Organizational change (Principles of Management)

The structure used by the St . Laurent plant is essentially the matrix organizational structure since the parent company is giving the plant management the authority to distribute responsibilities as the management sees fit . The only control that the parent company is exercising on the plant is the budgetary control . The management people at the St . Laurent plant have to plan their division of labor according to the standards that will maximize performance as defined by the budget . Since this budget has been allocated on the basis of the entire plant which serves

a specific market , Continental Can Company is implementing the organizational structure by market

In implementing the matrix structure at the plant , the management at St Laurent is facing resistance to change . This is because the workforce is focusing to such an extent on meeting the budgetary requirements that customer requirements are being neglected . If the sales manager asked for a change in the production process to meet specific customer requirements , there was considerable resistance so that such changes were not possible . The matrix structure also created the problem of ineffective communications as the meetings were not effectively conducted . Some of the attendants such as Al Whitelaw did not agree on the definition of operating efficiency by which the production people operated . Even when the budget meetings revealed satisfactory results there were letters from customers complaining about broken promises missed delivery dates and slightly off-standard items . Therefore there was room for considerable improvement in quality control . However because the...