Analysis of McDonald's: Power, Politics, Culture, and Change Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of a case study focusing on McDonald's, examining key issues such as power dynamics, organizational politics, corporate culture, and the impact of organizational change. The report begins with an introduction to McDonald's and its evolution, followed by an in-depth analysis of the article, exploring how CEO Steve Easterbrook's strategies, including online delivery and partnerships, have influenced the company's structure and culture. The analysis delves into the concepts of legitimate power, role culture, and the challenges of workplace politics, including issues of employee motivation and conflict. The report compares and contrasts various viewpoints on these themes, considering the impact of these factors on McDonald's operations within a global context. It also integrates the issues discussed with relevant literature, providing a deeper understanding of the theoretical underpinnings and practical implications of the case study. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings and their significance.

Mc'd article

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Analysing the key issues in the article relate to power, politics and conflict, organisational
culture and organisational change at McDonalds........................................................................1
Compare and contrast of the authors view on different themes..................................................3
Integration of issues at McDonald's through creating relation with the topic covered in
literature.......................................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
McDonald’s is one of the world’s largest food chain which was founded in 1940 and has its
headquarters in San Bernardino, United States. This fast food chain has experienced various ups
and downs due to their technology, staff and competitors (Vignali, 2011). The main aim of this
case study report is to review an article based on McDonalds for the purpose of analysing key
issues in that article. Additionally, this report includes review of various literatures in order to
integrate the issues at McDonalds.
MAIN BODY
Analysing the key issues in the article relate to power, politics and conflict, organisational
culture and organisational change at McDonalds
Thomas Buckley and Leslie Patton has reviewed the journey of McDonalds and its chief
executive officer Steve Easterbrook in their article. This article is related with the efforts which
are made by Easterbrook to develop McDonald’s as one of the most successful fast food chain of
the world. Buckley and Patton has explored the journey of Easterbrook that how he made online
delivery possible in the time period of just two weeks. Partnerships of McDonald’s with brands
like UberEats is also been analysed in this article. The main focus of this article has been on the
power, politics, culture and change (Case study of McDonald's, 2019).
From this article, it has been observed that the structure of McDonald’s is following the
legitimate power. This type of power provides authority to a formal position in a workplace.
Managers and employees of an organisation follows a hierarchical level authority relationship.
Such type of power is appropriate for the organisation which has large scale operations. In this
article, Thomas Buckley and Leslie Patton stated that Easterbrook commended “every manager
of McDonald’s to nominate their best executive to the task of building online delivery business
that world aim to be fully operational in two weeks”. From this statement, it is evident that
McDonald’s follows legitimate power as chief executive officer commanded all the managers by
using his position of a CEO and later those managers authorised their executives to carry on the
task. This hierarchical power helps the organisation in quick and effective decision making in
each individual has a clear vision of their authority and responsibility relationship. This power
also has various issues which are faced by McDonald’s which are low motivation and morale of
employees as they do not sense the feeling of getting rewarded for their work. This power can
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also be seen in the review of McDonald’s revenue enhancement plan where CEO Easterbrook
commanded each and every manager to sta4reggies so that revenues and share price can be
increased. As it can be seen in article, a graphical representation of share price is depicted in
which share price of this company is estimated to be enhanced as 212 dollars per share in 2019.
For this aim, CEO of McDonald’s provided authority to its managers to develop strategies and
teams so that this objective of enhancing share price of the company could be gained.
Power in an organisation is related to the culture which an organisation follows. According
to the views of Buckley and Patton, it has been analysed that power and culture of McDonald’s is
perfectly aligned as this company follows role culture in which each employee has been a
specific role to perform and they are eligible for the appropriate authority and power according
to their role. Besides this, McDonald’s also developed a culture of outsourcing and partnerships
in which they outsource services which are required by them to be upgraded. In the article,
authors have included the partnerships of McDonald’s with Apple Inc. and UberEats. CEO of
McDonald’s Steve Easterbrook partnered with Apple Inc. for the purpose gaining Apple pay
mobile technology and partnered with UberEats to streamline their online delivery process. The
reason behind this culture of outsourcing was to acquire a competitive advantage against their
biggest rival Burger King. But this culture also brings the issue of stressful workplace.
