Modernism, Symbolic-Interpretive, Postmodernism Analyzing About McDonald’s Essay Example
Modernism, Symbolic-Interpretive, Postmodernism Analyzing About McDonald’s Essay Example

Modernism, Symbolic-Interpretive, Postmodernism Analyzing About McDonald’s Essay Example

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  • Pages: 11 (2805 words)
  • Published: January 7, 2017
  • Type: Case Study
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Introduction:

The task of this report is to analyze McDonalds using the modernist analysis tools to describe the organization. McDonalds is a large Multinational fast food franchise originating from USA. McDonald’s main product which they produce is burgers but it now has a wide range of products available for a wider choice of customers. The reason for a wider range of products is due to the fact that it has grown so much to other parts of the world McDonalds has grown to become one of the largest fast food franchises in the world, almost every country in the world has a McDonalds at the moment due to its large spread across other countries it needs to come up with different products to satisfy customers from other countries which have different expectation and needs from another.

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r example in India it would not be wise to sell a Big Mac there simply because of the people religious belief is not to eat beef and consider at the cow a sacred animal in their society. Therefore McDonalds will have to come up with different products to satisfy the Indian Market. Moreover the way each McDonalds around the world will look and operate similar in many ways but it must also come up with different strategies such as store appearance or longer operating hours in order to make most out of the resources available. We will now extensively discuss the different ways in which McDonalds can be analyzed

Modernist analysis:

Environment:

Modernist theory defines environment lies outside boundary of the organization. It provides the organization with resources and absorbs its

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products and services. Moreover, it imposes constraints upon and demands adaptation from the organization. In McDonalds, environment the modernists theory that suitable to the company is Resource Dependence theory. By analyzing the inter organizational network, organization can understand the power dependence relationships that exist between it and other network actors. McDonalds depend on the resources that controlled by environment. In the resource dependence theories, environment was perceived as the source of scarce resources that were critical to a company’s survival. There are misunderstandings in the resource dependence, which are the lack of the control over these critical resources, rather than the lack of information, that gave rise to environmental uncertainty.

Environment that contains high levels of resources are considered less hostile to the stability of the organization, while those with low levels of resources to act to increase the intensity of competition between firms. ‘The need for resources, including financial and physical resources as well as information, obtained from the environment, made organizations potentially dependent on the external sources of these resources-hence the characterization of theory as resource dependence.’ (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003) Pfeffer and Salancik (1978) established 2 factors that influenced the level of dependence organizations had on particular resources. First, importance of overall resources for the company is critical in determining the dependence of corporate resources.

In Australia, McDonalds has a great value in saving the resources. McDonalds recently introduced Standard new energy equipment for Restaurant. New McDonald's restaurants (McDonalds, 2011) now use Low Oil Volume (LOV) Fry Vats. LOV Fry Vats have a smaller size frying area, so it will use less oil and less energy to heat the oil.

Moreover, it improves the cooking efficiency, and provides environmental benefit because the electric consumption is reducing by 4 per cent. As new McDonalds use the automated filtration system, that will reduce the amount of oil approximately 40 per cent compare to previous model.

Second, Scarcity of resources is also a factor. The scarcer of resources, companies become increasingly dependent. Scarcity defines as lacking the source of resources. One of the most of companies’ problem is water. In Australia, McDonalds participated to some programs that have saved water, such as Sydney Water Every Drop Counts Program as example (McDonalds, 2011) that involves entering into a voluntary business arrangement with Sydney Water designed to improve water Management practices and implements water saving measures. As the program is installed to the restaurant, the water usages have reduced by 13 per cent on baseline taken in 2001. Another example that related to water, McDonalds used rain water tanks that became part of the standard restaurant specifications in 2010.

Social structure:

Social structure is defined as the relation among people who assume the roles of the organization, and the organizational groups or units to which they belong (hatch et all, 2006). The origin of the social culture inside the organization in the modernism perspective theory such as In McDonald as modernist theories of social structure is dividing into structural contingency. In mac Donald mechanistic theory are well suitable for the mac Donald environment because in mac Donald the bureaucratic structure are well structured all the task are routinely and the tasks are centralized vertically of command, authority and control.

