Understanding the Work Environment I - Amazon's Organizational Structure, Goals, Values, and Social Identities

This article discusses Amazon's organizational structure, goals, values, and social identities. It explains how Amazon's work environment affects its employees, society, and the organization. The article covers topics such as the type of organization, goals, purposes, values and ethical practices, public policies and legislation, and forms of social identity. The article is relevant for students studying LC565 Understanding the Work Environment I.

LC565
UNDERSTANDING THE
WORK ENVIRONMENT I

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Type of organization ...................................................................................................................3
Goals............................................................................................................................................3
Purposes.......................................................................................................................................4
Values and ethical practice of Amazon ......................................................................................5
Relevant public policy and legislation.........................................................................................6
Forms of social identity...............................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Every organization has a work environment, that refers to the managerial and
organizational structure, employee relations, investors and stakeholders relations, outsider
responses, goals, achievements and purposes of an organization, and how all of this as well as
the working impact the employees, society and the organization. The further discussion provides
brief information about the type, purpose, goals, structures, stakeholders, values and practices,
public policies and legislation and social identities of an organization. Amazon being an
enormous and well reputed company also follows these aspects for growth and sustainability of
their company. The discussion precisely focuses on the company and its type, goals, purposes,
legislative and public policies, its organizational structure and how all of this affects Amazon, its
employees and its customers.
MAIN BODY
Amazon is a technology company, it has its operational presence worldwide, this
company focuses on cloud computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence and digital streaming
(Resca. and Bygstad., 2016). It is one of the most valuable companies in the world.
Type of organization
Amazon is a public limited company. A public limited company refers to a business
organization which is owned by the shareholders and managed by the directors (Ahmed., 2020).
The shares of this kind of company can be freely traded and sold to the people. A PLC is
basically a company that offers the shares of the company to the general people or public. The
people who buy these shares have a limited liability, which means the buyers are not held
responsible for any of the losses incurred by the business that is excess of the money paid by
them for purchasing their own shares.
Goals
Goals or organizational goals refer to the objectives that are strategic that are established
by a company's management to guide the efforts of the employees and also outline the outcomes
that are expected (Kotlar. and et.al., 2018). The major goal that Amazon works on is precisely to
focus on long term objectives and long term growth of the company by becoming the world's
most and biggest customer-centric organization or company. Also its goal is to meet the needs of
every customer with a high quality and superior experience, so that Amazon is part of every
purchase made by the buyer. These goals have a huge impact on the employees of the company,

as they are more motivated and career oriented because of the clear guidance and goal directed
behaviour of the company, which therefore helps the company with more productive and
proficient employees, and hence leads to overall growth. As the goals are revolving around the
needs and wants of the customers, this creates a sense of privilege within them and also the
people are clear about the path of the company which obviously builds trust ad more reliability.
Purposes
The fundamental or main reason for the existence of the organization is the purpose of it.
Basically purpose defines the contribution of an individual or company towards the society
through the work they do (White. and et.al., 2017). The purpose of Amazon is to rise the levels
of the bar of customer experience continuously by the use of technology and internet, so that
consumers are able to find and buy anything and also empower the content creators and
businesses success. Through a clear and precise organizational purpose the company can gain
more customer response and also its environment friendly schemes might help gain better
goodwill for the company, which further attract the most relevant and required employees in the
company, which further will improvise the working and further enhance the market value too. A
purpose driven organization enhances the value of itself as well as the people connected with it,
Organizational structure
A managerial or organizational structure refers to a strategic system that provides an
outline on how various activities are held and directed in order to achieve the goals of the
organization (Ahmady. Mehrpour. and Nikooravesh., 2016). Amazon has a hierarchical
structure of organization. Hierarchical structure is also known as tall organizational structure. In
this structure there are various levels of management to make supervision over the subordinates
important and available in all sectors or areas of the organization. In this each employee is
accountable to the manager appointed over them. The higher or senior management of Amazon
include three senior vice presidents of the company and three CEO's that are precisely
responsible for major aspects of the company and they directly report to the CEO of the
company, that is, Andy Jassy. The hierarchical structure of the company makes the
organizational structure decentralized too, which refers that the company has small, specific and
under control and supervision team. Due to the structure the employees are clear about their job
roles and specializations, the managers are also not solely responsible for everything, delegation
of tasks makes working much easier and efficient. The structure also helps the customers or

