| Course | LDR 731 Contemporary Issues in Leadership (LDR/731) |
|---|---|
| Week | 2 |
| Paper type | Doctoral values deployment analysis |
| Length | about 1,178 words, 4 double-spaced pages plus title page and references |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | University of Phoenix |
| Program | DBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for LDR 731 Week 2
From Craftsmanship to Customer Focus: How a New Chief Executive's Values Travel Through Seven Glass Plants
[Student Name]
University of Phoenix
LDR/731: Contemporary Issues in Leadership
Week 2 Assignment
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
Maumee Glass Group, its plants and its survey results are composites written for a model paper.
Week 1 showed how Maumee Glass Group's new chief executive, Laura Brandt, and a reshaped top team redirected the composite Toledo glass company toward branded products and digital sales. Six months after taking office, she introduced a written values statement: customer focus, innovation and accountability. The company's previous values had never been written down but were widely understood: craftsmanship in glassmaking, safety and loyalty between the company and long-serving employees. Posters with the new values appeared in all seven plants, and managers received a presentation to share with their teams. A survey six months later found that only 31 percent of employees could name two of the three new values, with large differences among plants. Operations chief Daniel Okafor wants to understand why the values landed so differently from plant to plant.
Leader Values, Culture and Outcomes
Berson et al. (2008) studied chief executives and their organizations and found that leaders' values related to organizational culture: chief executives who valued self-direction led organizations with innovation-oriented cultures, those who valued security led bureaucratic cultures and those who valued benevolence led supportive cultures. Culture, in turn, related to outcomes such as sales growth and employee satisfaction. The findings support the idea that leaders' values travel into culture and then into results.
Personality, Culture and Performance
O'Reilly et al. (2014) studied chief executives of technology firms and found that leaders' personalities were associated with their firms' cultures, and that culture was associated with financial performance and employee attitudes. Cultures emphasizing adaptability were linked to stronger performance in their sample. The study suggests leaders shape culture, but culture's effects depend on fit with the environment.
Levels of Culture
Schein (1990) argued that culture consists mainly of beliefs a group has come to take for granted because they worked when the group faced earlier problems, beliefs that newcomers then absorb as the right way to think. He distinguished three levels: visible artifacts, such as posters, rituals and dress; espoused values, such as stated principles and strategies; and basic assumptions, the taken-for-granted beliefs that guide behavior. Change at the artifact level without change in assumptions produces little real change.
The Old Assumptions
Interviews at three plants showed the depth of the old culture. Senior glassmakers took pride in solving furnace problems no manual could explain. Safety was treated as sacred. And long-serving employees believed the company would keep them through downturns, as it had in 2009. These are basic assumptions in Schein's sense.
Deployment in Ohio
At the Toledo plant, the oldest, the new values remain at the artifact level. Employees saw customer focus as a headquarters slogan, since they rarely meet customers. Innovation was associated with the new branded line, which they saw as diverting money from furnaces. Accountability was interpreted as a threat, since it arrived alongside cost cuts. Only 22 percent could name two values.
Deployment in Monterrey
At the Monterrey plant, deployment went better: 58 percent could name two values. The plant already supplied appliance makers with demanding delivery schedules, and its manager had long emphasized customer service. The new values matched existing practice, and the manager connected them to daily routines, such as on-time delivery meetings.
Deployment in Poland
At the Gliwice plant in Poland, a newer facility, employees saw the values as American corporate language. The plant manager translated the poster but did not discuss it. Workers valued technical excellence and stable employment; the new values said nothing about either.
The values arrived in every plant on the same day, but they took root only where they described something people were already doing.
What Plant Managers Said
Interviews with the three plant managers revealed different interpretations of their role. The Monterrey manager saw the values as tools for conversations she was already having. The Toledo manager saw them as a corporate initiative that would pass, as others had. The Gliwice manager said he had not been told how the values related to his plant's priorities and did not want to impose American slogans on a Polish workforce. Their interpretations shaped what employees saw.
What Employees Said
Employees described the values in terms of recent experience. In Toledo, a furnace operator said accountability meant someone would be blamed when the old furnace failed. In Monterrey, a quality inspector said customer focus meant finally getting the parts needed to fix packaging defects customers complained about. In Gliwice, a shift leader said the values sounded fine but changed nothing about his work. Employees read values through decisions they could see.
Why Deployment Varied
The variation reflects fit between new values and existing assumptions, along with plant managers' actions. Where values matched existing culture and managers linked them to daily work, they took hold. Where they conflicted with old assumptions or arrived with threatening changes, they stayed at the artifact level.
The Missing Mechanisms
Deployment relied on communication. Other mechanisms, what leaders pay attention to, how they allocate resources, what they reward and whom they promote, have not changed in ways employees can see, except for the shift of capital away from the Ohio furnace, which employees read as a sign that craftsmanship no longer matters.
Recommendation 1: Connect New Values to Valued Traditions
The values should be restated to include safety and craftsmanship alongside customer focus, presenting customer focus as the purpose of craftsmanship rather than its replacement.
Recommendation 2: Show Values in Decisions
Leaders should explain major decisions in terms of the values, including how the furnace rebuild decision serves customers through reliable supply. Approving the furnace rebuild, as Week 1 suggested, would signal that craftsmanship still matters.
