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OBHR

Comparative Case Study

Individual assignment

Student Name:

Student ID:

Date of Submission:
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3

Organizational Structure and Culture of both companies................................................................3

Mode of Communication implemented by the workforce...............................................................4

Management and leadership styles followed by Kodak and Canon................................................6

The impact of management, cultural and structural styles on the success and failure of

organizations....................................................................................................................................7

Human Resource Strategic Plan......................................................................................................8

Recruitment and selection............................................................................................................8

Performance and talent management strategy.............................................................................8

Suggestions and Recommendations................................................................................................9

Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................11

References......................................................................................................................................12
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Introduction

The report will examine the strategy for human resources planning, leadership style, recruitment,

and hiring process, method of communications, and progress management style of two different

firms. The case study will analyze these aspects to evaluate and give important concepts for one

company's failure while evaluating the causes of another organization's success. For the

previously specified purpose, Canon Inc. and Kodak were chosen for further analysis which is

both in the same market.

Canon Inc. after foreign purchase and how well they organized the sociocultural integration is a

case study for development requirements. The reason why we chose this specific example would

be that Cannon is indeed the worldwide leader in camera manufacturing. Does it provide a

comprehensive study of How can multinational firms have different operating environments and

national and organizational cultural disparities in wide-scale international acquisitions

throughout all aspects of the intercultural implementation phase?

The objective of this research is to outline Kodak's historical evolution and identify the main

occurrences, strategic decisions, and organizational variables that contributed to Kodak's

downfall, from its inception in 1892 to its dominance in the 1980s, and its collapse in the 2000s

(Canon vs. Kodak, 2023). It demonstrates how management actions impact a firm's performance

and its capacity to confront competitive pressure.

Organizational Structure and Culture of both companies

The fundamental causes of Kodak's downfall were excessively centralized, authoritarian

administration and an organizational structure that ignored quickly changing technical demands.

According to the research of Shibata et al., (2022) Kodak tried many times in 2015 to re-emerge
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as a top seller after insolvency by restructuring its organizational structure, but it only succeeded

in surviving.  on the other hand, Canon has a decentralized, procedure organizational structure

that adheres to accessible office practices. The leadership team is made up of the Company's

Board of Directors, the Chairman, the Chief Executive, and the Selection Panel. Using

performance review, Kodak's employee-centered culture implemented a profit-sharing program

for all employees. It also encouraged staff to express their ideas and concerns through a

suggestion scheme. Internal promotion strategy was another issue stressed by Kodak.

Unfortunately, this resulted in less external recruitment, resulting in a restricted workplace

environment that hampered originality and original ideas essential for the constantly evolving

technology market environment. The "cultural bond" that kept people together again and enables

employees to develop the meaning of the business is organizational culture, which comprises

principles and theories that can be applied. Canon workplaces are constructed with outdoor land

to enable uninterrupted interaction among the highest and bottom-up staff (Shibata et al., 2022).

Canon Today's management promotes diversity, gender equity, environmental and social

welfare, remunerations, and employment compatibility. Canon feels that there is no

differentiation between industrial workers and office workers. 

Mode of Communication implemented by the workforce

Communication refers to the interaction between two or more people which is significant for all

the people in the organization to perform and understand the basic concept of management and

organization which is planning, controlling, leading, and organizing. With the help of

communication, management will be able to perform their jobs and responsibilities well.

Based on the Canon website, institutional publications are sent and are viewed as an effective

medium for information dissemination by top management. Both English and Japanese are
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employed for communication. Also, emails are communicated regularly to recognize and

appreciate the achievement of personnel and initiatives. Canon also prioritizes maintaining

strong contact with customers.

Canon Kodak

Canon has an accessible as well as efficient Kodak's top management restricted and

interaction system that prompts workers to ambiguous communication led to uncertain

share their thoughts on almost any expansion impressions and understanding amongst

and diversification at any time (Coman & colleagues, contributing to the company's

Opazo 2020). inability to meet its objectives.

Canon also prioritizes maintaining strong Kodak is less successful in maintaining its

contact with customers. reputation as well as its connection with its

employees and customers.

Yet, Leadership ignored their workforce's ideas for rapid improvements and resisted

understanding the necessity for innovative technology in a digital era for development, limiting

rapid innovation.

In decision-making, both companies exhibit top-down communication. internal communication

is still differentiated; however, it is recognized that having a communication skill chosen by

Canon has allowed the company to achieve greater success than Kodak because success is

defined by management decision-making rather than adopting new means of communication.


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Management and leadership styles followed by Kodak and Canon

Canon has adopted multiple cultural features that relate to organizational goals. This even

advocates for maintaining a constructive interaction involving workers and management. This

type of management is authoritarian and centralized.

