On Fri, Sep 21, 2018 at 9:42 PM Alice Walker <[email protected]> wrote:

Here is the reading from the book but for answer book cant be used.

Here is what to do…

There are 2 individual assignments each drawn from the cases presented in the text... Discussion questions are presented after the case (usually 2 per case). Use these questions as the basis for your written response for the assignment. Assignment papers should run no less than 3 pages and must include Internet references. For each case, add at least one additional question of your own derived from the case material. Be creative. List your references in bibliographic form at the end of your paper. Do not quote from the text

READING…

MODERN CONTRIBUTORS

In addition to the historical figures that we discussed earlier in this chapter, several individuals from more recent times have influenced (through their leadership, interviews, presentations, or writing) the way management is practiced in today’s organizations.

In 2001, Jim Collins authored an influential book titled Good to Great in which he and his research team analyzed 1,435 companies to understand why some companies reach high levels of sustained performance while other companies fail to reach greatness.40 He discovered that great companies are managed by “level 5 leaders” who often display humility while simultaneously inspiring those in the organization to apply self-discipline and self-responsibility while pursuing high standards. These leaders often leave enduring legacies without drawing a lot of attention to themselves.41

● Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, signs his book Winning at Borders in New York, NY. © R. Born/WireImage/Getty Images

Several CEOs have left an impact on modern management thought. Ex-CEO Jack Welch transformed General Electric from a $13 billion company into a $500 billion company over a 20-year period.42 Though sometimes criticized for his controversial practices (e.g., selling off underperforming divisions and forced rankings of employees by performance),43 he is widely viewed as having mastered “all of the critical aspects of leadership: people, process, strategy and structure.”44 Welch has

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written several books about his management philosophies and successes. Other exceptional leaders who have left their mark on management practice include Herb Kelleher, cofounder of Southwest Airlines; Sam Walton, founder of Walmart; and Lou Gerstner, former CEO of IBM.

Traditional Thinking

Leaders adapt to change by relying on one or two favorite managerial approaches.

The Best Managers Today

Embrace change by drawing on classic, contemporary, and modern managerial approaches to guide their decisions and actions.

Michael Porter, professor at Harvard University, is a well-known and influential expert on competitive strategy. He has published more than 125 research articles and 18 books on the subject and related areas, including Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. Two of his influential research articles are titled “What Is Strategy?” and “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy” (discussed in Chapter 3).45

Gary Hamel, professor, consultant, and management educator, was recently ranked as the “world’s most influential business thinker” by The Wall Street Journal. As a member of the London Business School faculty since 1983, Hamel has published numerous influential articles, including “The Core Competence of the Corporation” (with C. K. Prahalad) and “The Why, What, and How of Management Innovation.” His most recent book, The Future of Management, was selected by Amazon.com as the best business book of 2007.46

Peter Drucker was a respected management guru who, through his writings and consulting, made several lasting contributions to the practice of management. One of his major contributions was the need for organizations to set clear objectives and establish the means of evaluating progress toward those objectives.47 He was the first person to discuss “management by objective” (MBO), by which a manager should be self-driven to accomplish key goals that link to organizational success (as opposed to being controlled by a supervisor).48 Drucker also championed several ideas that continue to be influential to this day, including decentralization, employees as assets (not liabilities), corporation as a human community, and the importance of knowledge workers in the new information economy.”49

In addition to these modern contributors, several more individuals have made a lasting impact on current thought and practices. Peter Senge of MIT Sloan School of Management has made several significant contributions to the areas of organizational learning and change. In addition to founding the “Society of Organizational Learning,” Senge wrote The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization, which has sold more than 1 million copies worldwide (2006) (MIT Sloan bio);50 Christopher A. Bartlett of Harvard University has focused on the “strategic and organizational challenges confronting managers in multinational corporations.”51 With coauthor Sumatra Ghoshal, he wrote the influential Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution (1998), named by the Financial Times as one of the 50 most influential business books of the 20th century.52 In his 1990 best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change, Stephen Covey discussed how a leader’s success hinges on balancing between personal and professional effectiveness.53 In 1982, Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman wrote the best-selling book In Search of Excellence, which urged U.S. firms to fight their competition by refocusing their business strategies on several drivers of success: people, customers, values, culture, action, and an entrepreneurial spirit.54

● Peter Senge of MIT Sloan School of Management made several significant contributions to the areas of organizational learning and change.

© McGraw-Hill Education/Roberts Publishing Services

Companies Shift to Green Power

It seems companies truly are shifting to green power. While some critics in the United States see “green power” as an alternative source of energy that is used only by a handful of environmentally conscious companies, many organizations are increasingly tapping this alternative source of power. In contrast to conventional power that includes the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil) and nuclear fission of uranium, green power refers to renewable energy resources and technologies that produce electricity from solar, wind, geothermal, biogas, and so forth. A major advantage of companies using more green (and less conventional) power sources is that they restore themselves over brief periods of time and do not diminish. Ultimately, companies that use green power are helping the environment by reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

In an effort to encourage organizations to purchase and develop more green power, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency created the voluntary Green Power Partnership (GPP) in 2001. The GPP currently has more than 1,300 partner organizations (Fortune 500 companies, local-state-federal governments, and colleges and universities) that use billions of kilowatt-hours of green power annually.

According to a GPP report released on January 25, 2016, the top 10 users of green power include Intel, Microsoft, Kohl’s Department Stores, Cisco Systems, Apple, City of Houston, Google, Mars Inc., City of Dallas, and Starbucks. These 10 organizations used approximately 13 billion kilowatt-hours of green power over the previous 12 months.

Annise Parker, the mayor of Houston, summed up the benefits of using green power: “Purch-asing green power reduces the environmental impacts of electricity use, decreases the cost of renewable power over item, and supports the development of new renewable generation.”

Courtesy of the EPA Green Power Partnership.

Companies like Apple are taking the idea of green power to the next level. The company supplies all of its data centers with 100 percent renewable energy through a combination of green power purchases and its own onsite generation. Apple’s onsite projects not only power its data centers, but also provide energy to local grids. The company’s long-term goal is to use 100 percent clean, renewable energy for all of its operations.

Discussion Questions

1 Knowing that the majority of companies and organizations in the United States rely on conventional energy sources like coal, natural gas, and oil to power their operations, to what extent is the growing use of green power a passing fad or a fundamental shift in energy consumption? Defend your position.

2 Compare and contrast the use of conventional (coal, natural gas, and oil) and green energy sources and technologies (wind, solar, geothermal, and biogas). In other words, why should a company consider shifting part/all of its energy consumption from conventional to green power?

Sources: The Green Power Partnership at www.epa.gov/greenpower/ ; “Green Power Partnership National Top 100,” Press Release on January 25, 2016, www.epa.gov; “EPA Partnerships Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Save Businesses Money,” Environmental Protection Agency Documents and Publications, Press Release on January 31, 2014, www.epa.gov; “EPA Announces U.S. Organizations Using the Most Green Power,” Environmental Protection Agency Documents and Publications, Press Release on April 17, 2013, www.epa.gov