RMIT Introduction to Management: Uber Case Study & Leadership Analysis

This case study delves into the challenges faced by Uber, particularly focusing on the toxic organizational culture under Travis Kalanick's leadership, which led to sexism, harassment lawsuits, and disregard for employee well-being. The analysis highlights issues with driver treatment, legal battles over service quality, and the need for strategic leadership. Applying Mintzberg's leadership management theory, the study recommends hiring a new CEO with an engaging leadership style, implementing legal implications for discrimination, focusing on customer-oriented business processes, and fostering employee engagement to regain trust and improve the company's reputation. The case study concludes that effective leadership is crucial for Uber's revival and success, emphasizing the importance of balancing vision with experience and analytical capabilities.

Running head: UBER CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Uber case study analysis
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1UBER CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Table of Contents
Case analysis: 2
Challenges and possible solutions: 3
Recommendation strategies and action: 4
Conclusion: 6
References: 7

2UBER CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Case analysis:
Elaborating more on the kinds of challenges that the company has faced in the past turbulent
years, the toxic internal organizational culture can be considered. First of all, it has to mentioned
that under the “win at any cost” leadership of Kalanick, one of the greatest setbacks of the
business process management had been the sexism and hard charging business dealings. There
has been a huge disregard for maintaining equality and gender diversity in the organizational
culture of the company and hence as a result the company suffered numerous harassment
lawsuits. Many of the deserving female employees were subjected to bullying and male
domination, even in case of promotional structure and remuneration (Larcker and Tayan 2017).
In this case analysis, the issues that Uber has faced with their drivers, represents an acute
leadership and operational management crisis as well. First and foremost it has to be mentioned
that the company has treated its drivers like legally employed contractors instead of real
employees. Initially the Uber drivers had the liberty to decide their own working hours, however
within new and improved optimization plants of the company like UberEats and uberpool, there
are many restrictions posed on the drivers in an attempt of optimization of the profits. However,
the major flaw in this plan had been the complete autonomy given to the drivers to reject the trips
is providing a greater conflict and confusion to the entire operational processes for both the
service users and the drivers (Verschoor 2017).
An alarming fact that has to be mentioned in this context is that the company despite being a
70 billion dollar enterprise, has not made any profit in the past year, the impact of which has
been the gradual fall of the fare rates all across the year. The culmination of several restrictions
and ever decreasing fares have been the fuel to spark the fire of revolt among the Uber drivers,

3UBER CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
leading to 50% driver turnover rate. Along with internal business problems, the company is knee
deep in legal problems regarding service quality and consumer satisfaction as well. Uber is
facing lawsuits regarding passenger accessibility, price fixing, passenger safety and background
checks. There are various countries where Uber services have been banned, and yet, even in the
hour of need, the company is slowly beginning to establish a stable market in the Asia, especially
in Singapore. Although even running the business in the only prosperous market various
accidents have been reported in Singapore since the launch in 2012. It has to be mentioned that
the company is facing legal issues regarding intellectual property theft and even violation of
various legal transportation laws, and still the innovative market strategies are still keeping the
sinking ship afloat. Hence, from the case analysis, the need for a better leadership and
managerial intervention is needed if the company has to revive any position in the market.
Challenges and possible solutions:
Although the need or better and more strategic leadership is conspicuous for this case study,
it needs to be mentioned that above anything, for any strategic recommendation to work, the
solution strategies for improving the profitability of Uber at this point needs to be targeted.
Hence, each and every challenge needs to be identified and characterized before any solution can
be implemented. Travis Kalanick undoubtedly had been a leader with vision, however he lacked
planning and engagement with both the business and the employees (Matherne and O’Toole
2017). The former CEO had a win at any cost perception and he led the company in that
direction only, and in the tryst, the company developed a habit of surpassing legislation and
exploiting and legal loophole they could find. Due to the complete disregard to equality and
justice in the organizational leader the company very easily drowned in harassment cases and
discrimination. According to the Maheshwari (2017), the autocratic and somewhat heroic

