BA Leadership and Management: Amazon's Workplace Culture Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Amazon's workplace culture, focusing on leadership and management skills. It begins with an executive summary and introduction, followed by an environmental analysis using PESTLE and SWOT frameworks to assess external factors and internal strengths and weaknesses. The report then delves into Amazon's organizational structure, described as hierarchical, and analyzes its culture using the Cultural Web, Deal and Kennedy, and Handy's organizational cultural models. Furthermore, it examines the company's ethical stance, including corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and business ethics, as well as how individuals can align with the company's cultural norms. The report compares Amazon's culture with another organization, offering recommendations for enhancing workplace culture, and concludes with an action plan. The report aims to provide a detailed understanding of Amazon's organizational dynamics and offer insights for improvement.

Running Head: LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT
2019
student name
3/26/2019
BA LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT SKILLS FOR THE WORKPLACE

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT 1
Executive summary
The critical analysis of workplace culture will be included in report for which environmental
analysis would be conducted using various tools and for this Amazon case would be considered
in the report. Amazon is one of the leading e-commerce companies that is serving customers all
the consumer and electronics good at a click to their doorstep. The amazon culture’s three major
aspects include customer centricity, boldness, and peculiarity. The company’s culture can be
analyzed using various cultural tools like cultural web, deal and Kennedy, and Handy’s
organizational cultural model.
Amazon has conducted various programs as per its corporate social responsibility and
sustainability report. Amazon along with another company that is Procter and Gamble has taken
an initiative regarding the packaging. Moreover, another initiative by the company included “the
big picture.” Major recommendations to the company to improve the organizational culture
included transparency, better environment for employees, and flexibility in work culture

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT 2
Contents
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................1
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Environmental analysis....................................................................................................................3
Pestle analysis..............................................................................................................................3
SWOT analysis............................................................................................................................5
Strengths..................................................................................................................................5
Weakness.................................................................................................................................6
Opportunities...........................................................................................................................6
Threats.....................................................................................................................................7
Organizational structure...................................................................................................................7
Organizational culture analysis........................................................................................................8
Cultural web.................................................................................................................................8
Deal and Kennedy......................................................................................................................10
Handy’s organizational cultural model......................................................................................11
Organization’s ethical stance.........................................................................................................11
CSR................................................................................................................................................11
Business Ethics..............................................................................................................................12
Ways to fit in cultural norms.........................................................................................................13
Comparative culture with other organization................................................................................14
Recommendations..........................................................................................................................15
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................17
References......................................................................................................................................18

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT 3
Introduction
Leadership is the crucial aspect of an organization for which various skills are required to
manage an organization. For this purpose, the thorough understanding of the workplace culture is
essential (Stahl & Tung, 2015). The report will include an understanding of workplace culture
for which environmental analysis would be conduct using various tools. For a critical analysis of
the study, Amazon case would be considered in the report further.
Amazon is one of the leading e-commerce companies that is serving customers all the consumer
and electronics good at a click to their doorstep. The company has not only focused on the
products that the company is offering but the service quality has also been considered. Moreover,
it acts as the largest platform for retailers to trade their products online (aboutamazon., 2018).
Environmental analysis
Pestle analysis
For understanding and analyzing the external environment of Amazon, PESTLE analysis
includes the following factors:
1. Political factors
Amazon is a global company and has high political threat to the company as every nation
has different political aspect and norms. For instance, in the UK the impact of Brexit is
one of the threats to the company as the effect of leaving the EU could be responsible for
Brexit inflation (Stahl & Tung, 2015).
2. Economic factors

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These factors are positively related to business success or failure, in case of positive
economy reflects business success for Amazon and vice versa. As per today’s scenario in
most of the developed and developing nation, the disposable income seems to enhance
which reflect an increase in purchasing power in households and people prefer to spend
money in luxury and entertainment products and service that is beneficial for Amazon
business.
3. Social factors
Culture plays a vital role in the business, as the product serving in a particular country
must be as per the nation’s culture. Amazon is offering almost all the goods asked by the
customer. The threat considering this factor would be some researchers believe that
online shopping is responsible for the increase in obesity rates in the nation (Petersen,
2015).
4. Technological factors
In online business, technology plays a vital role in technology adaption by individuals in
the nation. For instance, developed nations like the United Kingdom would be looking
forwards for advanced technology and the level of adaption would be high.
5. Legal factors
This is another threat to the company that could be responsible for the profit earning of
the company. The reason being these factors include corporate taxes that are different for
all the nations in which the company is trading goods. The higher corporate tax of the
nation would decrease the profit margin for the company. Moreover, the laws and
regulation are to be abided by the company for all the nations. For instance the company

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is not currently facing any legal issues in the UK like Starbucks or Google (Cabral &
Mathiason, 2015).
6. Environmental factors
This factor includes various consequences on the sustainability of the environment due to
human activities. In some regions, water scarcity is the major issue whereas income issue
the carbon emission is the issue for which the company has to take respective action to
preserve the environment (Holt, 1998).
SWOT analysis
Strengths Weakness
 Strong worldwide network
 Customer service
 Brand image
 Quality focused
 The range of goods and services
 Decrease in margins
 Increase in competition
 Failure of some products
Opportunities Threats
 Physical outlets
 Diversification
 Acquisitions
 Technological up gradation
 Price competition
 Online security
Strengths
• Strong worldwide network – The network with the sellers around the globe is strong for
Amazon that makes its business more effective worldwide.

