Management in Action

Instructions
20 POINTS

To: New Consulting Team Member

From: CEO

Re: Organizational Culture and Design

We have a manufacturing client with a very similar situation to W.L. Gore and Associates, from the 8th edition text (page 276-277-open PDF Link below. We have a meeting with our manufacturing client later this week, and I would like you to have a good understanding of what has made W. L. Gore so successful in preparation for our meeting with our manufacturing client. To prepare for this meeting, please review: Management in Action Link below to read the case, W.L. Gore’s Culture Promotes Employee Satisfaction, Innovation and Retention.

Click on the PDF Link Below to Open

WL Gore Case Study

Assignment Directions (complete each step)

Answer the following questions using the textbook material from Chapter 8 or Organizational Culture, use critical thinking skills and write in APA format.
Word count: minimum 600 words (the word count is only the content of your paper, headers, title page, abstracts and references are not part of the minimum word count)
Write as a full academic paper in APA format including APA header with page #’s, Title page, Times New Roman Font 12, double spaced, inline citations and reference page.
1. Decide which one of the 12 ways to embed organizational culture has Gore used to create its current culture and write 1-2 paragraphs discussing this with a heading identifying which one of the 12 ways you chose. Provide examples to support your conclusions.

2. Decide which one of the 3 types of organizational design discussed in the chapter is most similar to Gore’s lattice structured write 1-2 paragraphs discussing this with a heading identifying which one of the 3 types you chose. Provide examples to support your conclusions.

3. Discuss in 1-2 paragraphs whether Gore’s structure more organic or mechanistic. Use a heading to identify this last section of your paper.

Please remember that this assignment is for your researched thought. If you describe an opinion, it should be grounded in citation and reference-based research. The purpose of the assignment is for you to critically examine issues, using research as your foundation for your ideas. Ideas built from research create credibility with the reader. It

ANSWER

Organizational Design

W.L Gore & Associates was established in 1958 by Wilbert and Gore. The company’s success transformed from the basement of their house into the first manufacturing plant. Today the company has over 10 000 employees with a revenue of $3 billion operating across 25 countries (Romppanen, 2021). The company has been profitable over the years and has been ranked among the Fortune 100 best companies since 1998. Gore has embedded its organizational culture through establishing a corporate structure. Bill Gore wanted an organization that was free from bureaucracy, power and authoritative leadership style. He was a firm believer in building an organization with autonomy and flourishing individuals. This philosophy led to the establishment of unique cultural values and organizational structures.

The organizational structure of Gore is considered a team-based lattice organization where there are no chains of command, traditional organization charts, or any predetermined communication channels (Coughlan, 2016). The structure ensures that all the team members considered as associates are responsible to the member of their multidiscipline teams. Gore has focused on engagement, creativity, and innovation without any typical organizational hierarchy. An organization structure offers employees clarity, facilitates expectations in management, offers consistency, and enables better decision-making. For instance, at Gore, associates are accountable for managing their workload and independently committed to supporting the team goals. This has been a norm that has been embraced within the organization culture to facilitate leadership conviction.

According to Kerr (2014), the organizational structure is considered one of the three major factors that influence the ability of an organization to successfully implement its strategies. Additionally, the impact of an organization’s structure on a company’s culture depends on the compatibility between the cultural norms and values. For instance, Gore ensures a high-quality relationship between the vendors, clients, employees, and the surrounding. Associates within the company are encouraged to create and maintain long-term associations through direct communication. They value phone calls and face-to-face meetings rather than texting and email. The company has also established fundamental beliefs that have been embedded in its culture. These entail the influence of small teams, confidence in the individual, all in the similar boat, and a long-term perspective. The lattice organization enhances fast decision-making, collaboration, and diverse perspectives with a focus on the long-term view. Therefore, the organizational structure has been used to embed corporate culture by making the principles and purpose of the organization authentic.

Organizational Design

Organizational design entails designing the ideal structures of responsibility and accountability that an organization relies on to execute its strategies (Burton, Obel, and Håkonsson, 2020). The organizational designs are categorized into three: traditional, horizontal, and designs that open borders in organizations such as virtual, hollow and modular structures. The horizontal design is the most comparable to the Gore lattice organizational structure. The horizontal structure involves the flat design, which is also known as the team-based design. Workgroups and teams, either permanent or temporary, are effective since they boost performance and collaboration on communal tasks by eliminating internal boundaries. For instance, when a manager from varying functional divisions is brought together in cross-functional teams to solve specific problems, the barriers amid the divisions’ breakdown.

Horizontal design allows organizations to focus on the workforce and offer more control on individual teams. This facilitates more direct communication lines between employees and managers since there isn’t an extensive hierarchical reporting system. This is a flat management structure that allows employees to make decisions without managers’ approval. One of the significant similarities between the two designs is enhancing their workforce. This considerable benefit has allowed for engagement, creativity, and innovation to thrive. For instance, the organization has no traditional organizational charts, predetermined communications, or chains of command. Gore has no layers of management; information can be freely moved from all directions while personal communications are the norm. The self-managed teams and individuals get straight to anyone within the company to get whatever they require to be effective and successful.

Organic Structure

An organic organizational structure is defined by a flat reporting structure within an organization where the employee interactions tend to be horizontal rather than vertical management. On the other hand, a mechanic structure is defined by centralized authority, where there are divisions between departments and specific roles that independently work for each other. Companies that rely on mechanic structures operate similarly to bureaucracies with chains of commands in managing operations. Therefore, Gore’s system is more organic than mechanical since it places all employees at equal levels, with interactions and communication being horizontal by nature.

An organic organization can adapt to changes quickly and is characterized by decentralization, low complexity, and low formalization. The team-based lattice organization at Gore has no traditional organization charts, predetermined communication channels, or chains of command (Cannon et al., 2019). The organization is free from bureaucracy and power, which creates an environment where employees flourish. Gore is free from control style of leadership, which brings autonomy, fosters creativity and engagement. Gore has an organic structure since the organization’s management structure is characterized by self-management where the structure has no defined leadership or hierarchy. Their design involves natural leadership, self-commitment, direct transactions, lack of assumed or assigned authorizes.

References

Burton, R. M., Obel, B., & Håkonsson, D. D. (2020). Organizational design. Cambridge University Press.

Cannon, M., Thorpe, J., Emili, S., & Mader, P. (2019). WL Gore & Associates Inc.: Workplace Democracy in a Transnational Corporation.

Coughlan, T. (2016). Structures for Success: How the Structure of Today’s Professional Organizations Are Changing. Journal of Management and Innovation, 2(1).

Harder, J., & Townsend, D. (2017). WL Gore & Associates.

Kerr, J. M. (2014). Reimagine the Organization—The Expressway to the Future. In The Executive Checklist (pp. 189-207). Palgrave Macmillan, New York.

Romppanen, J. M. (2021). Case study: WL Gore & Associates.

References