Case Study The Active Sports Equipment (ASE) Assignment

Assignment Task

Brief

For this report, you are required to investigate the case study company and making use of relevant organisational behaviour theories related to organisational culture, leadership, HRM, and change management to offer critical insights in enhancing organisational and team resilience.

Your report must answer the following questions (not necessarily in this order and format):

• What is the current company profile and human capital conditions?
• What are the challenges that may compromise the company’s future and sustainability?
• To what extent is the company prepared to face the future changes, uncertainty, and risks?
• What is the current understanding of organisational resilience and what drives resilient organisations?
• What are the key or further steps the analysed company should take to increase its cultural and human capital in order to be more resilient?

Description of Task

As part of this report, you should deliver a thorough analysis of challenges that threaten the viability and sustainability of the organisation and propose ways to enhance the organisation’s resilience and sustainability. Your analysis should include an analysis of the organisation and a thorough investigation of internal and external challenges and human resources implications that threaten the current business model. You should articulate how the company can enhance its organisational performance and effectiveness and establish recommendations as to how the organisation will address current challenges and become a “resilient company” that develops in a sustainable manner. The title of the report should be “Making a Resilient Firm”.

Guidance:

Please be aware that this is not a strategy assignment where you have to address a strategic issue. You must place emphasis on how Organisational Culture, Leadership, Change Management and Strategic HRM help an organisation become more resilient.

You are expected to use a balance of multiple resources, including:

• Academic references and material on HRM, Organisational Behaviour, Leadership, Change Management, Resilience and further Management material.
• Articles in the press that help you investigate the sector and identify best practices applied in other companies operating in the same sector or other sectors if such initiatives and practices are transferable.

Case Study

The Active Sports Equipment (ASE) company is a small to medium-sized manufacturer of high-quality sports equipment. It was founded 35 years ago and currently employs around 50 people to manufacture a specialist piece of sporting equipment. Lately the company has been experiencing an increase of employee turnover, with some of high calibre staff leaving the business to join direct competitors. This has undermined employee engagement and morale. Majority of employees feel overworked and are constantly requiring management to consider recruiting new staff at operational and management levels. There is no designated HR function although duties related to people management are often undertaken by a manager who is also responsible to look after finances and supply chain. Although the manager is experienced, he is rather reactive and does not possess strong foundation of HRM acumen thus lacking in the design of HR strategies, practices, and initiatives necessary to support the organisation in building adequate human capacity to remain competitive in the market.

Current turnover is £4m pounds and 65% of output is exported worldwide. Company is doing well in terms of sales and is keen to expand operations and diversify its product portfolio to strengthen market presence and minimise risk from competitors. However, the above HR related issues can have an impact in maintaining business growth and competitiveness. The founder of the company is a mechanical engineer. He established ASE to produce a specialist piece of sports equipment based on his own original and highly innovative design. He is still the managing director and his obsessive concern with the details of design and engineering excellence dominate the culture of the company.

This concern for engineering excellence has served the company well, and it has built itself an enviable reputation as the standard by which all other sporting equipment in this specialist category is judged, despite the fact that the basic design of ASE’s product has evolved little over the years. Recently, however, a number of challenges to this dominant position have emerged as other sports equipment manufacturers have sought to enter what they regard as an attractive market with newer designs. These newcomers compete effectively on price and many aspects of performance and specification, although they still fail to match ASE’s product on ease and speed of assembly and the compactness of the fold for transportation. Much of the success of the ASE product is based on its well-engineered and robust construction that enables it to be folded and unfolded easily and quickly. However, it is with such challenges in mind that ASE introduced a number of innovations, the most significant of which was the option of a number of titanium parts that deliver important weight-saving advantages.

But what about the future? ASE might continue to focus on its core competence and seek to retain its current competitive advantage by further improving the design of its product. Product and production engineering are highly valued within the company. There is no doubt that it is engineering that has created the ASE brand and made it what it is today, but there is the risk that engineering alone may not guarantee that the current record of success will be sustained and the organisations is seeking ways of strengthening its market competitiveness. A number of other possibilities are deserving of attention:

• Some managers see opportunities for improving the effectiveness of the company by reviewing the way it functions. Like many small and medium sized enterprises, ASE appears to have pursued a rather informal approach to the development off its own internal organisation. This reflects the priority given to the development of product and production processes in the early years. Since then, staff roles have been redefined and new ones created on an ad hoc basis to reflect the changing demands on the business. There may be advantages to be gained from improving internal communication and planning processes or reviewing the way the organisation is structured. Such changes might lead to a superior performance by improving internal alignment. As the organisation grows and deals with fiercer competition, it is important to explore aspects of organisational culture and leadership approaches in ensuring the organisation enhances its resilience in order to remain competitive and develops sustainably.
• Other managers are aware of opportunities in the marketplace. The marketing manager was recruited two years ago but this appointment has not had much impact on the company’s overall culture, which continues to be engineering led. More attention to marketing issues might help to ensure that if and when customer needs change, this will be recognised by those who control the strategic agenda.
• Related opportunities might involve building alliances between product engineering and marketing to extend the product range and exploit the ASE brand. It is important for the company to diversify its product range in a very competitive market. An expansion of the product portfolio would lead to an increased number of workforce who will need to be provided with appropriate training and development programmes and align with organisational cultural values.
• People working in the production departments are also aware of opportunities to reduce manufacturing costs but are reluctant to voice these because they suspect they may lead to job losses. Initiatives that may increase organisation’s performance and effectiveness are not being considered due to lack of departmental integration, trust, and market uncertainty. Although company enjoys a good market presence, the increasing competition requires the management at ASE to reassess it organisational processes and make use of change management and organisational and individual learning opportunities through initiatives that offer a better alignment between departments and contribute to organisation’s sustainable development.

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