MGMT 12 Report: Analyzing Blackberry's Future Organization and Work

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Blackberry's organizational culture and leadership style. It begins with an overview of the company's history, its shift from consumer devices to enterprise solutions, and its current market position. The report then delves into Blackberry's organizational culture, discussing its evolution, the impact of digital transformation, and the company's efforts to foster a culture of continuous learning, integrity, and ethical behavior. The analysis extends to the leadership style within the organization, particularly focusing on John Chen's leadership, the application of servant leadership, and the company's strategic direction. The report also explores the challenges and opportunities Blackberry faces in a competitive market, highlighting the importance of adapting to market changes and fostering a growth mindset. Overall, the report offers a comprehensive understanding of Blackberry's past, present, and future, providing insights into its organizational dynamics and strategic approach to remain competitive.

4/2/2020
Running Head: MANAGEMENT 0
Future Organisation and Work
Blackberry

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Contents
Introduction..............................................................................................................................2
The culture of the organisation...............................................................................................3
Leadership style in the organisation.......................................................................................7
Conclusion...............................................................................................................................11
References...............................................................................................................................12

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Introduction
BlackBerry smartphones and products are manufactured, marketed and sold internationally in
many countries underneath a brand licensing contract with TCL Communication. It was
incorporated back in 1992 and later on expanded with its self-created operating system. In
North America, the TCL comes under top 5 manufacturer and globally, it has an extensive
product portfolio that comprises of BlackBerry, Alcatel and other TCL branded devices – that
are offered to nearly 160 nations across the Asia Pacifica, Africa, Europe, the Middle East,
Latin America and North America. In terms of a number of employees, the company has
employed nearly 3,945 people. The company global position is failing and so its budget in
research and development. BlackBerry spending on research and development is declining
ever since 2012 and in the year 2019, it was noted around 219 million U.S. dollars.
The vision of Blackberry is to securing a connected future where people can trust and its
mission is to be the world top provider of end-to-end mobility solutions that are the best
secured and people can trust (blackberry.com, 2020). In relation with security, trust and
innovation, the company has secured more than 500M endpoints and directing the way with a
single platform for safeguarding, managing and enhancing how intellect endpoints are
embraced in the organisation, allowing its consumers to stay ahead of the technology arc that
also leads to re-shaping of every sector globally. Blackberry is believed to be the most secure

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phone for the end users prior to coming of leading industry players including Sony, iPhone
and Samsung.
At present, BlackBerry is focusing on complete strategic overhaul and this makes the
company diminish its strategic concentration on the mass customer market considering
mobile devices, however, focusing on niche markets with its products offerings. The
company also have a strong competency as of their long track record for its security systems
and proficiencies. The company is not keen to establish its position in general consumer
market as it is highly saturated and competitive due to presence of various smartphone
enterprises and therefore, they are targeting enterprise while also offering numerous services.
Hence, from the market perspectives, the products and services of BlackBerry are greatly
differentiated and valued in relation to their rivals. This strategic move can also be evidently
seen in its release of Blackberry Enterprise Service 12, a system enables enterprises to
strengthen their ability to secure and manage mobile devices (Sage, 2014).
The culture of the corporation
According to Nikpour (2017), organisational culture is comprised of norms, values,
assumptions, shared vision and intangible signs of organisation member’s behaviour that
contribute to the environment of an organisation. In simple words, it is an inherent part of any
workplace where all employees work together towards a common goal or purpose.
Understating the sense of organisation culture is both important to the leader and
management as different people in the same organisation can have different perceptions of
the culture and therefore, it defines a jointly shared description of an organisation from
within. The major functions of organisational culture are to define boundaries, conveys a
sense of identity, enhance social stability and generates commitments beyond oneself.

