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AA Philosophical Agreements
1. Increase Our Customer's Revenue.
2. Save Our Customer's Money by Increasing Efficiency.
3.) Align Operations to Corporate Strategies.
4.) Provide Customer's Excellent Service
AA Advertisement: Culture and Stakeholders
Organizational values, social responsibility and corporate citizenship are all aspects of a companies approach to work and the environment around them. The following report will discuss how organizational values and stakeholder influence affects the bottom line of the organization. The report will further discuss how AA Advertisement will approach the general improvement of current values as well as the implementation of new ones through a concerted effort of measurement and continuous improvement. The report is broken down into an overview of AA Advertisement and its current culture, the problem of culture and slowing innovation, the needs of stakeholders and how to measure cultural improvement. Business cannot continue to b “as usual” within AA Advertisement least they lose their competitive edge.
Overview of AA Advertising and Its Culture
AA Advertising formally started in 2003 and is an entrepreneur company by nature filled with tech workers and forward thinking advertising gurus. The company has tapped into the growing online marketing world at a time when traditional forms of advertising are declining (Johnson, 2008). The goal of the company is to offer content driven forms of providing strong visitors for company web pages while still offering other methods of online advertising.
As a business AA Advertising has grown to 14 workers of which four are managers, seven are content writers, and three are marketing specialists. The company has always worked with a thin staff and has outsourced some of the time consuming tasks to outside agencies with lower labor costs due to the highly compensated and highly skilled professionals AA Advertising maintains. They host a website at http://www.article-agent.org and http://www.article-agent.net
The problem is that as the company has grown from the initial founders and earliest employees the culture of the organization has changed. As the organization becomes larger the innovative spirit seems to be fading and workers need ever more oversight in order to produce strong results. The company appears to be moving into a bureaucratic stage which is common in maturing businesses (Freeman & Engel, 2007). This bureaucracy is also contributing to a slower development of innovative marketing solutions.
It is important for high technology industries like online advertising companies to keep up with an entrepreneurial spirit in order to stay competitive (Duobiene, 2008). This entrepreneurial spirit helps such small and quick paced businesses adjust to trends and stay ahead of larger companies that have dominated the market. However, as these smaller companies grow they begin to get bogged down in bureaucratic administration.
Thus AA Advertising has begun to develop core values that it desires every employee to adhere to. The owner and key managers at AA Advertising have come to the conclusion that customer satisfaction is the main criteria in which all values should be based upon. Other concepts such as employee satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity all tie into how well these services are delivered (Heskett, Jones, Loveman, Sesser, & Schlesinger, 2008). AA Advertising’s core values are as follows:
1.) Belief in providing high quality service and results to customers.
2.) Bringing the newest technology available to customers.
3.) Keeping both prices the customer pays as well as costs the company incurs low.
4.) Belief in the value of scholarship and learning.
5.) Maintaining high levels of productivity.
6.) A sense of loyalty and commitment to the company and fellow employees.
7.) Value, draw on, and respect employees participation.
These core values were designed in hopes strengthening individual responsibility, improving productivity, and better service delivery. The goal is to encourage employees to adhere to these core values and reward them for behavior when they do. The Company desires to achieve the highest measure of success without losing its core values in the process.
Values and Performance Goals
Since values naturally lead to some level of performance, whether high or low, it is important to know which values have lead companies to financial success. Those values that lead to higher performance should be emulated within the organization while those that lead to lower performance should be rejected and minimized. Knowing the difference between desirable and undesirable values is the first step in reformation.
CEO’s often focus on shareholders which can lead to employee disenfranchisement (Eisenstat, Beer, Foote, Fredberg & Norrgren, 2008). Part of the problem at AA advertisement is the disenfranchisement of new employees who don’t desire the same things as the original founders. One of the ways in which a leader can help reduce this effect is by building trust through the unbridled truth, focusing on only a few initiatives at a time, and developing personal relationships with employees (Eisenstat, Beer, Foote, Fredberg & Norrgren, 2008)..
AA Advertisement’s new employees simply don’t have the same comradeship with the founder as early employees did when the company was in its early stages of growth. Thus the leader has been distanced from the employees and has not been able to foster strong enough relationships with them in order to transfer knowledge about corporate values at AA Advertisement. Without this close companionship and direction employees are likely to begin to develop their own values.
