Case Study
Student Name: Yao Xue Student Number: 250647639
Student Name: Student Number:
1. Given that employees from the two firms will be working together in groups, what are
the implications for group development and group cohesiveness? What advice would you
give the integration team for designing effective work teams?
The integration brings 5600 Deloitte employees and 1000 Arthur Andersen employees together.
It implies that these employees might experience several stages of group development: forming,
storming, norming and performing.
Stage 1: Forming
Team members are reserved and polite, conflict is avoided because of the need to be accepted
into the group. However, there may be cautiousness and uncertainty about the future. For
example, Deloitte employees feared that Deloitte management was forgetting about its own
employees and Andersen employees have to getting use to their new titles, new office and new
roles. Both sides of employees might explore issues like” why we are together? What are we
supposed to do together? Do I want to get involved in this? How can I contribute? What will you
expect of me? What will you contribute? Can I trust you?” In addition, the employees might try
to identify the boundaries of both interpersonal and task behaviours, assessing other team
members and the commitment, evaluating potential risks and rewards and establishing
relationships with leaders and other team members.
Stage 2: Storming
At this stage, differences in opinion are more common and are expressed more openly. For the
employees from two strong cultures, this stage might be a challenge and stall at this stage. For
example, the Deloitte employees viewed the Anderson people as “damage goods” and concern
the amount of attention given to Andersen employees. On the other hand, the Andersen people
may not be voluntarily integrated into the new organization. Thus, conflicts emerge around
interpersonal issues and task needs. Power struggles may emerge as leadership is challenged and
factions begin to form. Team members compete for positions, challenge goals, the group
influence and resist task requirements and avoid dealing with underlying tension and hidden
agendas
Stage 3: Norming
At this stage, members resolve the issue that provoked the storming and they develop social
consensus. A sense of renewed optimism as the team begins to feel a sense of team identity. It
experiences increased cooperation as roles and responsibilities become clearer and agreement on
norms and expectations for behavior are reached. For example, the Deloitte people and
Andersen employees can implement the team’s performance expectations, re-establish specific
roles and operating procedures, define rules for problem solving and building team culture.
Stage 4: Performing
Reaching this stage is largely dependent upon the successful transition through the previous
stages. The team knows clearly what it is doing and why. Relationships are strong and while
disagreements may occur they are resolved quickly and positively. Roles become flexible and
functional, and group energy is channelled into the task. There is maximum work accomplishment, interdependence, personal insight and constructive self-change.
The main challenges for the group development in the new corporation would be the forming
and storming stage.
Group cohesiveness means the attractiveness of a group to its members. The financial success of
the new corporation is critical for the development of cohesiveness of new group members. If
the combined corporation fail to achieve its financial targets, the Andersen people may be
blamed as scapegoating.
To design the effective work teams, my suggestion is that the new corporation can develop self-
managed work teams. First, the task should be challenge, complexity and requiring high
interdependence among team members to accomplish it. Second, the group composition should
be stable, small in size and all members have a high level of expertise and diversity. The
integration brings challenges but also provides opportunities to build effective teams. For
example, at Andersen, there had always been a strong drive to focus on the clients’ needs above
everything else. In contrast, at Deloitte, both the client’s needs and employee issues are
important. It may bring different perspective to the team. Finally, it is very important the
management should support the self-managed teams, providing trainings such as technical
training, social skills, language skills and business training, coaching teams to be independent
and tying rewards to team accomplishment and provide team members with individual feedback.
2. Is organizational socialization relevant for the integration of Arthur Andersen employees?
What would you tell the integration team about organizational socialization and how it can
be helpful for integration process?
