The Organizational Culture of Ez-Pleeze Food Company

An Analysis of the Organizational Culture

of EZ-Pleeze Food Company

Tracey Vu

Western Governors University

EZ-Pleeze is a United States company that focuses on producing chicken and beef products (2018). The Competing Values Framework is a concept that includes four different organizational cultures. These cultures include Clan, Adhocracy, Hierarchy, and Market culture (Cameron, 2018). EZ-Pleeze reflects the Hierarchy organizational culture. Hierarchy is a traditional approach that has a strict chain of command. The leaders of Hierarchy are usually coordinators who monitor their subordinates (Quinn, 1983). In this case, EZ-Pleeze’s leaders include the chiefs and directors that overlook all operations, financial happenings, marketing, research, and production (2018). Each of these leaders direct their staff and monitor the facets of production. This shows that EZ-Pleeze is Hierarchal.

A mission statement describes a company’s current business and purpose (Hitt, 2015). EZ-Pleeze’s mission statement appropriately identifies itself as a company that provides chicken and beef products. The company also sets itself apart by stating its focus on research, nutrition, and technology. However, the mission statement fails to specify buyers’ needs or the market that it is aiming to serve. EZ-Pleeze does mention providing high quality products and customer service to please their customers but does not state who they will be serving (2018). To better their mission statement, they should further elaborate on their buyers, their market, and how they will better create customer satisfaction.

The vision statement of EZ-Pleeze is “To become recognized as one of the top three chicken and beef producers in the United States and the world” (2018, 6). This declaration does not appropriately create a strong vision statement because it can be applied to any meat producer in the United States. This statement is too generic and is not distinctive enough to represent just EZ-Pleeze. It does not provide any idea of the direction in which the company is going nor, does it state why the company has this vision. EZ-Pleeze’s vision statement fails to describe the company or its values. This statement should be re-looked at and revised in order to better capture the uniqueness of the company.

        The strategic team at EZ-Pleeze first begins with the shareholders (2018). Shareholders are entities that own one or more shares of a company’s stock. Shareholder’s invest their money into the company and therefore help fund operations. They are very important to the functionality of EZ-Pleeze because without funding, the company would not be able to operate (Hitt, 2015). Below the shareholders would be the Board of Directors and the Board Chair (2018). The Board of Directors consists of individuals who have been elected to represent all of the shareholders for the company. The Board Chair is an individual elected by the Board who leads the Board of Directors. Together, the Board Chair and the Board of Directors focus on the mission and vision statement of the company by having regular meetings and making decisions such as hiring or firing executive positions. Their role also includes reviewing annual budgets, making final decisions on the allocation of financial resources, and deciding salaries (Hitt, 2015).  

After Shareholders and Board of Directors in the chain of command is Tim Burnes, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Founder of EZ-Pleeze (2018). Burnes has the highest rank in the physical company and makes executive decisions in terms of the company’s strategy and policy. While the Shareholders and Board of Directors are above the CEO and often set the roles of the CEO, Burnes is more physically involved in the business. He takes managerial leadership and ensures that all actions of each area in the company ultimately help the business as a whole (Hitt, 2015).

Those who report to Burnes on the strategic team are the Executive Assistant, Chief of Operations (COO), and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) (2018). Lisa Tye, the Executive Assistant, works mostly with scheduling and planning for the company and especially the CEO. She coordinates calendars of the strategic team, makes appointments, and can also be the one to prepare or organize paperwork such as reports and memos (France, 2012). Tye is also generally the point of communication between employees and the strategic team. Karen Haley, CFO, is responsible for EZ-Pleeze’s finances. Haley works on financial planning which involves analyzing the company’s financial situation as well as economic forecasting (Hitt, 2015). He also oversees the Audit and Compliance Staff, which focus in detail on the efficiency of operations as well as financial reporting and ensuring those reports are following regulations (Ruppert, 2006). The CFO serves as an advisor to Burnes as well. Haley observes financial risk and decides how to invest EZ-Pleeze’s finances. The COO, Brian Jansen, is in charge of all the daily on-goings and operations in the company. He handles the internal affairs of the company by implementing the business plans the Burnes makes and communicating strategies to the company’s employees. He focuses on aligning the company to its goals and also keeps in communication with human resources (Hitt, 2015).

CFO Jansen oversees the Director of Marketing, Director of Manufacturing & Production, and Director of R&D (2018). John Kerrington, Director of Marketing, develops and implements the marketing strategy. This includes advertisements, public relations, digital marketing, and social media presence. Kerrington guides the staff on the marketing teams and the sales teams and also works on presentations. The Director of Manufacturing & Production, Michael Orenson, oversees all manufacturing operations so that the EZ-Pleez product is being created efficiently and meets all standards of quality as well as safety. Orenson makes sure that production meets all deadlines and divides his time between office work and managing the production area at the factory. Director of R&D, Mary Miller, is responsible for the research and development portion of the company. Miller leads the research staff in anticipating what the market will want and developing products to meet those demands (Hitt, 2015).