HRES1101: Organizational Effectiveness and Workplace

Title: HRES1101: Organizational Effectiveness and Workplace Culture
Organization name: Wal-Mart Inc.
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Open system perspective.................................................................................................................3
Learning Perspective.......................................................................................................................4
Stakeholder relationship Perspective...............................................................................................5
Work culture....................................................................................................................................6
Recommendations............................................................................................................................8
Stakeholder relationship perspective...........................................................................................8
Learning perspective....................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
Organizational effectiveness is key criteria to evaluate organizational behavior within
organization. It includes various perspectives that coordinate with internal and external system to
ensure high organizational performance and long run sustainability through learning and
development. This paper includes organizational effectiveness analysis on Wal-Mart in relation
to four perspectives and then its cultural analysis. Second part includes recommendations to
improve effectiveness. Wal-Mart is a renowned global retailer. It is a US based company started
in the year 1969 [CITATION wal11 \l 1033 ]. It entered Canadian market in the year1994,
headquartered at Ontario. It has almost 1170 stores with strong online presence [CITATION Wal08 \
l 1033 ].
Open system perspective
According to open system perspective, an organization is influenced by external environment for
its resources and impacts it through its output and there is a close internal system that can exists
without depending on external environment, this internal system is responsible for transforming
input into output [ CITATION Mil04 \l 1033 ]. To successfully managing open perspective
organizations need to continuously monitor their environment and establish synergy with the
same. Company runs through a centralized information system through common platform that
helps in sharing information with easily. As company follows a centralized or similar approach
in all its store operation, it helps in easy employee transferability and cost efficiency. However,
to fit with external environment need, Wal-Mart decentralized its decision making as local
market and merchants can best understand and meet local needs.
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Wal-Mart needs to continuously interact with its suppliers, customers, society and government to
serve them better. To understand external environment better continuous feedback is being
exchanged through customer, store, and employee and supplier feedback system. In 2015, there
were lot of negative feedback regarding Wal-Mart store on social media which leads to fall in its
profitability and stock fell by thirty percent [ CITATION For07 \l 1033 ]. Then company launched a
customer incentive based in store surveys to rank their store, and it was updated by store
managers and responsible for implementing quick changes. It helped in revamping brand image
by the end of same financial year. There is also presence of in store 360 degree employee
feedback system that helps in performance enhancement. Wal-Mart has also learnt its lesson that
to remain sustainable and effective, feedback and change implementation is crucial.
Learning Perspective
Traditional organizational approach focused more on physical resources and good processing;
however with development most important input is knowledge management. Learning
perspective aims toward analyzing organizational ability to acquire, store and use knowledge. It
involves analysis of intellectual’s capital that includes human capital, knowledge captured within
system and customer derived values and its processing.
Wal-Mart has strong structural capital, its home grown technological system helped in
tremendous business development, everyday low price and effective supply chain management.
It is a pioneer in bar code scanning, massive data warehouse management that help in analyzing
sales information. Retail-link is software used for data sharing and accumulation between
company and its suppliers. Company focus on innovation and building new technologies rather
than buying, it helps in successful alignment between strategic requirements and end solutions.
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