant information (organizing skills) etc., which will benefit me in future.
However, overall the report has increased my knowledge on the subject area while enhancing my
competence to think and evaluate information from diverse view point which will help me in future
job in a leading consultancy organization. Nevertheless, my learning would also benefit me while
working as a manager to lead my organization. Thus, the DBA module has helped me to achieve
the different potential perspectives that it aim to teach students.
 19

References
Ayers, DJ 2001, ‘Integration and new product development success: the role of formal and
informal controls’, The Journal of Applied Business Research, 17 (2), 133-148

Curado, C and Bontis, N 2006, ‘The knowledge-based view of the firm and its theoretical
precursor’, International Journal of Learning and Intellectual Capital, 3 (4).

Dibrell, CC and Miller, TR 2002, ‘Organization design: the continuing influence of information
technology’, Management Decision, 40(6), 620-627.

Garicano, L and Hubbard, TN 2003, Specialization and organization in legal services: Evidences
from market level data, University of Chicago

Gaubinger, K, Rabl, M, Swan, S and Werani, T 2014, Innovation and Product Management: A
Holistic and Practical Approach to Uncertainty Reduction, Springer

Geeracrts 1984, ‘The effect of ownership in the organizational structrue in small firms’,
Administrative Science Quarterly, 29, 232-237

Geeraerts, 1984, The Effect of Ownership on the Organi-

Geeraerts, 1984, The Effect of Ownership on the Organi-
Geeraerts, 1984, The Effect of Ownership on the Organi-
Harris, M and Raviv, A. 2002‘Organization Design’Management Science48, 852-865

Jean, R, Sinkovics, R and Kim, D 2008, ‘Information technology and organizational performance
within international business to business relationships: a review and an integrated
conceptual framework’, International Marketing Review, 25, (5), 563-83.

Johnston, MA 2000, ‘Delegation and organizational structure in small businesses’, Group &
Organization Management, 25 (1), 4-21.

Latham, J and Vinyard, J 2009, Organization Diagnosis, Design, and Transformation, John
Wiley & Sons

Luk, STK and Layton, R 2002, ‘Perception Gaps in customer expectations: Managers versus
service providers and customers’, Service Industries Journal, 22(2), 109–128

McCollin, C, Ograjensek, I, Goeb, R and Ahlemeyer, SA 2011, ‘SERVQUAL and the Process
Improvement Challenge’, Quality and Reliability Engineering International, 27(5), 705–
718
 20

Miesing, P 2006, Organizational Structure for the Learning Organization: School of Business,
University Albany/Suny, Albany, NY

Mintzberg, H 1979, The Structuring of Organization, Prentice Hall

Moreno-Luzón, MD and Peris, FJ 1998, ‘Strategic Approaches, organizational design and

quality management; Integration in a fit and contingency model’, International Journal of
Quality Science, 3 (4), 328-347.

Murphy, PE and Murphy, AE 2004, Strategic Management for Tourism Communities: Bridging
the Gaps, Channel View Publications

Oliver, RL 1993, A conceptual model of service quality and service satisfaction: compatible
goals, different concepts, Greenwich: JAI Press.

Parasuraman et al., 1988, ‘SERVQUAL: a multiple-item scale for measuring consumer

perception of service quality’, Journal of Retailing, 64(1), 12–40.

Parasuraman, A, Zeithaml, VA and Berry, LL 1993, ‘More on improving service quality’,

Journal of Retailing, 69(1), 140–147

Peteraf, MA 1993, ‘The cornerstones of competitive advantage: A resource-based view’, Strategic

Management Journal, 14, pp 179-191

Simon, A 2010, ‘Resources, dynamic capabilities and Australian business success’, Journal of
Global Business and Technology, 6 (2).

Stein, JC 2002, ‘Information Production and Capital Allocation: Decentralized versus

Hierarchial Firms’, Journal of Finance, 57 (5), 1891-1908

Teixeira, R, Koufteros, X, Peng, X and Schroeder, R 2008, The relationship between

organizational structure and integration: the effects on manufacturing performance, paper
presented at 39th Decision Science Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD

Uhl, A and Gollenia, LA 2012, Business Transformation Management Methodology, Gower Press.

