Topic: transforming organization

Order Description Note: you have to review the case that i upload first, then answer the following qeus. you must refer the case to finish it. For that assignment, you should provide feedback that will help the group understand 1) how its case analysis has successfully presented the case, 2) how the use of different perspectives (frames) was successful (or not successful) in explaining how the case originated and how it was managed, and 3) what specific changes or improvements in the case analysis should be considered, in your opinion. Case Analysis: Chatime Boston First Draft Dec 8th, 2015 Chen Chatripitthayatorn, Mengyi Liu, Xiaonan Li, Xiaojie Zhang, Yifei Wang Chatime Boston 1 Introduction Chatime is a cafe-style Taiwanese tea shop, it was founded by Henry Wang under the parent company—La Kaffa International Co Ltd. in 2005 in Hsinchu, Taiwan. In order to modernize the traditional tea culture, Wang produced high-tech tea machines to make consistent-quality fresh teas and a variety of tea flavors, fruit essences and toppings (Baga-Reyes, 2012). It operates more than 1000 outlets in 26 countries, and now it had opened 4 stores in Boston, MA. The sample of this research is the branches of Chatime in Boston. The analysis will be based on Bolman & Deal (2013)’s theories about reframing organizations. By examining the organization from four perspectives that Bolman & Deal (2013) provided: structural frame, human resource frame, political frame, and symbolic frame, it would be clear where the problems came from, and how to deal with them. Chatime Boston 2 Frames used in Chatime 1. The Structural Frame Basically, the investigation of the structure in Chatime mainly focuses on the division of labor and the subjective goal within this business. 2. Human Resource Frame In this frame, the point is the inappropriate job distribution. 3. Political Frame There is a very stressful conflict existing in this organization, payment arrears. 4. Symbolic Frame Chatime Boston is very young and popular. With its logo and symbolic color, purple, people has been familiar. However, the organizational culture is still missing in this organization. Problems happened in Chatime First, the management is too flat. According to our interview, there are three levels within the organization: the decision makers or store owners, managers, and ground staff. Managers are only three divisions, first one is the marketing manager, another one project manager and store manager. It seems like some jobs are absent. For example, there is no position for the human resource employee or manager. Besides, the organization only has its mission, “to bring out the best bubble tea to our customers”, but there is no clear goal or vision in Chatime. Second, the distribution of human resource is inappropriate. There are many new candidates interning in this organization, but the trainers not the employees in human resource, Chatime Boston 3 but the employees majoring in project managers or the store managers. For example, the marketing manager not only focuses on the marketing work and advertisements but also is responsible for the work of recruiting. The additional work offers additional burden to the marketing manager. Gradually, the marketing manager feels so tired and even distracted from the subject work. Also, there is no structural network for employees to give feedback to others. The weekly meeting is the only communication way between supervisors and subordinates. Third, there is payment delay occurring to the internal employees. Since several chain stores are opening within one year, the investment is too much, and the return is too slow. The total profit cannot make up the cost. It is very hard for owners to pay employees on time. For an entire organization, it is very stressful because payment delay triggers potential conflicts between owners and employees. As a result, many of employees quit the job soon. Finally, there is no special organizational culture within Chatime Boston. Although the logo of chatime is very obvious and the main color in purple is a symbol, the corporate culture is missing. There is no official document recording the conduct of the business so that new candidates have to absorb the corporate culture from senior staff when they are in training term. As a leading milk tea organization, who wants to be more famous and popular in Boston, it is critical to cultivate a distinctive organizational culture within the team. In this way, people who are working in this company will feel proud and extraordinary, and work harder. From Keyton (2011), every newcomer is not familiar with organizational culture and it is very important for the company to design a segment to help freshmen to step in the organizational culture, which is a process called socialization within the company (p. 145). Those initiatives in Chatime, such as anniversary activities cover the jobs with Chatime Boston 4 senior employees and feedbacks from customers, but little information with organizational culture delivering to the internal newcomers. Comparison between Chatime Boston and Starbucks Corporation Starbucks, as a worldwide giant chain store specialty in coffee, has more than 23,000 