Tyco International

Tyco International Ltd

Introduction

The following paper will examine Tyco International ltd and how different organizational-behavior theories could have predicted or explained the company’s failure. It will also compare and contrast how leadership, management and the organizations structures contributed to the failure.

Tyco international ltd is a diversified manufacturing and service company, with five main operating groups, it was founded by Harvard Ph.D. Arthur J. Rosenburg, it is domiciled in Bermuda for tax purposes, and it maintains its operational headquarters in West Windsor, New Jersey.

Dennis Kozlowski became the CEO of Tyco in 1992 under his leadership the organization took an aggressive approach to acquisitions, the company spent $ 28 billion to acquire 110 companies from 1992 through 1998. Under his leadership Tyco grew from a $ 3 billion company focused mainly on fire safety to a $ 37 billion conglomerate with businesses ranging from fire extinguishers to health products. In September of 2002, former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski and former Tyco CFO Mark Swartz were indicted on criminal charges (24 counts each) including grand larceny, securities fraud, and enterprise corruption charges. The former executives were accused of stealing $ 170 million in unauthorized compensation and pilfering and additional $ 430 million by illegally selling stock while misleading shareholders. The CEO Kozlowski used stolen Tyco money to purchase a range of items including a $ 6,000 shower curtain, a $ 38,000 backgammon table, a $ 49995 bed skirt, a $ 103,000 mirror, a $ 500,000 hand-painted bird mural, and a $ 2.1 million birthday party in Sardinia thrown by Kozlowski for his wife (http://www.abe.sju.edu/proc2006/lease.pdf)

Management and leadership Failure

“Managers have to create an ethically healthy climate for their employees, where they can do their work productively with minimal ambiguity about what right and wrong behaviors are. What constitutes ethical...