CASE SUMMARY:

Mississippi Power Company was providing the

electric services to
190,000 customers in Magnolia. 1250
employees were doing their
best to facilitate their loyal customers. On
August, 29, 2005
magnolias had to face a nightmare in the
form of tremendous
Hurricane Katrina which damaged the entire
power supply of the
city and the whole city turned in darkness.
The customers were
without power. Sixty five percent of its
transmission and
distribution were demolished. As companies
employees believe in
quick response to the problems, so they
started working without
wasting their time. Customers had an
unquestionable trust on
company and its employees that is why they
were expecting a great
response from company in this disaster.
They responded the same as was expected in
that critical situation
because they were trained with some
effective and efficient tools.
Another important element was that company
assigned 20 storm
response specialists to settle the problem and
they had an authority
to assign any work to anyone. Finally the
decentralized decisions
were being made because every engineer was
free to use its skills
and techniques to restore the electric power.
And they succeed to
restore the electric power within 12 days and
company was
awarded `Emergency response award` by
Edison electric institute
for its unforgettable efforts.

CASE APPLICATION:
Q1)Using Exhibit 3-2, describe the culture at Mississippi Power.
Why do you think this type this type of culture might be
important to an electric power company? On the other hand,
what might be the drawbacks of such a culture?
ANS)The culture at Mississippi power is best described as
follows:

Innovative and risk taking: The Mississippi Company is

high on innovation and risk taking.
Company encourages employees to be more innovative. In our
case, an example of innovative ideas
was when one crew stripped a generator off an ice machine to
get a substation working. The
company’s decentralized decision-making approach has
contributed to the way employees deal with
ad hoc and panic situation.
Aggressive: in our case, it’s the degree to which employees
where aggressive to restore the power to their customers as
hundred percent of customers were out of power and sixty five
percent of distribution facilities were destroyed. It was only
because of their hard work and commitment they were able to
complete their job in good time.

Team Oriented: 1,250 employees at the Mississippi power

have
combined all their efforts to complete the job and have
succeeded.

People oriented: in our case, the main target of the company

was to
restore electric power to their customers; and that happened
through
the manager’s plans and employees effort

Outcome oriented: managers at Mississippi Power

Company focused on the outcome; in our case restoring the
electric power was the most important issue. The Mississippi
power employees had one mission is to get the power back on.

Attention to details: I think Mississippi Power Company is

low on attention to detail. The decision making is
decentralized. Here managers and employees are expected to
respond and react quickly, efficiently, and effectively to any
fault or natural disaster. The drawbacks of such culture could be
as the decision making is decentralize any wrong decision taken
by any of the managers or employees can be costly to company.
This might result in loss of company reputation and also incur
financial loss for company. Some time decentralization also
result duplication of work.

Q2) Describe how you think new employees at Mississippi

Power “learn”
the culture.
ANS) The culture of organization is shared values, principle,
tradition and ways of doing things. In this case culture of
Mississippi Power, it culture encourages innovation and risk
taking. I think new employees at Mississippi Power Company
learn the culture by:
1) when new employees are recruited managers have to judge
whether these candidates fit into the organization.
2) By training new employees.
3) Through stories, for instance, our case could be a good
example
to introduce the company’s culture to new employees.

4) Through company’s right and ritual ceremonies. This

includes
motivating successful employees and risk takers by
awarding them.

5) Managers are role model for new employees. There action

can be
 good example of steeped culture of Mississippi Power.
Q3) What stakeholders might be important to Mississippi
Power? What concerns might each of these stakeholders have?
Would these stakeholders change if there was a disaster to which
the company had to respond?
ANS) As a provider of one of the most important services,
almost all stakeholders are important to the Mississippi power
company such as (employees, customers, trade and industry
associations, governments, shareholders)
As for the concerns that each stakeholder might have:

Employees: Employees are their main concern is to restore

the power
network as soon as possible. They might also be concerns that
their efforts should be encourage and
reward must be given to boost their motivation level.

Customers: Their concern will be about being reconnected

with power.

Governments: Government can also be stakeholder as

government

can earn tax revenue from company and it’s also the
responsibility of
government to provide electricity to citizen of state.

Shareholders: Shareholders are also key stakeholder in company

as

they have invested in company. They mainly concerns with the

profitability of company.
In case of a disaster, stakeholders will not change; however, the
company’s priorities will change, in
our case, restoring the power network; i.e., employees are the
most important stakeholders
Q4) What could other organization learn from Mississippi
Power about
the importance of organizational culture?

Other organization could learn from the Mississippi power

company their values, principles, and traditions and how they
influence their employees and allow them to take risks and
innovate in order to complete their tasks. Other organizations
could also learn that in strong and dynamic cultures almost all
goals could be achieved through delegation of authority,
decentralization, motivation of employees. And after all,
rewarding and recognizing successful employees, also
conveying the company’s culture to new employees.

Conclusion:
mississipi proved to be a daring
company, it only focused on employer
employee relationship but also gave prior
attention to resolve electricity failure on
such a massive scale for residents of
Mangolia in short period of time. Such
kind of behavior not only shows the
responsiveness to handle dynamic
situations but also managing the people
effectively and recognizing their
hardwork. Such kind of attributes can
only be find in companies who believe in
strong organisational culture, potency to
adapt new techniques, recruiting the right
person for right job, training them and
influencing them by organisation's
historic culture.