Greed Does Not Equal Need

Greed Does Not Equal Need

Kyñette Cheatham

LDR/531

December 20, 2009

Thomas McMahon

WorldCom was viewed to be one of the largest and most successful industries in the telecom business and was proudly placed on the Fortune 500 list very early in its conception. For WorldCom deep pockets coupled with big eyes was not a good combination. One investor was best known for his multibillion dollar purchases and generous giving’s to all that came in his path. All of that was fine and good until WorldCom got in way over its head and purchased companies too many and too fast. This paper will describe a few of the Organizational Behaviors (OB) that led to this company’s unfortunate ruin.

Simply put Organization Behavior is concerned with the study of what people do in an organization and how their behavior affects the organization’s performance. [ (Robbins & Judge, 2007, p. 10) ] One area of concern that will be discussed is the behavior of the leaders. How did their actions of power reflect on the company as a whole? Another topic within the OB realm is the concern of the groups structure and design. When acquiring many sub-companies, was there some sort of design on how these companies would benefit each other and the organization itself. Lastly, but certainly not at the least in discussion will be the use of constraints. Acquiring more than 60 companies is not a sign of constraint. How did all of these acquisitions affect the business and customer service as a whole?

WorldCom was the brain child of one Bernie Ebbers and along with other deep pocketed investors WorldCom quickly became a force to be reckoned with in the long distance and telephone business. At the start of this monster company coming to life outlooks were very promising, stock prices went from pennies to over $60 per share [ (Browning) ] and its leader was a well liked and admired individual. That was all great but as far as OB, was the company on the up and up? The behaviors of...