Action Research Essay

2 Ford Smart Mobility Digital Transformation Failure Name Institution Date Introduction Ford

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Ford Smart Mobility Digital Transformation Failure

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Introduction

Ford Motor Company was founded by Henry Ford and his partners in 1903 and is known for its cars. For decades, Ford has been at the forefront of automotive technology. For example, it was the first car maker to introduce a fully electronic engine control system in its vehicles. Ford has more brands than any other car maker. The company’s performance has been unfailing for many years. However, recently, over the past decade, it has not performed well financially. This downward trend is mainly due to Ford’s failure to adapt and innovate its vehicle offerings against its competitors, offering electric vehicles and new technologies for several years now. For example, Daimler AG (DDAIF), the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, revealed its electric compact car, B250e, to the world at the 2016 North American International Auto Show. Tesla Motors, a maker of electric vehicles, has been around for over a decade and is also a strong competitor to Ford. Ford is experiencing a new era where business success relies heavily on technological innovation.

It is particularly important in today’s business world to be digitally conscious because it helps companies gain a long-term competitive advantage. Google has a plethora of successful transformations such as search and advertising, Gmail, Maps, Android, Chrome, and Drive. A digital transformation project will aid in the creation of a new product, service, or marketing system to help companies grow their business.

The importance of transformation is seen in companies that have followed the digital transformation trend. Apple, Facebook, Netflix, and Google are all companies that have transformed their digital platforms in a way that changed their business and has led to success. It is also important to note that these companies were created when technology was far less developed than it is today. Today’s digital transformation will be easier because we have more data, and it can be accessed in real-time from new sources such as social media. It will allow businesses to get valuable information faster than before.

Ford is currently undergoing a severe digital transformation failure in its Smart Mobility project. Unequal engineering, budgeting, and leadership missteps have stymied its efforts to ensure connected and dependable cars. The company may soon need to call experts outside the auto industry for help or risk losing a major chunk of its market share to upcoming smart mobility startups. Ford Motor Company has been struggling with a series of issues that have led to a decline in profits and stock price.

Ford Motor Company is most likely the worst case of a digital transformation nightmare. Their digital transformation has gone from a well-devised plan to provide better customer service and increase sales to an absolute failure. In 2016, Ford’s digital transformation began to create “Ford Smart Mobility” by leveraging global data and combining it with Ford’s expertise in technology and mobility services. Ford set out to adapt to the digital transformation by creating its subsidiary Ford Smart Mobility to deliver on this vision. The company was heavily invested in the autonomous vehicle space and was an early leader in mapping and driverless technology. However, in many ways, the company was still grappling with the basics of digital transformation. The plan was to turn Ford, the leading manufacturer of physical vehicles, into a leader in the emerging “mobility” space, including ridesharing, car-sharing, and other on-demand mobility options (Morgan, 2021). To achieve this goal, Ford Smart Mobility needed to build a digital platform that would allow the company to respond quickly to market changes and improve the customer experience. Unfortunately, Ford’s digital transformation plan failed, and the company is now facing several important decisions.

The Ford Smart Mobility digital transformation promised to be the biggest in the company’s history. Months of bold promises and strategic acquisitions were supposed to result in a robust digital platform that would allow the company to become a true mobility company. But the reality was vastly different. Over the past three years, Ford has fallen further behind its competitors in the race to develop and offer innovative mobility services (Milner & Witt, 2022).

The Ford Smart Mobility plan was a disaster. It started with a great idea—using self-driving cars to reduce traffic congestion and improve the quality of life in urban cores—but turned into a nightmare when the company decided to build a ride-hailing service instead of a car-sharing service like UBER, LYFT, and Gett. The result was a string of self-inflicted wounds: a corporate culture war (Milner & Witt, 2022), a desultory launch of the autonomous vehicle service, and a surprising partnership with Lyft that cost millions but brought little in return.

The project

The multi-million-dollar effort by Ford to develop a “Smart Mobility” platform — including electric vehicles, self-driving cars, a ride-hailing app, and a vehicle-sharing program — was supposed to be a showcase for the company’s new “digital” approach to technology. But after more than a five years of development, the platform still doesn’t work as intended, and key partners have abandoned the project. The result was a costly failure that may lead to the shutdown of yet another division of the oldest carmaker in the US.

Built on the idea of “mobility as a service,” the platform was intended to combine the best aspects of Ford’s traditional car manufacturing with new mobility services such as ride-hailing and on-demand car sharing (Trevor, 2017). To achieve this vision, the company would need to partner with a wide range of companies that offered related products and services, creating a powerful network that could be scaled as needed. Such an approach would allow Ford to be nimble and responsive to changes in the market without investing heavily in building and maintaining its fleet of vehicles. The company would also avoid the risks and inefficiencies of operating its fleet, which is how most car companies make their money. The platform’s failure was a major setback for Ford, which had been working to transform itself into a mobility company for nearly 20 years. Over the years, the company has acquired hundreds of companies in different industries, including Argo AI and Chariot, to diversify its operations and become a leader in the growing “on-demand” transportation industry (Trevor, 2017).

