Background Information
Amazon Organization is based in America. The organization is an electronic commerce and cloud computing company with a resounding background as being one of the first large corporations that operate a business over the internet. It is located in a town called Seattle which is based in Washington. The organization was established in 1994 by Jeff Bezos but later gained popularity when it was launched in 1995. The company went through phases. It initially started as an online bookstore dealing with the sale and shipping of books ordered online. The company advanced in the next years and diversified its business by incorporating a variety of other items such as DVDs, music, video games, electronics, software, apparel and clothing ( "Amazon.com Inc. 2016). The scope of the company gained popularity globally, and this saw the founder, Jeff Bezos, is rewarded with honor by getting featured as the "Person of the Year" in Time Magazines as a result of the organization's success in promoting online shopping. The group is a tech giant internationally because it is one of the largest internet retailers when measured on the aspect of revenue generation and market capitalization and is ranked as the second largest retailer regarding sales after Alibaba. Notably, the organization is the world’s largest seller and distributor of cloud infrastructure services besides low-end products like USB cables which are in the category of its in-house brands.
A team of experts and science scholars came up with an expedient model which is practical to organizational structures that provide comprehensive measures surrounding the ambiguity and complexity features that influence the behavior of organizations (Kezar, 2011). Organizational or corporate structure offer grounds for the establishment of the design and systems of interaction among the staff. Amazon maintains an organizational structure that suits its growing market (Akin & Palmer, 2000). The firm supports an evolving corporate structure that offers it with benefits as it adds more products and diversifies business agenda. Means of attaining better organizational diagnosis, development, and embracing change in charting the success objectives of the firm is the ability to adopt the Four Frame Model of Bolman and Deal. The model provides avenues for understanding the organization’s issues and ways of approaching them in trying to configure the key drivers to change in the organizational undertakings. The model has provisions that synthesize managerial insights and wisdom on leadership.
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Amazon’s organizational structure is set in accordance to Bolman and Deal’s working Modelon four primary features around the structural framework, human resource frame, political frame, and the symbolic frame (McCabe, 2003). The structural frame centers on how the organization charts it functions on the continuum of goals, technological structure, roles and relationships and how all these are coordinated. These factors revolve around the aspect of responsibilities, the division of labor, and the organizational guidelines outlined in monitoring the systems of leadership applied procedures, and hierarchies that coordinate Amazon's diverse activities into a unified effort. This frame is widely applicable in Amazon in global function-based groups, a worldwide chain of command, and its geographic positions now that its operations are going international in establishing new markets. The architecture of Amazon on global function-based groups indicate the most active part of Amazon’s organizational structure due to its dedicated team who work under senior managers. This structural characteristic enables the institution to facilitate successful management operations appertaining to e-commerce within the organization through implementation of work roles, appropriate coordination and integration of individual and group efforts necessary for goal achievement as per the structural frame. On the facet of global hierarchy scheme, structural characteristics are expressed following the vertical lines of command and authority that influence the online retail firm in the global system and this according to Deal and Bolman is aligned on the human resource frame whereby Amazon’s managerial team have improved the sector of human resource management to build a more committed and motivated workforce by involving the entire team in participative management, job enrichment, creating an environment for self-managing workgroups and diversified management. This way, practices, and assumptions often thought of most managers that can lead to alienation and hostility are minimized in Amazon Corporation. The political frame on the other hand views organizations as arenas for individuals and groups to compete and achieve their parochial interests. Political dynamics in decision making is not part of Amazon Inc. because the foundation fights for the common good of its employees and customers globally and not individual views. Amazon only focuses its adaptability on constructive political dynamics which favor diverse values, beliefs, interests, and skills (Cirka& Corrigall, 2010). These features provide the rich context for power sharing and resource distribution. Amazon's effective management allows for proper leadership strategies that guide dissemination of power and influence for shaping the effectiveness of the organization. Here, directives from the top managerial team are applied in all relevant bureaus worldwide thus facilitating the administrative control of the entire Amazon Inc. On geographic divisions, groups are based on Geographic regions with the same business objectives and this offer a means of addressing concerns relevant to each geographic area.
