PepsiCo was founded in 1965 through the merger of Pepsi-Cola and Frito-Lay. The company's Headquarters is located in Purchase, New York, approximately 45 minutes from New York City. PepsiCo is a world leader in convenient foods and beverages, with revenues of about $27 billion and over 143,000 employees. The company products include Frito-Lay, Pepsi-Cola, Gatorade, Tropicana, and Quaker Foods. PepsiCo brands are available in nearly 200 countries and territories. Tropicana was acquired in 1998 and PepsiCo merged with The Quaker Oats Company, including Gatorade, in 2001. Frito-Lay is the leading multinational snack chip company, accounting for more than one quarter of international retail snack chip sales. Pepsi-Cola products account for nearly one-third of total soft drink sales in the United States.
Explore the site in detail to prepare a two-page report indicating your responses to the following questions. Compare the PepsiCo site with the site of its main rival, Coca-cola. (www.cocacola.com) How do PepsiCo's values, attitudes, personality, and culture differ from those of its main rival? What are PepsiCo's views on diversity in the workplace? Explain PepsiCo's views on long-term career growth in the company based on PepsiCo's Career Growth Model.
Internet Exercise
As the chapter discusses, managing individual differences and behavior is very important within organizations. Organizations are, at one end of a continuum, vast communities of thousands of people; at the other end there are the single entrepreneurs or small family businesses employing very few people. Whatever the size, though size does make a difference in terms of behavior and managerial approaches, people come in all shapes, sizes, ethic backgrounds, levels of education, types of religion, personalities, amount of stress, values, attitudes and perceptions held about the workplace. The more you know about yourself, the more effective you will be as a manager and employee.
The purpose of this exercise is to expand your knowledge of your own personality. The personality assessment exercise gives you feedback on "What's Your Personality Style? Are You a Director, Thinker, Relater, or Socializer?" The person who developed the assessment (Dr. Tony Alessandra) notes that in over 30 years of research he has found four dominant behavioral types and each one has very distinct and predictable patterns of observable behavior. He argues that once you understand these patterns, you have the key to unlock your ability to get along with nearly anyone. He offers a free evaluation at his website as well as 52 free articles, one each week, on how to improve various facets of personal and professional relationships. Go to http://www.platinumrule.com/assessment.asp. Take the 18-question assessment and send in your answers for an evaluation. Knowing more about you is vital in a world where cooperation is the increasing value in organizations and teams are the design of work in many organizations.
Questions
Did you agree with the assessment comparing it to how you see yourself? Explain.
How do you think your personality may impact your career? Explain.
