Apple is a technological organization that is a leader in
its extremely competitive market that is changing daily. New technology is
brought to the market everyday and the only way to stay ahead of the competitors
is to “one up” the competition. Apple has had a history of increasing its brand
name with the help of their former CEO, Steve Jobs. With the creation of the
iPod and assistance from their Mac computer, they have been able to create an
organization that is a symbol of their accomplishments and their determination
for improvement. An organization of this magnitude cannot be established
without an internal organization that supports their continuous growth.
Apple takes their organizational environment very seriously
as they attempt to create the best fit for their employees. The firm tries to
match the skills that their employees possess with the needs of the company
which is known as person-job fit. Their organization is highly committed to
protecting the environment as they have a large section of their website
dedicated to maintaining the area where they operate in as they indicate how
they have reduced their environmental footprint. This can be extrinsically
motivating to employees who also care about the environment. This is represented
by the hygiene factor of the Two Factor Theory which was created by Frederick
Herzberg. Hygiene factors that help avoid job dissatisfaction which is needed
to seek overall satisfaction within the organization. Apple allowed its
employees a rather high level of autonomy where people had the freedom to
decide how to perform tasks on the job they were working on. Giving employees a
level of autonomy can inherently increase intrinsic motivation. This is
represented in the Two Factor Theory as well but these factors are called
motivators where the inspiration for the individual is derived from within
themselves rather than an extrinsic force or reward. Since Apple has the
ability to increase employee’s internal and external environment, it’s no
wonder how they are a leader in the highly respected industry. Steve Jobs
created an environment for employees to work in that made employees feel that
they could help the organization grow. He believed that the employees can positively
work together as a whole organization to meet the goals of Apple. This is
represented by Theory Y developed by Douglas McGregor which stated that human
nature assume that employees are not lazy, can enjoy work, and will put effort
into furthering organizational goals.
Apple created an extremely secretive company where its
employees were not to discuss any of the projects that its employees were
working on. This could have positive and negative effects on its employees. It
would hurt the organization because its employees may not feel that they have
the freedom to openly discuss what was being developed inside their organization
and may make some parts of the job not as attractive as other occupations where
communication across other organizations is necessary. However, being secretive
can provide positive effects for the organization because it can give the
employee a sense of comfort because they would know that Apple is trying to
protect their investments in new project. In turn, this indicates that the
employees are being protected from competition that would be attempting to
extract knowledge from Apple.
-Nick Meyering
I really agree with this. I own a lot of apple products and every one of them seems to have trumped the rest of the market. Steve Jobs idea to keep things secretive within the company, yet allow employees a high level of autonomy is definitely a major reason for their uniqueness and success with in the technological world. It will be interesting to see what direction apple moves in now that its genius has passed away though. Judging by how he handled everything within the company while he was alive, I think its safe to say he had some organizational structures in place to maintain success once he died.
ReplyDeleteNick, I am a big fan of the Droid but I respect Apple a lot. It is very rare that you hear that their is a big problem with an apple product. My roommate is a big Apple fan and has had him Mac for 4 years and it is still faster and works better than my PC. I do think this is because the employees have been motivated to work so hard to make a great product.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post and thinking about all the theories that fit with how apple's employees are treated and motivated, it makes me wonder when Steve Job's was building this company if he thought about these theories and how they worked so well with apple. I also agree with Avery that because of the motivation that apple employees receive from their jobs that they can create such great product.
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