Gore associates

关于管理学的研究文章~

1. Gore associates are without a doubt highly motivated and commitment workers. What theories of motivation explain their motivation to work? Identify the theories you can see in the case and give examples from the case to illustrate how each theory operates. You may want to start by identifying the behaviors Bill Gore wanted to encourage in his associates.

First of all, W. L. Gore & Associates provides associates very generous compensation, which of course relates to the theory of motivation given by Frederick Winslow Taylor, that is, workers are motivated mainly by pay. The compensation in W. L. Gore & Associates includes three parts: salary, bonus and an Associates’ Stock Option Program (ASOP). What deserves more attention is the ASOP, which provides a chance for an associate to become a stockholder in Gore and in other words, somewhat become an owner of the company. By the way, paying as a motivation is also mentioned in the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory as the physiological needs and safety needs.
Second, the “sponsor” program in W. L. Gore & Associates has played an important part in motivating the associates. In brief, “sponsor”program means that when a new person was hired, another old associate will become his/her sponsor to help and encourage the now associate in work area. This is related to the theories of motivation given by Elton Mayo, that is, workers can be motivated by a better communication between manager and workers and a greater manager involvement in workers’ life and teamwork. Even though in Gore, there is no such word as manager or employee, the “sponsor”program does bring a good communication and involvement between now and old stuff in Gore, which gives them motivation. Besides, this also refers to the social needs and sense of belonging in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory.
Third, the emphasis on the personal growth and development of associates is another good motivator in Gore. Gore offers lots of training opportunities for associates and programs in leadership development. Gore even has some programs with universities and pays most of the costs for associates. This related to the highest level in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory, that is self actualization. By providing them opportunities to develop, Gore satisfies their need to growth. 
Fourth, the lattice structure of W. L. Gore & Associates, which is described as unmanaged and unstructured, emphasizes the direct communication, no fixed authority or bosses, natural leadership with the characteristic of followership, group-focused discipline and self-commitment, which help develop a corporate culture for associates to make their own decisions, enjoy more freedom in work and come out more creative ideas. This is mentioned in the Herzberg's Two Factor Theory and is related to the recognition, achievement and responsibilities, etc.
Fifth, the interesting and informal corporate culture of Gore likes encouraging the individual initiative and innovations, freedom, discretion and most importantly, the equality motivates the associates to have their own commitment and decisions without traditional limitations like rigid management. This shows the McClelland's 3 Needs Theory which includes the need for achievement, the need for power, the need for affiliation. 

2. Describe the organizational culture at W. L. Gore & Associates, including the outwards signs of the culture (so called “artifacts” that is, what we can observe), the norms of conduct that operate in the firm, and the values that underlie both norms and artifacts. Use illustrations from the case.

Talking about the organizational culture at W. L. Gore & Associates, what we can observe are the sponsor program and the lattice structure. In order to avoid rigid management in the company and encourage the stuff’s creativity and innovation, the sponsor program was invented to help new associates adapt to the company’s culture. The new associate can have one or more sponsors to ask for help. Those sponsor can be divided into three types——the starting sponsor, the advocate sponsor and compensation sponsor. A sponsor is a friend rather a boss or a manager. Along with the sponsor program, the lattice structure is applied. Even though it was described as unmanaged and unstructured, it has its own way to organize the whole company. It prefers direct communication, which makes the ideas convey more quickly. Using sponsor rather than bosses means the refusal of authority by which reduces lots of useless efforts. Commitments are made by the people who carry them so it can guarantee that all do their best. In practice, this structure proved itself to be effective. For example, in 1975, within only a short time after a crisis was reported, a permanent solution was made and even the product was improved to be better. However, the lattice structure has some similarities to traditional way to manage. For example, there is a meeting held by a group of associates to review some plans of company every six months.
The norms of conduct that operate in the firm, as described as four guiding principles, can be concluded into fairness, freedom, commitment, and discretion. Fairness means that the compensations are given regarding to what contributions an associate has made and a compensation team review associates’ compensation fairly. Freedom means without those rigid managements, associates convey their ideas freely. Commitment means that set up your own goal which you are able to realize. Discretion, which is also called waterline principle, means that you should be very cautious on the things that might influence the whole firm and when this thing happens, you’d better ask other associates. For example, the travel consultant was very discreet about the cost and once it becomes higher, the travel consultant will react to it immediately. The norms of conduct that operate the company have met some tests. In 1978, the Gore-Tex met some problems which did harm to the company’s reputation. But under the lattice structure and those basic principles, associates in Gore dealt with the problems promptly and avoided bigger issue. 
The values that underlie both norms and artifacts are the corporate culture which emphasize on intrapreneurship, individual growth and development and equality. Intrapreneurship encourages associates to act as a leader and organize a team. Individual growth and development in this culture is shown by those various training programs. Equality can be observed in the parking lot without special reserve, the same dining facilities and no titles, etc. All of them form the informal, unstructured and results-oriented organizational culture. This culture, for those who get accustomed to the traditional management, may hard to adopt at first and it also not suitable to all the other companies. But it works well so far in Gore and associates in it support it as well.

3. Bill Gore argued that management at W. L. Gore and Associates was “unmanagement”, but the company has never been, nor is it today, without leadership. What kind of leadership is there throughout the organization (what leadership theories operate), and in what bases of power is leadership anchored?