Yes, the socialization is relevant for the integration of Arthur Andersen employees. Socialization
is the process by which people learn the attitudes, knowledge, and behaviours that are necessary
to function in a group or organization. It is a learning process in which new members must
acquire knowledge, change their attitudes, and perform new behaviours. Socialization is also the
primary means by which organization communicate the organization’s culture and values to new
members. The integration of 1000 Andersen employees pose a significant challenge on the
integration team and socialization is a critical process to ensure positive proximal socialization
outcomes such as learning and distal socialization outcomes, such as job satisfaction and
turnover. The socialization help the Andersen employees understand their task, role, group and
organization domain. Learning during socialization enable the new comers to acquire the
knowledge and skills to perform their job duties and tasks, learn appropriate behaviour and
expectations of their role; learn the norms and values of their work group and learn about their
organization, such as its history, traditions, language, politics, mission and culture. The learning
process will help the Andersen people their role ambiguity and role conflict. In addition, the
socialization will help the Andersen employees achieve a good fit. The socialization may help
the new comers learn the values and beliefs that are important to the group and organization.
One of the primary goals of socialization is to ensure that new employees learn and understand
the key beliefs, values and assumptions of the organization to achieve organizational
identification. The Andersen employees come from an organization with strong culture which is
different from Deloitte, thus, , socialization becomes essentially important to help the new
comers understand the new organization culture and get their commitment to the new
organization, which will lead to successful integration and avoid any production loss due to
culture clash 3. What methods of organizational socialization can be used to integrate the Arthur
Anderson employees? Be sure to explain how you would use each of the methods described
in Chapter 8 and indicate what you think would be most effective for the successful
integration ofArthurAndersen employees.
The integration team can use realistic job previews, employee orientation programs, socialization
tactics and mentoring to help the integration.
Realistic Job previews
The Andersen employees are being told that they will join a new organization. They would not
have volunteered to integrate with Deloitte if not for the crisis that occurred in the US. Most of
them may not be enthusiastic about the integration. Therefore, if the integration team can
provide a balance, realistic picture of the positive and negative aspect of the integration into
Deloitte, communicate realistic information to the new Andersen employees, such as the culture
difference, performance evaluation process, compensation, it might help Deloitte retain talents of
Andersen employees, prevent perception of psychological contract breach and increase job
survival, satisfaction of the employees who choose to integrate to the new organization
Employee orientation programs
Employee orientation programs are deigned to introduce new employees to their job, the people
they will be working with, and the organization. This is also an important step for successful
integration. The main content of the organization may consist of terms and condition of
employment, information about the organization, help new comers cope with stress of integration.
In the orientation session, the integration team should convey the message Deloitte appreciate
their participation that the Andersen employees are truly welcome. The orientation program may
help Andersen people form psychological contract and enhance the understanding of the
organization goals and values, history and involvement with people in Deloitte.
Socialization Tactics
The Andersen employees are well trained professionals, and Deloitte and Andersen have similar
business practices, therefore, these new employees may already have good person-job fit.
However, a mix of institutionalized and individualized socialization may achieve a good result.
For example, the institutionalized socialization may include collectively train the new employees
how to use Deloitte’s computer systems, communicate the Deloitte policies as well as explaining
administrative items such as compensation, the incentive plan, pension and benefits and
promotion policies. The individualized socialization may happen when the new employees join
in the work units, the group members may offer help to the new employees in terms of his or her
roles and expectations. The socialization tactics helps to lower role ambiguity and conflict, lead
to more positive perception of the organization, more positive job satisfaction, organization
commitment and lower stress and turnover.
Mentoring
Deloitte may launch a mentor program to help the new employees get through the transition
period, provide career function mentoring such as sponsorship, exposure and visibility, coach
and feedback and developmental assignments. In addition, the mentors can provide
psychological support to the Andersen employees who are experiencing stressful transition. This
may include role modelling, provide acceptance and confirmation, counselling to help the new
employees increase self-confidence and ability to cope with emotional traumas.
Proactive Socialization
The Andersen employees can play an active role in their socialization through a set of proactive
behaviours. The new comers can acquire information by observation, feedback seeking, information seeking, they can also be proactive by socializing, networking and build relationship
with co-workers and members of the organization, negotiating job changes to improve P-J fit, etc.
The above socialization methods will contribute to the successful integration in different stages,
all are important to the Deloitte integration team.
