Kudler Foods

In an effort to survive the ever changing business environment, companies need to evolve continuously and adapt over time. Kudler Fine Foods is no exception. This paper will examine Kudler Fine Foods' readiness for change by assessing the company's apparent culture, organizational structure, leadership style, as well as internal and external happenings that may drive such change.

The culture of Kudler Fine Foods can be found in their mission statement and throughout their handbook. The mission statement of Kudler Fine Foods is based on excellent customer service, professionalism, pride and loyalty in the company, and of course, a purveyor of fine foods. This mission statement is reflected in all aspects throughout the company. Kudler Fine Foods has an organized structure and chain of command employees rank from executives to store baggers; however, despite this structure Kudler Fine Foods promotes open communication and interaction between all employees within the company. Employees are encouraged to speak their ideas and give feedback to their managers regarding ways to improve Kudler Fine Foods.

Based on Jeffrey Sonnenfeld's 4 types of organizational cultures, Kudler Fine Foods best demonstrates the "club culture." The club culture seeks people who are loyal, committed to one organization, and need to fit into a group. Organizational members prefer to spend their entire career in one organization; the organization in turn rewards them with job security, promotion from within, and slow progress after they prove their competence at each level (Gomez-Mejia and Balkin, 2002). Kudler Fine Foods recruits employees from outside the organization for entry level jobs, and other positions, such as assistants and managers, are posted internally within each store, giving a chance for all employees to move up within the company. The benefit of having a club culture for the employees of Kudler Fine Foods is that Kudler is committed to the sucess of every employee, and advocates promotion from within. Kudler Fine Foods helps the employees achieve this success by providing extensive training, and developed a reward system in the form of bonuses for employees who have excelled in their performance.

Organizational structure is the formal decision-making framework by which job tasks are divided, grouped, and coordinated. The vertical dimension indicates who has the authority to make decisions and who supervises which subordinates. The horizontal dimension divides the work into specific jobs and tasks and assigns these jobs to departments or teams (Balkin & Gomez-Mejia, 2002).

The formal organization can be seen and represented in chart form. An organization chart displays the organizational structure and shows job titles, lines of authority, and relationships between departments. Kudler's departmentalizes their organization by functions performed. Departmentalization is representative of the horizontal dimensions as it directly relates to the grouping of jobs in an organization (Balkin & Gomez-Mejia, 2002). Finance and Accounting, Store Operations, and Administration and human resources are each headed up by a Director with managers underneath them. The advantage of this type of departmentalization is that the operation becomes efficient when people with similar skills, knowledge and specialties work together in a common unit. Kudler's uses a very traditional or mechanistic structure. There are clearly delineated jobs and a well defined hierarchical structure. These types of organizations are driven by a top-down approach or chain of command.

Centralization is the making of decision from the top of the company hierarchy and decentralization means that the decision making occurs throughout the organization (Balkin & Gomez-Mejia, 2002). This centralization of decision making is indicative of the vertical dimension of Kudler's organization. Kathy Kudler, as President, makes the final decisions for the organization, which represents centralization. She has input from her three store managers who take the decisions back to their stores for implementation by their staff. These decisions also flow downward to the Directors that are responsible for finance, operations, and human resources. Kathy Kudler works with her Directors as demonstrated by the fact that she does a great deal of research for new products and brings them back to the company. She works closely with the Director of Store Operations who purchases and inventories these items.

The components of organizational structure are unity of command. authority, responsibility, and accountability. The concept of unity of command comes from Fayol's 14 principles of management and says that a subordinate should have only one direct supervisor. Kudler's organizational chart illustrates the fact that each person reports to only one individual. Authority is the right that a manager has to make decisions, give orders, and expect the order to be carried out (Balkin & Gomez-Mejia, 2002). Accountability means that the manager must be able to justify results to higher management and responsibility is the duty to perform an assigned task. The store managers for Kudler's individual stores are given the ability, authority, and responsibility to manage their stores as they feel fits their customer and employee population. They are accountable to Kudler's Fine Foods organization for as their decisions must conform within the company decisions, but they can implement them in their own ways. They also must utilize standardized paperwork that is developed by Kudler's main office. This includes the company mission statement, policy and procedure manual, hiring and staffing guidelines, job descriptions, and inventory and purchasing procedures.

Effective leadership is required to compete effectively and deliver growth. People look to leaders to bring meaning, to make sense of seemingly unquenchable demand for results and the need for individuals to find purpose and value. Leadership is the common thread which runs through the entire process of translating strategy into results and is key to engaging the hears and minds of people.

"There is an increasing realization that leadership style affects employee motivation, which in turn determines a firm's long-term performance prospects" (Gomez-Mejia & Balkin, 2002, p. 3). Leadership style is the approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people. There are three basic leadership styles: autocratic style, democratic style and laissez-faire style. The autocratic style is used when the leader states what he wants done and how he wants it done, without getting the advice of his subordinates. The democratic style is used when the leader includes his subordinates in the decision-making process. However, the