Amazon is a global technology and business leader, a pacesetter to many businesses and companies in the technology industry. The company is majorly known for connecting buyers with sellers and invests in other products and services. What started as a simple online bookstore has expanded to selling a variety of products commonly sold over the internet, such as, furniture, jewelry, electronics, toys, food, and many others. Some of the services offered by the global company include digital streaming, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and cloud computing. According to Bezos (2015), the company is considered one of the most valuable brands in the world. The company is also considered as one of the most significant IT companies in the US along with other leading companies such as Apple, Facebook, and Google. Since its creation in 1994 in Bellevue, Washington by Jeff Bezos, Amazon continues to be the most extensive online marketing business in the world. The company is now based in Seattle, Washington.
Amazon’s ability to produce the richest man in the world for the 3rd year in a row indicates the company’s dominance on the global markets (Forbes, 2020). Facts about the company’s number of subscribers, employee motivation rate, the minimum employee wage, and profit margins place the company as one of the leading global IT companies. Quick facts about Amazon include a $15 minimum wage for employees, a 4-star delivery rating, over 100 million subscribers distributed across all continents, 69% employee motivation, and over $11 billion net income in 2019 (Ward, 2020). The company’s structure plays a big part in its global success and penetration. This paper is an organizational analysis of Amazon with a keen focus on its application of technology, organizational culture, physical structure, power/politics, and organizational identity .
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Technology
Organizational technology can be simply defined as a company’s equipment or developed processes that are used to better any operations involved in the production and any other process up to the delivery of goods and services (Neuby, 2016). Apart from revolutionizing the world, technology also plays a significant role in the expansion of organizations. New and emerging technologies continue to be integrated with businesses changing the way companies operate forever. An example is Amazon Go which uses computer vision and ceiling cameras supported by AI visual recognition technology which makes it possible for customers to shop without going through the check-out line. Amazon is keen on knowing their customer needs so as to know how to satisfy them by meeting their requirements; this is achieved through knowledge-based cyberorganization . Amazon staff also work in technology-enabled environments where they utilize to better the company’s operations and also help them in their roles. An example is box-sizing algorithms as well as the use of Small batch and long batch technology. Amazon also boasts to have developed technology that helps its employees determine the shortest and most efficient route of walking and moving loads in the company. The company has also introduced Amazon robotics in its operations, an indication of the company’s commitment to IT. Amazon contributes to the world becoming a global village with the ease of purchasing and delivery of goods across the world.
Organizational Culture
Organizational culture refers to how a business conducts its operations, shared understanding, beliefs, expectations, norms, and how staff act and think. Amazon’s organizational culture is reflected in the company’s mission, vision, and core values. Its Mission Statement is “Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking” (Bezos, 2015). The company’s vision statement is “Our vision is to be earth's most customer-centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online” (Bezos, 2015). While the company’s core values are customer obsession, ownership, invent and simplify, learn and be curious, hire the best, the highest standards, think big, bias for action, earn trust, and deliver results (Bezos, 2015). The organizational culture developed from the company’s mission, vision, and core-values contributes to the company’s capabilities. Characteristics of this culture are boldness, peculiarity, and customer-centricity. Amazon staff has been trained to be bold and to take risks; here culture has been used as a form of clan control. The company practices customer-centricity by creating a habit of focusing on the customers’ and society’s needs and demands. Amazon’s peculiarity arises from its unconventional ways of business.
Physical Structure
Amazon uses the modernism theory where physical structure influences efficiency and is managed to optimize work performance. The company’s physical structure allows its managers to oversee all the branches located in different continents as well as manage the distribution of goods across the world. Amazon achieves to manage the entire franchise by developing an organizational structure that involves geographic divisions. This structure places groups in specific geographic regions enabling the groups to pursue specific business-related goals. This physical structure also makes conducting the e-commerce business easy in certain regions with peculiar economic conditions or characteristics. The biggest advantage of this physical structure is the ability to address issues from a specific region with the most appropriate solution; maybe solutions which would not fit if applied in a different region. Amazon conducts its operations on two levels; North American operations and international operations. According to the postmodernism theory , physical structures are material expressions of embedded power relations (Jameson, 1984). Indeed, physical structure and power are related. The company is also keen on taking over physical retail markets; this is assisted by Amazon’s physical structure. In this line of business, Amazon focuses on customer convenience, just like in its e-commerce business. The company’s acquisition of the multibillion-dollar company Whole Foods is a demonstration of the company’s intention of dominating physical retail. This development is integrated with postmodernism and technology .
