The aim of this report is to explore the organizational structure and culture and examine the different approaches to management, leadership and theories of Samsung Co, Ltd limited liability company.

Samsung electronics is one of the biggest technology electronics corporation in the world. This company always in the top leading organizations such as: Sony, LG, Apple, Toshiba,… in high-tech electronics manufacturing and digital media. In my report, containing plenty of information about Samsung electronics. Not only external problems but also internal issue  about Samsung. We discover Samsung - the big one. ”Through innovative, reliable products and services; talented people; a responsible approach to business and global citizenship; and collaboration with our partners and customers, Samsung is taking the world in imaginative new directions.”.

Organizational structure

Learning about Organizational structure, we can improve ability to organize. Good organizational structure leads to efficiency and less conflicts. In this aspect, Samsung did very well. They have an advance system in management, it is really a corporation which was organize in the closely way, steady and logical. Functional structures, Matrix Structure , Divisional Structure ,Simulated Decentralization ,… all of them was performed perfectly in Samsung system. In this assignment, we concentrate to 2 main structures of Samsung.

1. Functional structures

Samsung ‘s board of directors

        “The structure of an organization establishes how work is allocated and controlled; how people and activities are grouped together; and the channels  through which authority and communication are distributed within the organization.” (OB course book, BPP Professional Education, first edition 2004; p.27). As we know, Samsung is a big corporation. Therefore, they must have a professional staff conclude the best employees. From the leader of the company to workers who which in Samsung factories all around the world, all of them composed a powerful system inside Samsung Co,Ltd. In Samsung’s board of directors, the leader is CEO Geo-Sung Choi and other members such as: Yoon-Woo Lee (Vice chairman & COO of Samsung Co,Ltd); Ju-Hwa Yoon (President & Financial manager of Samsung manager office); … They are the most important agents in Samsung and they controlled Samsung follow the right way for a long time, now and in the future. Their subordinate officers involve : financial accountants, sale managers, marketing managers, R&D managers, Human Resourse managers, … of many parts in Samsung system. Each of them has certain roles in their company.

        Advantages of Functional structure:

• Expertise is pooled: at any roles in company regularly has a professional agent assume his/her role and accessed more efficiently.
• It avoids duplication: because in each role regularly has a specialist. Thus, it make parts of system become clear and easy to control for director. It never has 2 people both do the same things in a Samsung’s branch. It mean that wasting of human resource and not logical in management. For example: it has only one CEO, one marketing manager and one R&D manager in Samsung Vina company( branch of Samsung in Vietnam).
• It makes easier the recruitment, training, and motivation of professional specialists. Samsung has the success today due to suitable policies in human resourse. They know the way to attract talented people, professional staff. Under the management of Samsung’s board of directors  Samsung always make every fields, which they take part in, become  clearer, easier to control, more professional on recruitment and more logical on motivation of Samsung company.

Disadvantages of functional structures:

        Beside a lot of strengths, functional structure exists some weaknesses

• It is organisation by inputs and internal processes, rather than by outputs and customer demands, which are what ultimated drive a business. In a functional structure, they concentrate on separately parts inside the organization. Thus, external elements were not include in functional structures.
• Communcation problem may arise between different specialisms, with their own culture and language. In fact, the management of Samsung Vina is different to the management of Samsung in US or in Europe. Because it depend on predilection of customers, affordability, power of economy base in each country, in each area. Moreover, language is the little serious problem. There are a lot of good specialists but they have not commucation skill by other language so they just work in their countries. Language education in business is one of the most priority at the moment.
• Poor co-ordination, may result, especially in a tall organization structure. If Samsung is a flat organization structure, this issue may be not happen. But Samsung is a big company, its structure is tall organizations structure so they need to hold frequent upward referrals or inter-department meeting which make connection in this company.

2. Divisional structure

     “Samsung is comprised of companies that are setting new standards in a wide range of businesses, from consumer electronics to petrochemicals, from advertising to life insurance. They share a commitment to creating innovative, high quality products that are relied on every day by millions of people and businesses around the world.”

         

        Samsung has a lot of fields in business. They product electronics, provide service involve financial or other industries. Samsung approached the worldwide range and become a multifunction company. Therefore, to keep the management in the easier way, Samsung Co, Ltd divided into 4 main branches: Electronics industries, Machinery & Heavy Industries, Financial Service, Chemical Industries. Each branch administer one field and contribute profits, achievements for the head of Samsung company.

        The impact of divisional structures in Samsung performance:

        Divisional structures is the better  communication  and decision. Departmental Coordination : An objective accountability leads to better cohesion within the boundaries of the department .Clear Accountability: Structuring along the product lines provides clear correlation between the expense and profit of the individual divisions. The business objectives of the division can be formulated more objectively and the expectations can be better agreed. It makes Samsung become more steady and easier to control.

