Running head: MCDONALD 1

MCDONALD 6

Unifying Company Culture

BUS 325: Global Human Resource Management

April 22, 2021

McDonalds

An organizations culture plays an important role to the success of an organization. The culture sets the manner in which people behave and determines the manner in which things are carried out within an organization. Organization culture is consists of the shared beliefs and values that are established by leaders and then communicated and reinforced by various methods and shapes the employee perceptions and behaviors within an organization. Since various organizations have different cultures, there is no one-size fits all cultural template that one needs to have to meet the needs of their organization (Watson, 1).

All successful organizations have been found to have strong organizational culture. The leaders of the organizations majorly focus on the organizational goals and the live their cultures daily and communicate their cultural identities to employees together with their new hires. Each organization have clear values with these values having to be communicate to every new employee whenever they arrive at the organization considering that they determine the manner in which organizations run. Ineffective culture could easily bring down an organization together with its leadership. Other common examples of negative cultures include the disengaged employees, high turnover and poor customer relations among other attributes (Watson, 1).

Mergers and acquisitions are some of the areas in where cultural issues develop. This is majorly because mergers incorporate two different existing cultures that could be in conflict and in other instances could lead to development of a dysfunctional culture after a merger. There are plenty of reasons mergers normally could fail. To prevent any negative impact of merges on culture, it is important that the various cultures are reconciled in order to build a common plat form for the future. Over the past mergers and acquisitions have changed the manner in which businesses are held (Carroll, 2). 

McDonald’s organizational culture is in support of the company’s industry positioning goals. McDonald’s culture is used to attract qualified employees from various parts of the world. The company’s organizational culture defines its traditions, habits values and influences workers behaviors. To ensure business efficiency in the production and services the company organizational culture encourage learning. The continues cultural evolution reflects the firms effectiveness in applying corporate culture that enable it achieve desired levels of human resource capabilities. This condition highlights the significance of organization culture as a success factor in McDonald’s international business (Watson, 1).

The first step in unifying McDonald culture knows where they are going. It is important that the company identify its values through proper definition of the mission, vision and its values. The leaders should be very careful and ensure that they are able to identify the company’s values and put them in the mission statement.

The second step is to find the people that fit. It is important the McDonald hire employees that share the same values and vision for the company. It would also means that they have to hire people that have varied ways of thinking as a means to bring in different cultural experiences, which in the end strengthen cultural diversity (Watson, 1).

The third step is to help the employees to fit in. it is important to point out the fact that starting a new job is always stressful and it is important that McDonald employees and the management to help the new employees to fit in to the organization. It is important for experience employees to meet these new employees to provide them with the necessary information or knowledge in regards to the daily operations of the organization (Watson, 1).

The fourth step is setting the right example. McDonald needs to have their values being set on integrity, empathy and accountability. When leaders lead by example, the employees would follow in their example and thus good values trickles down the organization. The company needs leaders that can foster transparency, encourage communication in all levels of the organization and promote teamwork within the organization (Watson, 1).

The fifth step would be to integrate the values into the daily activities. During a merger, each company has its own values. It would be important these values be merged to ensure there are no conflicts. Advocacy for the new values should be done during company meeting. This ensures healthy culture and reinforces the values (Carroll, 2). 

The sixth step McDonald would do is to give rewards and recognition. It is regarded as one of best ways for bringing cultural unity. Recognizing the efforts of other individuals, helps promote healthy competition, which is one of the values for McDonald Corporation (Carroll, 2). 

The seventh step is to keep up with chances. It is important to point out that the organization constantly changes its workforce and thus the company has to change. It would be important for McDonald to avoid being rigid and accept the good ideas from new people that came in with the merger (Watson, 1).

The eight step is to foster feedback. It is important to point out that employees benefit from positive feedback, which is a good thing for the organization. Performance reviews, could be best help to provide the right feedback. Being open to feedback creates and environment where all employees can effectively contribute to the success of the company.

