Organizational Redesign at Xerox Corp.

This research critiques the article "The CEO As Organizational Architect: An Interview With Xerox's Paul Allaire," by Robert Howard.* The article describes and discusses an organizational redesign at the Xerox Corporation. This critique focuses on the aspects of the organizational redesign that emphasized (1) improving the corporation's ability to compete, (2) the use of total quality management (TQM), (3) the reduction of organizational hierarchy, (4) decentralization, and (5) the use of work groups.

Improving The Corporation's Ability To Compete.

Xerox CEO Paul Allaire identified as the major reason for a required organization change at the corporation the fact that "easy growth led Xerox to neglect the fundamentals of its core business, leaving the company vulnerable to lowcost Japanese competition" (p. 107). Thus, the central focus of the Xerox strategy, was changed in the organizational redesign to identify the corporation as a "document company" whose corporate purpose intersected "the two worlds of paperbased and electronic information" (p. 107). Thus, the new strategic focus at Xerox is "on 'the document'" (p. 108).

The goal of the organizational redesign at Xerox was to "make this . . . company more entrepreneurial, more innovative,

*Robert Howard, "The CEO As Organizational Architect: An Interview With Xerox's Paul Allaire," Harvard Business Review, SeptemberOctober 1992,

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ed to dramatic, oneshot improvements. A team culture is an essential in a TQM system. There is no room in a TQM organization for the manager who reserves all decisions for herself or himself. Active employee involvement is essential. A special type of leadership is required in an organization that makes the decision to adopt TQM. TQM requires a transformation of the organization, and, thus, a transformational leader is also required. The application of TQM principles in the organizational redesign at Xerox were used to "reengineer the fundamentals of the businessproduct development, manufacturing, and customer service" (p. 107). Quality is now required in each of these three areas separately, and quality is pursued at a broader level through coordinated action by the business units performing each of these functions. The Reduction of Organizational Hierarchy One of the central facets of the Japanese system of management is a relatively flat organizational hierarchy. The organizational redesign at Xerox also sought to flatten the corporation's organizational hierarchy (p. 111). The new organizational structure is referred to as the "hardware" component of the new organizational architecture at Xerox (p. 111). C
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Approximate Word count = 1437
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)