Essay Sample on W.L. Gore & Associates: Pioneering Fluoropolymer Technology For Industries

Introduction

W.L. Gore & Associates Inc. is a highly-technological corporation that specializes in developing and manufacturing fluoropolymer products that are used in medical, clothing, automotive, aerospace, electronics, and chemical sector. It operates in the subsequent segments: Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia. The Americas segment constitutes the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Brazil. The Europe segment involves the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, Poland, Russia, Italy, France, and Germany. The Asia segment entails China, India, Hongkong, Taiwan, Japan, Turkey, and Korea. The Australian segment constitutes Australia only. Its products include Wilbert Lee Gore, and his wife Genevieve Walton Gore are the founders of the company. The headquarters of the company is Newark, United States (Daft et al., 2010).

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Structural Dimensions

W. L. Gore and Associates, Inc. is characterized by an unconventional structure that lacks organizational structure. Other than the president and secretary, the other workers are awarded a similar title and authority as an associate. The corporation has a horizontal style form of hierarchy that enables natural leadership to direct the leaders of the project. The project leaders discover the project that invokes passion. The latter liaise with the other associates to carry out further research. This form of structure results in a decentralized process of making decisions whereby they are met at a lower level to get rid of unnecessary bureaucracy and red flag (Daft et al., 2010). However, it has not fallen short of some constraints on their decentralized decision-making process and that whether any decisions are taken into account underwater or have the likelihood to sink the organization, they ought to be approved by the corporation. The associates carry out everyday decisions regarding operations. Bill Gore has labelled the structure of the corporation as a lattice organization. The company structure is identified by the specific characteristics associated with it.

The Key Contingency Factors

Managers having the obligation for organization design explore the contingency factors that impact the organizational design and ultimately to design a structure that fit these aspects. There are key factors that are encountered by the W. L. Gore Company. First, environment impacts the making of decisions in W.L. Gore Corporation. A very informal work environment characterizes the latter after getting rid of the traditional managerial role. W.L. Gore has developed a system regarded as the 'unmanagement.' The firm strives to empower its workers by offering independence to pursue their passion and creativity. The corporation has altered the managerial to the leadership role. It has acknowledged many leadership types to provide leadership to an individual who has developed a passion for a project. This leads to innovation and change because W.L. Gore is often advocating for further research and development to maintain the pressure of delivering the best technology. Second, the competitive strategy that is sourced from culture, first-mover advantage, and vision affects W.L. Gore Company. The organizational structure is formulated to attain objectives by adopting these strategies. Whenever the strategy changes, the structures are bound to change. Third, the size of the company is another contingency factor that affects a corporation. W.L. Gore has over 10, 000 workers and generates $3 billion in yearly revenues. Fourth, the age of the organization highlights a contingency factor that affects W.L. Gore Company. The corporation is currently celebrating sixty-two years of existence since its inception in 1958 (Daft et al., 2010). The company is positioned in the maturity phase, where it integrates the standardized systems, rules, and procedures.

Benefits and Challenges to W.L. Gore of Its Organizational Design

The organizational design of W.L. Gore is beneficial. It allows clearer workplace communication in the workplace. The workers have a better understanding of their obligations and can easily get clarified as required. The lattice organizational structure improves the morale of the workers because they are not given pressure. The organizational design of W.L. Gore faces the challenge of talent management, appraising and motivating workers, forming compensation and reward structures, and implementing policy. The lattice organizational structure lacks the potential to form the compensation structures and the level of expertise. Compensation and bonuses are bound to lose their significance with a lattice structure. W.L. Gore acknowledges that there is a difficulty in launching compensation parameters when he articulates it is unrealistic for individuals to launch their salaries. W. L. Gore faces the challenge of enforcing the policy. W.L. Gore replaces the leaders and managers with mentors and sponsors. The informal guides shift their attention to an individual whose role is fascinating and someone with like personality traits. The informal nature of these forms of relationships precludes the enforcement of the policy. In a lattice organizational structure, every individual is responsible for himself (Daft et al., 2010). The policies that shape a traditional workplace are loosely formed and challenging to enforce in a lattice structure, developing a potentially chaotic working setting.

Change of Organizational Design

W.L. Gore is attempting to produce many products more expenses effectively. Price is a crucial aspect of the buying decisions of consumers. I would change the organizational design of the corporations because of various reasons (Daft et al., 2010). Moving into new products is an internal factor affecting organizational change. The main motive for restructuring is to perform a new strategy. A strategy establishes a plan that evaluates how W.L. Gore will use its key resources to satisfy strategic goals.

References

Daft, R. L., Murphy, J., & Willmott, H. (2010). Organization theory and design. Cengage learning EMEA.