BUSINESSWEEK Article -Xerox Management
Assignments for Tuesday:
1. Read the article on Xerox and the Management Fiasco. Bring a write-up of the following: (Typed; proper grammar, sentence structure and punctuation.)
Describe the behaviors of Xerox management noted in the article.
How do you believe the behaviors of the management team contributed to the issues the company faced in 2000?
2. Find/print a news article on a topic you believe is relevant to Organizational Behavior. Provide a brief summary of the key points of the article and how you believe this content is relevant to OB. (Concept Application #1)
COVER STORY
Xerox: The Downfall
The Inside Story of the Management Fiasco at Xerox
One morning last May, G. Richard Thoman arrived for work to find an urgent summons from Paul A. Allaire, the man he had replaced as chief executive of Xerox Corp. (XRX) just 13 months earlier. Allaire, who had remained as chairman, was waiting next door in his office at Xerox headquarters. A man of few words even on happy occasions, Allaire delivered the bad news without preamble. He said that Thoman's colleagues had lost confidence in him and that the next afternoon the board would announce his resignation. In other words, Thoman, who had left IBM in 1997 to join Xerox as heir apparent to Allaire, would be out of a job in about 30 hours.
Thoman was livid, but obligingly fell on the sword Allaire handed him. Late the next day, after the board had announced Allaire's reinstatement as CEO, Thoman sat alone in a Xerox conference room and fielded calls from the press. ''The board and I agreed that it made more sense to implement our strategy with an internal team,'' he told one caller. Actually, he could only guess at what his fellow directors wanted. Thoman had not been invited to the board meeting or even asked to defend himself by speakerphone. He had been fired in absentia, the bizarre but perhaps inevitable outcome of a CEO succession that had begun so promisingly
1. Read the article on Xerox and the Management Fiasco. Bring a write-up of the following: (Typed; proper grammar, sentence structure and punctuation.)
Describe the behaviors of Xerox management noted in the article.
How do you believe the behaviors of the management team contributed to the issues the company faced in 2000?
2. Find/print a news article on a topic you believe is relevant to Organizational Behavior. Provide a brief summary of the key points of the article and how you believe this content is relevant to OB. (Concept Application #1)
COVER STORY
Xerox: The Downfall
The Inside Story of the Management Fiasco at Xerox
One morning last May, G. Richard Thoman arrived for work to find an urgent summons from Paul A. Allaire, the man he had replaced as chief executive of Xerox Corp. (XRX) just 13 months earlier. Allaire, who had remained as chairman, was waiting next door in his office at Xerox headquarters. A man of few words even on happy occasions, Allaire delivered the bad news without preamble. He said that Thoman's colleagues had lost confidence in him and that the next afternoon the board would announce his resignation. In other words, Thoman, who had left IBM in 1997 to join Xerox as heir apparent to Allaire, would be out of a job in about 30 hours.
Thoman was livid, but obligingly fell on the sword Allaire handed him. Late the next day, after the board had announced Allaire's reinstatement as CEO, Thoman sat alone in a Xerox conference room and fielded calls from the press. ''The board and I agreed that it made more sense to implement our strategy with an internal team,'' he told one caller. Actually, he could only guess at what his fellow directors wanted. Thoman had not been invited to the board meeting or even asked to defend himself by speakerphone. He had been fired in absentia, the bizarre but perhaps inevitable outcome of a CEO succession that had begun so promisingly