Introduction
After operating for more than 60 years, PöYry Plc will experience sustainability challenges if it does not tap into its entrepreneurial roots as the basis for its growth. In the next slide, I will show how the cultural web theory explains the company’s culture as a basis for corporate performance, while in subsequent slides, key strategic challenges facing the organization will be highlighted and limitations of the analysis explained. In the end, conclusions will be drawn from the investigation and recommendations for improving the company’s performance provided.
Key Challenges
Three main challenges affecting PöYry Plc are low employee retention rates, uncertainties in the business environment and a slow rate of adapting to change. These issues have made it difficult for the company to remain resilient in the volatile energy sector. Consequently, there is a need to understand how it can change its internal processes to be more responsive to external market dynamics. In the next slide, I will explain how the cultural web theory can be used to understand these challenges with the goal of transforming the firm’s processes and culture to meet present market needs by increasing synergy across cohorts of employees located in different markets that are served by PöYry Plc.
Application of Theory and Analysis
The cultural web analysis was used as the framework of analysis because it predicts how employees interact with one another and explains how their work contributes to industry growth. This theory emanates from a wider paradigm shift in corporate literature, which focuses on improving the role of human resources in promoting organizational performance (Moreira, 2019; Walsh, 2020; LYE, 2018). The theory fits perfectly in this analysis because it highlights key nodes of cultural flow that underscore Pöyry Plc’s culture. The main assumption made in using this model was that culture was a fluid concept and some dimensions of the theory’s implementation processes overlapped onto other tenets (McHarrie, 2016).
Analysis of Key Points
Pöyry Plc has experienced people-oriented challenges that are centered on the need to keep employees focused and motivated to achieve organizational goals. This aspect of corporate performance is reflective of a weak implementation of the “stories” criterion in the cultural web model, which should help employees to understand and promote core values that have been communicated via various historical experiences shared in the organization, as suggested by OPM (2020), Baxter (2016) and CMI (2020). However, because such stories are not freely discussed, employees are not focused, thereby creating a gap in performance that influences the company’s overall corporate appeal.
Additionally, in terms of organizational structure, autonomous entities linked with Pöyry Plc have created gaps in management that have made it difficult to coordinate transformative changes in the firm. In terms of control, Pöyry has weak systems that have made it difficult to retain talent. Particularly, the firm has a poor compensation framework, which has forced some employees to seek “greener pastures” elsewhere.
The energy company also has a complex management and stiff culture, which makes it difficult to accommodate new ideas, thereby stifling innovation. Lastly, its power structure is still exercised in a top-down manner, which Scholes, (2020) cautions could impede innovation and transparency in a cultural web framework. Overall, in using the cultural web theory, it is assumed that the model is flexible and some of its dimensions overlap onto others.
Recommendations
The culture web theory showed that PöYry Plc’s challenges stem from its tight organizational structure, fixed control systems and an ineffective information dissemination framework that prevents new workers from challenging existing norms and practices. To reverse the effects of these factors on the organization’s performance, its managers should first stop the loss in valuable talent by motivating employees to stay in the organization. This strategy involves developing more favorable terms of employment and a robust reward system. Additionally, the company should eliminate some of the bottlenecks that hinder innovation in the firm.
This strategy would help workers to come up with bold and innovative plans for spurring the next phase of growth because the current setup of a top-down management structure prevents new ideas from reaching the top. Secondly, PöYry Plc’s should change the company’s organizational structure to bring autonomous units under one control. This should be done by engaging change agents to accelerate the transformation process.
Lastly, the energy company should simplify its power structure in favor of a simplified command and control system of control. This approach should make the firm’s communication structure more flexible for employees and managers to interact freely. It is only under these set of circumstances that an entrepreneurial culture will be fostered.
Conclusion and Limitations
There were no surprises in this analysis because PöYry Plc’s managers had experience implementing intrapreneurship by using other organizations as case studies. Particularly, under the leadership of the company’s president, Martin à Porta, the firm has undergone extensive changes in strengthening the company’s core business and accelerating is scaling process based on his experience in other leadership positions. Under his leadership, there has been an increased appetite for change in the organization.
Overall, the analysis presented in this report is subject to three limitations: bounded rationality, imperfect information and the use of a reductionist approach. The concept of bounded rationality is representative of the subjective bias a researcher may have in conducting an analysis. It occurs when a scholar comes up with findings that support a predetermined narrative.
There is also a possibility of imperfect information being shared in the study. This challenge could emanate from the time-sensitive nature of data relating to Pöyry Plc’s operations and management style. Lastly, the use of a reductionist approach in coming up with the findings could have impacted the quality of reporting because of the oversimplification of the employees’ complex behaviors into simple causal relations of cultural awareness.
The insights provided in this presentation will help strengthen Pöyry Plc’s core business and accelerate is growth. Nonetheless, the analysis presented in this report is subject to three limitations: bounded rationality, imperfect information and the use of a reductionist approach. Lastly, the use of a reductionist approach in coming up with the findings could have impacted the quality of reporting.
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