Essay Example on Equal Partners: Decentralized Organizational Structure for Maximum Involvement

Introduction

The company culture in which founders and employees are considered as equal partners inspires maximum involvement of all employees and founders of the company. A good engagement of employees ensures that all decisions made in the company are critically evaluated by all employees to win everyone’s commitment to the decision (Watson et al., 2018).

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Organizational structure

The company has a decentralized organizational structure, whereby most company decisions are made by lower-level managers and middle-level managers rather than by top-level managers as in the case of centralized structure. A decentralized structure affects the company’s decision-making in the following ways. It involves all employees to evaluate and compliment all decisions made in the company so that they can commit fully to them. A decentralized structure enhances effective supervision and control. Decision-making is fast and effective because they are inspired by workers who are directly involved in doing company tasks (Watson et al., 2018). Therefore, it is easy and convenient to generate tactical decisions in the shortest time possible as compared with the decision-making process in centralized structures. The involvement of employees in a company’s decision-making process improves their morale and boosts their willingness to work towards achieving the company goal.

Mission and vision statements (as they affect the strategic direction)

The mission of the company directs its decisions to only those strategies that are innovative and customer-driven. The key emphasis of the company is on innovation and satisfying customer needs. The company’s vision is built on sustainability. Therefore, decisions made in the company must be sustainable.

A2.

The company’s culture is that all members, both founders, and employees, are equal partners. The culture favors hard work and commitment to the company’s goal because all people work as a team and expect to achieve the goal together rather than as an individual (Watson et al., 2018).

Based on the competing values framework, the company possesses a collaborative clan culture. The dominant leadership style in this company can be described as a facilitator, mentor, and team builder. The company’s core values include commitment, effective communication, and development. Therefore, human development and high commitment produce effectiveness.

A3.

The decentralized organizational structure of this company is an advantage to its growth and development because of the following reasons. First, decentralization enhances quick and effective decisions because it involves input from all members of the organization. As usual, all people cannot go wrong (Nilsson et al., 2016). The engagement of all employees, thus, adds quality to every decision that the company makes. Second, the decentralized structure improves the morale of employees because they feel part of the organizational achievement (Nilsson et al., 2016). Third, the decentralized structure enhances effective supervision and control because all employees are aware of the direction of the company, and they are determined to drive it that way (Cooper, 2016). In addition, a decentralized structure develops managerial personnel by nurturing organizational control, direction, and leadership.

B1.

The following are the specific characteristics of the emerging market that affect the product.

• Fishing and aquaculture are primary industries in the coastal regions of India.
• India’s laws and regulations on the use of non-mechanized boats favor the importation of foldable boats that are easily portable.
• The business climate in the Indian market is open for new partnerships to boost fishing for those who preserve the natural ecosystem with non-motorized boats.

B2.

The traditional fishers use non-mechanized boats, which would be ideal for the company’s foldable boats entry into the market.

The company’s boats are suitable in this market environment because of their sustainable design and net-zero environmental impact. The National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB) has offered to endorse the company’s boats if they are made of plastics used in India, the improvement to the existing boats will reinforce compliance to laws and regulations as well as satisfy market needs for local fishermen (Watson et al., 2018).

The company will partner with local investors and employ Indian workers to enable it to access the market as planned. The plan also involves purchasing or building a boat manufacturing facility in India.

B2a.

The following steps will be necessary to design improvement to the foldable boats using used plastics with environmental-friendly waterproof coating.

1. Creation of idea. Involves developing an improvement idea for designing foldable boats with a competitive advantage over what other competitors make (Valaei, 2017).

2. Screening ideas. Involves narrowing down to one specific superior idea of the product that will be more competent in the market than what competitors offer (Cooper, 2016).

3. Developing the concept and testing. Developing and testing concepts involves crafting a detailed version of the product idea based on the customers’ perspectives (Valaei, 2017).

4. Developing business and marketing strategy. The company will make decisions on how to enhance effective advertising, branding, and marketing of the product in the local market.

5. Developing the product. The stage involves developing the actual product and testing it with targeted customers to ascertain suitability (Cooper, 2016).

6. Commercialization. The product is launched in the market.

B2b.

Company culture.

The inclusive work by members of the company will enable them to overcome challenges during each step of developing the product through commitment and teamwork (Cooper, 2016).

Company ethics.

The ethics of the company will guide their decisions through product development steps to ensure sustainability for customers and the environment.Organizational structure. The company’s decentralized structure will enhance quick and effective decision-making as they go through the product development process to ensure everything goes on as planned (Watson et al., 2018).

B3.

The company’s ethical statement provides the surety that the strategy that the company will adopt will be sustainable to both customers and the environment. For example, the folded boats will be made of used plastics to help clean India’s landfill. The boats will be non-mechanized to preserve the natural ecosystem. In addition, the boats will be portable to ensure convenient transportation from home to the water.

References

Cooper, R. G. (2016). Agile–Stage-Gate Hybrids: The Next Stage for Product Development Blending Agile and Stage-Gate methods can provide flexibility, speed, and improved communication in new-product development. Research-Technology Management, 59(1), 21-29. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08956308.2016.1117317

Nilsson, M., Griggs, D., & Visbeck, M. (2016). Policy: map the interactions between Sustainable Development Goals. Nature, 534(7607), 320-322. https://www.nature.com/news/policy-map-the-interactions-between-sustainable-development-goals-1.20075

Valaei, N. (2017). Organizational structure, sense-making activities, and SMEs’ competitiveness. VINE Journal of Information and Knowledge Management Systems. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/VJIKMS-04-2016-0015/full/html

Watson IV, G. F., Weaven, S., Perkins, H., Sardana, D., & Palmatier, R. W. (2018). International market entry strategies: Relational, digital, and hybrid approaches. Journal of International Marketing, 26(1), 30-60. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1509/jim.17.0034