Free Management Dissertations - Although This Dissertation Shall Focus On Marconi, It Will Be Useful And
Although this dissertation shall focus on Marconi, it will be useful and enlightening to compare the management failures of Marconi with those of other spectacularly failed companies such as Enron, Parmalat, WorldCom, Bearings and so on. This comparison allows an analysis of whether Marconi’s failures were endemic, or whether they were typical failures of companies of such a size.
Section 2: Research Questions
The general title for this dissertation proposal is ‘An exploratory study of failure in successful organizations: the case study of Marconi’. From this broad title, a more specific and refined research question is put forward, namely: Was the spectacular failure of Marconi’s management due more to individual error, to strategic mistakes, to technological incompetence or to mismanagement of public image? Phrasing the research question in this way gives the ‘exploratory study’ four clear areas of investigation whilst leaving open exploration of further unnamed factors. The dissertation itself can treat each of these areas individual error, strategy, technology, publicityequally, or it can undertake an in-depth investigation of a single factor.
Preliminary Discussion & Statement of Facts
Turning to consider in turn each of these causes of failure at Marconi.
Individual Error. Before 1997, under Lord Weinstock’s leadership, Marconi had a celebrated reputation as one of the most financially prudent, conservative and reliable companies on the London stock-exchange. Lord Weinstock had concentrated Marconi’s business around its defence contracts, and this approach had led to a gathering of cash reserves of £2.6 billion and the future health and prosperity of the company seemed assured. But in 1997 Lord Weinstock was succeeded by Lord Simpson; a manager with a radically different style and interpretation of the future direction that Marconi should take. Five years later Marconi shares were worth 3.6p and the company had debts of £4 billion.
Strategic Mistakes. Once at the helm, Lord Simpson immediately began a rapid and expansive re-orientation of Marconi towards the telecommunications sector, where he envisaged Marconi as a specialist supplier of telecommunications equipment and services. Lord Simpson sold much of Marconi’s defence subsidiaries to BAe for £6 billion so as to acquire telecommunications businesses. Lord Simpson bought Reltec for $2.1 billion, Fore Systems for $4.5 billion, and six further companies totalling £265 million.
Dissertations - Free Management Dissertations
