While the issue of conflict of interest has been extensively dealt with by the firm in its ethics policy, best corporate governance standards require that different individuals hold different positions in the top tier of the firm’s management structure rather than one individual having overlapping roles. The reasoning behind this is that in having different individuals hold different positions, there is an effective system of checks and balances, where one individual’s excesses can be checked and moderated by the others.
At Walgreen, this does not appear to be the case. For example, Gregory Wasson is the President, as well as the CEO, and the Chairman to the Board. By virtue of holding all the three positions, what guarantee is there that he would not, in his capacity as the chair to the board, railroad the board to act as a mere rubberstamp to decisions he has made in his capacity as CEO or president? The top leadership structure of Walgreens needs to be looked at afresh, and principle of separation of powers and duties enforced.
As discussed above, employee motivation is essential to the good performance of any organization because it results in employees who have the morale to work and whose level of productivity is high. As discussed, Hertzberg’s Two Factor Theory states that for employees to be fully motivated, both hygiene (or extrinsic ) factors and motivators (intrinsic) factors have to be present. Walgreens offers a wide raft of benefits to its employees in order to enlist high levels of motivation in them, as discussed earlier on. However, most of these motivational factors used are extrinsic.
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Even though the organization has an adhocracy culture which also provides the social context for intrinsic motivation, there is a lot of room for improvement for Walgreens in this regard. Accordingly, Walgreens can further improve the motivation of its employees by adopting the following additional intrinsic factors or motivators: - Walgreens should periodically alter the job design and job schedule of specific jobs within the organization with the aim of making the jobs more interesting to the employees (Pattnayak, 2005).
- The Human Resource personnel at Walgreen should see to it that job enrichment and at the firm is undertaken. Here, the content of the job is increased and the employee is granted the independence to make some of the decisions by themselves. By making the content of the job larger, the job is likely to be more challenging to the employee and therefore is likely to be more motivating (Pattnayak, 2005).
- In addition to job enrichment, the HR personnel at Walgreen must craft and implement a deliberate job enlargement strategy for the employees. This involves increasing the job’s task variety. Job enrichment results in jobs which are inherently more satisfying than simple jobs which are routing and repetitive and therefore boring (Pattnayak, 2005). - In line with Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne studies where the Hawthorne effect was established, Walgreens should also allow its employees to work in self-managed work teams.
This is because, as illustrated by Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, employees have social needs which can be fulfilled at the workplace resulting in better individual and organizational performance. One effective way through which Walgreens can do this is through the setting up of work teams (Pattnayak, 2005). - To further enhance employee motivation, additional techniques which Walgreens should introduce include job rotation, and the use of flexible job schedules (Pattnayak, 2005).
References:
Ambrose, ML, and Kulik, CT. 1999. "Old friends, new faces: motivation research in the 1990s. " Journal of Management 25. 3: 231(6). Retrieved on 13 July 2010 from <http://find. galegroup. com. ezproxy. apollolibrary. com/ips/start. do? prodId=IPS>. Gale Document Number: A55307214 Andre, C and Velasquez, M. 2010. Of cures and creatures great and small. Retrieved on 18 July 2010 from http://www. scu. edu/ethics/publications/iie/v1n3/cures. html. Business Wire. 2007, Aug 14. Walgreens receives Value Chain Leadership Award. Retrieved on 17th July 2010 from
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Conflict Of Interest In Management Structure. (2018, Jun 10). Retrieved from https://phdessay.com/conflict-of-interest-in-management-structure/
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