AT&T Inc. was formally founded as Southwestern Bell Inc. (SBC) 1983 is still maintains its headquarters in Dallas, TX. Currently the company is one of the front line leaders of the telecommunications industry providing a range of services from local and long distance phone services to data and network integration plans to consumers and small business alike (Profile AT&T, 2008). Since its inception the company has established themselves as a global telecommunications provider by acquiring Pacific Telesis Group in 1997, Southern New England Telecommunications in 1998, Ameritech Corp. in 1999 and AT&T Corp in 2005 to create the new brand AT&T Inc. The organization currently employees over 300,000 employees world wide and has been recognized with many industry accolades such as Top 50 World’s Most Admired Companies by Fortune magazine in 2008 (Corporate Profile, 2008).
The acquisition of AT&T Corp. by SBC was finalized on November 18, 2005 (Brander, 2005). According to Brander (2005), the acquisition was beneficial to both companies based on the individual company performance during the past years. As the acquisition was announced one of the primary steps the company took was to reassess its leadership team in order to ensure the success of the newly formed company. During the transition Edward E. Whitacre, Jr. then CEO of AT&T maintained his positioned as the CEO of the new AT&T Inc. while the CEO of SBC David Dorman became the President and a member of the board of directors and then shortly after resigned his post but maintained to be consultant (SBC/AT&T, 2005). Additionally, reporting to Whitacre was nine group presidents and senior vice presidents that lead the transition, legislative and legal matters, human recourses, corporate communications, corporate development and financial activities. This provided the needed span of control that would assist the company in achieving its’ successes (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004). Don Ruiz the CEO of Gene One will need...