From the viewpoint of Buckley and Patton, organisational politics is an organisational
internal affair which is caused by the internal management of a company only. In the article,
authors have highlighted the statement of Eli Asfaw who is the operational manager of seven
franchises of McDonald’s. In his statement, Asfaw stated that “I would like to make the Kitchen
as stress free as it possibly can be”. The reason behind his statement are the allegations and
accusations which McDonald’s has faced in the period of 2014-2018 in which various employees
of this company has reported the issue of sexual harassment. Authors has concisely reviewed
these allegations as a part of the politics. These politics has brought the issue of stressful
workplace environment where employees are not satisfied. This workplace politics also is the
reason of conflicts between senior and middle level personnel of the organisation. Due to the
workplace conflicts the issue of negative employee behaviour has been raised at McDonald’s.
Organisational change is defined as the structural change in the article of Buckley and
Patton. This article has reviewed various changes which are implemented in McDonald’s
overtime by CEO Steve Easterbrook. These changes include variation in workplace policies
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about employee’s security, the partnership with Apple Inc. and UberEats for technological
upgradation and introduction of services such as drive-in and pick up services. These changes
have raised the issues of delayed decision making, high expenses and high workplace burden on
organisational executives (Case study of McDonald's, 2019).
Compare and contrast of the authors view on different themes
There are number of issues are faced by any organisation while operating the business
functions in open world due to the influence of number of factors such as power, politics,
culture, change and conflicts. The impact of these upon organisation functioning depends upon
their nature. Positive presence of these factors strengthens the working environment of an
organisation and allows to optimally utilise their all available resources. This situation will
become worsen for the organisation when these all present as negative in front of an
organisation. This will hinder every type of organisation irrespective to their nature and size in
accomplishment of their desired targets within stipulated period of time. Global and
multinational organisations have face these type of issues on regular basis due to frequent
changes in micro and macro business environment. McDonald's is multinational organisation and
having it operations at worldwide level in food and beverages sector. The main aim of this
organisation is about providence of good quality products to meet the diversified needs of all
consumers prevails under different target markets. The same can be achieved by this organisation
when able to handle all different kind of factors as mentioned in appropriate manner. The scope
of these factors is much wide in global environment. Different authors have their own separate
view regarding the impact of these factors upon an organisation. The basic aspect that differs the
view point of authors is presence of situation, nature and size of business and availability of
internal resources. To understand the concept properly, comparison and contrast is done below
by considering the different view points of authors. This will also further aid in clearing out the
impact of these factors in actual over the operations of all global organisation including
McDonald's. In this regard, analysis is done below by considering global operational scenario
along with the business functioning of McDonald's.
Organisational power: This is about power prevails within an organisation for carrying
out the business activities. Generally, in all the global organisations the power exists will be
legitimate in nature. The same is followed in McDonald's which was named as hierarchical
power. This includes providence of decision making power to the persons hold higher positions.
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Here, all the decisions are taken by higher authorities at world wide level by considering the
viewpoints of employees and conditions present in external environment. According to the view
point of Pfeffer, (2010), this power is best in nature to adopt at global organisations as prevail in
McDonald's. This is so because this will remove the situation of conflict and allows the
employees to maintain the situation of harmony at workplace. The belief over decision making
and its proper adherence delivers different kind of benefits such as removal of confusion, proper
disbursement of roles and duties, team work, positive attitude towards work and employee
engagement. According to the view of Hughes, (2011), this power hinders the creativity and
growth of the other remaining employees of an organisation. They just focus over adherence of
direction instead of finding out new and innovative ways for completion of work. This would be
the reason that steady and positive growth can be attained but long period of time requires. So, in
this case growth totally depends over the market situations and conditions present in market.
Organisational politics: This depicts the working environment prevail within an
organisation. In context to McDonald's, high amount of politics is present in all the different
departments at global level. The basic cause behind its presence at such intense level is
adherence of hierarchical power. Employees tried to be close with higher authorities for
promotion and rewards. According to the view of Landells and Albrecht (2017), presence of
healthy politics is must at workplace for building competitive environment. This will aid in
attainment of targets on time. According to the view of Anicich and Hirsh, (2017), politics has
negative impact in long term as does not help in creation of valuable team. This leads the
organisation towards low employee engagement and high staff turnover.
Organisational conflicts: Each and every organisation has conflicts irrespective to the
adherence of good policies. McDonald's has followed all the necessary measures irrespective to
that conflicts are present due to having global operations at workplace. Majorly, conflicts arose
in McDonald's due to the cause of Politics. According to the view of Groysberg and et.al.,
(2018), politics is not the actual cause behind the occurrence of conflicts. Lack in application of
strategies and practical knowledge among the employees become the reason for conflicts.
