Culture of Amazon - Essay Example

Culture of Amazon.com Culture of Amazon.com warehouses and strategies of cultural change Introduction Amazon.com is a pioneer in online retailing and offers diverse products such as books, music, automotive parts, scientific suppliers, home appliances and electronics (Amazon.com, 2014). The advancement and increase penetration of internet technologies has enabled the company to expand its market share and open fulfillment centers in various global locations. Amazon.com employs ten thousands of employees across the globe in its offices, customer service centers, fulfillment centers, data centers and software development centers across the world and has its headquarters in Seattle, Washington, United States of America. The current company culture aims at remaining peculiar in order to make Amazon.com the ‘Earth’s most customer centric company’ through hard work, innovation and having fun (Amazon.com, 2014). The culture of Amazon.com warehouses Schein defined culture as a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group and that enable the group to solve its problems in external adaptation and internal integration. According to Schein’s three levels of organisational culture, the culture entails assumptions made by a person about the group and includes the artifacts, espoused beliefs and values and finally the underlying assumptions (Schein, 2010). Artifacts are the tangible and verbally identifiable aspects of the organisational culture and include dress code, slogans, logos, ceremonies, stories of heroes and rituals. Although Jeff Bezos, the founder of the company is considered an inspirational leader worldwide, the employees in their warehouses do not appreciate his contribution towards the expansion of the firm and do not regard him as their hero (Alvesson, 2012). Amazon.com warehouses lack logos, slogans and stories that will inspire the employees to remain committed to their work and most of the stories are based on negative perceptions towards the management and discrimination in the workplace. There are no ceremonies to reward excellent performance and rituals that will motivate the workers towards higher performance (BBC2 Panorama Programme, 2013). The espoused beliefs and values are the stated behavioural rules that are included in company philosophy and public statements. Amazon.com warehouses espoused values and beliefs do not foster higher productivity since employees feel that they are overworked and offer more than they receive from the company (Schein, 2010). The underlying assumptions are the unconscious perceptions, thoughts, feelings and deeper cultural assumptions about human nature, time, appropriate human activity and space (Pareek, 2006). The underlying assumptions are that human beings are supposed to work like machines and working in the warehouse is like being in a psychic prison since workers have no freedom of planning their work or their preferred working hours (BBC2 Panorama Programme, 2013). Gareth Morgan identifies eight organisational metaphors that define the culture of any organisation. According to his theory, the organisation can be viewed as a machine that emphasises on efficiency, inputs and outputs, standardizes production and strict control (Morgan, 2006). Accordingly, the second metaphor that defines organisations is that they are organisms that adapts to external environment and growth while the third metaphor defines organisations as brains that are concerned with information processing, new knowledge generation and business intelligence (Alvesson, 2012). The fourth perspective is the view that organisations are cultures that involve societal values, beliefs, ideologies, shared mission and vision. The fifth perspective is that organisations are political systems that involve authority, conflict management, interests, power structures and hidden agendas (Pareek, 2006). The sixth perspective is that organisations like Amazon.com warehouses are psychic prisons that involve pain, repression and defense mechanisms while the seventh metaphor is that organisations are instruments of domination that involve discrimination, divide and rule, charisma, and imposing of values (Dwivedi, 1995). The last metaphor is that the organisation may be a flux and transformation organisation that embraces constant change and emergent properties. From the careful analysis of Amazon.com warehouse, the best metaphors that can define the organisation machines, psychic prison and instruments of domination since workers are expected to attain standardised output and efficiency for specific hours each day (Pareek, 2006). The warehouses can be defined as psychic prisons since employee concerns are suppressed by the authoritarian leadership while other people can define the warehouse as an instrument of domination since there is labour exploitation and maintenance of power through discrimination (Morgan, 2006). However, the management must ensure that the organisation is viewed as cultures through having a shared vision and mission, ensuring workplace diversity, implementing a work-life balance and having shared values and goals (Flamholtz and Randle, 2011). According to Handy’s culture typology, organisations have four broad ranges of cultures that include power cultures, task cultures, person cultures and role cultures. Power culture is evident when supervisors exercise strict authority and power to delegate while task cultures are evident in organisations that have dynamic teams that engage in innovative problem-solving, task specialisation and close collaboration in order to attain shared goals (Dwivedi, 1995). Person culture is evident in organisations that have no formal hierarchies, formal reporting relationships and employees are concerned about their self rather than shared goals of the company (Pareek, 2006). Role culture is evident whereby there is delegation of roles and responsibilities and employees take accountability and ownership of their work. Amazon.com warehouses has