XMGT/230
Week 6 Assignment
Organizational Structure

One organization that I am very familiar with as a consumer and as an ex-employee is Walmart. Walmart is one of the largest non-union successful corporations in the United States. Walmart’s organizational structure, organizational function, and organizational design make it a place consumers rely on for a number of things and for a number of reasons. The organizational structure of Walmart is fairly simple for a corporation as large as it is. Walmart’s organizational structure can be defined as a geographic structure, in which divisions are created to support the needs of customers in a particular region, country, or world area. (Jones: Introduction to Business: How Companies Create Value for People) Walmart as we know it here in the United States operates in a number of different countries under numerous names, all the same corporation. Walmart consists of three main business divisions. These include Wlamart United States, Walmart International, and Sam’s Club. These main divisions are the core of its’ organizational structure. From these divisions leadership and management is then regionally developed and divided into regions of each division all the way down to store managers. The headquarters of this nearly billion dollar corporation still lies in the state of Arkansas where it was began, which would make Walmart United States the top division of the three. This organizational structure is for a global, publically shared company that is seemingly only profiting more with time. A smaller company such as a hometown car dealership would operate under a much different organizational structure. Most of them in my area are family owned and operated, which would reflect on the matrix structure more than anything. One head CEO of the small company in my hometown is in charge of the whole thing. They have 3 different dealerships all within about 100 miles of each other, and none of them carry more than 100-150 vehicles at a time. With this small of an organization and a much smaller number of employees the matrix structure works much better than a geographic structure for a global powerhouse like Walmart. Walmart is far too large of an organization with way too many sites in way too many locations to operate under one general CEO and expect it to run smoothly. Power and trust must be moved down the chain of command with everyone on the same page for operations to run as proficiently as needed in order to make a profit. I think marketing is the largest and most important organizational function for an organization such as Walmart. Obviously having stores all over the world let alone all over the country in different areas and different climates means that different areas need to supply people with available products in each store that are fitting to that area. I think however in terms of operations each store is ran in a very similar if not same way however. Everything from setting up for incoming shipping on a Sunday night before they close to chain of command and store functions are all very similar. I think between the market they have for consumers and the size of this kind of company the geographic structure is the only one that would really work well. With thousands of stores in so many places I think you have to have this kind of structure in order to keep a good control over the company and keep everything running smoothly. Obviously they are onto something with the way they operate, it seems like everywhere you go there is a new one or a bigger one and it doesn’t seem like they are going anywhere anytime soon. I think the organizational design kind of decides the organizational structure in this case.

Jones: Introduction to Business: How Companies Create Value for People