Essay Example on Amazon: World's Second-Largest Company, $900 Billion Revenue

Amazon is easily recognizable as one of the largest E-commerce companies in the world. The company began as a bookstore in 1994 and later grew to become the second-largest company in the world. By 2018, the company revenue stood at $900 billion, depicting the organization's humongous size (Tritt & Teschner, 2019). The company's immense success is attributed to two key factors: its unique business model and efficient management of employees. Currently, Amazon has more than 224000 employees worldwide who come from diverse cultural backgrounds (Tritt & Teschner, 2019). This paper examines how Amazon incorporates diversity into its corporate strategy and how these policies, in turn, contribute to the success of the institution.

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One way Amazon has embraced diversity in its affairs is through the adoption of the “two-pizza” rule that has made its workforce sensitive, especially the concept of prejudice and discrimination. Since its inception, the company has always abandoned the short-term benefits for long-term profitability. Pluralism is one of the ways that the company has chosen as a strategy to attain its organizational success. Amazon management insists that teams should be as small as possible that two pieces of pizza can be used to feed the entire team (Tritt & Teschner, 2019). Jeff Bezos implemented this organizational structure to ensure that all employees, regardless of their cultural backgrounds, indulge in the company's affairs. The policy to segment employees into small groups also aims to eliminate the stereotype threat, monoculture, and ethnocentrism by allowing members to be highly sensitive to the diverse cultures within the teams. In other words, when employees are few in a group, they have more time and opportunity to learn about the cultures of others and better understand them (Tritt & Teschner, 2019).

Secondly, Amazon's diversity policies include that employees should be trained to become culturally competent in the workplace. The organization aims to minimize stereotypes by training its employees to have admirable personalities and capabilities. Amazon has always focused on creating a fair working environment for all its workers (Tritt & Teschner, 2019). Jeff Bezos has been on the frontline to ensure that every employee is treated equally with dignity and respect. Through the training programs, the organization ensures that each employee is spiritually and culturally indulged in shaping the future direction. As a result, Amazon employees have been able to perform to the best of their abilities explaining why the company has been highly successful. Their profound understanding of one another has also fostered inter-employee collaborations, which is reflected in the employees’ dedication towards Amazon's success (Tritt & Teschner, 2019).

Conclusion

Overall, Amazon has specific strategies to overcome stereotype threat, discrimination, and ethnocentrism in its workforce. The company segments its workforce into small groups to make it highly sensitive to the diverse cultural practices using the two-pizza rule. The policy of incorporating small groups ensures that the employees learn about another and embrace their differences at work. Amazon also trains its workers to be culturally competent, embrace pluralism, and avoid monoculture. Besides, the company believes that all employees should be treated fairly and equally and that no culture is essential than the other. The diversity practices and policies have contributed to the company's immense success as the employees can work without having to worry about being discriminated against.

References

Tritt, L., & Teschner, R. S. (2019). Amazon Delivers Diversity: Geographical & Social Influences on Corporate Embeddedness. Berkeley Bus. LJ, 16, 1.