The Smart Mobility platform was simple: combine the strengths of Ford’s traditional automotive manufacturing with new mobility services such as ride-hailing and on-demand car sharing (Liyanage et al., 2019). The Ford Smart Mobility project was announced in March 2016 and was to be headed by Jim Hackett. It was declared a subsidiary of its parent company Ford Motor Company which began planning in September 2016. The idea was to develop a digital platform that would allow the company to be agile enough to respond to market shifts. It was siloed into Ford’s “smart mobility” division, alongside the much smaller Argo AI division, focused on self-driving vehicles (Ismail et al., 2017). The two divisions were expected to work together to develop the platform and launch it as an on-demand mobility service.

As Hackett said during an interview, the platform was intended to be a platform that “will serve a new way to get around and just be a better value than the status quo.” It would be part of what he described as a “Digital Networking Strategy,” which was designed to “build on our strengths and leverage the collective power of our connected technology, research and development, and manufacturing assets.” (Trevor, 2017)

Project Failure Causes

Departmental isolation meant there was no connection of information and technologies between Smart Mobility and other organization sectors, which produced the issue of knowledge sharing. Digital transformation is integrating digital technology into all areas of a corporation. Because the digital three transitions necessitate many new talents with IT-related skills and expertise and a lack of communication, it isn’t easy to find the appropriate people for the right tasks. The result is that digital transformation efforts tend to be departmentalized, which creates an information silo and makes it difficult to connect technologies between different parts of the organization (Ismail et al., 2017). In the case of Ford, the Smart Mobility platform was built on the idea of “mobility as a service,” which would combine the best aspects of Ford’s traditional car manufacturing with new mobility services such as ride-hailing. But because the platform was isolated from other parts of the company, there was no real integration of these different services, which produced the issue of knowledge sharing. It resulted in a series of missed opportunities for the platform to become the “mobility platform” that it was intended to be.

To achieve the digital revolution, Ford also put a significant amount of money into its Smart Mobility section. Rather than benefiting the entire firm, the new department generates a loss every year after being operational. Most of this money is spent developing the platform, which is a major effort. But without any real integration with other parts of the company, the platform could not realize its full potential. Instead, it became a major loss-making operation, which further isolated it from different parts of the company.

Ford ignored basic market needs by devoting much money to its Smart Mobility section. Consumers complained about the absence of fresh inventions and the lack of quality. The lack of progress is particularly frustrating, as it comes when the company is undergoing a major transformation of its own. Rather than use the opportunity to achieve the digital revolution finally, the company is continuing to pour money into its old strategies and operations, which is a clear sign that it has no real understanding of the needs of its customers. It is a great example of the dangers of ignoring basic customer demands, which is becoming more common in the corporate world.

The reason for such a failure is that Ford fails to understand the market’s needs. The company can ignore such basic requirements because it invests heavily in its Smart Mobility section. But in the long run, this approach will not work. If Ford wants to become a successful mobility company, it needs to focus on providing innovative products that meet the needs of consumers.

The company’s technology department, which led the Digital Transformation initiative, had almost no experience building products for the consumer market. As a result, the company ended up with a poorly designed platform, which was too complex to be scaled quickly. In addition to the considerable financial and time resources invested in building the platform, the company had also made key strategic decisions that could have far-reaching repercussions, such as acquiring the ride-hailing company Chariot, which would give Ford a strong position in the on-demand transportation market. But now, the company would have to start over, losing not only the Chariot division but also the critical ERP software from Pivotal.

Ford’s “digital transformation” approach was extremely “reactive,” with the company often making decisions based on immediate pressures and feedback from customers. But its approach to technology was much more “conservative,” with the company often making decisions based on long-term pressures and customer feedback. It resulted in a major disconnect between how the company wanted to be perceived as a “digital innovator” and its behavior when making decisions about technological investments. As a result, the company was frequently criticized for being slow to respond to changing market conditions, and its reputation as a technological leader suffered.

Ford Smart Mobility failed because it was set far from the headquarters and seen as a separate entity defeating the goal of digital transformation. The plan was to build a digital platform that would allow Ford to be agile enough to respond to market shifts, but the execution was lacking. The goal was too complex, and too many silos were created. Ford released half-baked products, and the organization could never fully implement the plans. It resulted in a major failure.

The company’s actions failed to align with the company’s vision, which resulted in a lack of employee engagement and commitment. The company’s strategy also failed to align with its leadership goals. The company’s leadership was focused on the wrong metrics, which failed their strategy. The plan was also too broad and included too many areas of the business. Because of this, it wasn’t easy to measure progress and hold leaders accountable. It was also difficult for employees to get excited about their work as it was distributed across too many disconnected teams and functions (Kane, 2019).