a power culture since only few people make decisions and subordinates (pickers) have not obligation, but strictly follow the instructions of the supervisors. The workers in the warehouses lack the liberty and forum of expression their job-related frustrations and thus why the organisation has experienced numerous workers’ unrests (BBC2 Panorama Programme, 2013). Amazon.com warehouses must change its culture in order to attain high employee motivation and wellbeing and ultimately increase the organisational productivity. Cultural changes will facilitate innovation, cordial relationships and teamwork at the warehouses (Dwivedi, 1995). Strategies for increasing the motivation and wellbeing of warehouses There are various strategies that Amazon.com warehouses can implement in order to ensure a cultural change, and motivated workers that remain committed towards the attainment of organisational vision and mission (Long, 2012). The management must motivate the workers through involving them in decision-making and delegating some authority and responsibility to the workers. In addition, the company must implement training and development programs that enable the workers to acquire additional skills and attitudes that are necessary for high performance (Long, 2012). Accordingly, the company must implement performance targets, performance measurement systems and reward strong performance through intrinsic rewards such as promotions and recognitions in the company (Northouse, 2010). Rituals like routine performance evaluation days and ceremonies for celebration of excellent performance must be implemented and entrenched in the culture of the company in order to inspire high productivity in the warehouses (Alvesson, 2012). The second strategy that that the management can use to ensure cultural change and improve the working relationships in the warehouses is stress management through providing a work-life balance that enables employees to attend to other important family matters and associate their work with fun (Northouse, 2010). The number of working hours must be reasonable and employees must have time-breaks during the day in order to relax. The company should provide health care and counseling facilities at the warehouses in order to deal with work-related accidents and provide counseling services to workers that are facing stressing family issues (Alvesson, 2012). The employees should be encouraged to join assistance programs that will enable them control individual stress through cognitive restructuring and relaxation. The physical set up of the warehouses should reduce work-related stress through having good ventilation systems, proper lighting, and good odor. The company must encourage workers to have healthy lifestyles such as avoiding taking nicotine and engaging in physical exercises in order to minimise stress. The third strategy is ensuring an appropriate leadership style will enable the workers understand and remain committed to a shared organisational vision. The leadership style must ensure efficient communication and feedback and must take in to consideration the concerns and grievances of the workers (Northouse, 2010). The leaders must tell inspirational stories of the founders of the company and include the shared vision in all communications to the workers. The warehouses must have a philosophy and beliefs that aim at ensuring high productivity, teamwork, trust and creativity. In this case, the culture must be aimed at meeting the customer expectations, building cordial relations across the company, insisting on delivering high results and remaining committed to shared company objectives (Sadler, 2003). The last strategy is job enrichment will be useful in breaking work boredom and increasing the skills levels of the workers in the warehouses. The management must ensure job rotation, provide challenging tasks, create job autonomy, increase the level of authority and responsibility and redistribute power within the warehouses (Sims, 2002). In addition, job enlargement is essential since it will ensure workers have meaningful tasks, wide variety of tasks and feedback through open communication. Conclusion Amazon.com warehouses needs to change its organisational culture in order to improve the productivity, manage job-related stress, ensure motivated staff and improve relationships within the warehouses. In this case, the company must implement ritual, ceremonies and stories that inspire high productivity, teamwork, trust and customer focus. The management must also ensure delegate authority and responsibility, redistribute power, provide challenging jobs, implement open communication channels, provide performance feedback and reward excellent performance. Finally, it is essential to provide stress counseling programs and ensure work-life balance. References: Alvesson, Mats. (2012). Understanding organizational culture. New York: Sage Publications. Amazon.com website www.amazon.co.uk. BBC2 Panorama Programme (29/11/13) Amazon: The truth behind the click. Available on BBC iplayer at http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03k5kzp/Panorama Amazon The truth behind the Clikc/ (Last accessed 11/5/14). Dwivedi, R.K. (1995). Organizational culture and performance. New York: M.D Publications. Flamholtz, Eric and Randle, Yvinne. (2011). Corporate culture: the ultimate strategic asset. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Long, Rob. (2012). Motivation. New York: Routledge. Morgan, Gareth. 2006. Images of organization. New York: Sage Publications. Northouse, Peter. (2010). Leadership: theory and practice. New York: Sage Publications. Pareek, Udai. (2006). Organisational culture and climate. Hyderabad: ICFAI University Press. Sadler, Philip. (2003). Leadership. London: Kogan Page Ltd. Schein, Edgar. (2010). Organizational culture and leadership. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Sims, Ronald. (2002). Managing organizational behavior. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Read More

