Sustainable Organizational Design Assignment 2022

RUNNING HEAD: SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN 0
SUSTAINABLE
ORGANIZATIONAL
DESIGN
WOOLWORTHS SUPERMARKET

SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN 1
Contingency is considered the event as well as circumstances that can be occurs in future, it is
one of the circumstances that might causes troubles as well as problems in the organization. The
Insurers support their rates of premium as well as their willingness to understand the risks
partially on the possibility, so that the contingencies will not be occurred (Anderson, 2018). The
implications of contingency management style lead positive results in the organization. It helps
the organization in providing solutions in the particular circumstances as well as enhances the
managerial quality. In this essay, the example of Woolworths is taken as well as distinctive
features and internal environment of the company is discussed. In this, the implications of
contingency theory are analyzed by focusing on structural as well as contextual dimensions. The
affects of these in inside as well as outside the organization is also discussed with the example of
Woolworths Supermarkets.
Woolworths Supermarkets is an Australian supermarket/grocery store chain, which was founded
in the year 1924. Woolworths mostly specializes in selling groceries but also sells
magazines, DVDs, health & beauty products. Woolworths currently operates about 1000 stores
across Australia. The company is in the Retail industry and headquarter of Woolworths
Supermarket is in Australia. In the year 2017, the revenue earned by the company was A$55.669
billion (Pulker et al., 2018). The distinctive features of the company, includes that it has more
than 115000 employees in the department of operational. The company provides customer
services efficiently because of skilled and competent employees in all the departments (Paull &
Hennig, 2018). The company also uses distinctive strategies of marketing that is it provides
petrol pump discounts, offers like 50% weekly offer as well as other gift cards. The internal
environment of the company are decentralized, the company use 360-degree performance
appraisal method and provide other benefits like 5% discounts to the employees etc. Further, the
implications of contingency theory for managers as well as structural and contextual dimensions
are discussed (Pulker et al., 2018).
The Contingency theories are broad and demonstrate that the efficiency of guidance as well as
leading the employees is depending on the situation. It is based on the factors, which includes
tasks nature, personality of the leader's, cultural, environment as well as the behavior of the
group to whom the leader is leading. The manager evaluates as well as understands the situation
and makes the decisions accordingly. The structural dimension includes the formalization,

SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN 2
specialization, chain of command as well as centralization (Worren, 2018). In this essay, the two
structural dimensions are taken which includes hierarchy of authority as well as centralization &
decentralization.
The hierarchy of authority defines the power structure of the organization. The degree of
authority rises with the each individual, which is on the higher level in the hierarchy. The overall
power is in the hands of the person, who is in the top level in the hierarchy. It mainly explains
which person reports to whom as well as the amount of control for every manager. The vertical
lines on the organizational chart represent the hierarchy of the organization (Anderson, 2018). In
Woolworths, the numbers of the workers reporting to the supervisor are wide, so, the chain of
command is shorter. The changes in the hierarchy of authority in Woolworths shows the positive
results, the authority is mainly in the hands of the Chief executive officer of the company; he is
in the top-level hierarchy and manages the other employees of the organization (Matanga, 2018).
The chief financial officer, human resource department, department of marketing has to report to
the chief executive director of Woolworths. This helps the company to work with coordination as
well as clear lines of communication are structured for all the employees in Woolworths.
Through this, the employees of the company are motivated and work efficiently; this is because
the revenue of the company in the year 2017 was A$55.669 billion (Vidler et al., 2018). This
change affects the suppliers of Woolworths because now suppliers also has to follow the
hierarchal authority while supplying raw material, for this the in the 2019, the percentage of
supplier reduced and due to inadequate supply Woolworths is shutting 30 stores of Big W in
Australia (Sayar & Tokdemir, 2019).

SUSTAINABLE ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN 3
Source: (Paull & Hennig, 2018)
The Centralization is considered the level of hierarchy, which has the power to make the
judgment. If the decision-making authority is with the top-level management than the
corporations are centralized, but if in the organization delegation of the authority is done to the
other levels of the organization like middle as well as lower level, then the corporation is said to
be decentralized. The examples of the decisions, which makes in the organization that may be
centralized as well as decentralized it include purchasing of the organizational equipment,
formulating the goals and objective, selecting the suppliers, hiring of workers as well as while
deciding territories for marketing (Worren, 2018). In the year, 2017, due to change in
Woolworths regarding the hierarchy level of authority, the structure as well as power of authority
also changes and company adopted the decentralized hierarchical level. In Woolworths the
authority is delegated among the employees, which includes that in the year 2017, the new