The steps provided above would best help to unify McDonald’s culture. Each step is justified by the fact that McDonalds is a rapidly growing company with many employees. Having to merge or acquire another company, would mean that they adopt people that have different set of skills and values. To effectively work together employees together with the leadership needs to know how to do it best.

References

Watson, J. L. (2020, November 4). Cultural globalization. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/cultural-globalization

Carroll, N(2013). "E-learning – the McDonaldization of education" (PDF). European Journal of Higher Education3 (4): 342– 356. doi:10.1080/21568235.2013.833405S2CID 54702355

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CASE STUDY 6

CHEVRON’S INFRASTRUCTURE

EVOLUTION

Chevron Corporation (www.chevron.com) is one of the world’s leading

energy companies. Chevron’s headquarters are in San Ramon, California.

The company has more than 62,000 employees and produces more than

700,000 barrels of oil per day. It has 19,500 retail sites in 84 countries. In

2012, Chevron was number three on the Fortune 500 list and had more than

$244 billion in revenue in 2011 [STAT12].

IT infrastructure is very important to Chevron and to better support all

facets of its global operations, the company is always focused on improving

its infrastructure [GALL12]. Chevron faces new challenges from increased

global demand for its traditional hydrocarbon products and the need to

develop IT support for new value chains for liquid natural gas (LNG) and the

extraction of gas and oil from shale. Huge investments are being made

around the world, particularly in Australia and Angola on massive projects of

unprecedented scale. Modeling and analytics are more important than ever

to help Chevron exploit deep water drilling and hydrocarbon extraction in

areas with challenging geographies. For example, advanced seismic imaging

tools are used by Chevron to reveal possible oil or natural gas reservoirs

beneath the earth’s surface. Chevron’s proprietary seismic imaging

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technology contributed to it achieving a 69% discovery rate in

2011[CHEV12].

Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA)

Systems

Chevron refineries are continually collecting data from sensors spread

throughout the facilities to maintain safe operations and to alert operators to

potential safety issues before they ever become safety issues. Data from the

sensors is also used to optimize the way the refineries work and to identify

opportunities of greater efficiency. IT controls 60,000 valves at Chevron’s

Pascagoula, Mississippi refinery; the efficiency and safety of its end-to-end

operations are dependent on advanced sensors, supervisory control and data

acquisition (SCADA) systems, and other digital industrial control systems

[GALL12].

SCADA systems are typically centralized systems that monitor and

control entire sites and/or complexes of systems that are spread out over

large areas such as an entire manufacturing, fabrication, power generation,

or refining facility. The key components of SCADA systems include:

 Programmable logic units (PLCs) that and remote terminal units (RTUs)

connected to sensors that convert sensor signals to digital data and

send it to the supervisory system

 A supervisory computer system that acquires data about the process

and sends control commands to the process

 A human-machine interface (HMI) that presents process to the human

operators that monitor and control the process.

 Process meters and process analysis instruments

 Communication infrastructure connecting the supervisory system and

RTUs and PLCs.

These are illustrated in Figure C6.1.

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Data acquisition occurs at the PLC or RTU level. This includes meter

readings and equipment status reports that are sent to the supervisory

system. The collected data is compiled and formatted by the HMI to enable

the operator to make determine whether adjustments to normal PLC or RTU

settings are needed. Current data may also be compared to historical data in

a SCADA database to assess trends or perform analytical auditing.

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In addition to Chevron refineries, SCADA are extremely important in

national infrastructures such as water supplies, pipelines, and electric grids.

Because attacks or damage to SCADA systems can affect large numbers of

people, ensuring adequate security is important.

Business Infrastructure Transformation

Because of the complexity of its operational processes and the IT that is

needed to support them, Chevron has traditionally been more infrastructure

than business focused. SCADA systems and digital industrial control systems

are critical IT infrastructure at Chevron’s refineries and will always play an

important role in monitoring and managing facility-based processes. These

also are among the first IT systems needed to support Chevron’s new value

chains for LNG and shale oil extraction. However, like any large corporation,

Chevron relies on a wide variety of business applications to run its

businesses.

