What are the goals at Acme? At Omega?

Referring to the case, in order to be able to beat Omega regularly for the most profitable contracts, the goals at Acme show a great deal of concerns for increasing profitability that reflects the overall performance of Acme. Acme also emphasizes on increasing productivity and high-volume output of printed circuits and their subsequent assembly as John Tyler, trying to retain the basic structure developed by Technological Products. Furthermore, Acme is looking at internal efficiency as the president of Acme, John Tyler, detailing organization charts and job descriptions. ... As for Omega, according to the president, Jim Rawls, the goals that they are pursuing reflect much greater concern for employee satisfaction and employees' feeling of belongingness to be part of the organization. Omega is also going after the goals that employees should be familiar with activities throughout the organization in order to increase the overall performance of coordination and internal processes across the company. ... Acme's president has a firm grip whereas Omegas president does not, he seems to be more laid back. Referring to the case, the president John Tyler at Acme, assigned employees to specific tasks, clarify their work roles as he detailed organization charts and job descriptions and he believed everyone should have clear responsibilities and narrowly defined jobs. ... Whereas Omega's president Jim Rawls did not believe in organization charts, he thought his plant is small enough that people could communicate and he seeks the opinions and suggestions of workers. ... As for effectiveness values, Acme values an external focus with control for efficiency while Omega is concerned with internal effectiveness for human resource development. ... The strategy Acme is pursuing is could be low-cost leadership. ... The strategy Omega is following could be defender strategy because it primarily with internal efficiency and control to produce...

Case Summary: In 1986 a Cleveland manufacture bought Technological Products and subsequently sold the electronics division to separate investors that manufactured computer chips and printed circuit boards. One of the investors renamed their company Acme Electronics and the other investor renamed their company Omega Electronics, Inc. The Acme company retained its original management team and promoted the general manager to president. The Omega company hired a new president and upgraded several of its existing personnel. Both companies are located in the same geographical area and compete for the same contracts. Acme employs 550 people, whereas the Omega employs 480 people. In the 1990s, production of complex circuit boards by Acme and Omega was threatened by mixed analog and digital devices. Both companies realized the pending threat and started to aggressively seek new customers. In July of 1992, a major photocopier manufacturer was looking for subcontractors to assemble digital memory units for a new experimental copier. The project contract was estimated between $7 million to $9 million in sales. Both Acme and Omega submitted competitive bids for the production of units and both companies were selected to produce 100 units. The photocopier manufacturer explained to both companies that production speed was a critical element of the contract and that each company would only have about two weeks to produce the prototypes or risk delaying the final copier production. On July 13, 1992 the Acme company started ordering the necessary the parts and began production on the memory units. Each department worked separately and encountered problems that led to...

Using the mechanistic and organic structure arguments develop in Chapter 2, compare and contrast the management styles at Acme and Omega. Acme's managerial style consists of a mechanistic structure, while Omega's managerial style is based on an organic structure. Acme's vertical differentiation, which consists of four levels of control, constitutes the dispersion of authority between the organizational hierarchy levels and gears to give the organization more control over its projects and activities. Acme is highly centralized, managers of the top of the hierarchy have all the power to make most of the decisions for the company, and subordinates are expected to follow orders. Although, I think that Acme has established a high level of standardization and formalization, they experienced difficulty abiding to their own rules. Employees at Acme exercise individual specialization, where employees specialize in one specific area and work individually. On the other hand, Omega is a decentralized organization, where managers and subordinates delegate important decisions about new organizational projects. Omega's management believes in mutual adjustment, which is the practice of using judgment on problem solving and also creates an informal way of communicating with each other rather that using standardization or written rules. Joint specialization at Omega gives their employees and opportunity to work in teams and balance their actions to find the most effective and efficient way of accomplishing an assignment. Omega's organic structure gives the employees more flexibility to innovative thinking, and creates a unity within the organization, where managers and employees share their knowledge and skills to achieve optimal performance. How do the differences between the companies' management styles explain the way they coordinated the production of the memory unit prototypes of the photocopying customer? Acme's mechanistic management style...

Chapter 1 Workbook: Answers will vary. Case for Analysis Part I 1. The goals at Acme show concern for output and internal efficiency. The goals at Omega reflect much greater concern for internal processes and employee satisfaction. 2. These goals can be seen to reflect the choices and preferences of top managers. John Tyler at Acme is concerned with efficiency and profit. Jim Rawls, Omegas president, is concerned with the internal atmosphere and employee satisfaction.

3. The goals reflect different effectiveness domains. In the model of effectiveness values, Acme values an external focus with control for efficiency while Omega is concerned with internal effectiveness for human resource development. These organizations are pursuing different goals with different strategies even though they do similar work and produce similar products. Part II 4. Most identify with the atmosphere at Omega and believe it will enable Omega to win the contract. A few typically believe that Acmes record of efficiency will enable it to produce the best result, even though we may not like the company as much. Part III 5. This section reveals Acmes difficulty in meeting deadlines while developing the prototype. The rigid, mechanistic structure which is suitable for internal efficiency led to conflict. The well-oiled relationships inside Omega enabled them to work out problems, and develop a quality prototype with great speed. The ability to develop the prototype can be attributed to the goals chosen by top management. The healthy internal climate at Omega reflects top management preference, as did the rigid structure at Acme. 6. Most predict that Omega will get the contract because they seem to deserve it. Omega discovered problems in the design, finished the prototype by the deadline, and had a higher quality and acceptance rate on the initial order of one hundred prototypes. Part IV 7. Acmes success can be explained by two reasons. One, the president made it a point to stay in close touch with the contracting organization. The manager took a broad viewa stakeholder approachand maintained good relationships in the environment. By so doing Acme was given an opportunity to produce the products even though they did poorly in developing the prototype. Acmes overall goal was oriented toward internal efficiency, so once the job is transformed into long production runs, they have an advantage. Their goal was not better, but in this case it allowed them to reduce costs below Omegas, which was the final criterion of choice. The selection of Acme indicates that effectiveness is a truly complex phenomenon that is not easily measured.

8. Many students will argue that Acme was more effective because it got the contract. If effectiveness were defined so narrowly, then Acme would be the correct answer. Acme would also be considered more effective if students use traditional criteria of profits, efficiency, or outputs as the basis of effectiveness, as they relate to this case. But in a broader view of effectiveness, the correct answer would be that they are about equally effective because Acme and Omega were attempting to excel in different domains. They were trying to do different things well and were succeeding. Omega was successful in developing a healthy internal climate and employee satisfaction. Acme was successful at being efficient and making profits. This points out that there is no single criterion of effectiveness that applies to all organizations, or even to a single organization.