Organization Culture

        

        There are plenty of ways to definite ‘culture’, and there are more than that to understand organization culture. “ Culture in an organisation is found in the formalisation of its structure, how decisions are taken, the degree to which authority and responsibility are delegated, and the degree to which initiative is allowed.

        At first we find out the different between national culture and organizational culture . General we understand :Culture is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group. Two factor influence in culture are: development of culture and aspects of culture.

        1.Development of culture

                The development of culture depend on :

1. Economic conditions

In prosperous times organizations will either be complacent or adventurous, full of new ideas and initiatives. In recession they may be depressed, or challenged.

2. The nature of the business and its tasks

The types of technology used in different forms of business create the pace and priorities associated with different forms of works.

3. Leadership style

The approach used in exercising authority will determine the extent to which subordinates feel alienated and uninterested or involved and important.

4. Policies and practices

The level of trust and understanding which exists between members of an organization can often be seen in the way policies and objectives are achieved

5. Structure

The way in which work is organized authority exercised and people rewarded will reflect an emphasis on freedom or control, flexibility or rigidity

6. Characteristics of the workforce

Organization culture will be affected by the demographic nature of the workforce.

        2. Aspects of culture

a) The basic, underlying assumptions

b) Overt beliefs

c) Visible artefacts

d) Symbols

e) Rules, norms, ethical codes and values

f) Rituals, rites, ceremonies and celebrations

 

3. Organizational culture

Culture in an organization is found in the formalisation of its structure, how decisions are taken, the degree to which authority and responsibility are delegated, and the degree to which initiative is allowed. According to Charles Handy Professor  at London Business School ( author -‘God’ of management) : “Organizational culture has been given a lot of attention in recent years. Culture consists of the shared values of an organization - the beliefs and norms that affect every aspect of work life, from how people greet each other to how major policy decisions are made. The strength of a culture determines how difficult or easy it is to know how to behave in the organization” . From his opinion, he gives the names of Greek deities and notes four culture:

• The club/power culture ( Zeus) : is run by one individual, who makes snap decisions, with people who share his or her outlook and values.
• The role culture ( Apolo): describes a rule- driven specialised bureaucracy.
• A task culture ( Athena) : is one in which people group and regroup into teams to accomplish specific projects.
• An existential culture ( Dionysus) : is one in which management serves employees who are professional or expert.

“ Some companies or tasks require more than one of these cultures “. In this situation, Samsung Company is the specific example.

Samsung Co, Ltd

Visible signs and symbols :

        

        

        Nowadays, this symbol of Samsung became popular in all over the world. This symbol appeared in Samsung products, in skyscrapers around the city, in catalogues, in clothes, …Remind to Samsung, people think rapidly to the most famoust corporation about high technology and electronics, people remember Samsung products: mobile phones, laptops, TVs, refrigators, washing machines, air conditioners,… all of them are daily equitment that people use everyday. Therefore Samsung symbol quickly become familiar to people. It representates to Samsung as long as a famous brand name.

        Stated beliefs/ slogan:

        “At Samsung, we follow a simple business philosophy: to devote our talent and technology to creating superior products and services that contribute to a better global society.”

 

        With its philosophy, Samsung apply it in daily life and bring vital to our life through out their products. Samsung usually leading innovation and turn to new area, discover and develop something unpredictable from the moment. And they make a better global society. For example: the first LED TV in the world, the slimmest TV in the world, revolution about 3D TV and digital entertainment,…

        Samsung values:

“We believe that living by strong values is the key to good business. At Samsung, a rigorous code of conduct and these core values are at the heart of every decision we make.”

People

Quite simply, a company is its people. At Samsung, we’re dedicated to giving our people a wealth of opportunities to reach their full potential.

Excellence

Everything we do at Samsung is driven by an unyielding passion for excellence—and an unfaltering commitment to develop the best products and services on the market.

Change

In today’s fast-paced global economy, change is constant and innovation is critical to a company’s survival. As we have done for 70 years, we set our sights on the future, anticipating market needs and demands so we can steer our company toward long-term success.

Integrity

Operating in an ethical way is the foundation of our business. Everything we do is guided by a moral compass that ensures fairness, respect for all stakeholders and complete transparency.

Co-prosperity

A business cannot be successful unless it creates prosperity and opportunity for others. Samsung is dedicated to being a socially and environmentally responsible corporate citizen in every community where we operate around the globe.

According to web site :

Samsung Vina

Organizational culture performed clearly in Samsung Vina company – an affiliation company of Samsung Asia. It shows values of company, standards of this corporation to adjust to Vietnam economy, suitable for Vietnam business and Vietnamese market. All factors , priorities always belongs to Vietnamese market, Vietnamese culture.

