Management and Organisations

This paper discusses the organisational structure and characteristics of King Digital Entertainment Ltd, the maker of popular game Candy Crush Saga. It also suggests modern management approaches to improve functionality, analyses the relevance of the company's organisational culture to its ongoing success, and identifies two innovative strategic management objectives of the organisation.

Running head: MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATIONS
Management and Organisations
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Table of Content

1MANAGEMENT AND ORGANISATIONS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................3
Introduction of the organisation.......................................................................................................3
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................4
Identifying the organisational structure and analysing how this structure facilitates its
functionality.....................................................................................................................................4
Task 3...............................................................................................................................................5
Suggesting one modern management approach to improve the functionality.................................5
Task 4...............................................................................................................................................7
Using Charles Handly’s cultural framework, identifying and analysing the relevance of
company’s organisational culture to its on-going success...............................................................7
Task 5...............................................................................................................................................8
Analysing two innovative strategic management objectives of the organisation............................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
Reference List................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
King Digital Entertainment Ltd operates in popular social gaming space and it is the
maker of popular game Candy Crush Saga. In video gaming industry, King Digital
Entertainment plays the important role with sustained success along with popularity. In this
paper, King's structure and characteristics of the organisation are discussed. In the following
section, the organisational structure of the companies is discussed which facilitates the
functionality. King’s situational analysis is used in the company to develop the functionality of
the organisation. Handy’s cultural framework is identified which analyses the relevance of the
company to its ongoing success. Lastly, King’s two innovative management objectives are
identified in order to improve the condition of the organisation.
Task 1
Introduction of the organisation
King Digital Entertainment is a social games development company and it develops
games for the mobile and web. King achieved its fame after releasing the game in cross-platform
titled Candy Crush Saga. King was founded in the year 2003 and founder of the organisation
Riccardo Zacconi and he made the team along with 5 other members. Headquarter of the
organisation is in London, the UK. The global game market reached US$108 billion in the year
2017 with taking a 42% market share in mobile phone (Berger 2017). The recent report showed
that there are 2.2 billion gamers across the world it contributed an average £3.35 Billion to the
UK economy in 2017. King provided the successful game Candy Crush Saga using the freemium
model. In the year 2016, King was acquired by Activision Bizzard and it operates its own entity

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within that company. King has 13 studios in Stockholm, London, Barcelona, San Fransisco and
Malmo and it reached the revenue of US$1.60 billion. Net income of the organisation touched
US$ 700 million. King has more than 2000 employees and it spent US$ 110 million on R&D
(Discover.king.com 2018). King made the revenue through in-game advertising along with
micro-transaction.
Task 2
Identifying the organisational structure and analysing how this structure facilitates its
functionality
The co-founder of the organisation King was Riccardo Zacconi and King made it
possible to quickly establish the company as the market leader in the casual games to play in the
mobile devices. Activision Blizzard is one of the largest organisations in gaming and it offered
$6 billion to Zacconni. King had adopted disruptive technologies and it followed a hierarchical
organisational structure. Activision Blizzard uses has four departments and from which ABS
partners controls King. As stated by Glisson (2015), the hierarchical structure contains the
direct chain of order from the top to bottom. In this structure, senior management takes the tough
decision and the decisions pass down to the bottom. The hierarchical structure can be operated
well in the few products which are sold in high volume; therefore King is can be operated best in
the hierarchical structure as Candy Crush Saga sold in high volume as tight control of the
organisation is the best to design the quality, production, quality and distribution of the goods.

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Figure 1: Organisational structure of King Digital
(Source: Discover.king.com 2018)
Activision Blizzard has strong integration record and structure of King kept as same. The
management thought that structured minimisation can stop the disruption and integration risk can
maintain the spirit of the creative independence.
Task 3
Suggesting one modern management approach to improve the functionality
A contingency approach to management is mainly based on the management
effectiveness or dependent upon the interplay between the application of organisational
behaviours and specific situations (Johnson et al. 2014). As opined by Otley (2016), most of the
organisations are taking the contingency approach as this approach provides the flexibility of the

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organisation and contingency approach suggests that there should be need of the investigation of
current dynamics and situation. King will be benefited if the organisation takes the belief that
there is no single set of rules which can be applied in the organisation in general. Business
leaders of the organisation need to understand the business needs of the given situation and
leaders must give the decisions which can be best applied to the situation (Alexander 2017).
Leaders of King must be effective so that it may transform towards the group effectiveness.
There are two factors; relation motivation and task motivation. Riccardo Zacconi understood the
needs of the organisation and he allowed the organisation to be acquired by Activision worth of $
6 billion. In contingency perspective; King draws the attention to have the stable environment
which allows the mechanistic structure to achieve the consistency and efficiency. The
management of King can take the decision on situational basis where the techniques may depend
on the complexity of the situation. Management principle is not universal in nature and senior
management takes the decision based on the best style of management. Managerial actions
mainly depend on the environmental circumstances.
Management of King assesses the situational favourability; mainly in three factors. King
management tries to make the best relations between leaders and the members. Leaders and
members' relationship is the cooperative relations and task structure is subject to the standard
procedures. Some of the tasks are easy to make the structure and some needs standardise along
with assessment. Position power is based on the rewarding behaviour.