Critical Lessons learned

Ford’s approach to digital transformation was supposed to allow the company to move quickly and decisively in response to market changes. But in executing the Smart Mobility platform, the company did not learn the crucial lessons that could have prevented the project from turning into a costly failure (Morgan, 2021). On paper, the idea of “mobility as a service” sounded promising. After all, Ford’s sales of its traditional automobiles had steadily declined over the past decade, and the company needed to find new ways to stay competitive. The “on-demand” transportation market, which is growing rapidly, offered an opportunity to expand the company’s operations while also reducing the financial burden of manufacturing and selling vehicles. But to realize its vision, Ford needed to partner with a wide range of companies that offered related products and services.

There are several steps that Ford could have taken to avoid the digital transformation disaster. First, it could have recognized the need for a “mobility platform.” The company could not achieve digital transformation because it separated this system from the rest of the company, which generated a series of missed opportunities (Morgan, 2021).

Second, Ford could have created an agile team responsible for developing and delivering the platform. Instead, it tried to build a large platform team from scratch, which led to delays and a lack of collaboration. The platform team should have been structured and empowered to move quickly to deliver a minimum viable product (MVP) to the market (Kane, 2019). The platform team was not given the necessary autonomy to achieve this, resulting in costly delays.

Third, Ford could have clearly defined the goals and priorities for the platform, which would have helped the teamwork more efficiently (Kane, 2019). It would have allowed the team to focus on the key priorities, which would have resulted in a more efficient delivery schedule. Instead, the company was constantly changing its goals and priorities, making it difficult for the team to deliver. This approach resulted in a series of missed opportunities.

Fourth, the company should have designed an adaptable and scalable platform so that it could be expanded as needed. The result would be a flexible platform that could be scaled to deliver the desired level of service to the market without investing heavily in building and maintaining its fleet of vehicles (Denissov, 2022). This approach would have allowed Ford to be nimble and responsive to changes in the market without the risk of operating its fleet, which is usually the primary source of the company’s profits. It should have identified the critical systems that needed to be built to scale the network, identified the bottlenecks in the system, and located the strategic partners that could help it solve the bottlenecks.

It could have partnered with critical companies that could have helped it scale its on-demand transportation network instead of trying to build the entire network from the ground up. The company should have partnered with other companies already building digital transportation ecosystems, significantly reducing the financial burden of developing and operating its on-demand transportation network. The company should have worked with these companies to identify the key systems that needed to be built to scale the network, identify the bottlenecks in the system, and locate the strategic partners that could help it solve the bottlenecks. It would have allowed it to expand as needed, significantly reducing the time and resources required to develop its on-demand transportation network.

Ford could have recognized that software development is fundamentally different from product development. As a result, they should have understood that building software is difficult and will likely take longer than they originally imagined. In addition, Ford could have recognized the significance of integrating different aspects of the company, as it is a critical step in successful digital transformation (Denissov, 2022). For example, the company could have brought Chariot back into its fold, realizing that it was an invaluable acquisition that could be used in the Smart Mobility platform. It would have resulted in a more integrated approach to developing its on-demand transportation network, significantly reducing the time and resources needed to build the platform.

Recommendations

Although it’s easy to be frustrated with Ford’s failure to reach its full potential, some strategies can help new companies avoid a similar fate. The first is to understand that digital transformation is fundamentally different from other firms in the corporate world. Technology development is difficult, and companies need to understand the ROI of their investments truly. They also need to be patient and allow their digital transformation efforts to unfold naturally without focusing on short-term goals. It will enable them to build a strong foundation for future success. It will also help them avoid the pitfalls associated with digital transformation efforts. In addition, digital transformation is not a one-size-fits-all approach. It requires companies to be nimble and adjust their strategies to meet the demands of their markets and customers (Tekic & Koroteev, 2019). It requires companies to be honest about their approach, be open to change, and be willing to try new techniques and fail quickly.

The second step is to realize that there are few reliable models to determine whether digital transformation will generate the expected results. It is because digital transformation is a continuous process that occurs on many levels. It’s difficult to identify specific outcomes that can be studied and replicated. In addition, the strategies that are successful on the corporate level are not necessarily successful in the entertainment industry, the educational system, or the healthcare industry. Therefore, companies must identify the key procedures that need to be transformed to meet the demands of their markets and customers and then locate the key partners that can help them successfully achieve their goals (Tekic & Koroteev, 2019). The digital transformation journey is unique for every company, and the results depend on the strategies used to build the digital platform, the launched applications, and the partnerships that are formed. As such, it’s difficult to identify clear patterns or narratives from which to learn (Tekic & Koroteev, 2019).

Third, companies should recognize that building a digital platform requires a significant investment of time and money. It means that firms should not underestimate the time to complete the transformation. They also need to be prepared to invest in the technology and people resources required to build the platform. They also need to be ready to invest the necessary resources to build out the digital platform. It doesn’t mean that companies need to invest all their resources in digital transformation; they need to find the key systems that need to be transformed to meet the demands of their markets and customers. It will require them to find the key partnerships that can help build their digital platform and launch the key applications that will enable them to provide the highest level of service to their customers.

