Nike Case Answers
Nike Case Answers– Spreading out to stay together
1. When Nike CEO Phil Knight stepped down and handed his job to Bill Perez, he stayed on as chairman of the board. In what ways could Knight’s continued presence on the board have created an informal structure that prevented Perez from achieving full and complete leadership of Nike?
Answer:
Informal structures are the set of unofficial relationships between organization members. Potential advantages of informal structures:
▪ Helping people accomplish their work
▪ Overcoming limits of formal structure
▪ Gaining access to interpersonal networks
▪ Informal learning
When knight remained on the board, old communication relationships may have survived his departure from the CEO position, cutting Perez off from valuable information. Knight’s access to the informal communication network may have worked to spread rumors to Knight and back down the communication chain. These rumors may have contained inaccurate information, caused resistance to change and distracted members from their work. This may have reinforced Perez’s position as an outsider.
2. Discussion- Given the problems Nike has had with sweatshop labor being used by some of its foreign contractors, are there parts of the firm that need to be run with a mechanistic rather than organic design ? Give examples to support your answer.
Answer:
Mechanistic designs are highly centralized and bureaucratic with an emphasis on command and control. This might suggest that mechanistic designs are appropriate for manufacturing in foreign countries. Organic designs are adaptive, decentralized and tend to respond to change more quickly. This would probably be a good fit for an organization that has far flung operations in different countries with different cultures that try to respond to rapidly changing technology, fashion, customer demands and economic conditions. Nike’s manufacturing subsystem should be run with mechanistic rather than
1. When Nike CEO Phil Knight stepped down and handed his job to Bill Perez, he stayed on as chairman of the board. In what ways could Knight’s continued presence on the board have created an informal structure that prevented Perez from achieving full and complete leadership of Nike?
Answer:
Informal structures are the set of unofficial relationships between organization members. Potential advantages of informal structures:
▪ Helping people accomplish their work
▪ Overcoming limits of formal structure
▪ Gaining access to interpersonal networks
▪ Informal learning
When knight remained on the board, old communication relationships may have survived his departure from the CEO position, cutting Perez off from valuable information. Knight’s access to the informal communication network may have worked to spread rumors to Knight and back down the communication chain. These rumors may have contained inaccurate information, caused resistance to change and distracted members from their work. This may have reinforced Perez’s position as an outsider.
2. Discussion- Given the problems Nike has had with sweatshop labor being used by some of its foreign contractors, are there parts of the firm that need to be run with a mechanistic rather than organic design ? Give examples to support your answer.
Answer:
Mechanistic designs are highly centralized and bureaucratic with an emphasis on command and control. This might suggest that mechanistic designs are appropriate for manufacturing in foreign countries. Organic designs are adaptive, decentralized and tend to respond to change more quickly. This would probably be a good fit for an organization that has far flung operations in different countries with different cultures that try to respond to rapidly changing technology, fashion, customer demands and economic conditions. Nike’s manufacturing subsystem should be run with mechanistic rather than
References: http://www.nike.com/ph http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike,_Inc.