In what ways can an organization’s structure and culture be internal strengths or weaknesses Essay

Every organization has a corporate structure and culture these vary based on several variables. I will discuss the most common which is a divisional structure, which is appropriate for a large corporation as well. According to our text regardless of the size of a company to be strong the basic structure within the company must easily support a strategy under consideration by top management. Management in turn must decide whether the proposed strategy is feasible or if the structure should be changed to reflect the company’s mission. Basically a company must clearly define their mission, objectives, strategies and end goal. To be successful the company must in turn structure management, divisions, and employees in a strategic way in order to gain a successful outcome. Unsuccessful companies that I have been a part of tend to have a strategic structure in place, but the weakness comes in as soon as they quit following the plan or deviate from the structure. From my experience a structure is as successful as the culture within the company. The internal values, beliefs and expectations if clearly shared and followed by all employees will directly affect the success of a company. According to our text in order to be successful a corporate culture will fulfill these functions: 1.Convey a sense of identity for employees.  2.Help generate employee commitment to something greater than themselves. 3.Adds to stability of the organization as a social system. 4.Serves as a frame of reference for employees to use to make sense of organizational activities and to use as a guide for appropriate behavior. When a company does not fulfill these functions you will find weakness as well as unhappy employees, which in my opinion can be one of the greatest weaknesses any company can have. The key to success is to follow the strategies and fulfill a corporation’s mission thus meeting their objectives. I have been a part of very successful company’s as well as some that have been unsuccessful. I have found that the easiest way to weaken a structure is when management does not listen to or value their employees input. Other areas of weakness are when management doesn’t honor their word or the company goals. An achilles heal for any company is a weak inefficient human resources department. When the HR team hires ineffective and unreliable managers they must immediately jump in and begin to train or assist that manager in following the company’s strategic plan, or let go of that manager after a time. Otherwise the employees of that department will negatively affect the culture so fast and it is incredibly difficult and lengthy to rebuild that culture. Not only do you loose valuable employees, but disgruntled employees begin to speak negatively about the company to family, friends, and social media. This causes any company time and money to repair their culture within and outside of the company, hence great weakness arises.