Finally, the companies need to recognize that they will likely fail. Solving this problem involves building a new organization with different norms and cultures suited for digital transformation. Company corporate culture should be heavily considered when making a digital platform, as the key success factors often involve cultural change. However, cultural change is difficult to manage, plan for, and measure (Kane, 2019). Companies should be prepared for the possibility that they will fail; they need to make sure that they don’t allow this to become an excuse to stop trying. The key is to build a new organization with different norms and cultures better suited for digital transformation. It will be difficult and require a lot of time and money to build; however, if companies can make this shift, they will be able to solve the problem of digital transformation (Denissov, 2022).

The companies need to be honest with themselves about where they currently stand on the digital transformation journey and adjust their strategies to meet the demands of their markets and customers. They should also be open to working with new partners and trying new approaches to build their digital platform and launch the key applications that will enable them to provide the highest level of service to their customers and generate the results they expect (Kane, 2019). They also need to be prepared to distribute a significant amount of money to the digital transformation process. However, it is often overlooked. Most firms do not clearly understand the financial impact of digital transformation or the time needed to complete the process. As such, they under-commit, which results in a slower pace of digital transformation than would be best. The Ford example is just one example of how companies do not realize their full potential in the digital age.

Conclusion

As firms transition toward a digital platform, they need to be prepared for the significant challenges. However, by being honest with themselves about where they currently stand on the digital transformation journey and by adjusting their strategies as needed to meet the demands of their markets and customers, companies will be able to build their digital platform successfully. They will also be able to generate the results they expect, resulting in a better bottom line. Smart Mobility had the wrong footing when it approached the digital transformation as a separate exercise rather than an integrative platform-building exercise. It limited the scope of their digital transformation efforts, and as a result, they have been unable to achieve their goals. It is just one example of how companies can fail in the digital age, but it is also an opportunity for those who are prepared to seize the opportunity to build a successful digital platform. Companies need to remember that digital transformation is an opportunity to reimagine their business, build something better, and supply the highest level of service to their customers.

References

Denissov, D. (2022, March 27). Lessons learned from Ford for oems and Smart Mobility Providers. GreenRoad. Retrieved April 24, 2022, from https://greenroad.com/blog/bill-ford-shares-lessons-learned-oems-smart-mobility-providers-part-2/?cn-reloaded=1

Ismail, M. H., Khater, M., & Zaki, M. (2017). Digital business transformation and strategy: What do we know so far. Cambridge Service Alliance, 10, 1-35.

Kane, G. (2019). The technology fallacy: people are the real key to digital transformation. Research-Technology Management, 62(6), 44-49.

Liyanage, S., Dia, H., Abduljabbar, R., & Bagloee, S. A. (2019). Flexible mobility on-demand: An environmental scan. Sustainability, 11(5), 1262.

Milner, N., & Witt, J. (2022, March 8). Two speeds, one goal. Elixirr. Retrieved April 24, 2022, from https://www.elixirr.com/2021/01/two-speeds-one-goal/

Morgan, B. (2021, December 10). Companies that failed at digital transformation and what we can learn from them. Forbes. Retrieved April 24, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/09/30/companies-that-failed-at-digital-transformation-and-what-we-can-learn-from-them/?sh=a4b8441603c4

Tekic, Z., & Koroteev, D. (2019). From disruptively digital to proudly analog: A holistic typology of digital transformation strategies. Business Horizons, 62(6), 683-693.

Trevor. (2017, November 15). Transforming Ford: Supplying Mobility in a Digital World. Technology and Operations Management. Retrieved April 24, 2022, from https://digital.hbs.edu/platform-rctom/submission/transforming-ford-supplying-mobility-in-a-digital-world/

2 Form of Theft Students Name Institution Affiliation Course Name Course Code

Action Research Essay Writing Assignment Help 2

Form of Theft

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Plagiarism is defined as the poaching someone else’s scheme or ideas with or without their authority, by including it in your work without admission. Plagiarism plays a key role in accepting your reliance on another person’s work and to differentiate clearly your own work from that of your source. Most institution of learning have adopted plagiarism checker this to regulate piracy of information and avoid the students from copy and pasting other people ideas and information. The application of plagiarism has helped in enhancing creativity and building innovation among the students. The advancement in technology has facilitated easy identification of duplicate content.

