The Kerr-McGee Corporation, founded in 1929, was an energy company involved in the exploration and production of oil and gas. On June 23, 2006, Houston-based Anadarko Petroleum Corporation agreed to acquire Kerr-McGee in an all-cash transaction totaling $16.5 billion plus the assumption of $2.6 billion in debt. Kerr-McGee shareholders voted to approve the offer on August 10, 2006 and Kerr-McGee ceased to exist as an independent entity. As a result of the takeover, all operations (with the exception of Tronox which was spun off as a separate company in 2005) moved out of Oklahoma.

CEO

Stan McCarthy

Chairman of the Board

Denis Buckley
Director

Noel Greene
Director

Denis Wallis
Director

Donal O'Donoghue
Director

Gerard O'Hanlon
Director

Denis Carroll

Director

Michael Sullivan

Director

Michael Fleming

Director

John Twomey

Director

Michael Dowling

Director

Kevin Kelly
Kerry Foods

FH
Secretary

BD
CFO

Brian Mehigan
Kerry Americas

GB

Role

Each position in a group structure has associated with it a role, which is the set of behaviors expected of the occupant of the position. The boss is expected to do certain things that are not expected of the custodian. The reverse is also true. Roles have three aspects. The expected role is what is expected of a person in a particular position. The perceived role is the set of behaviors the occupant of the position believes he should engage in. The enacted role is the set of behaviors the occupant actually carries out.

The role a person chooses to enact is, at least in part, a function of the impression he wants to make on other people. Roles exert important influences on the perceptions and evaluations of individuals made by other group members. Because role expectations specify the kinds of behaviors the occupant is expected to display, roles often bias perceptions about the role occupant. For example, students generally expect their professors to be smart and may assume that an English professor who makes a statement about the United States economy is right, even though economics is not his field of expertise.

Individuals occupy different roles in different groups. In most instances, the behaviors specified by these roles are not, incompatible as long as different roles are not salient at the same time. Thus, for example, military officers are often seen in church even though they belong to an organization that specifically teaches people to kill. Under some circumstances, however, an individual with different roles in different groups is called on to enact incompatible roles simultaneously. This frequently happens to working mothers, who are expected to be at work while they need to care for a sick child. When this happens, the person will resolve the conflict by enacting the role required by the group that is most important to her.

Group structure has important implications for managers, who, like Tom West, are often in a position to structure new groups to do various things. West essentially structured the Eclipse Group based on the skills needed to accomplish each of its two primary tasks. A manager would do well to think about what he wants his group to accomplish and then analyze what structure will facilitate achieving those goals. Perhaps he wants to reduce (or increase) the possibility that structuring will take place on the basis of power. Perhaps he wishes to maximize differences on a particular dimension, such as knowledge. Managers must be sensitive to the effect status has on group members and to how information about status helps us understand what is expected of us in any situation and what is expected of other people.
 
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