Mc Donald can is a mechanistic organization

because the organization role is like machine and each worker just does what is designed to do (McDonald, 2011). Another social structure in modernist theory that mc Donald use are differentiation. Mc Donald use differentiation but with very low degree. One example of that can be when McDonald has introduced to their menu the Mc-cafe line of coffee drinks. As manager of MacDonald Said, McDonald has undertaken the coffee business then become a direct concurrent of Starbucks in the coffee business. But MacDonald has put in place a strong slogan anti-Starbucks, which is “have great coffee drink but without all the smarmy hipper-than-thou trappings of you know who”. That shown that McDonald went for a clear market of costumers who enjoy high end coffee based drinks.

Another social structure in McDonald in the modernist theory is specialization and decentralization. Specialization which is to specialize employee at something inside the organization so they only that specific task inside the organization. In McDonald they use specialization to make the worker become good at what they are doing; make their production more efficient and little training need. For example as seen inside MacDonald you can see that task are divide some are just making the burger some labor are just delivery(MacDonald, 2011). Centralization is the concentration of management and decision-making power at the top of an organization’s hierarchy. Therefore we can see that McDonald management is functioning with decentralization theory because in MacDonald at all the level there is specific management for that department (McDonald, 2011).

Technology:

Technology inside the organization is defining as the means of converting raw materials into finished outputs. It consist

of objects, tasks, and knowledge, technology are the one that determine structure (hatch et all, 2006). Technology both shapes and is shaped by social interactions though routine and improvisation (hatch et all, 2006). In the modernist perspective, technology is the means of converting raw materials into finished outputs. It consists of object, tasks and knowledge. Technology determines structure (hatch et all, 2006).therefore as it is definition in McDonald the modernist perspective which is based on the core, high and service, and the typology. The core, high and service in McDonald is used in function to help the growth of the costumer level and it is considered as the heart of the business. At McDonald technologies has aligned its management structure to focus on key market segments that has permit for them to deliver the value and innovation to their costumer.

At McDonald the high technology is consisting to help the promotion of the new product at McDonald and help costumer to easily have feedback and any others that can be done to have another from the product out of only eating the hamburger. For example in Japan McDonald’s tags food with high-tech nutrition information (calorielab, 2008). The purpose of that is to give to another mean to McDonald rather than food, such as ticket for free check in hospital. The service technology is a strong element for the prosperity of satisfying the costumer because at Macdonald Technology is used throughout the company in many ways to help McDonald’s perform well. From service tills, to stock control, training, research, administration and office work.

Culture

“By offering a standardized product worldwide, they are also

helping to create a global market. This trend has reduced the cultural distance between countries and is bringing about some convergence of consumer tastes and preferences. On the other hand, very significant differences remain among countries in culture and the ways in which business is conducted because behavior patterns, values and attitudes that govern human interactions have remained relatively unchanged.” (Ying- Chang, 2011)

Culture is really hard to understand and is changing consistently, there is no one right way of dealing with culture it must depend on the task which the organization is facing and how it manages to keep its image through the cultural differences that are present in different cultures today. We will be examining McDonalds using Schein 3 levels of culture; we will be examining two of the three levels of culture. Culture is the study of norms and understanding of behavior and patterns in human, it is also the study of observing ways humans interact with each other. In organization such as McDonalds it is more observing the ways which organizations operate, what are the similarities in every McDonalds around the world? The first similarity which McDonalds have all around the world is the logo. The logo of McDonalds is a big yellow M, which stands for McDonalds. This symbol is an important aspect for McDonalds and people as the logo will give McDonalds a sense of belonging in the customers mind.

In Schein three levels of culture this is seen as the artefacts level as it can be described as visible aspects of the organization. “Culture which learned and shared human patterns or models for living; day- to-day

living patterns. these patterns and models pervade all aspects of human social interaction. Culture is mankind's primary adaptive mechanism" (Damen,1987) Furthermore another aspect of Schein three levels of culture is values, values can be considered as the strategies and the main goal of the organization, it is way the organization aim to do and how they plan to achieve their goals. For McDonalds one of the main processes is the theory which George Ritzier created called McDonaldization.

Ritzier (1998) believed that the idea of fast food restaurants was behind the idea of rationalization this is broken down into efficiency which is basically how fast McDonalds can come up with a hamburger, due to its title fast food it is meant to prepare the food as fast as it can. Since McDonalds do not really care about the quality too much their main aim is to of course sell as many hamburgers as it possible can as fast as possible. This can be observed by all McDonalds all around the world. These both can describe efficiency and calculability in McDonalds.