Canon Kodak

Canon has adopted multiple cultural features Kodak was majorly focused on risk avoidant

that relate to organizational goals. and execution-oriented.

there is regular communication of thoughts Kodak's leadership, in contrast, hand, serious

and knowledge here between Executive difficulty in several parts of Keeney's model

Worker/Management Conferences and the for skillful decision-making, most notably in

Canon Employees' Organization on a variety selecting possibilities, recognizing the

of topics including pay, regular hours, health implications, adopting a significant amount of

and safety, and other additional benefits. risk

By the middle of 2020, increased employee Following the case analysis, corporate

participation within Canon Workers' Union leadership failed to persuade and engage their

had reached 26,405, increasing the union staff about constantly evolving digital

representation rate across Canon Inc.'s technologies, causing essential workforce

employees to 80% (Bernacki, 2020). competencies to become inflexible (Mondal

& Giri 2021).


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The impact of management, cultural and structural styles on the success and

failure of organizations

The primary goals of the management of human resources are to establish new strategies and

policies that will allow an organization to function in the digital day. The human resources

department takes care of organizing events, activities, and celebrations that provide opportunities

for team and organizational development. Furthermore, human resources are responsible for

increasing employee engagement since firms have different types of people from different

religious and cultural backgrounds, which induces a feeling of appreciation and trustworthiness

among colleagues. As a result, the HR department must create the organization as a whole and

collaborate to achieve productiveness. Associations and management must strike a balance to be

professional in their work. Every person in any organization must be recognized and respected

for their talents, abilities, and labor. HR representatives must be capable of dealing with critical

workplace circumstances as well as have good writing and communication abilities as

individuals (Flamholtz, 2023). It was determined that human resource management is an

essential component of workplace operations. Cannon's collapse is primarily the consequence of

management mistakes, or more precisely, a weakness in their management methodology (Taneja,

2022). Connections amongst the top and intermediate management at Kodak harmed the

innovative process and the outcomes. High management lacked the technical understanding

required to ask the appropriate questions or notice when subordinate management was fooling

them. To reduce the increasing costs of experimentation, Canon strives for perfection and spends

hard to find the greatest person in the industry to produce beneficial outcomes. Their expensive

technology and staff were unable to be harmed, and their valuables were safely evacuated.

Furthermore, when addressing the company's effectiveness, the corporation supports its
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leadership, culture, and structure with honesty and morality, severely opposing dishonesty and

financial enrichment at the organization and negatively damaging its reputation.

Human Resource Strategic Plan

Recruitment and selection

According to the statement of Parkhomenko (2022) Canon HR strategic planning is focused on

the company's goals of generating creative and innovative products based on emerging

innovation, producing entrepreneurship units, acquiring global businesses for future growth, and

expanding marketing, sales, and information management globally.

 Work engagement, development of human capital, and employee retention are all influenced

by effective HR strategic planning. Strategic management is a fundamental component of

any business and is critical to human resource planning.

 The human resource department's role is to supervise the supervision and performance of all

personnel to ensure that organizations accomplish their goals and business objectives.

 They are also in charge of the decision-making process, which includes project valuations

and works based on organizational requirements (Leet al., 2020). They address problems and

resolve issues by investigating and engaging in professional discussions to find a solution.

Performance and talent management strategy

Compensation is tied to responsibilities and achievements in a leadership role framework,

employee compensation schemes that encompass every phase of life from recruiting to employee

departure, and more. As seen in Canon Inc.'s insights into achievement and manpower

management approach. This comprises the entire employee journey, beginning with recruiting,

integrating, and learning and ending with surveillance, evaluation, and development to achieve
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professional and personal objectives for staff and the company with a common advantage

(Human resources strategy, 2023).

Kodak has implemented a multiple Performance appraisal action plan, often recognized as the

Comparative Approach, which includes:

 Accounting and internal control measures - Emphasize traditional factors such as

effectiveness, durability, and efficiency.

 Corporate approaches improve the effectiveness of HR processes by embracing

organizational competencies and relying on employee satisfaction via 360-degree

assessments.

 Key environment indicators - Leaders for Marketing And sales initiatives to meet the

requirements of customers.

Suggestions and Recommendations

 They neglected the industry's introverted strategic vision, which makes it difficult for the

organization to become digitized, that would have been accomplished by switching the

potential president who might move Kodak's reputation to the following level by resurfacing

the industry with a creative and objective approach.

 Top-down engagement that was not transparent, clear, or transparent. Base approaches, with

open two-way communication between employees and management, can foster creativity.

 HR optimism led to skewed HR business decisions, company acquisitions and mergers,

insolvency, and final failure. This issue could be addressed by applying HR strategic

planning best practices and process improvement regulations.

