Discuss Fundamentals of Management.

Company Structure

Each week, you will be asked to respond to the prompt or prompts in the discussion forum. Your initial post should be 75-150 words in length, and is due on Sunday. By Tuesday, you should respond to two additional posts from your peers.

Organizations are a bit like snowflakes, they are all unique. However, we can group them by some similar characteristics such as how they are structured. This week you explored a variety of organizational structures as well as the benefits and disadvantages of each.

Research the company you selected for your milestone project in Week 1 to determine its structure. Is it functional, conglomerate, divisional, matrix, or hybrid? Provide supporting references in your initial post that are less than two months old that support your assertion as to which type of structure your organization uses. Assess the suitability of their structure. Is it the most appropriate?  Does it work well for them? If not, what structure would you recommend and why?

Review a minimum of two of your classmate’s posts and respond with additional insights, information, questions, or links to more information on the company and structure they shared. Is the structure the same or different than organization? Would their structure work for your organization?  Why or why not? Your responses should be academic in nature and linked to research and management topics discussed this week rather than personal stories of shopping with the company they chose for example.

Steven Wippler Week 3COLLAPSE

After reviewing this week’s course material and researching the Walt Disney Company, I determined that the company utilizes a multidivisional organizational structural.  Chapter 6 of our text this week states that a M-form (for multidivisional) approach, is based on multiple businesses in related areas operating within a larger organizational framework in which design results from a strategy of related diversification. (Griffin, 2019, Ch. 6). Furthermore, the text literally calls out the Walt Disney company verbatim as being multidivisional in paragraph two on page 6-4c (i’ll take the freebee).  To me, this makes perfect sense as Disney is comprised of more than just it’s movies and their theme parks, yet all of its segments are somehow inter-related.  The company is diversified under four related business segments which are: Media Networks, Parks and Resorts, Studio Entertainment, and Consumer Products & Interactive Media (Williams, 2019).  Based on the sheer size of the company and their global footprint, I think this organizational structure works well.  Additionally, the article I found attributes the company’s organization structure to its competitive advantage and strategic growth (Williams, 2019).  Logically, this makes sense.  I thought of it as the release of a movie such as “Toy Story” and corresponding theme park rides/attractions as well as consumer merchandise that come along with it.  I think the Walt Disney Company has found what works for their rather large organization and I believe they won’t have any issues continuing with this organizational structure in the future.

Reference:

Griffin, R. (2019). Fundamentals of Management. Boston, Ma: Cengage Learning Fleming, M.

Williams, A. (February 28, 2019).  Walt Disney Company’s Organizational Structure for Synergistic Diversification. Retrieved from http://panmore.com/walt-disney-company-organizational-structure-synergistic-diversification