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• Customer service – The company’s one of the USP is the level of services provided by
the company while focusing the customer needs and wants.
• Brand image – The brand image and brand trust among the people are one of the
company’s strengths responsible for earning revenue to the company.
• Quality focused – The Company has focused over the quality to a greater extent, which
has increased the customer loyalty and trust by the customers and eventually increases in
customer retention.
• The range of goods and services – The Company is offering the largest range of goods
and service to the customers. The ease of finding goods by the customers enhance the company’s
effectiveness (Bao & Xia, 2015).
Weakness
• Decrease in profit margins – As the company is offering various discounts due to the
increase in competition has decreased the margin of profits for the company.
• Increase in competition – The completion has been increasing to a larger extent due to an
increase in online companies like flip cart, aliexpress, and eBay due to which the customers are
decreasing for Amazon.
• Failure of some products – for example Kindle has lost the effectiveness in the market
(Hunt & Bicen, 2017).
Opportunities
• Physical outlets
• Diversification – Service diversification like food delivery service

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• Acquisitions – The Company can acquire its competitors to enhance the market share of
the company.
Threats
• Technological up gradation – Technology is changing rapidly that means the company
need to upgrade it regularly
• Price competition – The threat of price competition is increased
• Online security – Security is one of the major threats in online business (Amabile &
Rigolizzo, 2015).
Organizational structure
Figure 1: (Source: (aboutamazon., 2018)

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The organizational structure of the company can be reflected as “hierarchical.” There are several
segments in the structure like human resource, information technology and legal operations,
where all the heads of the segment are liable to report to the CEO of the company that is Jeff
Bezos. The hierarchical structure has been developed for the company due to the large business
size of Amazon (Collins & Benard, 2018).
Organizational culture analysis
The amazon culture three major aspects include customer centricity, boldness, and peculiarity.
The company’s culture can be analyzed using various cultural tools like
Cultural web
Figure 2: (Source: (Collins & Benard, 2018)
This model consists of six elements of culture to assess the culture of a company by strategy.
 Stories – This includes the past people opinion about the events within and outside the
organization. Considering Amazon of being the first mover for the online shopping
experience has resulted in the reason for its success and customer trust and loyalty.

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 Symbols – The Company’s visual presentation acts as a symbol for the company like
logos or staff dress code. For Amazon the brand name of the company is one of its
biggest symbols that are responsible for binding several systems’ components together.
 Rituals and routine – This element reflects the daily activities and behaviors of people
that determine the expected happing among the organization in a particular situation. The
Work culture for daily routine would be aggressive. The employees have been motivated
and pushing forward to gain the best productivity out of an employee within (Ghaderi,
2016).
 Organizational structure – As already discuss the hierarchical structure of the company is
due to the large business operations of the company across the globe that result into
manageable work around the globe through various segments and all the segment head
approaching CEO of the company for the final reporting.
 Control systems – This segment reflects the way the business is controlled. For Amazon
this includes product verification, quality assurance, and delivery partner’s coordination.
The controlling could be the emergent strategy of the company, as the company believes
that the environment is dynamic and the company could have to change the strategy at
any time.
 Power structures – This reflects the real power of the organization this could be the top
executive of the company. In the case of Amazon the CEO of the company was
responsible for innovation culture among the organization who has attempted the
transformational change (Morris, 2018).

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Deal and Kennedy
Figure 3: (Source: (Kaur & Ma, 2015)
Among the four cultural types as per this model, the grid at which Amazon cultural strategy fits
into would be the Tough Guy, Macho. As per the company culture the company is taking a
higher risk every day and are also encouraging the employees to be innovative with the process
and take the risk in the organization to enhance the productivity and better service to the
customer as the coampnyu7 is more customer-centric. Moreover, the feedback speed is very high
for the company, the customer can provide immediate feedback to the applied strategy or as soon
as they receive the service or the products to their doorstep (Kolk, 2016). The options for the
customer for the feedbacks are many like the customer can rate the delivery person service
separately and the products feedback separately on the product page. Moreover, the company can
interact with the company and provide feedback through any social media platform. This has
been effective for the company to enhance customer satisfaction and take immediate action in

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case of dissatisfaction among the customer from the delivery system or process or product from
any retailer on amazon platform (Hill, 2015).
Handy’s organizational cultural model
As per this model, four types of culture are identified that are the power culture, role culture, task
culture, and person culture (Kaur & Ma, 2015). Considering the Amazon culture as per this
model, the cultural type for the company would be the power culture. This type of culture is
reflected in the way as a spider sits in the center of the web and all the element in the
organization is connected to the center around which all the people and department work. The
organizational structure of the company reflect the cultural type as the power culture of Amazon,
as all the departments, segments ,and employees of the organization work around and are
reporting to a centralized individual that is CEO of the company (Petersen & Kumar, 2015).
Organization’s ethical stance
CSR
Amazon has been initiated in various programs as per its corporate social responsibility and
sustainability report. The company has considers various stakeholders while conducting business
(Huckin & Berkenkotter, 2016). The major stakeholders for which the company works would be
customers, employees, business partners, investors, shareholder, and environment. Amazon
along with another company that is Procter and Gamble has taken an initiative regarding the
packaging. This includes the use of a cardboard box for tide and other products instead of plastic
packaging. This included converting an iconic bottle to a completely new transformation that the
customers have not experienced before. This was part of the innovation purpose for the company