There are several types of plagiarism they include direct plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, self-plagiarism, accidental plagiarism. This types of plagiarisms handle the unlawful piracy and copying ideas from another author without mentioning the source. The misinterpretation and stealing of particular work as your original work is a serious crime .The crime of plagiarism can led to a punishment in that the lawful owner of the ideas may accuse of violating the copyright laws. Direct plagiarism includes acquiring content from another writers ideas without mentioning the source. In direct plagiarism, the plagiarist can change some parts of the sentences with his own words, however it’s also a crime of plagiarism. Direct plagiarism is exhibited when a person steals content from someone else and abandons to cite the source. Mosaic plagiarism is another type of plagiarism where a person copy and paste content and mentions the source of content but does not admit the quoted part. This type of plagiarism can accidental and it ensures writing to be the property of the author. It is necessary to make reference to a certain source information’s to enhance writing. If a person uses internet as a source of information, he must analyze word by word to avoid plagiarism. Mosaic plagiarism crop up when the writer shoplifts phrases or some parts from a particular source material without quotation marks or replacement of some words from the work without changing the original design of the source(Okoth,, Okelo,, Ailo, Awiti ,Onyango& Oguty,( 2018) .Self-plagiarism is a type of plagiarism where a person’s reduplicates part of their previously submitted work. If the writer submits the same paper for different subjects or projects without the instructors permission is considered as self-plagiarism. Self-plagiarism is not a serious form of plagiarism because it doesn’t affect the presentation of any work and also has no serious litigation.

Accidental plagiarism is exhibited when a writer counterfeits the phrases or content parts of the text and he/she has taken from the source document and does not cite the source or cites the wrong source. This type of plagiarism can lead to disciplinary action for the offended writer from the original writer for wrong composition (Okoth et al., 2018). Plagiarism can develop to serious consequences such as astonishing academic career or face serious punishments. Paraphrasing is also a type of plagiarism where a writer paraphrases another author’s idea with his or he own word. For efficient writing and avoidance of plagiarism, the writer should avoiding copy and paste of other people content , develop their own way of being creative, use of different sources of information when doing assignments, use of quotation marks where you’ve quoted some word and keep good quality notes.

References

. International Aga, D. A., Noorderhaven, N., & Vallejo, B. (2016). Transformational leadership and project success: The mediating role of team-building Journal of Project Management, 34(5), 806-818.

Hill, R. E. (1977). Managing interpersonal conflict in project teams.

Kinnande, M. (2011). Conflict Management How to manage functional conflicts within project teams (Master’s thesis).

Okoth,O.S,Okelo,S,Ailo,F,Awiti,A.O.,Onyango,M.& Oguty.(2018)Effects Of Youth Enterprise Development Fund On Youth Enterprise In Kenya.

Sam.S.O (2016).Modelling economic determinant of youth unemployment in Kenya. Journal of Emerging Trends in Economics and Management Sciences7 (1), 31-38.

Savelsbergh, C., Givers, J. M., van der Higden, B. I., & Powell, R. F. (2012). Team role stress: Relationships with team learning and performance in project teams. Group & organization management, 37(1), 67-100.

2 Topic: The effect of positive work culture, employee motivation and authority

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Topic: The effect of positive work culture, employee motivation and authority on the administrative efficiency; A case study of Spotify

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Introduction

An organization is human consortia that have been constructed or reconstructed over time to achieve some set goals. An organization’s success depends on myriad factors that all stem from strategic planning, good governance, and the efficiency involved in the use and management of its resources. Leadership sits at the helm of this success because they are the one who gives direction, inspires the stakeholders to work towards the set goals and manage the allocated resources. Apart from the administration and hierarchical structure involved, an organization is primarily influenced by “patterns of basic assumptions” adopted overtime to cope with external and internal problems (Schein, 1983). The main argument in this paper is that the success of administrative efficiency in Spotify Company has primarily been contributed by the company’s positive work culture, employee motivation and the organized authority in its organizational structure. By focusing on Spotify, the paper will examine the independent variables of positive work culture, employee motivation and company’s authority on how they affect the dependent variable of administrative efficiency in the company.

This paper looks at the effect of positive work culture, employee motivation and authority on the administrative efficiency in Spotify company. We describe work culture as the institutionalized idea that has, over time, been adopted and grown to become legitimate (Greenwood, Suddaby, & Hinings, 2002, p. 61). Positive work culture is a work environment that improves the morale of its employees, has an explicit organizational strategy, values teamwork, has an open communication network, rewards employees and is inclusive (Agarwal, 2018). Public administration’s primary focus is on constructing models that indicate structured results, decision making, efficient objectives and defining concepts (Simon, 1946). This paper agrees with (Simon, 1946, p. 51) that even though specialty is an essential concept in organizational behaviour, the unity of command in directing this specialty determines administrative efficiency. By positive work culture, this paper critically analyzes the five core dimensions provided by (Hackman & Oldham, 1976) of the organization and how they influence the administrative efficiency of the organization. The term paper will test the relevance and applicability of (Simon’s 1946) organizational, and administrative efficiency rationale from the aspect of the company’s core dimensions. We will look at how the core dimensions are practiced in the company, the role of the authority in influencing these core dimensions and how they generally influence the administrative efficiency of the company.