 Fresh employees must adapt to and incorporate into the Canon culture. This could be

accomplished by creating corporate opportunities for prospective hires to create connections


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with permanent workers so that they will 'start picking up' here in the industry in terms of

background diversity also while trying to connect with others, and so that newcomers are

held accountable for upholding Canon beliefs.

 These events could include everything from making workshops to business races and

championships. Observing teammates in precarious circumstances and vice versa aids in the

development of confidence.

 As a result of the advancement of digital technology, Kodak was unable to keep its market

dominance. The corporation, deluded by its success, failed in every area of an interconnected

aspect of organizational behavior. It began with incompetent leadership not recognizing the

environmental factors necessary to establish the correct intense pressure to build an HR-

integrated approach, which had a negative impact from top to bottom that resulted in

communication problems amongst senior executives and on-the-ground personnel (Mui,

2022). As a result, the corporation was unable to deal with the increasing diversity of

technology due to mid leadership's refusal to change.


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Conclusion

As per the research and comparison between Cannon and Kodak, it was observed that in an

organization there must be a balance between external and internal factors of the organization.

The impact of organizational resources and procedures in both organizations has been addressed

and analyzed in this article. Canon Inc. has operated a productive and profitable firm with a

substantial positive impact on operations from organizational inputs and processes. The research

of how an individual feel, thinks, and does within and outside of an organization, both

individually and as a group, is known as organizational behavior. It examines people's feelings

and actions, team leadership behavior, organizational structure, and processes. It is worth noting

that this research has thoroughly investigated each component. In aspects of management and

incorporation of culture, management style, collaboration, and some other HR practices, Cannon

Inc has emerged as a stable and successful corporate enterprise as compared to Kodak.
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References

Bernacki, J. (2020). Automatic exposure algorithms for digital photography. Multimedia Tools

and Applications, 79(19-20), 12751-12776. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11042-


019-08318-1

Canon vs. Kodak: Which is better for me? (no date) reComparison. Available at:

http://recomparison.com/comparisons/100569/canon-vs-kodak-which-is-better-for-me/

(Accessed: February 20, 2023). http://recomparison.com/comparisons/100569/canon-vs-

kodak-which-is-better-for-me/

Coman, S., & Opazo, M. P. (2020). A canon of one's own: A comparative analysis of cultural

production in gastronomy and the visual arts. Poetics, 82, 101474.


https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304422X20302114

Flamholtz, E. (no date) Unsuccessful crisis leadership: The tragic downfall of Kodak, LinkedIn.

Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unsuccessful-crisis-leadership-tragic-

downfall-kodak-eric-flamholtz/ (Accessed: February 20, 2023).

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unsuccessful-crisis-leadership-tragic-downfall-kodak-

eric-flamholtz/

Human resources strategy (no date) Canon Global. Available at:

https://global.canon/en/csr/human-resource-strategy/index.html (Accessed: February 20,

2023). https://global.canon/en/csr/human-resource-strategy/index.html

Le, T., Bui, T., Tran, T., & Nguyen, Q. (2020). Factors affecting the application of management

accounting in Vietnamese enterprises. Uncertain Supply Chain Management, 8(2), 403-

422. https://growingscience.com/uscm/Vol8/uscm_2019_38.pdf
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Mondal, C., & Giri, B. C. (2021). Optimizing price, quality and CSR investment under

competing dual recycling channels in a sustainable closed-loop supply chain. CIRP

Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, 35, 193-208.


https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1755581721001036

Mui, C. (2022) How Kodak failed, Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Available at:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/?

sh=45254c8b6f27 (Accessed: February 20, 2023).

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunkamui/2012/01/18/how-kodak-failed/?

sh=45254c8b6f27

Parkhomenko, N. (2022). Formation of organizational development strategy of enterprise in

context of changes in international environment.


http://repository.hneu.edu.ua/bitstream/123456789/27494/1/Parkhomenko.pdf

Shibata, T., Baba, Y., & Suzuki, J. (2022). Managing exploration persistency in ambidextrous

organizations: Case of Fujifilm and Kodak. R&D Management, 52(1), 22-37.


https://www.univ.gakushuin.ac.jp/iss/about/2020-1%20Managing%20Exploration%20Persistency

%20in%20Ambidextrous%20Organizations%20-Case%20of%20Fujifilm%20and%20Kodak-.pdf

Taneja, Y. (2022) Reasons why Kodak failed?: Kodak Failure Case Study, StartupTalky.

StartupTalky. Available at:

https://startuptalky.com/kodak-bankruptcy-case-study/#:~:text=Kodak%20failed%20to

%20realize%20that,the%20sales%20of%20digital%20cameras. (Accessed: February 20,

2023). https://startuptalky.com/kodak-bankruptcy-case-study/#:~:text=Kodak%20failed

%20to%20realize%20that,the%20sales%20of%20digital%20cameras.

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