Case Study: ETI's Organisational Restructuring and its Impact

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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE STUDY OF ETI
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
STUDY OF ETI
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Influencing Factors that Restructured the Organisation..................................................................3
Challenges faced in the Restructuring Process................................................................................4
Uncertainties Introduced by Changing External Environment........................................................6
Recommendations for Response to Uncertainties...........................................................................7
Impact of Cultural Change on Organisational Performance............................................................8
Recommendations for Enhancing Collaborations...........................................................................8
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................11
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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Introduction
In the modern era of globalization, organisations have evolved beyond the traditional systems in
order to accomplish their goals and objectives. However, in order to accomplish its goals and
objectives, an organisation has to ensure that its operations and activities are seamlessly
operating and for that, the management system has to be active. Organisational management
helps to regulate the different aspects of an organisation as well as the operations and activities
so that the goals and objectives can be achieved (Winnubst, 2017). However, for the growth of
the organisation, the restructuring of the organisational structure is necessary which can
potentially bring many challenges and issues that can be detrimental for the organisation. The
following study critically analyses the case study of London based Education and Training
Institute Ltd (ETI) as well as evaluates the issues faced by the restructuring process of their
organisational structure as well as the management system.
Influencing Factors that Restructured the Organisation
There were a few significant factors, which influenced the restructure of ETI, however, all of
them were based on the Human-Relations theory where people within an organisation strive to
develop themselves for the betterment of the organisation. However, the influential factors are:
 New Acquisitions: ETI has been a successful institute since their inception in 2010 with
them training hundreds of trainees in over 30 short and long courses for professional
growth and securing careers in diversified areas. However, the institute used to work in a
rented small space, which was affecting their operations and systems (Ashkenas et al.,
2015). This changed when they bought their own building which was their first
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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acquisition and in order to comply with the expansion, the institute had to focus on
restructuring the organisation.
 The growth of the Internal Systems: Due to the acquisition of their own building, ETI
was able to gain a lot of space and new roles. Previously, ETI worked as a small institute,
which had a small number of employees. There was only one management team called
the Senior Management Team or SMI and was run by two directors where the executive
director saw the management of the non-academic matters while the academic director
managed the academic matters. However, after expansion, ETI wanted to expand their
internal system and as such, this influenced the restructuring process of the organisational
structure (O'Neill, Beauvais, and Scholl, 2016).
 Development of Goals and Objectives: Prior to their expansion, ETI was just a small
but successful institute. However, after their expansion, ETI aimed at building an
organisation with layers of management teams as well as various other departments. The
organisation aimed at competing with competitors in order to develop and grow more
(Neubert, Hunter, and Tolentino, 2016). In other words, the goals and objectives of the
organisation were accentuated after their expansion, which shifted their system from
early organic design to mechanistic design. In order to accommodate the operational and
strategic changes necessary to accomplish the goals and objectives set forth, ETI had to
restructure their organisation.
Challenges faced in the Restructuring Process
While ETI was able to initiate the restructuring process of the organisation, however, they were
faced with some critical challenges, which affected their operations and activities. This was due
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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to the fact ETI did not comply with the classical theories conceptualized by Weber and Henri
Fayol. These are:
 Issues in Communication: Due to the acquisition of the new building by ETI, the
institute was able to conceptualize and develop new goals and objectives for the
betterment of the organisation. In order to accommodate the operational and strategic
changes necessary to accomplish the goals, ETI has to create management roles.
However, the restructuring process did not go how it was planned and as a result,
miscommunication between the management teams occurred. This lead to conflict within
the employees that led to a lack of efficiency and productivity within the operations and
activities of the organisation (Obradovich et al., 2017).
 Lack of Suitable Management: After the acquisition of the new building by ETI, the
institute was keen on setting up new management teams as well as other departments that
were initially unneeded by the organisation. These departments such as the Human
Resource Department, Health and Safety Department, Accounting and Finance
Department, and many more would all be managed by their respective management team
who would, in turn, be managed by the Senior Management Team or SMT. However,
during the restructuring process, it was found that the management roles were not clearly
defined. This led to chaos within the institute as well as the overlapping of the roles of
different departments, which caused confusion, and chaos amongst the employees and
affected the operational efficiency (Noe et al., 2017).
