MGT 450 Question

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Week 2: Structure and Decision Making Process

Theresa Osendorf University of Arizona Global Campus

MGT450: Strategic Planning for Organizations

Professor Robin McCart

September 20, 2021

The Arizona Global Campus (UAGC) is a non-profit higher education institution that primarily focuses on offering online courses to students across the globe. Since the establishment of the institution, there has been a lot of growth and advancement realized. This is a result of the quality leadership and brand recognition that the university has enjoyed. However, the organizational structure through which the university uses to make crucial decisions and share the information across the institution has played a significant role. According to UAGC (2021), UAGC has a tall hierarchical organizational structure. This is a structure where ranks are arranged from the highest to the lowest level. However, the university uses a functional organizational design where there are different departments, and each department has its specific area of specialization. For instance, there is the IT department, Marketing, Human Resource Management, and many other departments.

At the university, the executive team oversees the running of the facility comprised of the Board of Directors, Chairman, CEO, and the MD, among others. Each department has the head of department (HOD), and other positions are ranked below the department head. The HOD connects the department with the university’s executive arm, thereby sharing all the communications from the executives to the department and vice versa. When it comes to important decisions, the executive team can engage different HODs’ and the decisions made are shared with all other stakeholders. In the first week, the major challenges affecting the UAGC were identified. The university was affected by unethical malpractices, especially by the leadership attracting huge losses for the company, increasing student enrollment using illegal means, and an online teaching strategy sidelining students with a specific learning disability. These three identified issues have a negative impact on the UAGC in many ways (Hernandez, 2020). The application of unethical behaviors by the leaders brought about economic instability in the facility by attracting huge and unnecessary debts that could have been avoided in the first place. The financial instability compromises the quality of services the university offers, which has created a negative reputation and pushed a lot of students to other universities despite the facility being a non-profit organization.

The second impact is that the UAGC offers unique services to students with specific learning disabilities. This item has been a major strength that has made the university highly competitive. The failure to provide this service has come out as a developing facility weakness that has tarnished the brand image of the facility (Hernandez, 2020). The more important reason is that students attracted by the school to enjoy the privileges of a specific learning disability package are no longer attracted. Lastly, the unethical practices in the enrollment process have caused many students to lose trust in the institution, thus opting to seek alternatives where ethical enrollment is practiced. All these challenges have affected the university strategies since it is the desire and goal of the university to reach out to all students. Challenges have prevented some completely impoverished students from benefiting, thus losing their overall purpose of existence.

Although a risky endeavor, the University of Arizona’s (UA) acquisition strategy to purchase Ashford University provides the UA ample opportunity. With the acquisition comes a positive financial outcome due to the global nature of the business and the revenue associated with the purchase (Abraham,2021). UAGC operates over 150 micro campus locations worldwide, resulting in serving a large, diverse student body. What’s more, UAGC has an enrollment base of approximately 35,000 students (About UAGC, 2021). Although there is fierce competition with online universities, UAGC differentiates itself by being affiliated with the UA brand (Abraham, 2021).

References

Abraham, S. C. (2012). Strategic Management for Organizations. Retrieved September 9, 2021, from https://content.ashford.edu/books/AUMGT450.12.2/sections/copyright.

About UAGC: Uagc: University of Arizona Global Campus. UAGC. (2021). Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://www.uagc.edu/about

Hernandez, R. (2020, December 9). Analysis finds ethical issues with newly formed University of Arizona Global Campus. KJZZ. Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://kjzz.org/content/1641785/analysis-finds-ethical-issues-newly-formed-university-arizona-global-campus.