Management and Leadership at Microsoft

Paper Summary:

The paper looks at the differences between management and genuine leadership within Microsoft and closely examines the role the company's organizational leaders and managers play in facilitating a strong corporate culture. The paper discusses the four functions of management and their roles in maintaining Microsoft's healthy organizational culture and focuses on two strategies that will ultimately ensure a strong organizational culture far into the future.
The paper attaches a very large amount of source material to the paper.

From the Paper:

"Clearly, being a well-run operation is critical to perpetuating a desirable internal culture. With that in mind, "management" within Microsoft - within any major organization - may best be described as the organization of the business entity's constituent parts in the most optimal fashion possible. A review of Microsoft's official website does not uncover a formal organizational flowchart depicting who sits where (and does what) within the corporate hierarchy. Nonetheless, drawing from a medley of resources available on the Microsoft site, several interesting facts do emerge. First of all, the company is run by a Board of Directors consisting of 10 people: the names of the individuals include some famous members of the Microsoft "family" - Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer - as well as "outsiders" like James Cash, Jr., David Marquardt, and Helmut Panke (Microsoft Corporation 2007b)."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Beinhocker, Eric D. (1997). Strategy at the edge of chaos. The McKinsley Quarterly, 1, 24+. Retrieved August 19, 2007 from Questia database <http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000569170>
• Greene, Jay, Kerstetter, Jim, Burrows, Peter, Hamm, Steve, and Ante, Spencer E. (2004, April 19). Microsoft's mid-life crisis. Business Week, pp.88-98.
• Microsoft Corporation. (2004). Global Citizenship Report (2004). Retrieved August 19, 2007 from <http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/5/4/7548d2a2-9d22-4d2d-8c13-2521f6a1c148/citizenship2004.pdf>
• Microsoft Corporation. (2007a). Microsoft Corporation Corporate Governance Guidelines. Microsoft: About Microsoft. Retrieved August 19, 2007 from <http://www.microsoft.com/about/companyinformation/corporategovernance/guidelines.mspx>
• Microsoft Corporation. (2007b). Microsoft press pass - Microsoft Board of Directors. Microsoft Press Pass: Information for Journalists. Retrieved August 19, 2007 from <http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/bod/default.mspx>

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