outsiders as the job roles are clear and not overlapped the people are not confused about the
required person or employee at the required time. All of this in turn increases the employee
relations and employee trust within the organization and hence result in high productivity from
employees.
Stakeholders
Stakeholders can be defined as groups, organizations or individuals that are directly
involved with the organization, and are indirectly impacted. The key stakeholders of Amazon are
employees, directors, owners, customers, investors etc.
Values and ethical practice of Amazon
Values and ethical practices refers to those practices within an organization that helps
them in guiding their course of action and guide the behaviour of the employees within an
enterprise (Crane. and et.al., 2019). Each and every organization has a set of rules which guides
their course of action within the organization and guides the operations of a company in order to
ensure the brand image and productivity of the enterprise. The values and ethical practices
followed by the Amazon within their organization are as follows:
Honesty
The Amazon makes sure that it follows the ethical practice of honesty within their
organization. They ensure honesty within their enterprise in a number of ways such as providing
the products to the customers with detailed and informed packaging which includes specific
information with respect to a particular product. The company makes sure that the customers are
receiving fresh food products which states the exact manufacturing and expiry date at the
packaging of the product. In this way, the management of the Amazon makes sure that the
company is following honesty within their organization as well as among the customers.
Quality
The Amazon company makes sure that the products they are selling to their customers are
premium quality products. They make sure that the customers receive the quality for which they
are paying to the company. Therefore, it follows various quality assurance and quality check
practices within their enterprise in order to assure that the product they are selling has efficient
quality and the consumers are satisfied with the same.
Trust

Amazon believes in forming and maintaining a relationship of trust with its employees
within the company as well as with the customers. Therefore, the organization tries to provide its
employees with what they deserve. They observe and recognize the efforts of the employees
within the enterprise and rewards them on the basis of their efforts within the organizational
success. This helps the company in motivating the employees towards working hard for the
betterment of the company and help the organization in enhancing the productivity and results
for the organization. This in turn, will help the in enhancing the customer satisfaction and
increasing the engagement of the customers towards the organization.
Teamwork
Amazon also believes in the ethical concept of team work. The management of the
company understands the value of collaborating the efforts of different employees within the
organization which in turn helps the company in enhancing their performance and productivity
within the company. The Amazon makes sure that the employees realize the value of working
within the teams, this is so, because, when the employees within a business organization works
together, the employees learn from the mistakes of their colleagues and also helps them in
enhancing their own performance with the help of the comments and feedbacks received from
their colleagues within the organization.
Diversity
It has been identified that Amazon believes in the concept of promoting diversity within
their organization. it has been noted that the company believes that when people from different
backgrounds, cultures,
Relevant public policy and legislation
Public policy basically refers to a precise system of regulatory measures, laws, courses of
particular actions, and funding of concerning priorities (Pülzl. and Treib., 2017). It is a collection
or combination of actions, laws, policies, regulations as well as various factors concerned with a
particular given topic. The major role played by these policies is to make sure that the society is
leading towards a good and better life, and the maintenance of the significance of the products
and services.
The policies followed by Amazon
Amazon follows a bunch of different policies mainly to build trust among the people, and
increase its market base, then it also follows policies that empower its employees and mainly it

