Running head: MANAGING ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION
Managing Across the Organization
Tokwiny Da-Thong
University Of Phoenix
Managing Across the Organization
Good Sport (GS), a Florida based manufacturer of fitness equipment has fifteen years of experience providing quality product to clients. In recent years GS has pioneered health awareness and the use of fitness equipment in hospitals, expanded into North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia providing equipment for clubs, hotels and residences. The latest fitness trend was identified by GS prompting the design of new equipment called the XtendSport, interactive holistic exercise equipment. The prototype has been developed by a new designer but has not yet been approved for production. Production, Research and Development (R & D), Sales and Marketing are the different department that need to be involved and approve this new equipment before it can go into mass production. There exists a certain political strategy at GS that a manager in R & D needs to identify in order to decide on the right strategy to pursue in getting approval and collaboration for this new equipment from all departments. The right strategy is the use of specific political tactics to increase power within the company to leverage decisions and develop allies which are dependant on the culture and structure of each department at GS.
"Organizational structure refers to the division of labor as the patterns of coordination, communication, work flow and formal power that direct organizational activities" McShane & Von Glinow, 2004, p.446). Each of the four departments at GS have a specific group of tasks that are performed on a daily basis each of which are undertaken due to their importance. R&D d ...