Case Study on “Oticon’s No-Cubicle Culture” How and why did Lars Kolind change the way Oticon organized and controlled its employees? Could it be that Lars Kolind used his mathematical background and put quantitative management to run the company or did he use the management practices of Mary Follett or Henri Fayol? Mr. Kolind, a corporate renegade wanted change from the standard ways of management. Lars wanted equity, by changing the way the company was ran and giving the employees control over themselves and their projects the change was possible.
The negative factors that are being explained are being cramped up in tight cubicles. Also, having managers that are in total control reduced the freedom that Laras was looking for. To attract and retain top engineers and increase profit a new management style was needed. There are several new kinds of skills and ways of working that managers and employees needed to learn in order to perform well in Oticon’s new culture?
The managers need to use the following principles of management: initiative, so that the innovative and creativity of the employees can begin; unity of command, which is where one person will give orders instead of many managers. Managers and employees alike will have to learn to deal with the loss of privacy due to the openness of the new work area; working independently will have to be dealt with since projects will not be assigned. There are several ways of working related to those talked about in the chapter, such as those suggested by Fayol and Follett.
Mary Follett’s theories were the ones closely associated with the Laras’s management change. Follett believed that employers overlooked what employees had to offer but given the opportunity would exercise initiative daily while at work. Work development should also have the involvement of the employees since the work is done by employees and who better knows the job. Lastly, it is also possible that the Hawthorne effect had some factor since it suggests that employee’s attitudes towards their manager affects the performance. References Jones, G. (2009). Contemporary management. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin