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Task 4
Using Charles Handly’s cultural framework, identifying and analysing the relevance of
company’s organisational culture to its on-going success
Charles Handy defined mainly four types of culture within the organisation; power, role,
task and person.
Power culture is held by mainly a few people whose influence can spread throughout the
organisation. Therefore, power culture is linked by rules and regulation (Crane 2017).
Employees are mainly judged through their achievement rather than their actions. Power culture
is strong and it can turn toxic also. In King; the management controls from the centre and it
concentrates power among the few. In addition, few rules and little bureaucracy can help to get
swift decisions. Role culture is mainly based on the rules and these people are highly controlled
by everyone in the organisation who knows their responsibilities and roles. In King, role culture
is built on the detailed structure of the organisation which is hierarchical with a long chain of
command. The CEO is on the top and his command spreads through the organisation. A
consequence is about decision-making which can be painful and organisation is less likely to
take the risks. In King, people can clearly delegate authorities within the highly defined structure
as it follows hierarchical bureaucracy. According to Jansen (2017), task culture can be formed in
order to address problems as the task is a most significant thing. Power of the team can shift as it
is mainly based on the mix of the team members and the status of the issues. King's task culture
can be determined by the team dynamic. Finally, person culture is associated with the
individuals who see as superior and unique to the organisation. King at present has more than
2000 employees and the management exists just because people work. The organisation with a

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person culture is a collection of the individuals who work for the same organisation. The
management wants that people must not believe themselves to be superior to the business.
Task 5
Analysing two innovative strategic management objectives of the organisation
a. To reach new customer subscriptions that can help King to be a market leader again
King developed many of the fun games including Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, Bubble
Witch and Pet Rescue. King has 285 million monthly active users as first quarter across the web,
mobile and social platforms. King needs to take the strategy so that King can reach new
customers using the same games through social media and online platform. Reaching new
customers will help the organisation to increase the customer base. The freemium strategy will
addict the gamers and the active users will subscribe to increase their gaming experience. The
active users can ask ‘refer' new players to play the game in exchange for free credit points and it
will increase the numbers of active players. In the Ansoff Matrix, this strategy is stated as market
penetration. As stated by Lee et al. (2014), market penetration is involved in focusing on selling
the existing products into the existing markets in order to achieve the higher market. Market
penetration can increase or retain the products’ market share which dominates the growth of the
market. In addition, the organisation can drive out the competitors through market penetration.
b. To invest more in Research and Development to make augmented reality game to
increase revenue
Existing released games of King are simple and easy to play. The organisation can
increase the investment so that they can make AR (Augmented Reality) games and these types of

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gaming have recently grabbed the attention of the gamers. King can mould their existing games
into AR or VR (Virtual Reality). Therefore, the sales of the organisation will increase through
AR games. This objective can be met through product differentiation strategy. As opined by
Hoberg and Phillips (2016), product differentiation is the marketing of similar products with
minor vibrations which are used by customers when making the choice. Therefore, AR strategy
into gaming can make more attractive by contrasting its unique qualities with other competitors
products.
Conclusion
It has been observed that King has been following the hierarchical structure which is
controlled by Activision Blizzard. The combination of hierarchical structure can unite the
organisational culture and it can align the commitment of deep respect along with innovation
with the creative process. King can also follow the contingency management where the business
leaders must take the policies which may help the organisation. The management focuses on the
skills, leadership and personalities when the employees work in the teams to be creative and
productive. Through market penetration and product differentiation; King Organisation can
strive to increase the subscription in order to increase the existing customer usage and revenues.

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Reference List
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Impact and Linkage on Organization-A Review. International Journal of Civic Engagement and
Social Change (IJCESC), 4(1), pp.1-22.
Berger, A.A., (2017). Video games: A popular culture phenomenon. Abingdon: Routledge.
Crane, A., (2017). Rhetoric and reality in the greening of organisational culture. In Greening the
Boardroom (pp. 129-144). Routledge.
Drafke M., and Murtaugh J. (2009), The Human Side of Organizations 10th ed., FT Prentice Hall
Glisson, C., (2015). The role of organizational culture and climate in innovation and
effectiveness. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 39(4),
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Hoberg, G. and Phillips, G., (2016). Text-based network industries and endogenous product
differentiation. Journal of Political Economy, 124(5), pp.1423-1465.
Jansen, W., (2017). New business models for the knowledge economy. Abingdon: Routledge.
Johnson G., Whittington, R., Scholes, K., Angwin, D., and Regnér, P. (2014). Exploring
Strategy: Text and Cases. 10th edn Harlow: Pearson

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King Digital. (2018). About King Digital. [Online]Availablee a: https://discover.king.com/about/
[Accessed 7 Jul 2018]
Lee, S., Grana, R.A. and Glantz, S.A., (2014). Electronic cigarette use among Korean
adolescents: a cross-sectional study of market penetration,dual-usee, and relationship to quit
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Otley, D., (2016). The contingency theory of management accounting and control: 1980–
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Prentice Hall.cross-platform