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In relation with BlackBerry culture, the company is at a vulnerable position as it developed a
bureaucratic structure that made decision making a difficult and slow process. This can be
seen as in the fast moving industry where leading organisations like Apple, Samsung and
Sony are progressing their market share, BlackBerry has to change its core business model
while backing off from mobile markets to corporate security solutions. The CEO of
BlackBerry i.e. John Chen is also facing challenges to getting rid of bureaucratic layers and
also, changing the organisation culture (Mcnish, 2018).
After going through major digital transformations, the company is now focusing on creating a
culture of continuous learning and once known for a consumer device company, BlackBerry
is now an enterprise software and service company emphasizing on managing and securing
IoT endpoints. With this digital transformation, the company also simplified its technology
ecosystem by teaming up with Salesforce in 2014 and this has moving company forward
toward streamlined processes (Sage, 2014a). To all the employees working with BlackBerry,
the team of Salesforce is encouraging a culture of ongoing learning with their Trailhead
system to speed up innovation and to develop their expertise on the platform. In simple
words, it offers a centralised platform that unites teams and processes and provides the best
customer experience to all its customers globally.
However, introduction of any form of new technology will customarily have an influence on
the organisational culture as technology can be a catalyst for change, however, culture has the
power to instil forward thinking tech acceptance and long way development of the business
(Trend, 2015). In addition, a progressive culture also does not assure that employees will
understand how to best use the technology and therefore, training here becomes a significant
aspect if the organisation seeks to increase its profitability and productivity with both
together culture and technology. This is making BlackBerry embrace digital innovation and
technology with further investment in employees training and development.

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BlackBerry community and culture are built on integrity, diversity, accountability and
respect. It also develops organisational climate with shared perceptions organizational
members gave about their organisation and work environment and here the positive climate is
linked to greater customer satisfaction and financial performance. BlackBerry promotes a
culture of gratefulness via Global Recognition and Rewards program, and this help
management at the company a mode to identify personnel for going above and outside
expectations. The company also seeks to develop an inclusive and accessible work
surroundings where their workforce ability to contribute to the BlackBerry success is
restricted by only their talents (blackberry.com, 2016).
BlackBerry also has a number of measures for developing a strong culture of ethical
behaviour across the organisation including the board of executives, business principles and
standards and risks and compliance management and companies supplier’s code of conduct.
There is also an ethical aspect of organisational culture which relates to the common concept
of right and mistaken behaviour in the workplace and also imitates the real business value
while shaping ethical decision building of its associates. In relation with 2016 annual report
of BlackBerry, the company instil this dimension into its corporate governance, security,
supply chain social accountability and offering a value product.
It also stated that ethical principles are vital to company corporate governance and the
business is devoted to performing with integrity through all its operations. The company also
involves its employee in this process with developing BlackBerry Ethics Link, a system that
enables all together with employees of the company to report issues incognito via telephone
or a web-based gateway and this will further be assessed by the functional teams of the
company on the basis of the nature of the report (blackberry.com, 2016).. Similarly, the
company also has developed some updates in its supplier code of conduct (considering this as
part of internal organisational climate) by enriched the notice procedure to comprise a sign up

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response from its suppliers signifying they comprehend and approve to fulfil with
BlackBerry’s hopes and beliefs as comprehensive in the Provision Code.
As strong corporate culture starts from the top with developing vision and mission statement
that highlight the organisational priorities, strategic plan also needed to be developed nearer
to vision and mission. BlackBerry after the 2007 fall down, now putting various measurable
goals in aid towards the strategic plan. In addition, the company is also engaging its
employees by keeping various channels open as this will help in the growth of the culture as a
result. In order to further improve the corporate culture, the company is also encouraging
professional development most relevant to the workforce so that it will benefit BlackBerry in
a long run with reduced turnover of employee and makes the brand and evolve at a greater
pace in the business environment and also gives a competitive edge against the major rivals.
In today’s highly competitive and evolving markets, it is vital for companies to adopt a
growth mindset and develop a coaching culture where all employees are encouraged to
question their assumptions and seek out new ways for leading and thinking. Today, most of
the people are busy in using Apple and Samsung devices, though, when devices debuted in
2007, it was the BlackBerry that has dominated the marketplace and even with the
availability of iPhone, the sales of BlackBerry kept increasing for the four years (Appolonia,
2019).
The company was so much confident of its success and business model that time when Apple
is putting efforts in differentiation and when they came out with tough handled devices, the
stock of BlackBerry market started declining into even single digits. Hence, this is one of the
example stating why a company must adopt a growth and learning culture to be on the side of
competitive verge in marketplace. Hence, the bureaucratic or a top-down culture must be put
down to end in each division of BlackBerry and instead, managers and executives must

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become coaches enabling employees to constantly develop their abilities and proficient
knowledge.

