Introduction
According to Moon et al. (2021), organizational behavior principles offer a framework and a toolkit for explaining strategic actions within organizations. By analyzing the ideas of these concepts based on real-world case studies, individuals can understand how the principles are translated into practical situations. This assists in translating theoretical knowledge into practical skills, enabling the students to appreciate these concepts and how they apply to real-world problems in different fields. The actual situation case studies demonstrate how a peculiar organization can be guided in the direction of sensible problem-solving and decision-making process so as to have the reaction demanded of it by the complexities of the situations. By identifying how organizations apply organizational behavior concepts to overcome such challenges, one can benefit by drawing essential lessons from these experiences that can in turn inform one’s decision-making processes. This makes it easy for them to identify potential solutions, foresee effects, and exercise informed decision-making, which are the key attributes of successful organizations. Case studies provide a dynamic and interactive learning environment for bidirectional dialogues and critical thinking. Using real-world situations, people can learn to view the problem from different angles, assess the efficacy of different methods, and relate theory and practice. This method engages students through a practical learning approach, which improves understanding, recollection, and utilization of organizational behavior theories to achieve greater levels of learning and skill growth. This study takes this direction where the focus is to create a relation from organizational behavior to a real-world case of Samsung Electronics.
Overview of the organization
As Chan Kim (2019) provided, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. is an internationally established conglomerate with its headquarters in Suwon, South Korea. Launched in 1969, the company is one of the world’s leading technology organizations with an expansive portfolio encompassing popular consumer electronics, semiconductors, and telecommunications. The organization’s story started in 1938 when the founder, Lee Byung Chul, established a small trading company in Daegu So, Utah, Korea. Over the decades, the company has diversified into different industries like textile, insurance, and electronics.
As narrated byYoo & Kim (2015), in 1969, Samsung, a South Korean company, entered the electronics industry as a producer of grey-scale TV. Over time, Samsung has gained an intensive global presence due to its high research, development, and innovation investment. As Song et al. (2016) put it, it has since been seen as a globally known brand for providing high-quality and state-of-the-art technology. The company’s vision is to “Empower the world with groundbreaking technologies, products, and designs that will impact and change people’s lives positively and which will contribute to societal prosperity by creating a new era” (Samsung, 2024). This mission captures Samsung’s dedication to innovation, customer centricity, and societal impact. It intends to retain its position as market leader in critical product lines, including smartphones, televisions, and memory chips, through innovative strategies backed by research and development investment that fuel the creation of new ideas and products. The firm sets customer needs as a priority and maintains this through the provision of value-driven products and services that are tailored to meet the broad market needs. The company is also committed to sustainability and continuously endeavors to minimize environmental impact through eco-related practices and green programs.
Strengths, challenges and performance issues faced by Samsung
Strengths
Samsung, a global leader among technological companies, has several strong points that have contributed to its achievement in the market. Among the features that distinguish it is a diversified product portfolio. According toBhardwaj et al. (2018), the company has diverse products ranging from consumer electronics to appliances. This diversification allows for the risks associated with a single market segment to be mitigated effectively. The company has also tried various innovative practices and heavily invests in research and development. Its commitment to innovation enables it to introduce the latest technology and to stay ahead of its competition. Moreover, it has operations in more than 80 countries, assuring a global presence. This allows it to access numerous markets and customer bases. The global presence also provides a bulwark against the swings of regional economic upheavals. Also, the organization is a trusted global brand with a good reputation. It is well known for its high quality, reliability, and technological advances. This allows it to extend a competitive edge in the market.
Performance Issues
The strengths notwithstanding, there are several performance issues and challenges that Samsung faces. One of these is supply chain disruptions. As Qureshi & Ahmed (2021) noted, the COVID-19 pandemic has driven supply chain disruption to become a significant challenge for companies. The pandemic has resulted in substantial disruptiveness of the global supply chain, leading to a lack of the necessary commodities and materials. Samsung has been direly hit by these disruptions, something that has greatly hindered its ability to meet its target production and delivery schedules. The supply disruptions have led to Samsung often facing a shortage of semiconductor chips. These chips are the basic building blocks in manufacturing cell phones, tablets, and other digital devices. Their shortage hinders production, reducing the company’s capacity to deliver as desired and maintaining its market status. In addition to the chip shortage challenge, Samsung has also been experiencing problems securing other crucial materials like display panels and batteries. The shortage of these components has affected the company’s production capacity, delaying the release of new products and ultimately negatively affecting its market competitiveness. In addition, the supply chain disruptions have made it difficult for the company to forecast and meet its product demand. As the population increasingly depends on technology for their jobs, schooling, and entertainment, there is a significant growth in the demand for smart phones, tablets, and other digital devices. The supply chain disruptions make it hard for Samsung to scale up its production to meet this increasing demand, eventually reducing sales and market share.