4UBER CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
leadership attributes of Kalanick had been effective in generating the path breaking initial
success of the Company but soon the imbalance of power caused its demise (Edelman 2015).
There are many leadership theories that can be discussed in this context to analyze and
discover the most impactful contributing factors to the issues in the case study. The most
applicable theory can be the leadership management style theory by Mintzberg (Mintzberg
2013). This theory had been coined by Henri Mintxberg who initiated the ideology if threes
specific leadership roles. According to this theory, art, craft and science are the three core traits
that together can make a true organizational leader. The component of art encompasses the traits
of vision of the leader; in this particular role, the leaders are supposed to be bold, daring and
volatile in the decision making. On the other hand, the component of craft deals with experience
and expertise, where the leaders must show attributes like helpfulness, wisdom and reasonable
decision making. Lastly, the component of science deals with the analytical capabilities of a
leader, and it indicates for the organizational leaders to be calm and collected, controlled, serious
and organized. According to the theory, leaning too much onto any of the roles might lead to
disorganized, disconnected or dispirited leadership management, and there is need for optimal
balance between all three of the roles for there to be harmonious and effective leadership. Now
analyzing the case study of Travis Kalanick, the leader had qualities that only are related with the
role of art, the lack of science and most important craft in his leadership style had been the most
important challenge which led to the company’s downfall (Mintzberg, Ahlstrand and Lampel
2013).

5UBER CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Recommendation strategies and action:
According to the leadership management theory of Mintzberg, there are two antagonistic
leadership approaches, one is heroic and the other one is engaging. Now heroic leadership is
more related to the art and science component of the theory, here the leaders entertain a
superiority in all decision making, do not share the decisive power and do not entertain change
implementation. The leadership style of Kalanick had been heroic undoubtedly; however, there
had been no fruitful results of this style. The antagonistic approach is engaging and is interrelated
with the component of craft, which has already identified as the required leadership approach for
the company (Mastracci 2015). The recommendation strategies should also focus on
implementing engaging leadership. On a more elaborative note, engaging management deals
with a helpful and compassionate picture of the managers. The workplace has a interactive and
collaborative business process management and equality and shared decision making is a core
structural element. Hence the recommendation strategies are:
 Hiring a new CEO with engaging leadership styles who will be able to implement the
components of craft in the organizational scenario and develop a mutually respectful and
trusting relationship among the employees (Holloway 2015).
 The next recommendation for the company is to implement legal implications for
discrimination and harassment, so that the organizational culture can be revived.
 Customer oriented business process management can be a significant strategy that can
improve the brand reputation and can turn in better revenues, hence the new leadership
management must focus on better background checks and organized control over the
drivers.

6UBER CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
 Lastly, the company with its reputation and lawsuits has resulted in lack of employee
engagement and loyalty, hence the new CEO has to be a motivational and transformation
leader who can effectively regain the trust of the both of consumers and the employees
(Jordan 2017).
Conclusion:
On a concluding note that can be mentioned that leadership and have a profound effect on
how the business process management and the success of an organization will progress. Where is
good management skills and leadership qualities can build an organization from a scratch and
take it to the Pinnacle of success. The lack of proper for sight and engaging leadership the entire
organisation can fall to pieces without the proper direction and guidance. The 1st year had been
the greatest example of how leadership mistakes led to an astounding fall for Uber. However the
recommendation solutions deduced with the help of management and leadership theories, the
company can regain its position.

7UBER CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
References:
Edelman, B.G., 2015. Whither Uber?: Competitive Dynamics in Transportation Networks.
Holloway, C., 2015. Uber Unsettled: How existing taxicab regulations fail to address
transportation network companies and why local regulators should embrace Uber, Lyft, and
comparable innovators. Wake Forest J. Bus. & Intell. Prop. L., 16, p.20.
Jordan, J.M., 2017. Challenges to large-scale digital organization: the case of Uber. Journal of
Organization Design, 6(1), p.11.
Larcker, D. and Tayan, B., 2017. Governance Gone Wild: Epic Misbehavior at Uber
Technologies.
Maheshwari, N., 2017. Uber taxi cab-handling crisis communication. Emerald Emerging
Markets Case Studies, 7(4), pp.1-17.
Mastracci, J.M., 2015. Case for Federal Ride-Sharing Regulations: How Protectionism and
Inconsistent Lawmaking Stunt Uber-Led Technological Entrepreneurship. Tul. J. Tech. & Intell.
Prop., 18, p.189.
Matherne, B.P. and O’Toole, J., 2017. Uber: aggressive management for growth. The CASE
Journal, 13(4), pp.561-586.
Mintzberg, H., 2013. Simply managing: What managers do—and can do better. Berrett-Koehler
Publishers.
Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B. and Lampel, J.B., 2013. Management? It's not what you think!.
Pearson UK.

8UBER CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Verschoor, C.C., 2017. UBER culture causes big losses: harassment and mismanagement have
led to steep losses for this high-flying company. Strategic Finance, 99(3), pp.23-25.