Irganizational Behavior on Electronic Arts

Introduction

Organizational behaviour is an area of study that examines the impact of individuals, groups and structures have on the performance of an organization. In this essay I will be looking at an organization and highlighting the main problems they face. Then I will explore three areas of organizational behaviour and show how they can be used to resolve the problems and improve the overall performance of the organization. I will also cover a few issues with implementing the proposed changes.

Organization Overview

Electronic Arts (EA) was founded in 1982 by Trip Hawkins and is a company involved in the development, publication, marketing and distribution of video games. Despite being in the top three for its field, EA has encountered several problems. Firstly there were the revelations made by ex-employees and most notably an employee’s fiancé which exposed the working conditions and its effects. This was soon followed by several lawsuits against EA which although were resolved quietly, harmed the company’s reputation. Most recently there was the game playing issues with SimCity which highlighted the overall bugged and unexciting gameplay found in many of their published video games. Moreover customer complaints have been mishandled or ignored by employees deterring further custom. This meant EA won The Consumerist award for the ‘Worst Company in America’ two years running. In addition, their profits and stock values have been dropping since 2009, where in the second quarter EA reported a loss of $391 million US, or $1.21 a share, compared to a loss of $310 million, or 97 cents, the previous year. In the last calendar year EA has lost almost 40% of its stock value. (Canwest News Service, 2009). Also the CEO John Riccitiel...

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...rather than constantly moving the employee through multiple projects with a high number of tasks, the job should be enriched in a singular project and lower the workload to raise their commitment levels. Also intrinsic motivation is a component that will bring about creativity and can be generated from feasible goals and deadlines and support from management.

The alterations to EA’s current model will have a domino effect on the company. Having motivated, satisfied employees who can be creative will perform better. This improved performance will lead to high quality games. Enhanced quality of games will be attractive to consumers and give them more positive beliefs about EA as a company. Satisfied employees will reduce the chances of turnover and lawsuits and create a credible reputation for EA. All in all this would increase sales and revenue for the organization.