Samsung also faces significant regulatory and legal challenges in its multiple countries and industries of operation. A regulatory challenge of significant importance to the company is linked with competition enforcement. On several occasions, the organization has been the subject of investigations from regulatory bodies for the potential violation of competition law. For instance, in 2012, the European Union punished Samsung for abusing its dominant role in the mobile phone market by imposing unreasonable license terms on its rivals (Hwang & Shin, 2019). This not only led to a series of fines being imposed against the company but also damaged its image in the region. Samsung also faces the challenge of data privacy and security directives. Because many countries are becoming more dependent on digital technologies and online services, governments are developing stricter laws and regulations concerning data protection. Samsung has been forced to make certain that its products or services correspond with these legislations in order not to face legal claims. For example, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), in the European Union, imposes very tough rules for the companies that deal with personal information and violation may cause the most severe penalties. Besides regulatory challenges, Samsung encounters varying legal fights. As provided byHwang & Shin (2019), patent infringement lawsuits are increasingly a common phenomenon in the technology industry, Samsung being among the most notable protagonists of such high-profile lawsuits. Likewise, the decade-old litigation concerning the reservation of design and technology patents with Apple has resulted in high cost of legal procedures for the organization. In addition, product liability suits and class action lawsuits are sources of constant dispute for Samsung’s income and brand image.
Samsung has also been struggling with the problem of market saturation and maturation within the smartphone industry. Owing to the increasing competition in the smartphone market, the company has been experiencing a downward market share and profitability trend, triggering a need for strategic innovation and adaptation. This has been caused by the fact that smartphones today are becoming more similar and uniform. With the devices presenting similar features and operations, consumers find it difficult to see a reason to replace what they already have. This has contributed to longer replacement cycles and slowed down smartphone sales both for Samsung and other industry players. Additionally, the smartphone market has reached a stage of maturity. The fact that groundbreaking innovations that can tempt more consumers are hard to come byhas put Samsung in a tricky position. Another significant issue relates to the growth of Chinese smartphone makers, who manufacture phones at a lower cost. These firms have recently garnered a lot of stake in the market, thus posing a challenge to businesses like Samsung.
Organizational Behavior Analysis
In light of supply chain disruptions worldwide, Samsung has adopted several principles of organizational behavior to deal with the problem. Ideally, communication is one of the sustainable competitive advantages that the organization has leveraged to address the issue. By facilitating transparency across its supply chain, the company has been promptly recognizing and solving the disruptions as they arise. This strategy enables the business to keep a more dynamic and reactive supply chain, maintaining the short-term performance at a higher level of insulation. Collaboration and teamwork constitute another organizational behavior principle that the company has utilized. The organization has developed synergy and empowered its teams to work together in solving supply chain constraints (Rani et al., 2016). This practice of gathering people from different departments and various academic fields enables it to understand issues from different perspectives and develop more complete solutions. In addition, this synergy has enabled the organization to adapt more quickly to changing circumstances and to keep everything on track in the context of inconsistent supply chain performance.
Moving forward, to effectively deal with the regulatory and legal issues that Samsung faces, the company employs different organizational behavior principles, among them ethical leadership. Emphasizing on ethical conduct across all levels of organization ensures that all employees comply with the relevant legal and regulatory requirements. This is done through ethical communication, leading ethically and provision of necessary training to employees. As noted by Chun (2017), Samsung essentially promotes a culture of ethical leading to mitigate the potential of legal violations and regulatory non-compliance. Additionally, the organization employs the components of diversity and inclusion to deal with its regulatory and legal challenges. It relies on a diversified workforce to have access to diverse perspectives and experiences that are very helpful in handling challenging regulatory landscapes. Moreover, by emphasizing diversity and inclusiveness, it demonstrates its compliance and commitment to ethical behavior. This acts as a stimulating factor that helps the company in engaging with stakeholders as well as cultivating relationships with regulators. In addition, Samsung breeds a working environment that is agile and highly adaptive to allow for fast response to new regulations and laws. This anticipatory behavior allows the firm to stay on top of legal challenges hurdles, thus enabling legal mitigation in the dynamic technology industry.
Concerning the problem of market saturation and maturation, Samsung has leveraged the principle of motivation to build an environment in which workers freely introduce new ideas and creativity. This in turn positions the company as an innovator tat continuously develops new products and technologies. The organization also utilizes managerial leadership to navigate the uncertainties of market maturity. The company’s leaders have been empowered leaders to keep inspiring and motivating their units so that every team member works towards the organization’s long term goals. Also, Samsung has incorporated teamwork and cooperation to gather and unite diverse talents, skills, and experience (Jung & Chung, 2016). This has enabled it to harness the power of its employees’ collective intelligence and to constantly develop new approaches and technologies. The organization has also employed the theory of organizational change and adaptation to regularly reshape its operations, adopt to advanced technologies, and redefine its business strategies to remain relevant in the saturated market.
Conclusion and Recommendations
As has been well established, the practical aspects of organizational behavior principles are very useful in revealing and handling the complexities of the ‘real life’ hurdles that organizational have to face. At Samsung Electronics, the entity has shown a tendency to employ the organizational development practices to address the performance gaps properly. In light of supply chain disruptions, regulatory and legal hurdles, and market saturation, Samsung has developed many strategies based on organizational behavior principles to surmount the challenges and enter the sustainable growth circle. To enhance the efforts, more emphasis should be put on employee morale and motivation. This will accent the innovation and performance spheres. Through promoting professional development, encouraging performance, and cultivating team spirit, fresh ideas will be nurtured, and employees will be fully engaged in the realization of the company’s goals.
References
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