Organizational Culture

Organizational Culture and Structure of AES Corporation

AES Corporation is an international electricity company established in 1981 . After building and operating its first power plant in Texas in 1985 , the company expanded in the global market to provide electricity to various countries . At present , AES Corporation is present in 28 countries located in five continents . It also operates 121 electricity generating plants . AES Corporation earned 12 .3 billion in annual revenue in 2006 . It has created more than 32 ,000 jobs worldwide . Its power generating plants serve at least one million people

, a number expected to increase in the future (AES Corporation , 2007

Although the corporation is experiencing global success at present , it was not spared from difficulties . The firm was charged with colluding with Enron Corporation in controlling the price of electricity (Hamilton , 2003 . As such , it suffered financial difficulties as its investors distanced themselves from the company to protect their assets since AES Corporation 's industry reputation adversely suffered from its link with the Enron scandal . Moreover , the value of its stocks plummeted that prompted its stockholders to sell their shares and discouraged potential investors from contributing their assets into the company . Due to this road block , AES Corporation had to make major organizational restructuring (Hamilton , 2003 . Change was needed for a number of reasons . First is to cut costs by enhancing efficiency in the performance of its global business units by assessing its global management and business operations . It had to cut cost to at least lower its losses . Second is to reorganize its human resources and business units to redirect its operations towards efficiency and profitability It had to implement this change to ensure its long-term viability . AES Corporation needed a strong and united workforce and subsidiaries to hurdle its financial difficulties

The organizational culture of AES Corporation can be described as adaptive . An adaptive organizational culture refers to the implementation of a balanced focus of all stakeholders including investors , employees and consumers . This type of organizational culture also welcomes the contribution and leadership from the different levels of the organizational structure (Schein , 1996 ) This form of organizational structure offers a number of benefits such as competencies of employees in recognizing , anticipating and adjusting to change , innovativeness in long-term operations , openness to positive change such as enhanced efficiency , and alignment of performance and outputs with the common goals of stakeholders . AES Corporation offer has an adaptive organizational culture because it strongly adheres to diversity . Since it operates on a global scale , the firm is able to take advantage of the differences in perspectives , attitudes and behavior of its human resources in various geographic units . AES Corporation has collated best practices in both management and marketing , especially from the lessons learned from its involvement in the Enron case . AES also has an adaptive organizational culture because of its openness to culture change . Previously , AES Corporation applied a highly autonomous approach to its business units and employees . Its business units are highly independent in decision-making because of their...