RUNNING HEAD: AMERICAN AIRLINES American Airlines and US Airway’s Merger By Aveon Sims Strayer University BUS 508 Contemporary Business Professor Jean Fonkoua August 24, 2014 Abstract American Airlines has suffered tremendous profit losses over the last few years. The losses have been so great that the company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The news for the Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection was a shock to many, considering the fact that they had enough money to operate and cover their losses through the following year. The merger indeed was a great decision on behalf of American Airlines. The merger itself was questionable.
Part 1 The CEO of Mighty Telecommunications, Sharon Wentworth, meets with the new VP of HR, Thomas Brody. Sharon points out to Thomas that many administrative HR functions have been automated or outsourced in the last two years. She wants HR to bring more value to the business and asks Thomas to transform the HR department. She asks Thomas to begin by working with the sales department. After the meeting, Thomas decides to develop a highly skilled team of strategic partners (SPs) who will build strategic business partner relationships with the company’s business leaders.
Because of these economics times that the world is currently in, the company found its business in disarray subsequently an action plan was put in place for the company could be saved. More than 34,000 of jobs were lost in the US and Canada alike at that time. As of January 16th 2009 a week after the motions were initiated in court, Circuit City decided to close all 567 remaining stores in the United States. The lost of these jobs have not only affected the company but their employees have suffered irreversible damage in these economic times. The communities were these jobs were lost have been devastated.
For almost a decade, 1993-2003, the impact of poor management decisions drastically changed the once positive image of the company. Several scandals plagued Boeing’s reputation. The first problem surfaced when a former employee of one of Boeing’s competitors used stolen documents to give Boeing an advantage in the proposal bidding process for a major contract. Another ethical issue surfaced when “behind the door” negotiations with a high-ranking government official after her retirement for an executive position. This arrangement involved the exchange of insider information and the awarding of a multi-billion dollar government contract.
Enron will be an example of a dysfunctional company for many years to come. It was clearly a company riddled with fraud and excess and its conduct drove it into bankruptcy. The text argues that individual behavior was not at the core of Enron’s problems. What were the problems with this corporation from an organizational architecture point of view? The problem of this company was to leave low-level employees make decisions with little knowledge they needed more trained staff.
Their everyday task were complicated by swooning stock prices and mass layoffs. 2. In what kinds of ways did these managers respond to these challenges- for example in the approaches to planning, leading, organizing and controlling? John Danahoe approach to the recession and its unique problems was “Remaining proactive & decisive.” (Jones 2011, p 34) Danahoe chose a plan that most of the company didn’t agree with. Employees and Investors were more open to a dramatic change in the short term then to the slow changes that eventually had other CEOs step down.
(10 pts.) Enron will be an example of a dysfunctional company for many years to come. It was clearly a company riddled with fraud and excess and its conduct drove it into bankruptcy. The text argues that individual behavior was not at the core of Enron’s problems. What were the problems with this corporation from an organizational architecture point of view?
How Four Rookie CEOs Handled the Great Recession? 1- Use the chapter material to decide what different kinds of management challenges these four CEOs faced as they took control of managing their different companies. During the Great Recession in 2008 thousands of chief executive resigned, many of them just retired, and another group stepped down from public and private U.S. companies. But leaders like John Danahoe, T. Rowe Price Kennedy, Diane M. Irvine, and Peter Swinburn faced a big catastrophe in their careers; in spite of the crisis those Four Rookies CEOs used different kinds of management challenges to take control of in the companies that they managing. John Donahoe: The management challenge faced by him was how to keep the company strong even with the huge changes in consumer behaviors.
Bianca Migliori Madrigal Case study Chp 2 Case 1 1. How are Gratterpalm’s new HR activities driving business growth for the company? Gratterpalm’s new human resources (HR) activities helped drive business growth by the strategic use of surveys as initial employee engagement to gain insight coupled with a strong communications plan. High performing organizations have a deeper understanding as to how employee engagement can successfully drive business growth.1 < Lockwood, N. (2007) P.2, Abstract, all lines>The HR activities strategically integrated both employees and management teams, and incorporated them early on in the HR structuring process. The High Performance Work System (HPWS) that was put into place included valuable training opportunities, structured performance management and appraisals, compensation or benefits and career development.
It nearly destroyed him emotionally, which is why he retired to everyone’s surprise in 1997 at the age of 54, just a year after the fraud began. To avoid an ethics meltdown of the proportions that lead to the accounting fraud at HealthSouth, Beam advised that companies support their goals with values, create a culture that allows employees to speak up and report things safely, ensure that the board is strong, avoid conflicts of interest and have clear rules about conflicts of interest and be aware of the basics of economics and economic cycles” (para. 8). In hindsight, the choices that were made do not seem so financially brilliant. However, at the time, it seemed like the only way out.