Power and Politics
Network organization , global functions based groups, and hierarchy will be discussed under the organization’s social structure . Power, control, and conflict are related in the sense that control is based on power, and struggles over power and control often result in conflict (Burrell, 2001). Politics and power in Amazon are evident in the company’s functional organizational structure. This structure concentrates on business roles as a guide for determining interactions among members of the Amazon workforce. The structure reveals the function-based groups, the hierarchy, and the geographical division; the latter has already been discussed which also leads to the relationship between power and physical structure. Like in many other companies, function-based groups are the most significant character of the IT giant’s organizational structure. These groups help Amazon in the management of operations of the entire franchise. As the company grows so do the groups grow. Major function groups in Amazon include the office of the CEO, Finance, Legal and Secretariat, Accounts, Amazon Web Service, International Consumer Business, and Business Development (Ward, 2020).
Hierarchy traditions of the Amazon enterprise as well as lines of command and influence follow the function groups from the most powerful to the least in the global functioning system. For instance, a directive by a senior manager functioning on the global level is adopted worldwide in all relevant offices of the company. The global hierarchy plays an important role in the corporate structure of Amazon by making effective global managerial control. Amazon manages them by written rules and formal communication. Amazon has a formal hierarchical authority with Jeff Bezos as the CEO and other managerial employees below him. The total number of worldwide employees under Amazon is 647,000 (Ward, 2020). It manages its staff using the human relations theory and values healthy interpersonal relationships between the staff. There is a positive hierarchical relationship that is not just orders and instructions. Amazon manages them by written rules and formal communication .
Organizational Identity
Organizational identity is the way an organization perceives itself and the way it would like to be perceived. Symbolic-interpretive studies address how organizational identity is created in interaction, for example, as a process of narration of an image, and in continual conversations between organizational members and stakeholders. Organizational identity can also be used as a mode of domination (Brown et al., 2005). Identity is closely associated with organizational culture because just as in organizational culture the company’s mission, vision, and core values contribute to its identity. Boldly venturing into new markets has become of Amazon’s identities. The character is essential in all tech firms where innovations are necessary for survival. Despite showing other characters such as reliability, the domination of markets, convenience, affordability, and customer-centricity that might be embedded in its identity, Amazon has always been on a mission to expand its territories and scope. What started as an online book store grew to sell electronics, furniture, to food. After success in its early stages of expansion, the company got started on web services. The company then moved to hardware with its Kindle e-reader. The company recently got into the video streaming business, social games, mobile advertising, and the production of TV shows. Growth and expansion overshadows all the other aspects of the company’s identity.
Conclusion
With a mixture of sophisticated yet clear organizational structure, Amazon continues to expand aggressively in numerous IT-related markets with outstanding products and services. Its scientific approach to business is evident in the company’s technology, organizational culture, physical structure, power/politics, and organizational identity. Amazon contributes to the world's becoming a global village with the ease of purchasing and delivery of goods across the world and its innovations. Its mission, vision, and core values contribute to its dominant organizational culture and expansive identity. Reliability, the domination of markets, convenience, affordability, and customer-centricity are other characters that might be embedded in its identity. Hierarchy traditions of the Amazon enterprise play an important role in the corporate structure of the company by making effective the global managerial control.
References
Bezos, J. (2015). The Man Who Sells Everything: A Conversation With Jeff Bezos, 94 (1), 2-6. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24483210?seq=1.
Brown, A., Humphreys, M., & Gurney, P. (2005). Narrative, identity and change: A case study of Laskarina Holidays. Journal Of Organizational Change Management .
Burrell, G. (2001). Ephemera: Critical dialogues on organization. http://ephemerajournal.org/contribution/ephemera-critical-dialogues-organization.
Forbes. (2020). Forbes.com. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/stories/money/ten-richest-people-in-the-world-2020/.
Jameson, F. (1984). Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism. New Left Review , (146), 59-92.
Neuby, B. (2016). Organizational Technology, 1-7. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/306262331_Organizational_Technology.
Ward, H. (2020). Amazon: Statistics and Facts . Statista. Retrieved from https://www.statista.com/topics/846/amazon/.