 Inability to make Suitable Decisions: After the restructuring process, the decision-
making process of ETI was a centralized one that worked on a top level of management
for problem resolution. However, due to the myriad number of management teams with
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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poorly defined roles as well as lack of miscommunication, the decision-making process
was very much time-consuming. Team meetings that involved decision-making were
considerably long and were sometimes ineffective in reaching a conclusion. This not only
affected the efficiency of the organisational operations and activities, but it also made the
employees frustrated with the state of the organisation (Maxwell, Rotz, and Garcia,
2016).
Uncertainties Introduced by Changing External Environment
Due to the changing of the external environment, ETI faced high to moderate level of
uncertainties. The uncertainties for ETI were:
 Uncertainty in Growth: Uncertainty in growth for ETI is brought forth due to the fact
that before their expansion, ETI was a small institute. However, after their expansion and
botched restructuring process, they were not only an organisation, but they were treading
on unknown territories where they are faced with powerful competitors. This along with
their lack of experience as well as poor management has created uncertainty for their
growth and competitive advantage in the sector (Song, 2017).
 Uncertainty in Revenue Generation: ETI was a small institute before their expansion
and as such, the quality of the services they provided was satisfactory for their level of
institutions. However, after their expansion, they became an organisation and faced
competition from powerful competitors who were able to provide high-quality service.
As such, this created uncertainty in revenue generation for ETI, as they need to improve
the quality of the services they provide (Durugbo and Erkoyuncu, 2016).
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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 Uncertainty to Respond to Threats and Risks: ETI, being a newly transformed
organisation, have entered into the market where the external environment also changed
in terms of requirements that became necessary to meet the new expectations set by the
regulators as per the national standard. Therefore, an organisation needs to be more active
and dynamic in order to adapt to the changes in the environment. However, ETI is not a
dynamic organisation to adapt to the changes in the organisation and as such, this has
created the uncertainty for the organisation to respond to threats and risks (Bahrami and
Amini, 2018).
Recommendations for Response to Uncertainties
The recommendations in response to the identified uncertainties are:
 To respond to the uncertainty in growth for ETI, the organisation should try to analyze
the market and define their management team properly. This would allow them to not
only boost their productivity and efficiency but also develop new services that would
allow them to gain a competitive advantage over the competitors.
 To respond to the uncertainty in revenue generation, ETI can improve the quality of their
services as well as bring new innovative methods that would help to ensure that they
would be able to generate a high amount of revenues for themselves.
 For the uncertainty to respond to threats and risks, ETI needs to develop their awareness
of the environmental changes and focus on being more active and dynamic to respond to
the external regulations. This would make them more responsive to the threats and risks
in the external environment.
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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Impact of Cultural Change on Organisational Performance
From the research works of Alvesson and Sveningsson (2015), it has been found that
organisational culture refers to the collective set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and ethics that are
followed by the organisation and which constitutes the internal atmosphere of the organisation.
As such, organisational culture has a prominent impact on organisational performance. While
ETI is a highly a professional organisation with a strong culture that upholds values such as
transparency, integrity and mutual respect, however, the organisation has to change its culture
due to the restructuring of the organisational structure. ETI tried to uphold the cultural and
ethical values of the organisation with a strong sense of belonging and purpose, however, due to
the bureaucratic culture and management system, the employees were faced with many problems
and issues. The top management was inaccessible for the lower employees for problem-solving,
the focus on the employees was shifted towards new protocols, employees have treated poorly
the management system (Driskill, 2018). All of these affected the performance of the employees
within the organisation, which directly affected the productivity as well as the efficiency of the
organisational operations and activities.
