Affecting Change

Smith & Falmouth has run business for mail order and tele-shopping in the Canada and U.S. In order to streamline the online operation and increase profits by reaching online sales routs, the CEO of S&F hires Chief Operating Officer. New personnel should restructure the department and change the current organizational culture in order to accomplish the company’s goal. The paper will identify and analyze the current organizational culture and structure and recommend the method for controlling and managing the existing factors that affect organizational structure and culture such as size, informal network, communication flow, power and politics.

Organizational structure

Duncan (1979) stated, “Organization structure is more than boxes on an chart; it is a pattern of interactions and coordination that links the technology, tasks, and human components of the organization to ensure that organization accomplishes it purpose” (p.59). According to organization chart, S&F’s formal structure is classified as a functional structure which is consisted of four levels, CEO, COO, logistics manager-marketing manager-project manager, logistic team and web development team. Functional structure allows organization to be able to have a centralized decision making and provide coherent the guideline and direction from the top management. However, functional structure can have limited flexibility, communication and information flow. In addition, functional structure can cause little understandings about different department employees because each employee works separately based on job specialty. Interaction among people to solve the problem is not necessary. Therefore, functional structure can create barriers to cooperation and communication. As S&F showed, each department tends to focus on his or her own outcomes rather than overall organization’s outcomes. The lack of consideration for cooperation with other departments can lead little efforts for coordination to accomplish overall...