As it is for most global businesses, SAP ERP is a key transaction

processing system at Chevron. Chevron has been using SAP for more than

two decades and it has played an important role in the development of SAP’s

vertical solutions for the hydrocarbon industry. There are more than 50

instances of SAP used by Chevron [SCRI11]. Most of these run on Oracle

databases. Some other key enterprise applications at Chevron include Ariba

Buyer, EMC Documentum, Informatica, MicroStrategy, multiple Oracle

applications [SCRI11].

Going forward, IT executives at Chevron would like to flip the company’s

traditional IT priorities so that the majority of the IT staff’s time and

attention is focused on improving business capabilities [GALL12]. To do this,

Chevron’s IT leaders have increasingly turned their attention to Web

services, software as a service (SaaS), and cloud computing to help it run its

business. Chevron considers mobility to be a game changer in how it

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delivers information and provides solutions and it is convinced that it can do

both without sacrificing security or reliability.

IT infrastructure at Chevron pervades every facet of its operations.

However, Chevron’s executives have not lost sight of the fact that IT is not

the company’s core competency. By moving business solutions to the cloud,

Chevron executives hope to help the company maintain its focus on its core

competencies.

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Chevron has used business-oriented Web services for several years.

Ariba Buyer, Salesforce.com, and Ketera’s price negotiation system are just

a few of the SaaS solutions that Chevron has woven into its IT architecture.

Chevron is interested in developing an integrated information network

that includes all of its major supply chain partners, both upstream and

downstream. Identify management has emerged as a priority at Chevron to

ensure secure data transfer among its business partners. A generic example

of an identify management system is illustrated in Figure C6.2. When users

at Chevron partners need to access Chevron’s intranet and/or SaaS data or

solutions, they are first cleared by an identity broker. The identity broker

authenticates the user and transparently provides a single sign on (SSO)

token that enables the partner to access Chevron’s intranet (2) or the

company’s SaaS solution providers (3).

Chevron hopes to better align its operations with those of its business

partners via its migration of business applications to the cloud. It hopes that

the business infrastructure transformation that is currently underway will

also lead to better IT and business alignment. As a global company, the

cloud may be an ideal platform for running the business.

In the years ahead, Chevron’s IT leaders expect mobility, analytics and

visualization, and social media to become critical aspects of its business

infrastructure. At the facilities level, advanced sensors and deeper

embedding of RTUs and PLCs within operations are foreseen [GALL12].

Technical appreciation of convergence network infrastructure will continue to

be important, but business literacy/savvy will be most important to the long-

term success of Chevron’s IT leaders.

Discussion Points

1. Do some Internet research on Chevron’s use of seismic imaging

technology. Briefly explain how it works and how it has helped

Chevron discover new oil and gas reservoirs.

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2. Do some Internet research on security vulnerabilities associated with SCADA and digital industrial control systems. Summarize the major

security concerns associated with these systems and steps than can be taken to enhance their security.

3. Discuss the pros and cons of moving enterprise-wide applications that

have traditionally been supported on premises to the cloud.

4. Do some Internet research on identify management and single sign on systems. Briefly explain how these work and why they are important in

business intranets and extranets.

5. Why is it increasing most important for a CIO or IT executive who oversees geographically distributed enterprise networks to be business

literate?

Sources

[CHEV12] Chevron.com “Seismic Imaging.” Retrieved online: at http://www.chevron.com/deliveringenegy/oil/seismicimaging.

[GALL12] Gallant, J. ”Chevron’s CIO Talks Transformation and Why IT

Leaders Should Smile.” April 12, 2012. Retrieved online at: http://www.cio.com/article/print/704095.

[SCRI11] Scribd.com. “Chevron Corporation CRUSH Report.” August 17,

2011. Retrieved online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/62481977/Chevron- CRUSH-Report-09A1.

[STAT12] Statistic Brain. “Chevron Company Statistics.” February 12, 2102.

Retrieved online at: http://www.statisticbrain.com/chevron-company- statistics/.

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