Focusing on the needs of entry level and front-line staff can help in building better customer service and customer relationships (Heskett, Jones, Thomas, Loveman, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 2008). As AA Advertisements grows into a mature organization earlier employees, who are now managers, fee a sense of entitlement. This sense of entitlement and reward for their hard work with the owner causes a hierarchical approach to management. Thus the needs of the new employees are often ignored.
Yet it is more then ignored that may help disenfranchise employees. It is also possible that managers may not respect the values and opinions of these employees due to their newness in the company and their lack of experience in this unique company. As the company become more professionally managed values like time, position, and pay may become more important then the individual’s ability to contribute in an entrepreneurial fashion (Duobienė, 2008).
Therefore with actual skill and contribution being less important then positional authority employees may not feel comfortable voicing opinions that may be different then the original founders. New employee’s opinions appear to be unwelcome, unwarranted, and un-credible. Such an environment would surely create blockages to new ideas coming forth.
Encouraging diverse opinions helps create innovation (Elenkov & Manev, 2005). Innovation is all about coming up with new ways and methods to achieving objectives. New employees have the same ability as managers to draw upon their various backgrounds in order to look at tasks and problems in a new perspective. Thus, drawing these values out of AA Advertisement’s employees may keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive.
Measuring Success and Stakeholder Desires
Stakeholders such as customers, the public, and government agencies can place significant pressure on AA Advertisements in order to be ethical and credible in their dealings with people and the public. Failure to take into consideration the needs of both internal and external stakeholders can be manifested in the form of negative press posted in online forums, blogs, emails, and more. However, a positive public image can help to create further public awareness of the company and its offerings. In addition to public image AA Advertisements is also interested in obtaining information from their critical customer stakeholders.
Since stakeholders have a stake in the company they can often be used as a source of feedback for AA Advertisements products. However, products are more then simply the advertising service the company offers. Products are anything AA Advertisement produces such as culture, economic impact, public image, etc… Feedback can have a huge impact on how products are designed and the quality of services that are offered (Mayne, 2008).
In any organization there are stakeholders that influence the tangible and intangible wealth of the corporation by either “buying into” the company or “rejecting” the company (Susniene, 2008). Tangible benefits can include wealth and additional customers while intangible benefits may be efficiency, employee retention, cheaper operating costs, etc... On the intangible spectrum, stakeholders can produce competence, stronger internal structures, and stronger external relationships that further help AA Advertisements to succeed financially.
The pressure that stakeholders exert on organizations can act like a feedback loop as well as an additional accountability check. Key members of management and corporate decisions should consider the inside and outside stakeholders when making decisions. By considering stakeholders AA Advertisements can face less resistance and more cooperation in the market which makes implementation easier. The success or failure of the implantation of new ideas is a critical component to AA Advertisement’s well being.
Each stakeholder group may have different objectives. For example, the public might want more Internet accountability, shareholders may want more money, and consumer groups a better product at a reasonable price. Having strong stakeholders can help workers be more committed to organizational values and maintain high ethical values (Cullinan, Bline, Farrar, & Lowe, 2008). The additional pressure by stakeholders may help in defining AA Advertisements business imperatives.
Thus AA Advertisement’s leaders must answer not only to their employees but also to their stakeholders. Leaders may need to improve efficiency to increase profits (shareholder stakeholder), might need to implement new technology to better their offerings (customer stakeholders), or have more corporate disclosure (consumer stakeholders). By improving overall impression and the quality of the outputs of AA Advertisement the public impression of the organization increases.
There are a number of ways to evaluate improvements in culture and their impact on the bottom line. When cultural programs are implemented the organization can measure changes and differences throughout the entire program in the form of a confirmative evaluation (Giberson, Tracey, & Harris, 2006). In confirmative evaluation the executive or program director takes responsibility for the entire outcome versus one component.
For example, at AA Advertisement an expanded orientation and training may help the company to better acclimate new workers. The measurement of productivity after orientation and training for the first year of employment could be improved upon. This productivity represents actual financial dollar values in terms of products made, developed and implemented. Old orientation and training programs could be measured against new ones.
A survey called the Practice Culture Questionnaire (PCQ) which uses 25 item measurements can help organizations quantify the impact of cultural influences on quality (Stevenson & Baker, 2005).. Since AA Advertisers must meet stakeholder (customers) demands for quality such surveys would be beneficial and measurable in the final product (return on advertising campaigns). A positive improvement in services may in turn create a higher percentage of loyalty among customers.
