Change

Affecting Change: Organization Structure and Culture

Racquel S. Chestnut

University of Phoenix

An organizational structure defines how job tasks are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated. There are six key elements that managers need to address when they design their organization’s structure: work specialization, departmentalization, chain of command, span of control, centralization and decentralization, and formalization (Robbins & Judge, 2007).The success of an manager is based on the design of its structure, for it’s the structure that creates the culture of the department. This paper discusses research which was undertaken to find the best leadership style to restructure S & F online.

Smith and Falmouth (S&F) is a small Mail Order Network and Tele-shopping Company that operates in Canada the U.S. Smith & Falmouth's online has an organizational structure that is decentralized. The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Irene Seagraves, at the top of the hierarchy, followed in line by the Chief Operating Officer, and the Project Manager, James William Argyle. James works closely and directly with the Logistics and Marketing managers, Brian Kervor and Adam Searle. Together, these three make up the driving force of authority at S & F Online and have two groups of people to carry out their ideas. The logistics team is made up of three employees and the web development team that has six different employees within it. The company started an e-tailing division named S&F Online, in the hopes of staying competitive in the industry and to add overall financial stability to the parent company. To get the program off to good start, the founder and CEO, Irene Seagraves assembled various teams to help develop a program that would essentially manage the inventory and successfully market the new branch of the company. She is confident that the new teams will be able to accomplish her goals of creating a profitable online division that will complement...