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Leadership style in the organisation
There is seen a significant evolution in the leadership psychology and theories, like in the
past, leadership researchers measured and assess intelligence, charisma and further
personality traits to the crucial to effective leadership as they believed that effective leaders
use their inborn competencies and abilities to dominate followers with stimulating them to
strengthen their willpower and interest that they would otherwise lack or needs great focuses
(Copeland, 2014). These theories propose that leader with adequate personality and will gain
success over whatever realism they meet. However, in contemporary times, a new depiction
of leadership has developed, one that better relates to the leadership performance. In this new
picture, effective leaders must put effort to comprehend the opinions and values of their
followers rather than chasing complete authority – to empower a productive interaction and
association with followers about the company vision, practices and strategic objectives.
Leadership now becomes an ability to shape what followers really seek to achieve, not the act
of implementing compliance via punishments and rewards (Collinson and Tourish, 2015).
Some of the major theories and topics that were covered in the class include trait theories,
transactional and transformational leadership, fielder leadership model, trait theories, servant
leadership, behavioural theories and path goal theories.
In association of BlackBerry, John S. Chen is one of the senior and executive chairman of
BlackBerry limited accountable for outlining the firm vision and objectives, estabishing its
strategy, and ensures that all divisions and management within the organisation matches their
individual goal with the corporate objectives. He has joined the company as CEO position in
2013 and formerly, he served as Chairman and CEO of Sybase Incorporation. In terms of
qualification, he has done his graduation from Brown University with a bachelor degree in
electrical engineering and a master from California Institute of Technology (blackberry.com,

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2020a). In leading BlackBerry after taking charge in 2013, he stated last year that - necessity
is always the invention of everything great and we had to change some six years ago. We
were just not going to survive in the game (blackberry.com, 2020a).
Today, BlackBerry has developed a well position in the market offering secure products and
services to mostly the corporate enterprises. The CEO, John Chen saved the company from
drowning and by revamping itself under executive chairman, he is enlisting his bet on
building BlackBerry a leader in secure mobile communication as he also believes that his
organisation has the elements to be a prominent player in the market. With embracing over
servant leadership style, John Chen has diversified the company into new product and service
portfolio. In the past, BlackBerry used to control 20 per cent of the mobile phone market and
now under the direction and leadership of Chen, it has revolved to cybersecurity, crisis
communication and rooted software (Dreyfuss, 2019). Towards his efforts, he also stated that
the company expects revenue to grow from 23% to 27 per cent in the financial year 2020
(Dreyfuss, 2019).
With following servant leadership style, Chen puts other people needs first and shares power
with them while actively contributes in their personal development and team performance.
Mareus et al (2019) also stated some of the major characteristics of this leadership style and it
includes awareness, empathy, listening, conceptualisation, healing, persuasiveness, foresight,
stewardship and building of community. The next year after taking the role as CEO in
BlackBerry, Chen stated that BlackBerry is facing tremendous challenges as a company as
with dramatic change in markets for services and devices and addressing these realities, the
management and company must focus on innovation and this can be a turnaround for the
company again. However, to make the turnaround culture positive, employee engagement is
must who focuses is on fixing things and findings solutions, not on the hurdles before them.

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The best example here can be the BlackBerry passport which has got various great reviews
and selling out.
In this leadership style, the company encourage its employee by making them understand that
they should take care of the organisation like their home and do not emphasis on discovering
the viable strategy. In support of this statement, he stated that there are multiple answers for
every question and every problem has several solutions, however, with every gain, there will
be some cost associated to it (Rudgard, 2020). He empowers personnel to take risks as
various individuals in the organisation know what is the right things to do, however are
scared to speak it out. And as everyone has a particular role, empowering employees will
help in taking edge to solve the issues, no matter on what level they are. Ultimately, Chen has
created the difference while evangelizing to customers, diminishing costs and waste and aid
in effective strategy development (Rudgard, 2020).
In relation with path goal theory, there are four key pillars showcasing leadership
effectiveness and it includes, directive, supportive, participative and achievement oriented.
With joining the company in 2013, Chen has effectively synchronised his leadership skills to
fill it what is missing in its current internal and external business environment. Taking
example of directive leadership pillar, a leader must state its expectations to the team and
groups and help them to show a path with managing various situations. It can be seen well in
the above paragraph that how Chen makes his employees empower while differentiating the
expectations. Chen has definitely built a reputation for being realistic and honest and he
always tried to rely on facts rather than telling people how they should feel (Castaldo, 2014).
Despite of Chen effective leadership and direction, Blackberry is facing challenges in
performing effectively. When talking about facts, the company revenue is decreasing since
2011 and in 2019, the company had recorded incomes of less than one billion U.S. dollars for