chain stores all over the world. It has a high reputation of both its product and its service. Structure frame: They do not have uncommon structure as other chain stores have. It is a typical example of vertical coordination, which occurs when those at the top of the pyramid coordinate with those below them “through authority, rules and policies, and planning and control systems” (p.54, Bolman and Deal, 2013). Each store has a store manager who controls the operation of his/her own store. Under this store manager are a collection of shift supervisors who act as managers on duty when the store manager is out. Below the shift supervisors are the rest of the employees, referred to as baristas. Unlike Chatime Boston, it does not have a franchise system which is better for them to control the quality of each chain store. Meantime, Starbucks call all the workers no matter the barista or the manager as “partner”. This term is intended to make clear how integral Starbucks employees, no matter how low on the chain, are to the company's success. Although it does not have enough lateral coordination between chain stores, the “partners” are showed equity and respect during their work. Human resource frame: Starbucks has a high reputation of its strict and well-performed training system. Unlike the casual training system in Chatime Boston, Starbucks offers basic training for each employee who first enters the company. The mission statement of the company will be shown during the training: “inspiring and nurturing the human spirit – one person, one cup, and one neighborhood at a time”. As a barista, which is one of the most important positions Chatime Boston 5 in the company, each employee needs to complete the basic level training and certified in order to continue the employment. There is no specific time for training while whether certificated or not is the symbol for company to recognize the employee’s ability to work. After the basic training, the employee can choose to go further for deeper training to get additional certifications or to start his/her work. The training program in Starbucks is fairly rigorous in terms of the information a partner must intake and the new skills they are required to demonstrate after training is complete. Although these certifications are available to partners to complete, there is no pay change that reflects them once complete. The certifications also do not change the positions a partner is qualified to work. Political frame: In order to avoid conflict and increase employee’s satisfaction, Starbucks provides employees excellent bonuses additional to their basic salaries. Working for more than 20 hours a week, an employee can get health and dental care; one drink 30 minutes prior to the shift, one during the break, and one up to 30 minutes after the shift; any food item once during the shift; either a bag of coffee, tea or something else once a week for free; 30% discount on almost everything in the store; paid vacation, paid sick days, and free stock in the company. As a new company, it is understandable that Chatime Boston does not have enough sources to provide as bonus to the employees. But the delay payment for the salaries are horrible to employees and its reputation. It should figure out some way to fix that and at least pay the employees in time with the rated amount. Symbolic frame: An interesting symbol for Starbucks is the mystery shoppers. The Starbucks head office sends secret shoppers to random stores to check the operations in the store. They will go in and watch to see if staff clear the tables and check the washroom for cleanliness. Chatime Boston 6 They will then order something small, usually a tall cappuccino. They will then pay for this using a debit card. All the time they are at the counter, they are using a stopwatch to time how long it takes you to process their card, and how long it takes the barista to make the coffee. They are watching to see how cheerful you and your colleagues are, if you smile and offer them anything else to eat. Once you have given the secret shopper their drink, and processed their payment they stop timing you. They will then ask you an inane question such as, "...What new drinks do you have?" They will recofrd your reply word for word on the report they give. Then they will vanish and use special equipment to test the coffee to record the temperature and the weight. This is not only a way to urge each store to maintain good services and products but also a symbol that leaves the customers a good impression of how Starbucks examines the quality of each store. Remedies: how to apply four frames According to the problems that currently drag Chatime’s business down, we can apply the Four-Frame Model to help Chatime get some ideas and pictures to effectively deal with its problems. In this case, we will focus on each frame of the Bolman & Deal’s Four-Frame Model as shown in these followings. For the structural frame, Chatime will need to reconsider its organizational structure because the structure that it currently uses seems not to have a clear division of labor and relies too much on literal coordination. In other words, the organizational structure that Chatime uses is too flat according to