The company's "clearly dysfunctional" top-down management style is a major source of tension on the show, notes Chicago-based writer Ramsin Canon. Corporate headquarters rejects the television commercial Michael created, as he in turn insisted on his own ideas for the commercial.The Office: See Spot Not Run Entertainment Weekly, retrieved July 16, 2008"Local Ad", Season 4, Episode 9 Ryan Howard (B. J. Novak), who began as a temp, becomes Michael's new boss because he has an M.B.A. despite never having sold any paper or paper products. The show's depiction of a dysfunctional corporate culture has led some commentators to liken Dunder Mifflin to the software maker Initech in Mike Judge's cult comedy Office Space and the nameless company in which the Dilbert comic strip is set.
