INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION YEAR ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET

Student Name Jenny Lu
Student ID SZ09UKIFY029
Subject Business
Programme Business study
Lecturer/Tutor Arturo
Date Submitted 30/04/2010
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IFY Business Assignment Contrastingmanagement styles at Campbell Soup and Quaker Oats

Student name: Jenny Lu
Student ID: SZ-09-0029
Tutor: Arturo

Management is a very important part of a business and most of the times it is difficult to define exactly what is meant by ‘management. According to the essay, we know that the Campbell Soup and Quaker Oats companies are two of the largest and best known food manufacturers. They all achieve a big success, but they have two different way to go. Largely, analysts believed because of differences in the way the companies were managed and the characteristics of the people who managed them. Campbell Soup’s manager is David W.Johnson and the Quaker Oats’s CEO is William D.Smithbury. David W.Johnson is an easygoing, approachable people and he gets along well with his employees. But William D.Smithbury has to fire if he can not do business well, so he does not have a peaceful heart to do this.

On the other hand, the management style of Campbell Soup is democratic. It is a kind of leadership style which encourages participation in a decision making. This management style boosts motivation and welcomes involvement, workers feel the ownership of the firm and its ideas, and improve sharing of ideas and experiences within the business, and it also can delay decision making. Also, in this stale, the leader is very esteem his employees and give them some rights to take part in actives of firm. And also this leadership style can be persuasive and consultative. Persuasive manager convince others to agree with him, while consultative manager asks others’ idea before coming up with a decision. From the essay, these are what the CEO of Campbell Soup David W.Johnson. He is very approachable and he cares about his employees. He delegates authority and protect the employees’ right, so it can increase employees’ motivation. Which made me think that most of his success the company’s success can be rooted a good management style, so employees can work seriously. Because he thinks the changes in sales and profits reflect how well the managers are doing. Which make me think that most of his success are he gets along well with his employees and he uses a good management style to control his business.#p#分頁(yè)標(biāo)題#e#

In contrast, the management style of Quaker Oats is autocratic. It is a style of leadership where the management sets objectives, allocates tasks, and insists on obedience. It sometimes makes the members of the group become more dependent on him/her. However, members are most of the times
dissatisfied with this leadership style. The cohesion between the leaders and employees is just little, and a lead to a high level of supervision and poor level of motivation. From the essay, William D.Smithbury who is Quaker Oats’s CEO just makes decisions by himself, he is very confident and he never thinks to discuss with employees, it tends to that he does not know what do employees need or want, this could make the motivation decrease. He just focus on how to achieve his job and ignore the quality of his business. When he decides to buy Snapple, he has much confident, other people think it is only need $700 million, but he pays $1.7 billion for Snapple. In fact, when he becomes failure, he blames his top executive and assumes their responsible, make Quaker Oats managers totally demoralized. This could lead to motivation decrease a lot too. In the end it leads to his unsuccessful business.

Autocratic and democratic are quite different management styles. Autocratic is when the work force is told what to do. While democratic is when they will be able to discuss it. These two different management styles have different advantages and disadvantages. Autocratic do not have to spend on many time making decisions, but it has high risks and low motivation. On the other hand, democratic has high motivation of staff and increase efficiency and speed up production and it also has better quality, but it may cause the conflict and it sometimes has low decisions. You use autocratic or democratic depending on their business types.

Also, their management styles have some relationships with motivation theory. David W.Johnson uses Maslow’s theory and Y theory, he get along well with his employees and makes the bonuses link to company’s performance. This is Taylor’s Scientific Management. Taylor has a very simple view of motivated people at work-money, by this way could easier to increase worker’s motivation. On the other hand William D.Smithbury uses Herzberg’s two-factor and theory Y. When he buy the Snapple, he does not listen to others’ opinions and when he failed, he blamed his top managers to assumed their responsibilities.

In conclusion, the biggest difference between Campbell Soup and Quaker Oats is how their managers treat their employees, and this could affect the motivation of their workers. David W.Johnson use democratic management style to manage his company, he sets goals for achieve the vision and he gives his employees many rights to help him do some business and make decisions. It makes them have more motivation and leads to his business success. In contrast, William D.Smithbury use autocratic style to manage his workers, he always makes the big decisions and lets his managers implement without reference to anyone else. The most important thing is that he never thinks about his workers, and never protects them. This lead to the decrease of motivation, and then they choose strike, final it leads to business fail.#p#分頁(yè)標(biāo)題#e#

References:
Hall,D.,Jones,R,Raffo,C.,(2004)Business Studies 3rd ED.,Harlow,Causeway Press