Background of the Organization

Spotify is a Swedish media service and an audio streaming company started in 2006 by the two Swedish entrepreneurs, Martin Lorentzon and Daniel Ek (Sweney, 2016). Currently ranked among the top or largest music streaming companies, Spotify boasts 180 million subscribers and 406 million active users (Spotify, 2022). The company’s services are available in 184 markets worldwide, offering freemium streaming services online. The company’s success has been attributed to its sophisticated data collection methods, which allow it to improve in real-time on the products they offer its users.

The company has witnessed growth over the years in its assets and total revenue. As of 2021, its total assets stood at $8.483 billion, a 17.39% increase from the previous year (macrotrends, 2022). The revenue in the same year was $11.438 billion, an increase of 27.07% of the prior year (macrotrends, 2022). The company has had a steady rise in the number of employees over the years. The company has grown from 311 employees in 2011 to 6,617 employees as of 2021, rising from 5,584 in 2020 (Götting, 2022).

Spotify Work Culture

One critical culture distinct in Spotify is that employees are not allowed to work in the same role for more than two years. In an interview conducted between the CEO and Safian, the CEO Daniel Ek stated that the company regarded jobs as “tours of duty” (Safian, 2018). The “re-up,” as Dek Ek calls it witnessed in the company, has seen the company lose some of its employees, such as Seth Farbman and Jackie Jantos (Safian, 2018). In most cases, the job description among the employees changes over time even when the job title remains the same, creating an environment where employees can generate interest in what they do and enjoy completing tasks. This does not mean that Spotify has failed to promote extrinsic motivation for its employees. They have benefits, rewards, promotions, training programs, and seminars for their employees to maintain or increase their motivation. The advantage of this job rotation culture in Spotify is that it exposes its employees to all the company’s operations and improves their skills as it makes them more versatile and reduces the monotony of the tasks (Lahuddin, 2021; Eriksson & Ortega, 2009).

Another distinct culture that makes Spotify stand out is how the company uses primary motivators and hygiene motivating factors to influence the satisfaction of its employees and their general performance. Spotify has created a corporate culture that values its employees and fosters personal development outside their roles. This has been a strategy employed by many first in recent years, and Spotify has outdone itself. The company has developed programs and activities that support employees toward business expansion and growth through promoting innovation (Schein, 1983). They have developed a structure that promotes this organizational structure anchored on teamwork, openness, and trust, contextual and idiosyncratic and quirky. In addition, they have revolutionized their employee satisfaction by targeting inclusion and not diversity alone. This was an administrative decision made based on an employee survey they conducted. The results were that as of 2018, the inclusion level amongst employees was 72%. 86% were satisfied, and 91% considered inclusion and diversity important (Bolden-Barrett, 2018).

Employee satisfaction is mainly defined by intrinsic factors such as personal growth, achievement, responsibility, recognition and advancement. These factors are simply defined as “motivators” as they determine the motivation success of the employees (Herzenberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959). The hygiene factors are extrinsic to the work and include factors such as the: company’s policies, working conditions, management practices, and pay plan, among others. The company has since planned to improve these numbers by offering training, seminars, and resources to guarantee their employee’s emotional and career well-being and growth. This includes an arrangement to empower inclusion ambassadors, leadership, and resource groups in charge of organizing inclusivity goals. Spotify has adopted the Agile model in administration, which has led to increased team performance and profitability and proved efficient. According to Henrik Kniberg and Andrean (2012), the model comprises numerous agile teams, where the central organizational unit is a squad that comprises less than eight people. Squads are autonomous in that they have the authority to make their own decisions. It is important to note that even though changes in “hygiene” factors are good, work motivation and satisfaction will only be enhanced to the extent the key motivators are incorporated into the company.

Another captivating motivation found in the organization’s culture is how the company shows appreciation and recognition of the employees in terms of their performance. Every employee works to quench their desire to achieve, but above that is making your employers happy, and at times all they require the most is just a part at the back. The frequent and authentic recognition among the Spotify members creates the energy to compete to be better and outdo each other through productivity. The company has managed to handle disrespect or hostile critics over the years without the necessity of having some name-shaming news across the globe. They employ the rules of no unhealthy relationships both from within and members of the public. Such is seen when Spotify was accused of poorly compensating its members in the near past. Their statement on payment indicated that they pay between $0.006 and 0.0084 per stream, which was denied by some low-earning indie artists (van der Kolk et al., 2019). The management handles such cases and incidences through efficient communication to its members to ignore responses on social media and encourage them to keep doing their roles to defend the honour and integrity of the company.

These motivating factors in Spotify’s culture have made its environment an enabling environment for growth. Employees have attested that they have been accorded a positive environment to develop and grow beyond their capabilities. The company has also tried to ensure that their employees maintain their work-life balance by giving them paid leaves, requiring them to work 8 hours a day, and maintaining a flexible schedule. It has also allowed them to work from anywhere; they can choose to work from home or come into the office. In addition, they have flexible national holidays and swap days off per beliefs and personal values (Kelliher et al., 2018). The activation theory stipulates that intrinsic satisfaction can be achieved when the work environment allows the employees to express their personality traits freely.

