General Electric Case Study
Case Study – General Electric
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Management Essentials
Cody P
This document under review was taken from a Wall Street Journal article titled, “GE’s Drive to Purge Fraud is Hampered by Workers’ Mistrust.” Right away it is clear that the writer of this article has a particular bias towards GE, and not the employees. After carefully reading, analyzing and just a little bit of reading between the lines, I have taken a similar stance. The article notes a total of 5 ex-employees with claims of being fired due to “whistle-blowing.” For the time being, let us assume that each was justified in their accusations, while we examine the steps GE has taken in adjusting their own ethical code.
What transpired after Jack Welch (GE Chairman) “declared war on fraud” was a system of ethical training, and several different ways to report wrongdoings. Unnamed experts imply the ethical training program as somewhat of a success by describing it as, “one of the most elaborate and comprehensive…programs” but no mention is made as to these expert’s credibility or whether they share a bias towards GE or not. In another attempt to boost employee communication, 40 -100 of GE’s 284,000 employees are able to attend what can be described as a team meeting, using group brainpower to make suggestions to the boss. He then has the choice of deciding, or not deciding to act on the suggestions, leaving this extravagant meeting seemingly pointless, but for 0.025% of the company’s employees having the chance to communicate, with the intention of taking away the fear to report wrong doings in GE employees.
However, as the article states, many GE employees still fear reporting problems despite the efforts of Jack Welch. Many of the claims made by now ex-employees are quite questionable for various reasons. Not to completely discredit their claims, there is a great possibility that they are justified, though the presented circumstances
-------------------------------------------------
Management Essentials
Cody P
This document under review was taken from a Wall Street Journal article titled, “GE’s Drive to Purge Fraud is Hampered by Workers’ Mistrust.” Right away it is clear that the writer of this article has a particular bias towards GE, and not the employees. After carefully reading, analyzing and just a little bit of reading between the lines, I have taken a similar stance. The article notes a total of 5 ex-employees with claims of being fired due to “whistle-blowing.” For the time being, let us assume that each was justified in their accusations, while we examine the steps GE has taken in adjusting their own ethical code.
What transpired after Jack Welch (GE Chairman) “declared war on fraud” was a system of ethical training, and several different ways to report wrongdoings. Unnamed experts imply the ethical training program as somewhat of a success by describing it as, “one of the most elaborate and comprehensive…programs” but no mention is made as to these expert’s credibility or whether they share a bias towards GE or not. In another attempt to boost employee communication, 40 -100 of GE’s 284,000 employees are able to attend what can be described as a team meeting, using group brainpower to make suggestions to the boss. He then has the choice of deciding, or not deciding to act on the suggestions, leaving this extravagant meeting seemingly pointless, but for 0.025% of the company’s employees having the chance to communicate, with the intention of taking away the fear to report wrong doings in GE employees.
However, as the article states, many GE employees still fear reporting problems despite the efforts of Jack Welch. Many of the claims made by now ex-employees are quite questionable for various reasons. Not to completely discredit their claims, there is a great possibility that they are justified, though the presented circumstances