Recommendations for Enhancing Collaborations
The ways through which collaborative work can be improved are being discussed below:
 It is necessary that the team members have all the necessary content in their hand. For
this, inter-departmental meeting needs to be held at regular interval so that a vision could
be set in
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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 A common language can be set in the workplace which will help in eradicating the
jargons that might create confusion among the departments and the individuals. This will
make the team know about the aspects that are leading to misunderstandings
 The employees should also get involved with other department work to match the process
and inherit them in their own works. This shall help in completing the project on time and
within the specified budget that has been set for the entire budget
 A consistent set of communication needs to prevail so that every individual feel that
he/she is engaged in the project. This will allow the member to review and comment on
items that might be unnecessarily included in the project. Hence, for this, it is necessary
for the organisation to implement right communication software across the organisation
 Lastly, the feedbacks that are being made by the employees should be encouraged by the
managers. This will make the employee feel more motivated as the employee might feel
that organisational success depends on his/her productivity rate. Thus, the workplace
culture will be fostered
Below are certain recommendations that are being used to reduce the long term solutions are:
 It is necessary to develop a transparent communication among the members so that
problems could be solved easily. This is mainly because of the fact that
communication is one of the fundamental things needed by any organisation to
achieve long-term success.
 It is essential to break down the working silos, which will enable the management to
focus on working culture. Improvements in the working culture will eradicate hidden
agendas sine silos are the root cause of workplace problems.
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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 The employees should be very much open minded who will help in breaking the
workplace silos. They will help in building a collaborative working culture which
shall automatically reduce all the problems
 Lastly, for making the change, it is necessary to have a solid foundation strategy.
Therefore, it is the duty of the leaders to gather the right people for solving the
problems and achieve long-term success.
Conclusion
The above-written study critically analyses the case study of ETI and evaluates the issues faced
by the restructuring process of their organisational structure as well as the management system.
The study has found that new acquisitions, the growth of the internal systems, and the
development of goals and objectives influenced the restructuring of the organisation. The study
then evaluates the challenges faced due to the restructuring of the organisation as well as the
uncertainties faced by the external environment. The study then evaluates the impact of cultural
change on organisational performance and provides suitable recommendations to help ETI
mitigate the challenges and issues.
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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References
Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015. Changing organisational culture: Cultural change
work in progress. Routledge.
Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., Jick, T. and Kerr, S., 2015. The boundaryless organisation: Breaking
the chains of organisational structure. John Wiley & Sons.
Bahrami, S. and Amini, M.H., 2018. A decentralized trading algorithm for an electricity market
with generation uncertainty. Applied energy, 218, pp.520-532.
Driskill, G.W., 2018. Organisational culture in action: A cultural analysis workbook. Routledge.
Durugbo, C. and Erkoyuncu, J.A., 2016. Mitigating uncertainty for industrial service operations:
a multi case study. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 36(5),
pp.532-571.
Maxwell, N.L., Rotz, D. and Garcia, C., 2016. Data and decision making: Same organisation,
different perceptions; different organisations, different perceptions. American Journal of
Evaluation, 37(4), pp.463-485.
Neubert, M.J., Hunter, E.M. and Tolentino, R.C., 2016. A servant leader and their stakeholders:
When does organisational structure enhance a leader's influence?. The Leadership
Quarterly, 27(6), pp.896-910.
Noe, R.A., Hollenbeck, J.R., Gerhart, B. and Wright, P.M., 2017. Human resource management:
Gaining a competitive advantage. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
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ORGANISATIONAL THEORY: A CASE
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Obradovich, M.L., Schebesch, S.W., Pirtle, J.D. and Crain, T.C., Silver State Intellectual Tech
Inc, 2017. Technique for effective organisation and communication of information. U.S. Patent
Application 15/610,458.
O'Neill, J.W., Beauvais, L.L. and Scholl, R.W., 2016. The use of organisational culture and
structure to guide strategic behavior: An information processing perspective. Journal of
Behavioral and Applied Management, 2(2), p.816.
Song, S., 2017. Host market uncertainty, subsidiary characteristics, and growth option
exercise. Long Range Planning, 50(1), pp.63-73.
Winnubst, J., 2017. Organisational structure, social support, and burnout. In Professional
burnout (pp. 151-162). Routledge.
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