Recommendation 3: Equip Plant Managers
Plant managers will hold monthly discussions linking values to real situations, such as a customer complaint or an innovation suggestion from the floor, and will report examples to headquarters.
Recommendation 4: Align Rewards and Recognition
Recognition programs will honor examples of each value, including glassmakers who solve furnace problems that protect customer deliveries.
Recommendation 5: Adapt Language Locally
Plants will express the values in local language and examples developed with employees, while keeping the core meaning consistent.
The Role of Senior Leaders' Visits
When the chief executive visited plants, she spent most of her time with sales and customer teams. Plant employees noticed. Visits that include time on the furnace floor, with questions about safety and craftsmanship, would signal that the new values include them.
Measures
The company will track behavior-based measures, such as customer complaints, improvement suggestions and safety indicators, alongside a culture survey asking whether leaders' decisions reflect the values.
Conclusion
Research shows that leaders' values shape culture and that culture affects results, but culture lives in basic assumptions that posters cannot change. At Maumee Glass, new values took root where they fit existing practice and stayed on the walls where they conflicted with deep assumptions or arrived alongside threatening decisions. Connecting new values to valued traditions, showing them in decisions, equipping plant managers, aligning rewards and adapting language locally can carry them from headquarters to the furnace floor.
References
Berson, Y., Oreg, S., & Dvir, T. (2008). CEO values, organizational culture and firm outcomes. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29(5), 615-633. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.499
O'Reilly, C. A., III, Caldwell, D. F., Chatman, J. A., & Doerr, B. (2014). The promise and problems of organizational culture: CEO personality, culture, and firm performance. Group & Organization Management, 39(6), 595-625. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601114550713
Schein, E. H. (1990). Organizational culture. American Psychologist, 45(2), 109-119. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.45.2.109
What the LDR 731 Week 2 instructions ask
Week 2 of LDR 731 usually asks how top leaders put values in place and spread them through an organization's culture. Expect to discuss the relationship between leaders' values and organizational culture, the levels at which culture exists, mechanisms leaders use to embed values, such as attention, resource allocation, role modeling, rewards and selection, and challenges of deploying values across sites and countries. A strong paper uses empirical research linking leader values to culture and outcomes, examines gaps between espoused values and practices with evidence, considers cultural differences across locations and proposes deployment practices with measures. Doctoral reviewers expect at least one comparison across sites to show how the same values land differently. Use peer-reviewed sources in APA style.
How this LDR 731 Week 2 example is built
Maumee Glass's new values appeared on posters in seven plants within a month, but a survey six months later showed that employees in Ohio and Poland could rarely name them, while the Monterrey plant, which already emphasized customer service, adopted them quickly. The paper examines why deployment varied. Research found that chief executives' values relate to organizational culture, which in turn relates to firm outcomes. A study of chief executive personality found that leaders shape culture and that culture relates to performance and employee attitudes. A classic account of culture distinguishes artifacts, espoused values and basic assumptions. The analysis shows the new values remain at the artifact level in most plants, competing with old assumptions about craftsmanship, and proposes deployment through attention, decisions and rewards.
LDR 731 Week 2 grading rubric: where the points go
Reviewers of values deployment papers look first for a sound theory of how values become culture, then for hard evidence of the gap between words and practice and finally for a deployment plan that changes decisions as well as messages. Comparing sites strengthens the evidence considerably. High-scoring work explains how leaders' values shape culture, uses empirical research on culture and outcomes, distinguishes levels of culture and analyzes actual deployment with surveys, interviews or observation. Graders reward attention to differences across sites and countries and to the tension between new and existing values. Deployment practices should go beyond communication to include decisions, resources and rewards, and measures should track behavior as well as awareness.
LDR 731 Week 2 help: mistakes to avoid
A common weakness is treating values deployment as a communication campaign, with posters, emails and slogans. Research and practice show values take hold through what leaders pay attention to, fund, reward and model. Address those mechanisms. Another frequent gap is ignoring existing culture; new values compete with old assumptions that employees may hold dear. Analyze both. Some papers assume one deployment approach fits all sites, missing cultural differences across countries. Compare sites. Others measure success by whether employees can recite values. Measure behavior and decisions instead. Finally, consider whether some old values deserve to remain, since discarding valued traditions can provoke resistance and lose real strengths.
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LDR 731 Week 2 questions, answered
What does LDR 731 Week 2 usually cover?
It usually covers how senior leaders establish and deploy organizational values and culture, including the link between leader values, culture and outcomes, and mechanisms for embedding values across locations.
Where can I find a free LDR 731 Week 2 sample paper?
A doctoral Week 2 paper tracing new values through seven plants of a composite glass manufacturer is available above.
Do CEO values affect organizational culture?
Research has found that chief executives' values relate to the cultures of their organizations, and that culture in turn relates to outcomes such as employee satisfaction and firm performance.
What are the levels of organizational culture?
A classic model distinguishes visible artifacts, espoused values and strategies and underlying basic assumptions that members take for granted.
How do leaders embed values in an organization?
Through what they pay attention to and measure, how they allocate resources, the behavior they model, what they reward and whom they hire and promote, not only through statements.
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