the information taken from the interviews that shows Chatime has only 3 levels of authority including: 1) Owners, 2) Managers, and 3) Staff. As mentioned in the textbook, division of labor is the keystone of structure because every company needs it to help create specialized roles to get important work done (Bolman & Deal, 2013, p. 49). So, Chatime Chatime Boston 7 will have to establish clear lines of authority and responsibility in the workplace to help all its staff get a clear picture of their company’s organizational structure and know exactly which manager they need to report to or they can talk with when they have difficulty doing their job. Moreover, it will also need to consider using vertical coordination to make its business become more vertical to prevent role confusion and conflict among managers and staff in the company too. For the human resource frame, Chatime will need to add a human resources department to bridge communication gaps between people at each authority level of the company. Alternatively, it might be another effective way for Chatime to just develop a plan to effectively communicate and listen to staff concerns if the company would really like to save its money. After that, Chatime will have to provide a new hire orientation and a cross training program to its staff after they are hired, and have every new hire participate in the program to learn what their job is and how to execute different tasks in the company if necessary. So, this training program will help all the staff to avoid problems associated with a lack of knowledge and skills to perform their tasks. Moreover, based on our interviews, we found that some staff are not happy working with others because some of them like to work individually, while others enjoy working as a team. So, we think that Chatime should cope with this challenge by promoting teamwork among its staff to make its business run more smoothly and harmoniously. For the political frame, Chatime will need to improve its ability to effectively recognize and identify all the external and internal forces, which can affect its operational plan, and to manage its resources, including money and time, to prevent any further conflicts between different interest groups associated with the company. Since we found that expanding business Chatime Boston 8 by opening new stores in different locations around Boston area in about the same period of time while not having enough resources to operate those new stores properly leads Chatime to face a financial problem, we will suggest that Chatime should stop spending its time and money on business expansion and start focusing more on improving its financial performance and business efficiency. For example, it might need to lower the price of its products to better attract and satisfy customers in the market. Likewise, it might need to consider using social media as an alternative channel to advertise its products, and to get more customers and build relationships with them. In addition, it might need to offer some new products to better attract other target customers who are not a big fan of the milk tea. For example, it can offer Taiwanese- or Chinese-style coffee with its traditional brewing style to attract coffee lovers. By following all these suggestions, we believe that Chatime will have the ability to effectively balance its resources and stay competitive in today’s business environment eventually. For the symbolic frame, based on the information taken from our interviews, we noticed that Chatime has created several symbols that powerfully carry intellectual and emotional messages to both its staff and people outside the company to help them see and get a better understanding of how successful the company’s business is and what core value the company lives by. For example, an opening of one of the Chatime’s stores on Newbury Street can be seen as a symbol to show its staff and people outside the company that the company has confidence in its business, and it will grow continuously and sustainably in the future. Another example is that Chatime focuses on serving only the best bubble tea to its customers as shown in the company mission statement and commitment (Chatime Boston, n.d.). So, this statement shows its Chatime Boston 9 customers a symbol that the company highly values customer expectations and satisfaction, not just its sales revenue. Chatime Boston 10 References Bata-Reyes, Vangie. (2012). How Taipei’s Chatime came to Manila. Philippine Daily Inquirer, Apr. 26, 2012. Retrieved from http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/45061/how-taipei’s-chatime-came-to-manila Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2013). Reframing organizations (5th ed.). San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Chatime Boston. (n.d.). Chatime Boston. Retrieved from http://chatimeboston.com/aboutus-2/ http://starbucksunion.org/node/1036 https://www.glassdoor.com/Benefits/Starbucks-US-Benefits-EI_IE2202.0,9_IL.10,12_IN1.htm http://smallbusiness.chron.com/starbucks-its-organizational-design-12857.html Keyton, J. (2011) . Communication and Organizational Culture: A key to understanding work experiences (2nd ed., p. 222). California: SAGE Publications.