Ch 7 Critical Thinking - Shyra Early

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Business

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Apr 3, 2024

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Shyra Early BUS 101 - Spring 2024 Chapter 7 Critical Thinking Case Given the lack of formal structure, how important do you think Gore’s informal structure becomes? Since Gore lacks formal structure, his informal structure becomes very important. The business provides various products with no bosses, titles, departments, or formal job descriptions. Normally, being CEO of a company is a huge deal. With my mom’s company, Cindy Monroe is treated as a celebrity, but with W.L. Gore & Associates, it was no big deal when Terri Kelly was named the company’s new CEO. After 12 years of doing it, she comes out and says that it’s not the CEO that makes the company but the associates and their relationships with each other, which is what an informal structure is all about. Because of the lack of managerial hierarchy of the company, associates come together to create committees that are responsible for major decisions such as hiring, firing, and compensation, and all employees are required to contribute to the more minor decision making. All this goes to show how important the informal structure of Gore’s business is in order to make this company successful because without everyone helping out and coming together, it would fail. Is W. L. Gore a mechanistic or an organic organization? Support your answer with examples from the case. W.L. Gore would definitely fall under the category of an organic organization. The definition of an organic organization is a business with a low degree of job specialization, rigid departmentalization, few levels of management, wide spans of control, decentralized decision

making, and a short chain of command. There are lots of examples from the text that support W.L Gore being organic. For example, it says that Terri Kelly was named CEO with “little fanfare” and that top management treat their associates as peers, which goes to show there’s a very short chain of command and few levels of management. Another example of this is when the reading talks about how there’s no formal line of authority so everyone has the ability to talk to whomever they want. The committees they create for major decisions and the fact they expect all employees to make minor decisions are examples of wide spans of control and decentralized decision making. How do you think Gore’s flat organizational structure affects innovation at the company? I think Gore’s flat organizational structure affects innovation at the company because every single employee has the opportunity and responsibility to contribute their ideas and thoughts to the company, which means multiple people are working together to create new ways for the company to grow and new products to work on. It also helps because the structure of the company has created 3 billion dollars in revenue that goes toward thousands of new and advanced technology for the electronics, industrial, fabrics, and medical markets which helps to foster innovation, increase associate satisfaction, and it also allows the company to continue growing and expanding.

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Ch 7 Critical Thinking - Shyra Early

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