Holacracy and Zappos Organizational Structure

This assignment examines Zappos' unique adoption of a Holacratic organizational structure. It delves into how this system empowers employees, decentralizes decision-making, and impacts the company's overall operations. The analysis considers both the benefits and potential challenges of this approach, including its influence on innovation, risk management, and employee training.

Running head: MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Management and Organizations in Global Environment
Student Name
University name
Author Name

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Taylorism and Ford
Introduction
1. Taylorism is mainly focused on maximizing the organizational profit by controlling the
labor force. The Taylorist practice treats money as the primary concern and everything
else as secondary (Nyland, Bruce and Burns 2014). That is the primary reason that it has
been losing its relevance today’s world. Most organizations in the developed world have
abandoned the practice of Taylorism in their business. The workers in contemporary
Australia, America or Europe do not engage with original Taylorist practice. This means
Taylorism is not rejected totally by all the organizations, it still exists but in a different
form. Most companies implement the Taylorist strategies in combination with other
effective business strategies (Waring 2006). However the original method of money
centric method is not applicable in many cases. The charity organizations do not engage
in Taylorist practice. However sometimes Australian or American companies apply
Taylorism in their work force. If in the previous year the organization performed poorly
or the current labor force are not producing as per the requirement then this method can
be useful.
2. The Call Centre business is an area where the Taylorism is stile applied successfully. The
idea of Taylorism is based upon constant monitoring and controlling the labor force in
order to increase the productivity. In this method the labors are almost mechanized and

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
creativity or freedom is not much appreciated by the employers. In the Indian Call Centre
business the use of Taylorism can be a good example (Sinha and Gabriel 2016). There the
leadership controls the employees through constant monitoring and decides what exactly
they will be doing.
3. In countries like Dubai, India or China the leadership of the organization has to manage
large number of labors. The time and motion management of the Taylorist scientific
management is applied in few organizations there. Like McDonalds operate under the
Taylorist method in such countries where large number of customers are served in a very
short time (Babajana and Webber 2015)

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Reference
Babajana, Z. and Webber, A., 2015. Organisational Behaviour.
Nyland, C., Bruce, K. and Burns, P., 2014. Taylorism, the international labour organization, and
the genesis and diffusion of codetermination. Organization Studies, 35(8), pp.1149-1169.
Sinha, S. and Gabriel, Y., 2016. 5 Call Centre Work: Taylorism with a Facelift. Re-Tayloring
Management: Scientific Management a Century On, p.87.
Waring, S.P., 2016. Taylorism transformed: Scientific management theory since 1945. UNC
Press Books.

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Activity 2
1. Many organizations ignore to treat the organizational structure as important as the
organizational strategies. The structure of the organization is not only the infrastructure
or the hierarchical structure it includes the employees as well. Yves Morieux explains
that in an effective organization the strategies and the structure follow each other
(Morieux and Tollman 2014). Strategies and structure both are equally important for
improved organizational performance. However dealing with the strategies often proves
to be challenging for the management. If the management fails to manage the structure
well the implemented strategies will fail as well. Morieux suggests that there should not
be many layers between the top management and the operation level; otherwise the
management will fail to understand the competitive opportunities (YouTube 2017). The
employee advantages can create great opportunities for organizational advantage
(Goetsch and Davis 2014). The management’s responsibility is not just the designing of
the plan but implementing them effectively is more important. It should be implemented
in such a way that it neither compromises with quality nor with the employee wellbeing.
Therefore, just as Morieux concluded, in any productive organizational strategies and
structure work collaboratively.

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Reference
Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014. Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper
Saddle River, NJ: pearson.
Morieux, Y. and Tollman, P., 2014. Six simple rules: how to manage complexity without getting
complicated. Harvard Business Review Press.
YouTube. (2017). Organization Design: BCG's Yves Morieux on organization and competitive
advantage. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm7d1dzOKmw [Accessed
25 Aug. 2017].

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Halocracy
1. Halocracy is a process of managing a responsible company where every people
associated with the company are empowered (Holacracy.org 2017). In this practice the
roles are not based on the people rather the work defines the roles. The whole structure
works in small self sufficient groups. All the employees are bound by the same set of
rules and it does not exclude the CEO of the company as well. In a traditional
bureaucratic system each role is defined for a specific person and he is entitled for a
particular job, but here one people serves several role and vice versa. In the other system
the leaders or the top managements makes all the important decisions, but here locally all
the decisions are made. The authoritative power is distributed and not at all concentrated
on a single person unlike the traditional one. In a traditional team based organizations the
roles are defined for the teams but here the work is defined by the self sufficient group or
individual.
2. There are few contingency factors that can affect the organizational structure of Zappo.
The CEO of Zappo Tony Hseieh has relinquished the power and encouraged the
employees to form decentralized self sufficient teams (Vox 2014). The management
believed that the centralization of power within the organizational culture was resisting
the innovation and improvement. Zappo is almost 17 years old (Zappos.com 2017).
Company works in a smooth environment where future market expansion in shoe, cloth
or hand bag is there. The company has been using market’s latest technologies. A lot of

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
other companies look up to Zappo as an ideal organizational model. The company has
always been adaptive as it adapted digital technologies very early. Zappo operates with
1500 employees so it can categorize as a medium size company (Pontefract 2015). The
company needs assistance from another firm for managing the smaller teams as it is not
possible for the CEO to handle them individually. Also for the employees the new
strategies related to Halocracy may appear to be challenging for the employees.
3. The innovation and experimentation may cause risk and uncertainty but if it’s effective
then it may prove to be hugely profitable for the company. The management would hire
new talented employees who have enough knowledge in modern technologies. The
existing employees must go through the training of new technologies. The employees
must be rewarded through increased wages or incentives. Such practices within the
organizational culture will enhance the productivity.

MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS IN A GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Reference
Holacracy. (2017). How It Works. [online] Available at: https://www.holacracy.org/how-it-
works/ [Accessed 24 Aug. 2017].
Pontefract, D. (2015). Forbes Welcome. [online] Forbes.com. Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danpontefract/2015/05/11/what-is-happening-at-zappos/
#4afc31a74ed8 [Accessed 24 Aug. 2017].
Vox. (2014). Zappos just abolished bosses. Here's why.. [online] Available at:
https://www.vox.com/2014/7/11/5876235/silicon-valleys-latest-management-craze-holacracy-
explained [Accessed 24 Aug. 2017].
Zappos.com. (2017). About Zappos | Zappos.com. [online] Available at:
http://www.zappos.com/c/about-zappos [Accessed 24 Aug. 2017].