Elektra Products Inc. Case

ELEKTRA PRODUCTS, INC.

1. Definition of the Problem.

In recent years, the Elektra Products, Inc. experienced a host of problems: market share was declining in the face of increased foreign and domestic competition; new product ideas were few and far between; departments such as manufacturing and sales barely spoke to one another; morale was at an all-time low, and many employees were actively seeking other jobs. Everyone needed a dose of hope.

1. Objectives for Problem Solution

Elektra Products, Inc. an 80-year-old, publicly held company that had once been a leading manufacturer and retailer of electrical products and supplies. The company’s new, dynamic CEO was going to announce a new era of employee involvement and empowerment at Elektra Products, Inc.

The Manufacturing vice president, Barbara Russell, was enthusiastic as team leader of her team, which had lots of effort to contribute on their assignment to work on ideas in improving the company’s objective of empowering a new era.

But as soon as their team presented the report, the department heads rapidly formed a wall of resistance, and they found out that there were complaints from the Top managers to middle managers about their ideas.

The objectives of this case is to lead into a solution on how Elektra Products, Inc. change to become an empowering era through organizational learning, and how can Barbara Russell and her team implement their ideas with everyone agreeing. We base our solutions on these three questions to find an answer: 1. How might top management have done a better job changing Elektra Products into a new kind of organization? What might they do now to get the empowerment process back on track? 2. Can you think of ways Barbara could have avoided the problems her team faced in the meeting with department heads? 3. If you were Barbara Russell, what would you do now? Why?

1. Alternative Courses of Action

Chapter 1 of the New Era of Management Concepts and Applications book by Richard Daft states that in changing an organization into a new kind of organization, everyone must be engaged and need to contribute in identifying what are the problems and the next steps in finding a solution. We must follow the different characteristics of a learning organization which are employee empowerment, participating in strategies, creating shared visions, share information, team based structures and adapting to culture, etc.

It also states that to attain better management of organizational goals, managers must be effective and efficient in planning, organizing, leading and controlling their resources. They need to show and present their plans clearly, that change is necessary within an organization and sometimes problems are unavoidable.

They have to introduce detailed perspectives to their employees to better understand the company’s goals in the future and show the advantages and benefits of the change to make their staff evaluate and voice out their own opinions so that it can be accepted by everyone.