 

Some outstanding achievement of Samsung Vina  which express organizational culture:

• 1996: Release the first colorful TV in Vietnam
• 1998, 2001, 2002 : achieve ISO 9002, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 certification.
• 2006: Income 230-330 million dollars, leading TV LCD market in Vietnam. The top No.1 brand name for TVs in Vietnam.
• Samsung Vina is  No. 1 market share in LCD TVs, flat TVs, Computer monitors and ranks second in the market for mobile phones.
• Samsung Digital Hope program after 4 years of implementation has funded more than 260,000 USD for the computerization project to help communities improve their lives and young people with disabilities through the application of information technology.
• Samsung Vina is one of the companies implementing the best social welfare policies for the employees in Vietnam. Acknowledged the positive contribution this, for many years was honored with SAMSUNG's merit Social Security in Ho Chi Minh City on the achievement "The Company implement policies of social insurance  for labor. "

 

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Individual Behavior at Work

        We will be looking at what individual tick and specifically what makes them behave in ways that work organizations might find helpful- or not

        Individual behaviour at work:

• Personality
• Conflict, stress and change
• Ability and aptitude
• Attitude
• Perception

        Personality

        Personality is the total pattern of characteristic ways of thinking, feeling and behaving that constitute the individual’s distinctive method of relating to the environment. It has big five factors:

        Openness to Experience vs. not open to experience

        Conscientiousness vs undirectedness

        Extraversion vs. introversion

        Agreeableness vs. antagonism

        Neuroticism vs. emotional stability

        From my experience, personality influence extremely to career. For example, a person who are aggressive, hard-working and especialy has enthusiasm in some subjects always do better than other people. My friend, he is very good at math but his literature subject is terrible. For the reason that he like math a lot and when he study literature , he feel tired and sleepy. Another situation: a person who are keen on techonology so difficult to understand if he or she do some job  in politicals or social sciences and humanities area. In the other way, personality make a direction for career in the future. Extraordinary personality often make extraordinary people.

        Ability and Aptitude

        Abilities : things that people can do, or are good at – largely believed to be inherited

        Aptitude: the capacity to learn and develop abilities or skill.

        There are two factors make a person : innate or acquire during in grow-up process. While ability is the capacity to do something  and often equated with intelligence. It is now recognised that there are many types of ability/intelligence, not all of which are based about mental dexterity or verbal fluency. Aptitude reflects the process of development of a person. From the beginning, aptitude appears because the needs of our life. Daily life make us always study to exist. Human need a process to develop my self, add many skills to eat, to wear, prevention of disease, …At the higher level we need to improve other skills to satisfied other hobbies . Therefore, ability and aptitude influent a lot in individual behaviour at work. For example : inteligence people often less hard-working than other people. In the other way, they have ability to solve problems faster than others.

Conclusion

                After this research,we find out a lot of information about Samsung company, organizational structure and culture of it. Beside that we have a base for study of Organizations and Behaviour. I recognised our ability or personality and its impact for individual behaviour at work. It is making decisions for my future job.

                

Reference

Affiliated companies of Samsung

Other data Samsung system

Organizations and Behaviour course book . First edition 2004

Leaturer Mr Vincent slides : Organizations and Behaviour lecture 1,2,8,9.

Values and philosogy of Samsung

Samsung Vina

Yoon-Woo Lee

Vice chairman & COO of Samsung Co,Ltd

Gee- Sung Choi

President & CEO

of

Samsung electronic Co,Ltd

Ju-Hwa Yoon

President & Financial manager of Samsung manager office

Dong- Min Yoon

-Member of Samsung’s board of director

-Independent director

 

HR Manager at Samsung Electronics

Chae-Woong Lee

Manager of auditing and related party transactions committee

Oh-Soo Park

-Member of Samsung’s board of director

- Manager of recommendation committee

                 In-Ho Lee

-Member of Samsung’s board of director

-Manager of Audit Committee and the Internal Transaction Committee

Samsung Co, Ltd

Samsung

Electronics

Industries

Samsung

Machinery & Heavy

Industries

Samsung

Financial Service

Samsung

Chemical

Industries

Samsung

Other Affiliated

Company

Samsung Electro-Mechanics

Samsung Networks

Samsung Mobile Display

Samsung Digital Imaging

Etc…

Samsung Heavy Industries

Samsung Life Insurance

Samsung Card

Samsung Securities

Samsung Investment Trust Management

Etc…

Samsung Total Petrochemicals

Samsung  Petrochemicals

Samsung Fine Chemicals

Samsung BP Chemicals

Samsung C&T Corporation

Samsung Foundation of Culture

Samsung Medical Center

Samsung Economics Research Institute

Etc…