4. Review the results of the cultural assessment of the two firms and then compare and
contrast their cultures. How are they similar and different and what are the implications
for the successful integration of the two firms.
According to the assessment, both companies have strong cultures, ten areas were identified as
having moderate or low cultural alignment, while ten areas reveal a relatively high degree of
alignment. The two cultures are similar in terms of commitment to quality, client orientation,
teamwork, communication, openness, integrity, external competitiveness, result orientation, risk
propensity vision and mission. The main different are in the following dimensions: bureaucracy,
market orientation, diversity, action orientation and accountability, learning and development,
reward and recognition, organization values, work lifestyle balance, management support and
gold definition and alignment. Organizational culture consists of the shared beliefs, values and
assumptions t and these shared beliefs, values and assumptions determine the norms that develop
and the patterns of behaviour that emerge from these norms. When the integration pushes the
Andersen and Deloitte employees under the same corporate banner, the strong culture can be a
liability for successful integration. For example, the Andersen employees may be resistant to
change their beliefs, values and attitudes to fit the new organization. In addition there may be
culture clash between the Deloitte and Andersen employees and lead to conflicts, reduce morale
or drop in productivity. The top three factors that threaten to derail the success of the integration:
cultural misalignment and the subsequent conflict, insufficient integration and lack of
organizational synergies. To address the difference between the two cultures is essential to
successful integration.
5. What should the integration team do about the cultural difference between the two firms?
Should they integrate the Arthur Andersen employees into the existing Deloitte& Touche
culture or should they create a new culture? What do you think the integration team
should do and how should they proceed?
The integration teams should solve the tension arise from the culture difference between the two
firms in a timely and proper fashion. They should integrate the Arthur Andersen employees into
the existing Deloitte culture because of two reasons. First, in many companies, strong cultures
reflect the value of an organization’s founder. And top management also strongly shapes the
organization’s culture. It is difficult to change the culture or create a new culture without change
the organization’s top management. Second, the size of Andersen employees is much smaller
than Deloitte’s, it is more feasible to select and train the Andersen employees to adapt to the new
culture.
To get the Andersen people’s commitment and address the Deloitte people’s concerns, the
integration team should take the people from two organizations to an off-site location to deal
with the culture difference in a timely manner in order to prevent future conflicts. The
integration team should communicate with Deloitte people to assure them the job security and
clarify the integration process. On the other hand, it is necessary to expose the new employees to
a careful, cultural socialization process. For example:
Selecting employees: Realistic job previews are provided to allow the Andersen employees to deselect themselves.
Reward and promotion: the reward and promotion is carefully used to reinforce those employees
who perform well in areas that support the goals of the organization.
Exposure the new member to core culture: the culture’s core beliefs, values and assumptions are
asserted to provide guidance for member behaviour.
Organizational Folklore: Andersen people are exposed to folklore about the organization, stories
that reinforce the nature of the culture.
Role models: Provide new members with role models whose actions and views are consistent
with the culture
This process may help theAndersen employees buy in to the Deloitte culture.
6. How important is leadership for the successful integration of the two firms? Consider the
implications of the different leadership theories described in Chapter 9 (situational theories,
leader-member exchange theory, transformational and transactional leadership, ethical
and authentic leadership, and strategic leadership) for the successful integration of the two
firms. What type of leadership do you think is most important and likely to be effective and
why?
Effective leadership exerts influence in a way that achieves organizational goals by enhancing
the productivity, innovation, satisfaction, commitment and successful integration of the
workforce. Without effective leadership, the integration may result in cultural conflicts, job
dissatisfaction, employee turnover and loss of clients.
The transformational leader may be the most important and likely to be effective under the
integration circumstances. Transformational leadership provides follower with new vision that
instills true commitment. The integration team is facing with the challenge of deal with culture
misalignment and the subsequent conflict among the two organization employees, the
transformational leader can effectively solve this problem by changing the belief and attitudes of
follower to correspond to the new vision of “Making a Difference Together” and motivates them
to achie
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