According to the view of Chatman and O’Reilly, (2016), politics is the prime cause as this hinder
the capability of other employees regarding usage of their knowledge in completion of task.
Ultimately, this leads the situation towards conflict.
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Organisational culture: Role culture is Followed in McDonald's. Here, duties are
provided to employees on the basis of their specification and qualities. According to the view of
Smollan and Sayers, (2009), this is one of the best culture to follow in global organisation as aid
in completion of work on time. This removes the gap in between the employees and align their
working towards attainment of objectives. According to the view of Rossi, (2019), adherence of
this culture does not has long term positive impact because the same will be subside by lack of
creativity and innovation which is must to have in today's environment to attain growth.
Organisational change: Lots of change are ascertained over the period of time in the
working styles of McDonald's. They start online delivery of foods, payment and improvement in
their physical stores. According to the view of Mele, (2011), change is must to hold to position
and sustain for long time in market. According to the view of Oreg and et.al., (2018), this
increases the cost at initial level and reduces the profit margin. The impact of same leads towards
distrust of stakeholders as not ascertained the same returns they got in past. So, the positive
results will be attained by organisation in future.
Integration of issues at McDonald's through creating relation with the topic covered in literature
Integration of issues with literature analysis is presented below to ascertain the impact
over functioning McDonald's.
Power: From the integration of both aspects determined that adherence of hierarchical
power by McDonald's is viable in nature in accordance to the nature of business. This
successfully help in operating functions at worldwide level by maintaining same quality.
Politics: From the integration determined that needed to reduce the intensity of politics. If
not so, then stressful environment hinders the future growth.
Conflict: From the integration of both concepts determined that conflicts can be reduced
only with the change in scenario of politics. Adherence of healthy conflicts build competitive
environment and aid in reduction of conflicts.
Culture: The role culture is followed by McDonald's and same is perfect in accordance
to integration of the concepts too. This is best in chain business where everyone complete work
with quality. This help to maintain the same level of quality on global platform.
Change: From integration of the concepts determined all the changes made McDonald's
are in accordance to the market needs. There adherence not only help in long term but aid in
short term too for maintenance of sustainability and improvement of customer base.
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CONCLUSION
From the above case study report, it has been concluded that McDonald’s has
experienced various issues due its organisational culture power, politics and change overtime
which are effective reviewed in the selected article. It has been found and observed that the
findings of the article are adequate integrated with literature.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Anicich, E. M. & Hirsh, J. B. (2017). The psychology of middle power: Vertical code-switching,
role conflict, and behavioral inhibition. Academy of Management Review. 42(4). 659-
682.
Chatman, J. A. & O’Reilly, C. A. (2016). Paradigm lost: Reinvigorating the study of
organizational culture. Research in Organizational Behavior. 36. 199-224.
Groysberg, B., Lee, J., Price, J., & Cheng, J. (2018). The leader’s guide to corporate culture.
Harvard Business Review. 96(1). 44-52.
Hughes, M. (2011). Do 70 per cent of all organizational change initiatives really fail?. Journal of
Change Management. 11(4). 451-464.
Landells, E. M. & Albrecht, S. L. (2017). The positives and negatives of organizational politics:
A qualitative study. Journal of business and psychology. 32(1). 41-58.
Mele, C. (2011). Conflicts and value co-creation in project networks. Industrial Marketing
Management, 40(8), 1377-1385.
Oreg, S., Bartunek, J. M., Lee, G., & Do, B. (2018). An affect-based model of recipients’
responses to organizational change events. Academy of Management Review. 43(1). 65-
86.
Pfeffer, J. (2010). Power play. Harvard Business Review. 88(7/8). 84-92.
Rossi, P. (2019). Reimagining organisational conflicts through the metaphor of music.
Knowledge Management Research & Practice. 1-11.
Smollan, R. K., & Sayers, J. G. (2009). Organizational culture, change and emotions: A
qualitative study. Journal of Change Management. 9(4). 435-457.
Vignali, C. (2011). McDonald’s:“think global, act local”–the marketing mix. British food
journal.
Online
Case study of McDonald's. 2019. [Online]. Available Through:
<https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-09-25/steve-easterbrook-wants-
mcdonald-s-to-think-like-silicon-valley>
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