The quality and significance of the job task play a vital role in the activation of such traits (Simonet & Tett, 2012). Only on such occasions will the activation produce an intrinsic reward or job satisfaction, resulting in increased job performance and subsequently bringing forth extrinsic rewards such as status and pay raise (Tett, Simonet, Walser, & Brown, 2013). The company’s corporate culture revolves around the productivity of its employees. It has created an innovative development program to stimulate employees’ suitable characteristics and results. Its core values are creative, collaborative, sincere, passionate, and playful. The company’s goal is to activate these traits within its employees, which it achieves by ensuring their autonomy. This allows an individual to operate in their own space and within limits. They can express their capabilities and skills without intervention, expressing their actual traits. The concept of autonomy allows for innovation as they are not limited or bound by any regulations, as long the assigned tasks are completed and the objectives met. This means that they are still held accountable for their actions by the specific project’s goals or tasks they are handling. Spotify also allows for flexibility in the functions that employees conduct. They are constantly changing and adapting roles constantly for their employees. Therefore, through these channels, Spotify can activate traits of the individuals they are working with.

The company’s work culture is also built on a work environment that allows transparency between the executive and its employees, allowing them to feel safe to practice their freedom of expression. This has been done by implementing digital signage for communication in the office. Besides increasing event attendance, transparency, industry knowledge, and recognizing employees, digital encourages communication. It has revolutionized commutation in the company to be a two-way process between the teams and the company (Kim & Lim, 2020). It has enabled the company to share with its employees appropriate information while allowing them to make necessary changes where they see fit and allow for further discussions. They have also created the HR blog, indicating that they are constantly doing surveys and interviewing their employees to gain feedback on relevant issues such as inclusion, transparency, satisfaction, and diversity. Information collected is then acted on and used to inform the company’s future decisions concerning the issues raised. This has created a culture that allows employees to express themselves freely since their views are not only listened to but acted upon, proving that they value their opinions and contributions.

Another key positive culture that enhances Spotify’s administrative efficiency is the way it prioritizes quality from the task assigned to its employees to the expected outcome of the assigned tasks. Spotify prides itself in considering passion in its task assignments. This is considered right from the interview and hiring stages before employment. This ensures that they have the right people in their teams. Therefore, roles and tasks are assigned according to task sensitivity, skills and area of specialization/interest, and job description (Aryati, 2020). The company has built a strategy that provides context for employees’ actions. The tasks are assigned and measured for objective satisfaction, consistency of progress, feedback, and monitoring with appropriate ramifications for failing to reach the desired goal. This has been an attempt to advocate for autonomy for employees and, at the same time, accountability by the employees. 

The Function of Authority in Spotify

In the context of organization behavior, authority can be described as the power and right of an individual to utilize and allocate the resources efficiently, make decisions, and give orders so as to achieve the organizational objectives. The authority practiced is focused on balancing autonomy and accountability. The division of tasks among different groups shows that Spotify workers are self-managed groups. The strategy is aimed at providing context for the employer’s actions. They employ the feedback system, which establishes ease in monitoring and marking the level of practice. The failure to achieve or meet the specified goals is accompanied by consequences that are best understood by those within the teams. From the transformational leadership path of Daniel EK, it is easier to claim that Spotify’s success is based on mentorship and being conversant with coaching attitude. The workers can portray unique energy when a leader directs the execution since he understands the vision and the mission more than any employee. Daniel is more determined in his performance, thus empowering the teams to make their own decisions possible. Having understood the role of those working under him, he manages constraints that give an environment for creativity for more excellent production. Over the years, the CEO Daniel has been tried and tested, but his outstanding and unique skills of leadership and patience have earned this organization greater depth in success.

Spotify’s core organization unit is a group of an ordinary eight people that remain autonomous. Each squad is given responsibility for a product and thus makes their divine choices on what they deem fit to build (Oshodi et al., 2019). The groups have leaders whose sole purpose is to imitate the culture of growth portrayed by Daniel on mentorship and coaching, where they carry the absolute magnitude of the mission and the team’s vision. The whole team has grown through innovation and creativity without losing their higher chances of repeatability. These groups are specialized based on the tasks they perform. The squad comprises experts who have a specialty in certain areas. The team members can decide what product or service to improve, develop and expand, when and how it will be built, and with whom to indulge in product development (Henrik Kniberg & Andrean,2012).

The outcome is always the best way to judge a reluctant and goal-oriented employee’s performance. The perfection in employees’ ability in Spotify is tried through the balance on the freedom to innovate as proven to follow their regular routines. It is hard to deny that the digital transformation is irresistible; thus, any technology-based company has to showcase its best expertise to attract the followers it requires to market its products and services. Based on this approach, the company accommodates new ideas for new product development since the speed of innovation is critical. The authority employed gives space for the workers to develop ideas that they deem as the best inputs to implement to match the competing firms in products and service provision. The management puts in place best practices and methods to enforce routines that increase the speed and quality of task execution. Without strict supervision and guidance on what and when to do, the company is like any other vulnerable to confusion and ineffectiveness.

