- 26/12/2012
- Posted by: essay
- Category: Free essays
Morgan Stanley is one of the most successful global financial services firms. At the same time, the company still faces substantial problems in regard to its organizational culture which affects the organizational performance of Morgan Stanley consistently. In actuality, the company has a positive marketing performance but the company expands its business internationally that raises substantial barriers, especially in terms of cultural differences between managers and employees working at the company. In such a situation, it is important to find plausible solutions to the problem of cultural gaps which affect not only the organizational culture but also the organizational performance of Morgan Stanley.
First of all, it is important to dwell upon the management of ability of Morgan Stanley. Traditionally, the company was managed successfully. However, the company was traditionally inclined to strong leadership, which relied heavily on the authority of the leader. John Mack attempted to be a charismatic and popular leader. He attempted to create an image of a democratic, liberal and supportive leader but, in actuality, he has failed to reach positive outcomes in his leadership style. Instead, John Mack slipped toward the authoritarian management style, although he promoted the idea of servant leadership, where the leader performs a role of a steward to his or her subordinates.
In such a situation, the organizational commitment has started to deteriorate. What is meant here is the fact that the organizational commitment has started to decrease since the management and leadership of Morgan Stanley proved to be ineffective (Partnoy, 1997). In this regard, it is worth mentioning the fact that employees are not confident in the company. Instead, they are uncertain in their future, especially after the acquisition of Smith Barney in 2009. After the acquisition some employees lost their jobs, whereas the rest felt uncertain in their future in the new company. In addition, the organizational commitment has started to drop because employees of Smith Barney did not feel being a part of Morgan Stanley yet.
The job satisfaction plays an important part in regard to the organizational commitment. Today, the job satisfaction in Morgan Stanley tends to decrease (Hibbard, 2005). In actuality, the recent economic recession and financial crisis affected the position of Morgan Stanley consistently and the company needed to optimize its performance and to start saving costs. In this regard, job cuts proved to be one of the tools to save costs, especially after the acquisition of Smith Barney. As a result, Morgan Stanley faced the problem of the loss of confidence of employees in the company and their growing uncertainty in their future, whereas conditions of work has started to deteriorate that resulted in the growing job dissatisfaction.
In such a situation, Morgan Stanley attempted to minimize the negative effects of the restructuring after the merger. The company paid a particular attention to the organizational ethics. To put it more precisely, the company attempted to justify job cuts by the reorganization and restructuring stressing the fact that employees, who have their jobs, could count for their compensation plans. However, the compensations were insufficient for employees to maintain normal standards of living after losing their jobs. Naturally, such actions from the part of Morgan Stanley were unethical.
At the same time, it is important to take into consideration external and internal influences Morgan Stanley proved to be vulnerable to (Chernow, 1990). In this regard, the financial crisis was one of the most significant factors that affected the position of the company in the market and its organizational culture. The financial crisis has revealed all the drawbacks and pitfalls of the organizational culture. In the struggle for survival, leaders of the company took care of their own well-being and sacrificed the well-being of their employees.
In such a situation it is possible to recommend Morgan Stanley to focus on the change of its leadership and management style. To put it more precisely, it is highly recommendable to shift toward the transformational leadership style, which is the best option for companies in the course of restructuring and consistent transformations. Leaders and employees should adapt to new conditions of work and to new business environment. In addition, the company should develop the ethical code and code of conduct, which regulates ethical norms and defines basic models of behavior for managers and employees of the company.
References
Chernow, R. (1990) The House of Morgan. New York: Random House.
Hibbard, J. (17 January 2005). “Morgan Stanley: No stars—and lots of top tech IPOs.” In BusinessWeek, 56 – 58.
Partnoy, F. (1997). F.I.A.S.C.O. NY: Penguin Books.
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