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BUS 475 Wk 1 – Practice: Strategic Leadership
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Strategic Leadership: Formulating Strategy Across Levels
W.L. Gore & Associates is organized in an informal and decentralized manner: It has no formal job titles, job descriptions, chains of command, formal communication channels, written rules or standard operating procedures. Face-to-face communication is preferred over e-mail. There is no organizational chart. In what is called a lattice or boundaryless organizational form, everyone is empowered and encouraged to speak to anyone else in the organization. People who work at Gore are called associates rather than employees, indicating professional expertise and status. Gore associates organize themselves in project-based teams that are led by sponsors, not bosses. Associates invite other team members based on their expertise and interests in a more or less ad hoc fashion. Peer control in these multidisciplinary teams further enhances associate productivity. Group members evaluate each other’s performance annually, and these evaluations determine each associate’s level of compensation. Moreover, all associates at W.L. Gore are also shareholders of the company, and thus are part owners sharing in profits and losses.
Gore’s freewheeling and informal culture has been linked to greater employee satisfaction and retention, higher personal initiative and creativity, and innovation at the firm level. Although W.L. Gore’s organizational structure may look like something you might find in a small, high-tech startup, the company has 10,000 employees and over $3 billion in revenues, making Gore one of the largest privately held companies in the United States. W.L. Gore is consistently ranked in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list, and has been included in every edition of that prestigious ranking.21
The above case study from your textbook readings indicates one particular type of corporate structure. Using this case study and the supplemental readings in your textbook please answer the questions below regarding the structure and culture of a company.
What structure is one of the most common types because it separates the specialized knowledge of each functional area through horizontal differentiation and can direct that knowledge toward the firm’s key products or services?
Multiple Choice
- Division
- Customer
- Functional
- Product
In a firm, what determines who reports to whom?
Multiple Choice
boundary spanner
line of authority
value network
span of control
In the above case study it states, “W.L. Gore & Associates… is organized in an informal and decentralized manner: It has no formal job titles, job descriptions, chains of command, formal communication channels, written rules or standard operating procedures.” If you were to “organize” the company using a standard hierarchy, how would you classify each position below? Match each answer to its corresponding responsibility.
- Senior management
- Associates
- Frontline manager
- Scientist
- President
A matrix structure ___________.
Multiple Choice
- reinforces unity of command
- is expensive
- is easy to explain to employees
- gives some employees two bosses
- yields a minimum of organizational politics
What is defined as, “the concern for proper communication enabling the units to understand one another’s activities.”
Multiple Choice
- control
- coordination
- specialization
- departmentation
- division of labor
How do organizations define their purpose?
Multiple Choice
- mission statements
- formalization
- mean-ends chains
- Action plan
Which departmentation structure groups individuals by skill, knowledge, and action yields?
Multiple Choice
- Divisional departmentation
- Functional departmentation
- Hybrid departmentation
- Matrix departmentation
Managers must ensure that their firms obey all relevant laws, including labor, consumer, and environmental regulations. This is a firm’s __________ responsibility.
Multiple Choice
- legal
- ethical
- economic
- social
- stakeholder strategy
A company’s strategic vision describes what?
Multiple Choice
- “who we are and what we do.”
- why the company does certain things in trying to please its customers
- management’s storyline of how it intends to make a profit with the chosen strategy
- management’s aspirations for the future and delineates the company’s strategic course and long-term direction
- what future actions the enterprise will likely undertake to outmaneuver rivals and achieve a sustainable competitive advantage