Job Characteristic Model in Spotify

Experienced Meaningfulness

Experienced meaningfulness is part of the three psychological states, according to Hackman & Oldham (1976). It is the state of caring about the tasks and outcomes of an activity performed by an individual and experiencing it as worthwhile, meaningful, and valuable. It feeds into the ability of an individual to feel a positive effect within their work environment. Most if not all tasks have skill variety characteristics. They require individuals to be involved in different activities using different skills to complete the tasks. This becomes a meaningful experience for the individual.

By focusing on the big picture, the management provides job rotation where different people are assigned various tasks, which is a temporary exercise. Despite the apparent recognition and appreciation to boost the team spirit, they can set and manage personal working hours, which act as an advantage to accommodate their individual needs. The leaders easily make work comfortable and ask for feedback to ensure roles and duties are well projected and specified. When a team is working through the best communication means, it is easier to use dialogue to solve any issue that can cause doubt or a challenge in a working environment. Any leader heading an irresponsive team can fully confess that such management is not admirable (Paais & Pattiruhu, 2020). On the other hand, a team works together to cover mistakes for each and table what best picks for the team’s progress. Spotify has managed to work over such conflicts to breathe an environment of motivation for a greater purpose with that level of knowledge.

Experienced Responsibility 

The job characteristic of autonomy determines the second psychological state, which is the experienced responsibility. Unlike the experienced meaningfulness, which is determined by three job characteristics, experienced responsibility is determined by the independence or freedom an individual enjoys from their work (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Spotify has openly practiced autonomy in their job performance and demonstrated that the higher the autonomy, the more the outcomes depend on the person’s initiatives, decisions, and efforts and less on the adequacy of a directive from a manual or their supervisor. This has created the feeling of profound personal responsibility for the failures and successes that happen at Spotify. The freedom enjoyed through autonomy is only bound by accountability by the employees and repercussions when the tasks are not completed. However, generally, Spotify has ensured that there is a space for employees to enable the cultivation of an experienced responsibility among them.

Knowledge Or Results by The Employees; Feedback

Lastly, the third psychological state, which is the knowledge of results, is determined by the job characteristic of feedback. Feedback is simply the clarity in the information of the performance of a given task (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). The company has developed an intensive system for feedback communication based on technology. They use Rypple, a salesforce product, to transform employee performance reviews and feedback into engaging, productive, exciting, and learning opportunities. It is the creation of a social network that enables Realtime employee feedback. When an employee achieves a goal, everyone in the company can view it in the online virtual ‘badge’ and recognition by their manager, which prompts conversations from other managers and colleagues. When targets are met or missed, it is made public rather than waiting for the end of quarters when the feedback cannot be acted on to make necessary changes that can alter the results.

The feedback on Spotify has been enhanced by the effective communication channels established in the company. Some of the ways of communication used in Spotify include ticket systems, internal chat apps and e-mails because the company prefers mediums that keep a record. Through them, information is relayed between superiors and subordinates effectively. Spotify’s organizational structure has adopted horizontal lines of communication and interaction in the organization. This facilitates on-timely dissemination of information of knowledge and information between workgroups. To ease the transfer of information and integration, the organization requires top management, such as executives and managers, to develop the music streaming business extensively. The top management staff participates in both long-term and short-term project groups, which brings to attention the value of each group member and encourages equality (Aubry, M & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2018).

The lateral communication channels adopted have facilitated the achievement of their strategic goals of developing an agile culture for agile software development. This channel supports Spotify’s human resources strategies. The corporate organization structure has strategically associated with Spotify’s value chain. The main resource capabilities of the company are effectively exploited in the value chain, which has been made possible through the effective organization of human resources. The organization has also adopted servant leadership, increasing engagement between staff and leaders (Dassein, 2002). Managers hold Weekly one-on-one meetings with their subordinates to encourage the employees to be highly productive.

Conclusion

Tingvall et al. (2022) report testimonies from a couple of employees at Spotify. They express nothing but satisfaction, contentment, and pride in working with Spotify. The level of satisfaction among the employees has affected Spotify’s administrative efficiency. As a leading music streaming service provider, we can observe that its implementation management practices have revolved around diversifying its human resource based on its clients’ diverse nature. By operating in different markets, the company has had the most difficult time in terms of having the most efficient and functioning administrative structure. As a result, as we have seen this has made it their policy to employ people from different cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicity and ensure rotation so as to improve on their versatility and relevance in the company. This is an attempt to create, capture and deliver products that satisfy their diverse consumer base. They create, capture, and deliver compelling core competencies for value development for their varied consumer base. The investment in its staff clearly shows that Spotify understands (Holtom, Terence, & Thomas, 2006) assertion that human capital and the overall administrative efficiency of the company can be improved through avenues such as staff training or job rotation.