Virgin Group Summary

The Virgin Group: Executive Summary

The Virgin Group is one of Britain’s largest business empires. The heterogeneous Britishcorporation founded by Sir Richard Branson has infiltrated into vastly diverse industries wherebyunconventional business tactics are utilized to cross borders into new industries. Though the Virgin Grouphas retained an undeniable mystique, little empirical research has been done to obtain a perceptive analysison the empire. Since the approach in which an organization manages itself is imperative to its success, it isimportant to look outside the box to assess the effectiveness of Virgin’s management operations. This paper examines the organizational culture that is synchronous with the Virgin brand, as well as the structuralcharacteristics that have allowed Virgin to successfully operate in many industries. The company’sfundamental values foster many of the dimensions of culture, which are highly internalized within theorganization. The success and coordination attributed by Virgin’s culture is greatly influenced by RichardBranson, the founder of the Virgin Group. Branson realizes the potential and importance of those who work for him. Consequently, he creates a structure, which is decentralized, through empowering his employeesand providing them with autonomy. The Virgin Group is a company with little bureaucracy, as Bransonoften encourages employees to use their intuition to make decisions rather than a rational process. However,the lack of formalization within the company may deem to be a weak aspect of the organizational structure,since the lack of formal rules, regulations and procedures may create ambiguous situations for the company.Because of the company’s corporate culture and structure, Virgin has effectively forecasted possibleoccurrences and has dealt with them in a timely manner.

The Virgin Group: Company Information

The Virgin Group is one of Britain’s most noteworthy empires in the 21

st century. The company hassuccessfully...