Moreover Ritzier (1998) also believed that setting tasks to employees in order for them to do tasks was a good way in achieving a standardized product, since McDonalds are just concern in making the same product, it should set different employees to have different tasks so therefore it will lead to tasks been done faster and better. Moreover Ritzier believed that by using Machines to do tasks will lead to better outcomes for McDonalds in achieving a standardized product.

Symbolic- interpretive Critique:

The symbolic-interpretive critique which can be define as its view

of the environment as that environment are socially constructed in the interactions members, and feature of the environment are created and enacted by organizational members, and then become objectified, seemingly real, and in turn influence behavior, in cultural perspective term symbolic-interpretive view people as creator of the culture, and about the technology perspective the symbolic-interpretive see the technology as both shape and shaped by social interactions-though routines and improvisations (hatch et all, 2006). Therefore we can see that the symbolic interpretive see the physical structures as cultural arte facts that both create and are given meanings by occupants.

At McDonald as we can see, the organization and its structure are modernist because of their bureaucratic structure, in mc Donald all the task are well devise according to a particular task, and worker are structured as machine. Each worker just performs what he as to do. And also at mc Donald the management of the resource that is necessary for the surviving of the organization is according to plan and are dependable. However in urgent situation in the modern environment the symbolic interpretive might happen, because as keep as going with the routine task, organization will have to face situation created day to day routine task.

Therefore the symbolic interpretive might be understand and applied at that moment by Mc Donald. Another reason why McDonald is moving to symbolic interpretive is the human resource at McDonald view about the company shouldn’t be ignored because now feature of the organization environment are create by organization member and can influence all the organization behavior. We can conclude by saying that even though the structure of McDonald

are modernist, but due to the environment and all the detail that are inside or outside the company for its success take place sometime to symbolic interpretative. And the difference between these 2 views can be just according at the perception of different manager which seeing the direction to reach goal differently if not have has both mean to ensure the success.

Postmodern Perspective

Postmodern theory looks at understanding the organization based on philosophy, it looks at factors such as culture, knowledge and the way of theorizing and how well organization use language and how their words come up with meaning for the organization. It also aims to identify the importance of physical structure and how it can be an important tool to gain advantage over its competitors. McDonalds is arguably and classically best defined as a modern perspective organization, this is simply because McDonalds as Ritzier argued that due to their mass production of hamburgers, division of labor and their ways of dealing with their customers are considered to be efficient and fast. For example McDonalds do not create nice cozy seating for their customers to dine their seating is rather small tables and uncomfortable seating.

They do this purposely so they do not accommodate for the customers to stay for a long time after their meal. However as McDonalds is now a large multinational franchise around the world it needs to adapt differently in different nations. As many nations may not particularly like their way of conducting business. This is one reason why McDonalds is moving into a postmodern perspective. Moreover going back to dining example McDonalds are facing heaving

competition with other franchises it needs to make its store appearance more appealing, so some McDonalds the ones which are usually in suburb’s, have comfortable seating and also provided Wi-Fi internet for their customers to use after their meals.

McDonalds at the same time as we can see McDonalds are slowly moving away from a modern view to adopt more of a postmodern perspective. “I would argue that whereas initially McDonaldization was pre-eminently an expression of modernity in its mass production and consumption of food, it crossed the postmodern divide through its phantasmagoric advertising and commodity spectacle, drawing its customers into a world of simulation, hyper reality, and the implosion of boundaries, especially as it became globalized and part of postmodern hybridization that synthesizes signs of modernity with local traditions and culture.” (Kellner, 1999)

Knowledge in McDonalds can be viewed as the competitive advantage which McDonalds has over its competitors, what can McDonalds do better and what they innovation do they have that makes them stands out. One of the key knowledge that McDonalds all over the world have is the secret recipe and the secret recipes’ used to cook the food. Moreover knowledge can be viewed as the employee level of skill in controlling technology systems that McDonalds has. This is a key factor simply because by hiring the right staff and having the right expertise required will bring about efficiency to the organization which will also bring about control.

Recommendation

The best recommendation which can be given to McDonalds based on the perspectives outlined in this report would be to use a mix of all three perspectives, Post Modern,

Modernism and symbolic interpretation. The reason for this is because McDonalds is such a large Multinational Corporation which has franchises all around the world. McDonald’s managers have to understand that each franchise is unique due to the different environment which is set in and the cultures of each country vary. Managers need to be able to either use one of the three perspectives or a mixture of both based on the environment that the franchise is located. And also the 3 perspectives is just an opinion to reach the success target.

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