Case for Analysis: Aquarius Advertising Agency
1) Analyze Aquarius in terms of the five contextual variables: * Goals: Aquarius has realized a huge problem in regards to the rapid turnover of their major accounts. An agency reorganization would be a realistic goal in changing their competitive techniques. This reorganization might be able to set them apart from the other agencies by reducing their response time and increasing the communication between the different departments to boost efficiency. * Culture: In my opinion I believe that Aquarius has a very low and undefined organizational culture. It seems like the employees are all looking out for themselves and trying to get ahead of everyone else. These values although unwritten provide the glue to having everyone on the same page and are absolutely essential in providing clients with top of the line work. * Size: Since Aquarius is a mid-sized firm with various specialists on the professional staff of the operations and marketing divisions I would say they have anywhere from 1000-1500 employees. With this many employees it is critical to have effective communication between the different departments. This would in turn increase flexibility in this unpredictable environment. * Environment: Changes in the environment is the main reason why the agency is considering the need for reorganization. It is typical for advertising agencies to gain/lose clients quickly, this is why is it so essential to have everyone in the organization effectively communicating with each other in order to satisfy their clients and reduce turnover. * Technology: Aquarius has a number of different specialists on their team that work together in assisting their clients, but there is always room for improvement in regards to better communication. It would seem to me that Aquarius would have a number of different programs and internet sites to assist them achieving their services.
2) A new organizational structure that takes into consideration the contextual variables in the case and the information flows is the divisional structure. This structure is suited to fast change in an unstable environment and provides high product or service visibility. A major problem that occurs in Aquarius is that each client account is coordinated by an account executive who acts as a liaison between the client and various specialists. Unfortunately this isn’t followed because sometimes the account executives don’t even know what is going on until a week later. The divisional structure leads to customer satisfaction because product responsibility and contact points are clear. This in turn involves high coordination across functions which will make everyone check with the executive first to get approval before contacting the client. Coordination across functions will allow their services to adapt to the requirements of the individual clients and perform beyond their expectations. This structure would allow Aquarius to achieve their goals while increasing their organizational culture as a whole and being able to adapt more quickly to this unstable environment.

3) Would a matrix structure be feasible for Aquarius?
I my opinion I believe that a balanced matrix structure would be hard to implement and maintain. This is due to the fact that account executives as one side of the authority structure would often dominate over the specialists. In order for the account executive to do their job correctly they need everyone on their side and in coordination to run important information by them first. Perhaps a better alternative would be a product matrix where the executives have primary authority and the specialists assign technical personal to the projects and provide advisory expertise as needed. With dual authority I feel that it would be frustrating and confusing for everyone, there needs to be a clear contact points. There would always be a need for frequent meetings to resolve any conflicts between the different authorities, it would simply just require to great of an effort to maintain the power balance.