According to Morgan's metaphorical approach on organizations, the central proposition is that management and organizational focus are based on implicit images or metaphors. These underlying factors are aimed at persuading customers to comprehensively view and imagine situations in partial ways on what is termed as insight. Apart from creating an idea, metaphors are bond to distort them due to their strengths; hence no single theory or metaphor offers an all round purpose that is reliable (Maguire, 2003). Amazon, in part, is like a machine. This is based on its every day inputs and outputs. The management has made efficiency the driving force by maximizing production which has seen the organization experience a significant growth margin internationally in the e-commerce market. The machinery put in place has continually assured success for the organization by expanding its business, and this is an indication of the suitability of this organizational structure based on Morgan's metaphoric strategy subject to all agencies which suggest that conventional ideas about organizations and managerial skills are based on a small number of unquestioned images.“Organization as an organism” is also one of Morgan's metaphoric piece which Amazon Inc. has adopted. In this focus, the idea put forth by Morgan is the capacity of an organization to implement concepts on the ability to adapt, life cycles, recycling, needs, survival for the fittest, and evolution. Amazon organization across this array of factors is gradually expanding business worldwide, and the critical agenda is adaptability to changing market trends (Cirka&Corrigall, 2010). Since inception, it has evolved into a multi-billion project having gone through various phases in its life cycle despite inconsistency in the market economy (Jelinek, 2010).
Amazon’s current organizational structure is deemed as hierarchical because it has the senior management team centralized at the headquarters, who are subject to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and report directly to him the essential characteristics of business progression. This structure was implemented because of the rapid growth and the size of the business. Studies on market trends estimated that of all the retail sales conducted online in 2016, 43% of US goods went through Amazon. The hierarchical structural framework, therefore, is the best because, despite the large size of the business, Amazon has been in a position to maintain its high flexibility in adapting to frequent market changes in the outside world. Moreover, the company, unlike many other organizations that exhibit the same hierarchical structure is known to be the leader in transforming the external business environment through its disruptive innovation in e-commerce and is also expected to cause a disruptive change in the international logistics industry soon. Regardless of having the best structure, I would recommend that Amazon merge the hierarchical structure with matrix structure (Stadtländer, 2007). According to the matrix structure, management functions focus on maintaining the organization's graph in the context of competitive advantage level in the global market. This is suitable for Amazon due to its long chain of employees reporting to a centralized system of governance. The matrix practice manages individuals with more than one reporting line hence is appropriate in running a cross-functional or rather a cross-business group like Amazon which has several service delivery where managers from different departments work together with the head office in accomplishing a common goal. The structure is widely known to combine both functional and divisional structures whereby it merges duties performed with the respective department hence accountability is easily reached. A combination of these two structures will make Amazon maintain its status in the global market and overcome market hurdles.
References
Akin, G., & Palmer, I. (2000). Putting metaphors to work for change in organizations. Organizational Dynamics , 28 (3), 67-79.
Amazon.com Inc. Organizational Structure Characteristics (An Analysis) - Padmore Institute. (2016, July 3). Retrieved from http://panmore.com/amazon-com-inc-organizational-structure-characteristics-analysis
Cirka, C. C., & Corrigall, E. A. (2010). Expanding possibilities through metaphor: Breaking biases to improve crisis management. Journal of Management Education , 34 (2), 303-323.
Kezar, A. (2011). Organizational theory. Student services: A handbook for the profession , 5 , 226-241.
McCabe, D. P. (2003). Bolman and Deal's four-frame analysis: a Case study. Research compiled for The Paper Store, Enterprises Inc .
Stadtländer, C. T. H. (2007). Book Review: Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. EJBO-Electronic Journal of Business Ethics and Organization Studies .
Maguire, E. R. (2003). Organizational structure in American police agencies: Context, complexity, and control . Albany: State University of New York Press.
Jelinek, S. (2010). The Impact of Management Practices and Organizational Structure on Firm Performance: A Cross Country Empirical Analysis . München: GRIN Verlag GmbH.
