Unit VIII Res Org Thry

Unit VI Scholarly Activity

Robert Benders

Organizational Theory

PUA 5303-19

Dr. Jovita Esechie

Columbia Southern University

8/31/2022

FIRM CONFLICT MANAGEMENT

Firms have used different management and organization styles to achieve their goal. Regardless of the firm size, the structure of its critical department helps to overcome internal and external challenges (Nneka, 2019). In this analysis, the focus is to analyze how the company's organizational management helps deal with crucial issues. In the analysis, I selected Apple company to help understand the effectiveness of the organization structure in dealing with conflicts or other related issues. The choice of Apple Company was informed by its ability to remain top in the list of the best technology companies worldwide. Thus, it indicates that the firm has been able to manage the management structure. Specifically, the study will analyze the Apple engineering department.

Apple Inc. background information.

Apple Inc. is a multinational technology corporation headquartered in Cupertino, California that specializes in creating, developing, and selling electronic devices, computer programs, and internet-based services. Apple sells a wide range of consumer electronics and software, such as the iPhone, iPad, Macintosh computers, Apple Watch, and the OS X family of operating systems. In the first quarter of 2018, Apple Inc. reported quarterly earnings of $2.10 per diluted share on record revenue of $123.9 billion, up 11 percent yearly.

Additionally, annual revenues for all of 2010 amounted to $65.23 billion worldwide. Apple Inc. has been successful over the past few decades because of its innovative approach to thinking about and conducting business. In this paper, we examine the factors that contribute to the success of this potent brew of exceptional goods, outstanding design, comprehensive strategy, creative advertising, and warm and engaging communication. Apple's recent success can be attributed to the iPhone and the innovative combination of the iPod and iTunes (Podolny & Hansen, 2020).

Apple engineering department organization

Apple is a unique company intentionally built on new ideas and innovation. This means the company has to manage the conflicts between different groups of employees. Apple engineers believe that if you want to change things, you need to involve the people who are used to doing things the way they're currently done. They recognize that for something to move forward, people will resist because change is often difficult for people to accept (AZAMOV, 2020). Apple's engineering department structure supports this belief with its cross-functional and independent work groups.

Apple's engineering department is organized around a five-person management team, who are responsible for all of the day-to-day operations of Apple (Coccia, 2018). Apple's departments are organized by function, such as hardware, software, and services. These groups manage their own goals and objectives but share many overlapping responsibilities each day, and each team has a manager and assistant manager assigned to coordinate their activities. The company's structure favors cross-functional teams, which allow employees to work on more than one aspect of a task at once (Zhang, 2022).

Conflict management in the Engineering department

The Engineering department is prone to internal conflicts; it comprises experts with diverse ideas and approaches to dealing with matters. Apple Inc. has developed some approaches to dealing with these issues. Teamwork is crucial to the success of Apple Inc.'s engineering team, and conflict management is one of the most important skills for engineers to have (Opeyemi & Ajeh, 2020). The engineering department has developed an efficient communication platform that helps team members address their ideas, issues, and opinions with their colleagues and department head. The department encourages the experts to welcome different opinions and challenges every to allow scrutiny of their ideas without getting emotional.

Apple Inc. has a conflict resolution policy that state that conflict can be managed using creativity. This policy welcomes disagreement and diverse ideas to promote design creativity; however, it allows the team members to measure the extent of disagreement to avoid breaking the team's unity. The team members must address issues as they arise instead of piling up to blow later.

Suggested policy update for conflict resolution

Apple. Inc.'s engineering department can improve its conflict resolution program by adopting more policy that helps the team deal with diverse issues. The following policies can help Apple engineers work together, communicate effectively, and resolve potential conflicts within the organization.

1) The company should implement a policy that requires employees to be transparent about their work schedules so that other team members can plan their own time off around it. This would help coworkers avoid conflicts over who gets to take time off.

2) Inclusion of conflict management training in the employee orientation curriculum. Conflict management is an important aspect of any company's success because it helps employees work together effectively and efficiently, leading to better results for the company (Ivanov, 2019). This new policy update would help employees understand how they can manage their conflicts in a way that doesn't affect other team members negatively or cause unnecessary stress.

References

Podolny, J. M., & Hansen, M. T. (2020). How Apple is organized for innovation. Harvard Business Review,  98(6), 86-95.

Awang Kechik, M. I. (2022). Apple Inc.

AZAMOV, D. (2020). Apple Employee Motivation policies. YOUNG SCIENTISTS, 50.

Coccia, M. (2018). Disruptive firms and industrial change. Journal of Economic and Social Thought,  4(4), 437-450.

Opeyemi, I. S., & Ajeh, D. O. (2020). The Entrepreneur and Effective Conflict Management in a Business Environment. KIU Journal of Humanities,  5(3), 83-90.

Ivanov, I. (2019). "Adapted conflict resolution model in business organizations ."Trakia Journal of Sciences,  17(1), 548-554.

Nneka, A. J. (2019). Conflict Management and Organizational Performance. International Journal of Management and Entrepreneurship,  1(1), 1-22.

Zhang, X. (2022, July). Analysis of Business Model and Financial Operation: Evidence from Apple. In 2022 2nd International Conference on Enterprise Management and Economic Development (ICEMED 2022) (pp. 455-459). Atlantis Press.