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only the second time in last 15 years (statista.com, 2019). When Chen became the CEO of
company, BlackBerry has withdrawn from the mobile phone market and focused highly on
offering security and software solutions to corporations. As the company is rebuilding its core
business, it can be said that the company is still in the beginning phases of rebuilding
profitability. Furthermore, in a developed nation like the US, the numbers of blackberry
smartphone users decline to 0.7 million in the year 2018 (statista.com, 2019a) and this
downturn can be accredited due to the growing popularity and dominance of the iOs and
Android platforms.
Ultimately, it can be said that a new portrait of leadership has occurred in recent years and
that in terms of better accounts for leadership performance. Effective and top leaders must
work to comprehend the opinions and values of their followers while creating a productive
dialogue with followers and synchronise their individual goal with the corporate vision.
Furthermore, this new psychology of leadership also signifies the idea that leadership is
completely a top down process however, must also appear as a representative of the groups
they lead and manage (Bouckenooghe, Zafar and Raja, 2015). In BlackBerry case, there is
more need of differentiation rather than leadership as company currently have a strong brand
name perceived globally by users and innovating now can help company to again develop its
strong presence world-wide.

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Conclusion
Considering all, BlackBerry culture and leadership style have been explored significantly in
association with various evidence and examples. The company current rebuilding its core
business and this requires BlackBerry to embrace highly on effective leadership, guidance
and cultural notions so as to bring positive change in terms of innovation, creativity and
differentiation. To become one of the market leaders again, Chen as a CEO needs to
proactively understand both internal and business environment holistically and develop
higher employee’s engagement and practices and in near to the different interests of
stakeholders. It will be easy this time to develop a new strategy and stabilize the business and
return to their main strength.
Furthermore, BlackBerry should also develop an ecosystem that supports and drive their new
business model focusing on services, software’s and establishes a more efficient business
model with achieving transformation and growth objectives. This requires Chen to be more
nimble and receptive to customer needs and market demands so as to accomplish a greater
deal in the IT industry and handheld devices. Hence, with collaborating with partners and
developers dedicated to their hardware and software’s respectively, BlackBerry can
ultimately focus on an iconic plan, top-class security, software advance and enterprise-
mobility management.

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References
Appolonia, A. (2019) How BlackBerry went from controlling the smartphone market to a
phone of the past [ONLINE] Available from:
https://www.businessinsider.in/retail/news/how-blackberry-went-from-controlling-the-
smartphone-market-to-a-phone-of-the-past/articleshow/72171551.cms [Accessed
01/04/2020].
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https://www.blackberry.com/content/dam/blackberry-com/Documents/pdf/corporate-
responsibility/corporate-responsibility-report-fy15-fy16.pdf [Accessed 01/04/2020].
blackberry.com. (2020) BlackBerry Intelligent Security. Everywhere [ONLINE] Available
from: https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/company/overview/ [Accessed 01/04/2020].
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https://www.blackberry.com/us/en/company/leadership [Accessed 01/04/2020].
Bouckenooghe, D., Zafar, A. and Raja, U. (2015) How ethical leadership shapes employees’
job performance: The mediating roles of goal congruence and psychological capital. Journal
of Business Ethics, 129(2), pp.251-264.
Castaldo, J. (2014) Interview: BlackBerry CEO John Chen on the progress of his turnaround
[ONLINE] Available from: https://www.canadianbusiness.com/leadership/blackberry-ceo-
john-chen-turnaround-interview/ [Accessed 01/04/2020].
Collinson, D. and Tourish, D. (2015) Teaching leadership critically: New directions for
leadership pedagogy. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 14(4), pp.576-594.

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Copeland, M.K. (2014) The emerging significance of values based leadership: A literature
review. International journal of leadership studies, 8(2), p.105.
Dreyfuss, J. (2019) BlackBerry CEO says the mobile company’s turnaround has hit a tipping
point after near-death experience [ONLINE] Available from:
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turnaround.html [Accessed 01/04/2020].
Mareus, R., Patterson, K., Firestone, S. and Winston, B.E. (2019) Exploring Servant
Leadership in a Top-Down Environment. Servant Leadership: Theory & Practice, 6(1), p.4.
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Rudgard, O. (2020) BlackBerry boss John Chen on its smartphone failure: ‘You can’t argue
with what people want’ [ONLINE] Available from:
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failure-cant-argue-people// [Accessed 01/04/2020].
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[ONLINE] Available from: https://crackberry.com/blackberry-partners-salesforce-secure-
customer-data-management [Accessed 01/04/2020].

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statista.com. (2019) Revenue of RIM/Blackberry worldwide 2004-2019 [ONLINE] Available
from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266240/global-revenue-of-rim-since-2004/
[Accessed 01/04/2020].
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York: Routledge.