Whitsett, DA and Burling, IR 1996, Achieving Successful Organizational Transformation,

Greenwood Publishing Group
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Part 3: Employability Enhancement Reflection

1.0 Critical thinking and core capabilities
While working as a consultant, there are several core capabilities as well as analytical thinking
ability is needed. However, the skills and capabilities usually differs in different profession
(Thomas 2007). As a consultant to prepare client report on General Motors Company helped me
to find out different skills and capabilities that I possessed or lack or are not up to the mark. Thus,
the following SWOT analysis identifies my critical thinking, core competencies and capabilities
(Abraham 2016):

Strengths: While working on consultancy report, I realized that I have several strengths that could
help me to become a successful future consultant. Firstly, I have some related experience as a
consultant that has enabled me to provide good consultancy solution. Secondly, I have good
academic background as well as relevant qualifications that has provided me theoretical
background that support my decisions as a consultant. Thirdly, I believe that I possess good market
knowledge of different contemporary organizations that I have gained by reading latest articles on
business. Fourthly, there are several skills that a good consultant must have and is also possessed
by me such as providing logical reasons, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, leadership traits,
work in groups, strong evaluation skill, punctuality, active listening skills, research skills,
judgement skills, intuition skills, quick decision maker, innovative, technical skills, innovative,
optimism and good achiever.

Weaknesses: Though I have several positive skills, at the same time I also have some weaknesses
that could affect my ability to become future successful consultant. Some of my major weaknesses
include limited experience of practical implementation of organizational transformation,
additional professional certificates, introvert, quick decision maker, and negotiation skills.

Opportunities: My present provides me several opportunities that I could avail to become

successful consultant and overcome my weaknesses/ strengthen my strengths. For instance, I could
enroll in different certificate programs to improve my knowledge and consultancy requirement
skills. Likewise, I could increase my knowledge by reading informative books. This would also
help me to gain relevant practical information about transforming an organization. In addition to
this, the increasing job roles and job demand of consultant provides me an opportunity to increase
my strengths and become a consultant. Besides this, I can also take advantage of social media
platform to gain information pre and post transformation process and experiences of employees
and views.
 23

Threats: Some of the threats that I could face from external environment while becoming a
successful consultant include increasing number of business graduates and consultants and
increasing competition between consultancy organizations to hire most experienced and highly
qualified consultants. These two are major threats that could affect me if I decide to become a
consultant.

2.0 Evaluation of current knowledge, skills and competencies

One of the most widely used model to find out the skills and competencies possessed by an
individual is Johri Window Model (Davies 2014). This model identifies skills and competencies
in four different areas that include Fascade, Arena, Unknown and Blind Spot (Baker 2011). The
following is my evaluation of current knowledge, skills and competencies through Johri Window
Model:

Façade (identifies skills and competencies that are only known to myself): This includes good
conflict resolution skills, motivation, lovable, lively, independent, gains trust quickly, honest,
integrity, respectable, punctual, initiator and creative.
 24

Arena (identifies skills and competencies that are known to all): This includes high intellectual
level, caring, good personality, goals oriented, work oriented, contented, reliable, acceptable,
influential, and good communicator.

Unknown (identifies skills and competencies that are known to no one): This includes
adaptability, information, knowledge seeker, critical thinker, decision maker, multi-tasker, and
high achiever.

Blind Spot (identifies skills and competencies that are known to others): This includes
maturity, organization and management skills, friendliness, ideal personality, good observer,
responsible, flexible, team worker, encourage others, negotiator, and good guider.

2.1 My ability’s assessment for completing the consultancy report

The assessment of skills, competencies and capabilities through personal SWOT and Johri
Window Model reveals that I am capable of becoming successful consultant in future. The key
skills that I possess not only benefits me in my routine life, as an employee or as a student, but
could also benefit me in working as a consultant. However, I strongly believe that I need to
overcome my flaws and weaknesses while availing the opportunities provided by external
environment and to minimize the impact of threats on my future consultancy profession.

3.0Leadership skills
There are several skills that a leader possess that makes him/ her different form others. Some of
these skills or traits and competencies are natural whereas others could be acquired through
experience and learning (Buckingham and Clifton 2001). With respect to myself, I believe that I
have some leadership skills from which I can take advantage to become future consultant.
However, by learning other skills, traits and competencies, I could become a successful consultant.
Thus, to increase my exposure to become successful leader, the following are some activities that
I will do in near future:

 Firstly, I will attend leadership development programs to develop leadership skills and
traits besides enrolling in Consultancy training programs to increase my knowledge as a
consultant.
 Secondly, I will seek more knowledge of business organizations, leadership practices,
internal issues and solutions the management has taken to find out the practices used by
the organizations to improve performance and overcome their weaknesses.
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References

Abraham, Mo 2016, Personal Development With Success Ingredients: Step-by-Step Guide for
Success, Wealth & Happiness, eBookIt.com

Baker, TE 2011, Effective Police Leadership: Moving Beyond Management, Looseleaf Law
Publications

Buckingham, M and Clifton, DO 2001, Now, Discover Your Strengths, Simon and Schuster

Davies, S 2014, Johari's Window, Silver Wood Books

Thomas, M 2007, Mastering People Management, Thorogood Publishing