Organizational Culture

By:Antro, Akbar, Ihab

Company Profile

Headquarters based in Irvine, California

A unit of the leading company in massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG), Activision Blizzard

Develops and publishes software titles such as genre-dominating:- World of Warcraft (about 10million subscribers)- Starcraft- Diablo

All games available for PC

The games are sold through a retailer or online download

Blizzard Entertainment have also leveraged their game through the development of products such as action figures, board games, graphic novels, and comic books

Founded 1991 under the name of Silicon&Synapse

Founders were three graduates from UCLA majoring in computer science

Organizational culture has stayed similar since the start up of the company, following preferences of the founders

Founders

Final results are what matters.

Employees should always look it from the eyes of the final user.

An Unforgettable gaming experience.

Gameplay First

8 Core Values

“Most players wont remember if the game was late, only whether it was great”

Employees are working in one area, their specialization

Work is done mainly individually

Deadlines are not final

Commit to Quality

Integrity is number one in interactions.

Conflicts are looked as good inside the company.

Handling conflicts should always done with care.

Play Fair

Creativity and innovation is key in gaming industry.

Employees are expected to be gaming enthusiasts

They are allowed to modify their working quarters to fit their needs

Uniqueness of workers should be embraced and allow shape the environment

Embrace your inner geek

Every employee is encouraged to share ideas freely and discuss their projects with each other.

Listening and seeing others perspectives is important, embrace criticism .

Ability to speak there mind

Every voice matters

Knowledge and understanding of different cultures is necessary.

Company tries to seek employees around the world to create vast view of the industry, enrich the company.

Think Globally

Lead Responsibility

As one of the leaders of the industry, company expects all its employees to be highly ethical in all circumstances.

Change is a inevitable in gaming industry.

Workforce should keep in touch with development of technology.

They seek long-term workers and are willing to support and train them.

Learn & Grow

1. Goal Oriented

The employees are always working toward a common goal which is perfection.

Its all about the end result.

2. Internal

Ability to get things done without anyone controlling the decisions.

3. Easy going Work Discipline

-loose internal culture, little control and discipline

Focusing more on projects

Hofstede Dimensions

5. Closed System

Not anyone can work at Blizzard

People who are experienced gamers and of high education.

4.Professional They want employees to be

who they are, they are promoting diversity.

Local: They are internally focused and there is strong social control to be like everybody else.

6. Employee Oriented: Members of staff feel that personal problems are taken into

account and that the organization takes responsibility of there welfare, even if this is at the expense of the work. 

7. Degree of acceptance of leadership style Top managers tend not to involve people with their decisions.

More of autocratic leadership. Employees make their own decisions but their distance from top managers

8. Degree of identification with your organization. Individuals are always looking to achieve their goals, these

goals will be associated the organizations objectives as well. Shared Organization Values (Core values) Culture

Hofstede Dimensions

Working hours are unpleasant to employees

Little advancement in work which leads to stress about your one`s knowledge.

Acute stressor (One type of stressors)

Constant policy adjustments

Working on one project for a large amount of time.

Stress at Blizzard

They have different facilities for relaxation, recreation and reflection on ideas .

The design of the facilities gives a clear image to workers about both addressing their needs (freedom) and that they are valued (Making their own decisions)

Gives: positive work attitude and stronger morale.

Because the employees are innovative, creative they have a stress free environment to work in.

Overcoming StressBlizzard give the employees a great open environment in which employees can speak his mind.

Is visible in the way that work gets done on a day to day basis.

Observable game posters , Dress code is open, easy manner of addressing each other.

Shared values

Basic Underlying assumptions:

- Classifying the employees into specific groups

Organizational CultureManifestation

The organization strategic apex (top-line executives) consists of one CEO and 6 members on the board of directors.

In such an organization there has too be a solid Techno structure due to the competition and reputation Blizzard Entertainment have created.

The following slide will illustrate the directors and top supervisors of company operations. Although there are 13 members. Each one has 4,952 colleagues in 411 companies spread across 36 countries involved in the entertainment industry

Organizational Structure

Board of Directors CEO- Robert Kotick

CFO- Dennis Durkin

COO-Thomas Tippl

Customer-Brian Hodous

Activision Publishing-

Eric Hirshberg

Legal-Chris Walther

Strategy and Talent-Humam Sakhnini

Blizzard Entertainment-

Michael Morhaime

Hierarchy Structure

A divisional structure is formed as control is with Middle Management.

We can also see that there is another strategic apex being formed within Blizzard Entertainment.

This creates a separate model within the existing one, creating a franchise of companies operating under one label

Type of Control Resulted within the Company

HIGH FUNCTIONAL SPECIALIZATION

HIGH FORMALIZATION IN DIVISIONS

LIMITED DECENTRALIZATION

SIMPLE, STABLE ENVIRONMENT

MECHANISTIC STRUCTURE

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE DIVISIONAL FORMS

The respected financial website offers effusive praise for Kotick, along with an amusing tale of how the Activision-Blizzard merger

got done:

When [Blizzard CEO] Mike Morhaime first met Kotick, he was looking for a low-key setting to avoid sparking the sort of chatter that often emerges when high-profile business leaders meet in public. Morhaime... chose a steakhouse near his company's Irvine, Calif., headquarters. But he ended up booking a large banquet room by mistake, leaving the two alone and rather conspicuous for the nearly four hours during which they contemplated the potential of a merger creating a new leader in the video-game business... "We wanted to keep it low-key, which was pretty hard to do in this huge room with just the two of us there," Morhaime recalled with a laugh.

Communication