Gareth Morgan identifies eight organisational metaphors that define the culture of any organisation. According to his theory, the organisation can be viewed as a machine that emphasises on efficiency, inputs and outputs, standardizes production and strict control (Morgan, 2006). Accordingly, the second metaphor that defines organisations is that they are organisms that adapts to external environment and growth while the third metaphor defines organisations as brains that are concerned with information processing, new knowledge generation and business intelligence (Alvesson, 2012).

The fourth perspective is the view that organisations are cultures that involve societal values, beliefs, ideologies, shared mission and vision. The fifth perspective is that organisations are political systems that involve authority, conflict management, interests, power structures and hidden agendas (Pareek, 2006). The sixth perspective is that organisations like Amazon.com warehouses are psychic prisons that involve pain, repression and defense mechanisms while the seventh metaphor is that organisations are instruments of domination that involve discrimination, divide and rule, charisma, and imposing of values (Dwivedi, 1995).

The last metaphor is that the organisation may be a flux and transformation organisation that embraces constant change and emergent properties. From the careful analysis of Amazon.com warehouse, the best metaphors that can define the organisation machines, psychic prison and instruments of domination since workers are expected to attain standardised output and efficiency for specific hours each day (Pareek, 2006). The warehouses can be defined as psychic prisons since employee concerns are suppressed by the authoritarian leadership while other people can define the warehouse as an instrument of domination since there is labour exploitation and maintenance of power through discrimination (Morgan, 2006).

However, the management must ensure that the organisation is viewed as cultures through having a shared vision and mission, ensuring workplace diversity, implementing a work-life balance and having shared values and goals (Flamholtz and Randle, 2011). According to Handy’s culture typology, organisations have four broad ranges of cultures that include power cultures, task cultures, person cultures and role cultures. Power culture is evident when supervisors exercise strict authority and power to delegate while task cultures are evident in organisations that have dynamic teams that engage in innovative problem-solving, task specialisation and close collaboration in order to attain shared goals (Dwivedi, 1995).

Person culture is evident in organisations that have no formal hierarchies, formal reporting relationships and employees are concerned about their self rather than shared goals of the company (Pareek, 2006). Role culture is evident whereby there is delegation of roles and responsibilities and employees take accountability and ownership of their work. Amazon.com warehouses has a power culture since only few people make decisions and subordinates (pickers) have not obligation, but strictly follow the instructions of the supervisors.

The workers in the warehouses lack the liberty and forum of expression their job-related frustrations and thus why the organisation has experienced numerous workers’ unrests (BBC2 Panorama Programme, 2013). Amazon.com warehouses must change its culture in order to attain high employee motivation and wellbeing and ultimately increase the organisational productivity. Cultural changes will facilitate innovation, cordial relationships and teamwork at the warehouses (Dwivedi, 1995). Strategies for increasing the motivation and wellbeing of warehouses There are various strategies that Amazon.

com warehouses can implement in order to ensure a cultural change, and motivated workers that remain committed towards the attainment of organisational vision and mission (Long, 2012). The management must motivate the workers through involving them in decision-making and delegating some authority and responsibility to the workers.

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