Culture of Experimentation and the Risks on Shutterstock

CASE STUDY
Student’s Name
Course
Professor’s Name
University
City
Date
Case study 1
Question 1: Shutterstock is empowering its employees by investing in a culture of experimentation. What are the benefits and limitation of allowing lower level employees to have a say in the strategic direction of the business?
There is an increase in employee productivity when lower-level employees are allowed to have a say in the strategic direction of the business. In other words, allowing employees to have a say in the strategic direction enables employees to develop the sense of responsibility in decision making and problem solving at the different levels of operation (Onyebuki et al., 2019, p5). Therefore, employees who are allowed to participate in the strategic planning will do their best to ensure that the plan they suggested is implemented and has worked well thus an increase in productivity. According to the case of Shutterstock, the culture of experimentation allows employees to use some of their work time to engage in developing any company related products that they may choose, which also increases on both the company and employee productivity and creativity.
On the other hand, employee empowerment helps to improve and build on the company’s creativity and innovativeness as various people in the company are empowered with authority in decision making. According to the case of Shutterstock, the experimentation instills innovative mentality in the company culture as different employees are encouraged to participate in the generation of ideas that can take the company to the next level. Creativity and innovativeness helps the company to adapt, survive, and grow in a dynamic business environment (Abuzaid, 2018, p 646). Ultimately, the company’s strategic plan will be successful once the other members of the company are involved in coming up with different relevant innovative ideas that can help in achieving the set objectives by the company and also helps it to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors.
However, involving employees in decision making can be quite challenging as it can lead to a breakdown of power in the organization as almost everyone is empowered with a chance to participate in decision making. According to the case study of Shutterstock, decision making is not limited to the highest paid person’s opinion which can lead to a problem as there is a loss of power control. Based on this case, the employer and managers will not be in control of what employees do as they have been authorized to make decisions based on their judgment (Turkmenoglu,2019, p 8). Therefore, the authority usually associated with top managers is significantly reduced in decision making which can cause conflicts in some cases as different decisions work in opposite to each other.
Empowerment of employees leads to a draw back in the accomplishment of company duties needed. Rationally, this is because empowered employees can tend to switch most of their time to accomplishing their own goals than those of the company due to the rise in their confidence levels which ends up making the employees arrogant. Additionally, arrogant employees do not want to be directed or be told what to do and ...