CASE STUDIES
...n-making is very important. The CEO hires, fires, and leads the senior management team. They, in turn, hire, fire, and lead the rest of the organization. She must be able to hire and fire non-performers. She resolves differences between senior team members, and keeps them working together in a common direction. Her decisions set direction by communicating the strategy and vision of where the company is going. With her clear direction, her good team can rally together and accomplish the goal of getting Avon back to the level that it has the potential to be. Andrea’s role in allocation of resources is also very crucial to Avon’s success. She sets budgets within the firm, she funds projects that support the strategy, and cuts down projects, which lose money or do not support the strategy. She considers carefully the company’s major expenditures, and manages the firm’s capital. One must know it is her decisions that determine the company’s financial fate. How would you describe her approach to planning, leading, organizing, and controlling? Andreas approach to planning is excellent in the sense that her planning skills have turned the company around. This is great from a person a person with little experience of what she is doing. She is great leader because she incorporates a sense of empowerment for the many women who sell the product. She reinforces the fact that Avon has its best interest in mind for all of its employees, especially the individual salesperson. She is a great organizer and is doing a great job of controlling resources. This is evident in Avon’s turn around when it was close to folding. Which of the management theories described in the chapter does Ron Edens make most of? One would definitely see Mr. Edens as a Theory X manager. His obvious distrust in his workers shows by how he controls them. He feels his job is to supervise them closely and control their behavior by means of punishment. He sets the work settings to maximize his control over his worker’s behavior and systematically controls the pace of their work. He feels he must control every aspect of the workers day, by closely monitoring them with cameras and supervisors on their backs. He feels he must closely monitor them because he does not trust the work ethic or morals of the people that work for him. You could easily compare him to Henry Ford at the Ford plant in the early 1900’s. Managers who use the authoritarian management style (Theory X) in their organizations attempt to control, structure, and closely supervise their employees. By using these external controls, managers feel they can foster greater organizational effectiveness in dealing with unreliable, dishonest, irresponsible, ...