mentions policies that are for resellers, wholesale sellers, private label sellers, an agency, first
party sellers, brand owners and retail and online arbitrage sellers. Every business should know
what the business can or can not do in accordance of the services they provide. First of all, each
of the policies of Amazon are lawful and are published by keeping in mind about the different
sectors of society it deals with.
1. Security and maintenance of information- Amazon is company that is spread around the
world amongst people of different class, ethnicities, cultures, etc. As it deals with an
enormous number of people, it obviously has personal or financial information of these
people, as being a part of this organization one has to provide such information to the
company as well as for payment options, return options, etc. Not only the customers but
also the sellers or resellers that are connected with the company need to provide this
information, as well as the employees too need to provide personal details in regards to
their salary generation and job registration (Bloodstein., 2019). Amazon has policies that
are abided by law for keeping the information of people connected with it safe, secure
and private, this enhances the trust of customers, employees and businesses towards the
company. Also customers shop more confidently and businesses tend to be more
authentic and reliable.
2. Correct representation- A company can not grow in all sectors of society, dealing in B2B
and B2C products and services without proper and clear representation of its working and
final accounts, as well as its growth rate and business dynamics to the sectors that require
this kind of information that are connected with the company (Percy., 2018). For
instance if an individual wants to purchase a product from Amazon he or she must be
clear about the necessary details required before the purchase, such as the guarantee,
warrantee, return policy, etc. provided by the seller. Similarly, if an agency wants to sell
products on Amazon they should precisely work according to the code of conduct of the
company and Amazon is specific about the regulations it follows. This is one of the major
policies followed by Amazon to present appropriate, clear and essential data of or about
the company to the people, so that customers, employees, sellers and shareholders are
able to take actions accordingly.

Forms of social identity
Social identity groups usually are defined through some social, mental and physical
characteristics within individuals. Some examples of social identity groups can be, gender,
disabilities, ethnicities, religions, etc. (Charness. and Chen., 2020). Further, in the discussion two
of these groups will be referred to precisely in regard to the company Amazon. The two social
identity groups are namely, ethnicity and gender.
Ethnicity
Ethnicity refers to the cultural factors, like ancestry, language, regional culture, and
nationality. For example, Spanish or German ancestry (Ali., 2020). There are people from
different ethnicities connected to Amazon in different ways, like , the company has its
operational activities spread throughout the world which means the employees working in the
company are obviously people from differentiated ethnicities that follow diversified cultures and
values, Not only the employees but also the customers of Amazon are spread around the world.
Hence, a big company such as Amazon has no discrimination against any ethnicities, The motive
of the company is to capture the consumers from all over the world regardless of their different
values, beliefs, cultures and religions. The company performs its functions in different countries
and also enhances the businesses of small vendors or suppliers of different countries through
becoming the middleman between the vendors and customers, which can be anyone from the
world regardless of their originalities. Through this Amazon makes a huge impact on society,
and mainly towards the ethnicities that are discriminated in other sectors of life. Also, due to this
the company can enhance its market more and more and provide the best service to every
customer and become more authentic, reliable, trusted and accepted by the people, which will
further support its development.
Gender
Gender refers to the sex of the person, if the person is male or a female. The respect given
to each gender should be indiscriminating (Oakley., 2016). A company like Amazon that has a
huge market base and deals in products for all genders, age groups and sizes. Gender
discrimination is a huge thing in the society, the employment of males over females, the
inequality in payrolls and respecting both genders unequally. Amazon is a huge benchmark for
the practices that give equal representation and respect to the females working within the
company by providing equivalent salaries, job respect, encouragement and responsibilities, then

for the female consumers also Amazon has a wide rage of products which is also same in the
case of male customers. As Amazon provides B2B as well as B2C services, it not only deals with
male and female customers but also with female as well as male vendors and suppliers, this
enhances the confidence within the females to work remotely and earn their own income, as well
as portray their talent in the market which is spread throughout each and every nation and region
of the world. Through practising gender equality Amazon sets an example for other companies
and people in general too, to follow the same, and be equal and respectful towards everyone
regardless of their gender.
CONCLUSION
The above discussion briefly puts shade on the various sectors of a business environment.
It precisely describes the organization type of Amazon, which is a Public limited company, then
the purposes and goals that the organization in particular works on and how those goals and
purposes impact the organization, its employees and the society are described above. Further the
structure of the company Amazon is explained, Amazon follows the hierarchical structure of an
organization. The values and ethical practices and the public and legislative policies that are
relevant and followed by Amazon are mentioned above. And lastly, the discussion refers to the
meaning of social identities and how Amazon deals with the different forms of social identities,
from which ethnicity and gender are made precise.

REFERENCES
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