Yet the PCQ is not the only type of survey that can be conducted at AA Advertisements. The company may also consider surveying its employees in order to better understand the environment in which they work and reduce road blocks to innovation. For example, surveying managers impressions of employees may review that managers have a sense of entitlement. Likewise, surveying employees may find that management never asks their opinion or openly takes credit for employee’s work.
Relationships between managers and employees is not the only problem AA Advertisement experiences. In the end the success of the company will rest on customer improvement and generation of revenue. Therefore, knowing what the customers wants and how long they use the product is important. If the customer receives advertising work from AA Advertisement but abandons the program after a year and does not return more then it is likely there is a problem.
One of the ways to measure product life cycles is by the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) (Gauthier, 2005). The LCA is divided into two stages which are the life cycle of the product and the measure of social performance. Thus any changes in culture within the organization should have a reciprocal affect in the market among stakeholders. By measuring how long they use the product and their satisfaction while doing so is a direct reflect on the success of the organization and an indirect effect on the cultural values of the organization.
Concepts such as Total Quality Management can be applied to both cultural improvements and products (Detert, Schroeder, & Mauriel, 2000). For example, a new culture of “not less then perfection” or “no defects” may be implemented at AA Advertisement. The concepts of measuring benchmarks in terms of mistakes and other data drivers can be beneficially used for the general improvement of the organization.
Improvement at AA Advertisement must be measured in order to ensure that initiatives to develop an innovative and collaborative work environment are fostered. The importance of seeking improvements throughout the organization cannot be minimized. In order to change culture AA Advertisement will need to measure both internal improvements as well as the impact on customer’s satisfaction and sales.
Recommendations
AA Advertisement shall begin a strong program of cultural reformation that includes understanding their customer’s needs, defining their own values, implementing new cultural support systems and monitoring their improvement over time. AA Advertisement shall break down their approach into the following steps:
Understanding Customer: Since no can work without customers or income AA Advertisement must focus on the needs of their customers. They will do this by inviting the largest companies to an online forum where specific questions will be asked. Those that engage in the forum receive gifts and discounts on advertising. Each customer will be asked to fill out a short survey in order to be entered in a drawing for prizes or products.
Defining Values: AA Advertisement must define its values as a management team, employee team and organization in order to understand how business will be conducted on a daily basis. Both employees and managers will be required to attend a value setting two-day meeting where core values will be defined.
Support Systems: In order to maintain the implementation of values systems new training and development initiatives will be developed, annual cultural seminars will be offered and the continues feedback of customers sought. The management team and employees will be held accountable for maintaining the new values like soliciting a wider perspective before making decisions. The process of monitoring through hard and soft methods will be compiled every six months and will include a variety of measurements.
Conclusions
AA Advertisement knows that it has developed some cultural bad habits over the successful growth years. Employees and management values have never been more divided and the company must figure out a way to integrate these values. Innovation has been declining and customer retention rates are declining. AA Advertisement knows that it is their entrepreneurial spirit that will keep their company progressing forward (Duobiene, 2008). The company is determined to make changes to their underlining cultural assumptions.
Some of the ways in which AA advertisement will encourage growth is through valuing opinions (Duobiene, 2008), drawing on both employee and customer feedback (Mayne, 2008), encouraging stakeholder influence (Susniene, 2008), focusing on training (Heskett, Jones, Thomas, Loveman, Sasser, & Schlesinger, 2008), and implementing Total Quality Management systems of monitoring and improvement (Detert, Schroeder, & Mauriel, 2000). Through such methods AA Advertisement desires to improve employee, customer and financial satisfaction.
References
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Freeman, J. & Engle, J. (2007). Models of Innovation: startups and mature corporations. California Management Review, 50 (1).
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Heskett, J., Jones, T., Loveman, G., Sasser, W., & Schlesinger, L. (2008). Putting the service-profit chain to work. Harvard Business Review, 86 (7/8).
Johnson, B. (2008). Top 100’s ad-spending grinds to halt. Advertising Age, 79 (25
Mayne, E. (2008). Chrysler upgrades world engines. Ward’s Auto World, 44 (6).
Puctaite, R. & Lamsa, A. (2008). Advancing organizational trust in a post-socialist context: role of ethics management tools. Economics & Management.
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