INNOVATION

Below is the full assignment but it is a group project. My group is doing Walt Disney as our organization. Also, my analysis is on #3, The Ambidextrous Organization Framework. I need about 2-3 pages to answer that analysis question about Walt Disney.

The objective of this project is to analyze a contemporary organization that is either undergoing a major structural transformation, struggling with continued innovation, or attempting to establish an organizational structure conducive to breakthroughs. Students will act as management consultants to diagnose performance or opportunity gaps and evaluate the effectiveness of the organizations change strategies.

Organization Selection

Teams must select a well-known organization that has significant documentation available in the daily newspapers and business magazines (e.g., The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Business Week, or The Financial Times). There needs to be enough anecdotal evidence and/or interview data to allow for a deep dive into its internal dynamics.

Possible candidates include organizations like:

• Boeing: Struggle to adapt to radical market shifts.
• GE: Multi-decade unraveling, digital transformation failure, forced breakup.
• Walt Disney: CEO succession crisis, streaming losses, structural reorganizations.
• Intel: Manufacturing delays, AI chip miss, bureaucratic paralysis, mass layoffs.
• Twitter / X: Most abrupt organizational change case study of the decade.
• Bed Bath & Beyond / WeWork: Recent high-profile failures with clear org-change and innovation failure narratives.

• You are welcome to pick one of the above-mentioned companies in order to save some time in your research. See below for more information to get you started.

Analysis Requirements

Your analysis must be limited to 8-10 pages (double-spaced, excluding appendices and references). You are required to apply at least three of the following theoretical models from the course material to your chosen organization:

1. The Congruence Model: Identify the organizations strategy and analyze the alignment (or “fit”) between its Critical Tasks, People, Formal Organization, and Culture. Determine if performance gaps are rooted in “incongruencies,” such as a rigid hierarchy stifling the speed required for new technical tasks.
2. Kotters Eight-Stage Process: Evaluate where the organization stands in the transformation journey. Did they fail to establish a sufficient sense of urgency? Did a “blocker” or a resistant boss halt the empowerment stage? Analyze if the change was a single linear sequence or multiple concurrent processes across different units.
3. The Ambidextrous Organization Framework: Categorize the organization’s innovation efforts into Incremental, Architectural, or Discontinuous innovations. Analyze whether the breakthrough projects were structured as functional, cross-functional, unsupported, or ambidextrous units.
4. Network Secrets of Change Agents: Using anecdotes about key leaders, identify if they acted as “bridging” or “cohesive” agents. Analyze how their centrality in informal networksrather than just their formal rankimpacted the adoption of divergent changes.
5. Resistance to Change Paradigms: Analyze how the organization handled employee responses. Did management view resistance through a Traditional Paradigm (as an enemy to be eliminated) or a Modern Paradigm (as a resource/feedback to be decoded)? Evaluate if they addressed the stakeholders’ phases of preoccupation.
6. Mintzbergs Four Organizational Forms: Determine if the organizations core structure matches a Personal Enterprise, Programmed Machine, Professional Assembly, or Project Pioneer. Analyze if the struggle for innovation is due to a “Programmed Machine” trying to perform “Project Pioneer” work.

Project Structure

• Executive Summary: A concise overview of the organizations challenge and your primary findings.
• Company Context: Briefly describe the structural change or innovation struggle based on media reports and interviews.
• Application of Model 1: Detailed diagnosis using the first chosen model.
• Application of Model 2: Detailed diagnosis using the second chosen model.
• Application of Model 3: Detailed diagnosis using the third chosen model.
• Recommendations: Proposed actions to improve congruence, foster “intelligent failure,” or better integrate exploration and exploitation.

Grading Criteria

• Critical Application: How accurately and deeply the models are used to explain the organization’s real-world behavior.
• Evidence: Effective use of anecdotes, quotes, and data from business media.
• Synthesis: The ability to link different models to provide a coherent picture of the organization’s “success syndrome” or “inertia”.
• Formatting: Adherence to the 8-page limit and professional citation of both media sources and class materials.

The above criteria will be assessed using the MBA Written Communication Rubric.

Presentation:

• The team decides the number of presenters (one or more team members may present).
• The presenter’s face needs to be visible during the presentation.
• The presentation will be limited to 10 minutes. You are not asked to present the entirety or your report. Simply pick one of the models you used in your analysis and summarize your findings. If time allows, feel free to talk about any other parts of your analysis you find interesting.
• I will schedule a live session for the final week (TBA). You can either present live during this session, or send in a recorded version of your presentation. As always, the attendance will not be mandatory. Either way, I will record the live session and record/play the teams’ presentations (Tentatively, if there are enough participants present, we can also have a brief discussion).
• The presentation will be assessed using the MBA Oral Communication Rubric.

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