Unlike those traditional leaderships based on the rigid management and hierarchy, the company’s leadership emphasizes the natural, individual leadership which is defined by followership, that is to say, there is no boss or employer here. The leaders are your friends or partners and they will help you do the better job rather than just give you an order. They are encouraged to displayed strong leadership without being an authoritarian. Some leadership theories are easy to be found.
Firstly, the trait theory and skills theory are outstanding in Gore. These two theories both state that the certain qualities, learned knowledge and acquired skill are significant in effective leadership. And it’s clear to see that in Gore, those people who lead are those people with certain qualities of being a leader. For example, they might be the people with special knowledge or experience, people with abilities to persuade other for making commitments, people who can evaluate others’ performance, etc.
Second, there are three major leaderships in Lewin's Leadership Styles as autocratic leaders, democratic leaders and Laissez-faire leaders. In Gore, there is no doubt that the company adopts the style of Laissez-faire leaders, which encourages freedom and to make your own decisions. This can be proved by a detail in making a product champion. According to McCarter, salespeople in the firm do not need to accept quota system or target set by “manager”, whereas they can set their own commitments according to what they expect so that they have momentum to achieve their goals. Besides, people were encouraged to think and experiment freely, which brings lots of energy to the whole company. The theory of Laissez-faire leaders in Gore is shown as the“Intrapreneuring associates,” people who make their own team to carry out the program without formal authority. However, this freedom also has some limitations since discretion is also in a significant position in making the decisions. 
Third, in the Hersey-Blanchard Situational Leadership Theory, it argues that depending on the different abilities of teammates, a leader should use different leading styles and also put emphasis on the task if needed. In the internal memo of leadership in Gore, the second point states that the role of the leader is to persuade associates to make appropriate commitments, that is , the leader is the task seeker. In additions, in Gore, the leader also need to remind the teammates what will happen from their actions and emphasizes the contributions. What’s more direct to show this leadership is in those “rare cases”. When regard to regular absence or stealing, the leadership will become very strict without any concession. At this point, the Situational Theory is also related. All mentioned above show that the leadership in Gore is changeable according to different situations.
As for the bases of power that the leadership anchored in, above all, we should refer to the five types of power in management, that is: coercive, legitimate, reward, referent, and expert. Clearly, the coercive power that the manager uses to force an employee and the legitimate power that employ uses to give order have no positions in Gore. And the power of reward, referent and expert are adopted in the company. Reward refers to the generous compensations, referent refers to everyone’s leadership and expert refers to those principles that the leader should follow. Besides, the founder’s experience and business philosophy also support this leadership’s base of power.

4. The following questions relate to the case Tata: leadership with trust：
A. Using the Globe and Hofstede dimensions, discuss the cultural dimensions of India in comparison to your country? 
B. What are other differences between India and your country?
C. How do these differences impact leadership?
(I assume that I am from China and I have a leadership position in India)

In culture measurement of GLOBLE model, there are nine cultural dimensions. They are: power distance, uncertainty avoidance, institutional collectivism, human orientation, performance orientation, assertiveness, gender egalitarianism and future orientation. In Hofttede model, culture can be measured in six dimensions, that is: power distance index, uncertainty avoidance index, individualism, masculinity, long term orientation and indulgence. Since these two models are similar to each other, in this case, the Hofttede model was chosen to help analyze in the comparison in the culture dimensions between India and China. 
According to the data in the website of Geert-Hofstede , the result of this comparison is as follows:
In power distance which is defined by to which extent people accept the unequal distributions of power, China has higher score than India, which means that the inequalities amongst Chinese on power distribution are more acceptable. However, India also has a high score as 77. This shows that in India’s society, hierarchy and power inequalities are also welcomed and accepted very well. This can also be found in Indian companies which have very rigid management structure and the demand of loyalty and obedience. In return, the employees also want to be directed and controlled to help them find out what they should do. In the case of Tata, for example, a strategy on climate change mitigation is set up to guide the conducts of those firms with Tata brand and once they fail to obey, punishments will follow.
In individualism which refers to the degree of interdependence in a society, the score that India got is far higher than China’s which shows that China is more collective than India. Since far from the ancient China, Chinese people have been instilled the idea of group, nation or family, making people act mostly with the consideration of the group’s interests. On the contrary, India, with the score of 48, actually is both collective and individualistic. In a company, they have an expectation of the base of the collectivist society like loyalty while also emphasize individual responsibility under the influence of the Hinduism (which believes that people’s life is impacted by the way they act individually). So in the case of Tata, some leadership in fact is personal while they still emphasize that leadership should rely on the collective effort.
In masculinity which indicates the society views on what’s more important---success or quality of life, the scores of China and India are pretty closed. They are all masculine nations and can sacrifice family or comfort in order to achieve success. In the case of Tata, they set their ultimate aim on remaining the number one in business.
In uncertainty avoidance that is about how to deal with uncertain factors, it is said that India is more tolerant to change than China. China likes to use rules and laws to avoid uncertainties in the society while in India, the place filled with different people and cultures around the world, is capable to adjust itself to those new things. In the case of Tata, in order to achieve better quality management, Tata companies received feedback from different kind of people to improve themselves.
In long term orientation, India’s score is much lower than China’s, which means that India prefers to long-term traditions while China is more easily to adapt traditions to the changed conditions. In the case of Tata, Tata put “sustainable value” in the essential position aims to promote the idea of sustainability in the society.
In indulgence that represents the degree to which people try to control their desires, both of these two nations share very similar situation with the low score. They are all restrained societies, emphasizing less on pleasure but more on self-control. In the case of Tata, CSR is the core value of company and the shared value is also stressed many times.
As for other differences between China and India, they are included the difference in women’s status, the degree of the cultural complexity, the state concept, etc.
All the differences mentioned above shape the leadership in Indian companies, making them to adopt both freedom and control, emphasize both sustainability and profit, care about interests in the individual and group, focus both on inner and outer world, etc.