CASE IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Excerpt by Stephen Vescio
Full Version includes contributions by Amanda
Liscio, Mike Wood, Ted Herrmann-McLeod and Sammy
Pawha

Apple Advertisement
This TV spot was created by Apple, a direct competitor. It reinforces Microsoft’s
loss of Monopolistic power and image as the unbeatable bully.

Microsoft
Background
• Began on April 4, 1975
• Cofounded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen
• 90,000 employees in 105 countries
• Develops, manufactures, licenses, and
supports a wide range of products
• \"A PC on every desk and in every
home\"
• Most successful software company in
history?

Leadership
• Bill Gates
• Visionary leader
• Wealth
• Lead Microsoft to its
dominance in the 90s
• Stepped down in 2006
Bill Gates is considered a legendary leader
• Has left a lasting in an historical context; however, in
impression on the today’s world more must be done by
Microsoft to adapt.
structure of Microsoft

Bill Gates
As a catalyst for Microsoft’s Leadership Structure
•Competency Perspective
•incredibly
conscientious/knowledgeable
•positive self-concept
•relentless integrity, drive
•above average cognitive intelligence.
•Behaviour Perspective
• More task-oriented
•Criticisms
• Too Controlling
•Obsession with details
•Micromanaging his employees

Microsoft’s Current Leadership
Under the influence of Bill Gates
•Guided structure to be excessively
bureaucratic.
•overly centralized power structure
• Ideas “bottle neck” at the higher
levels of management
•All information in the company and
decisions are filtered
•Control and Top-Down Management
•Abused monopoly power

This style used to work!
• Defined the software industry
• Controlled an early monopoly
• Ruthlessly leveraged its position
to outperform its competitors
However,
•Problems escalated in the recent decade
•Competitors emerged boldly with innovative products
and brave new approaches.
•Microsoft’s mixture of dominant top-down
management and excessive control no longer suffice

“…the next step in [Microsoft’s] evolution
will be the corporate equivalent of a
Spandex granny. It won't be pretty.”
•stifled creativity
•employee dissatisfaction
•degrading organizational image
and culture.
•inability to retain market share in OS
•losing to its major competitor, Apple.
•unable to adapt to and gain market
share in emerging related industries.

WHERE MICROSOFT WANTS TO GO
7 Emerging Markets the company has recently fallen short in
CATEGORY MARKET LEADER MICROSOFT’S ENTRY
• Smartphones Blackberry Windows Mobile
• Music Players iPod Zune
• Photo Management Picasa, iPhoto, Photoshop Digital Images Suite
• Portals Yahoo MSN
• Social Networking MySpace Windows Live Spaces
• Video YouTube MSN
• Search Google MSN

What can be done to
curb the downfall.
FROM A LEARDERSHIP PERSPECTIVE
•autonomy where workers can be creative without their
ideas being bottlenecked
•prompt innovation by establishing forms of servant
leadership
•path-goal leadership style that is less directive and more
supportive and participative.
•Focus on teambuilding, strategic brainstorming
• Move back towards its transformational leadership in
creating a vision with the commitment of employees