Apple Inc.: Structure, Culture, Leadership, HR & Change Analysis

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Apple Inc.'s organizational structure, culture, leadership, and organizational behavior. It examines Apple's decentralized structure, product-based grouping, and the impact of Steve Jobs' and Tim Cook's leadership styles. The report also explores Apple's culture using Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory, evaluating power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, and indulgence. Furthermore, it analyzes Apple's HR strategies in relation to change management, emphasizing the importance of adapting to internal and external environmental changes. The report concludes by highlighting key aspects of Apple's organizational practices and their implications for success.

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Personal and Business Transformation Assignment (PDP)
Report
6/17/2018
Student Name

1 | P a g e Personal and Business Transformation Assignment (PDP)
Contents
Introduction...........................................................................................................................................2
About Apple Inc....................................................................................................................................3
Organizational Structure....................................................................................................................3
Features of the Apple Structure.....................................................................................................4
Culture...............................................................................................................................................5
Hofstede Cultural dimension theory..............................................................................................6
Leadership.........................................................................................................................................8
Organisational behaviour...................................................................................................................9
Evaluation of Apple Inc. and HR strategies.........................................................................................11
Evaluation of Apple.........................................................................................................................11
HR strategies...................................................................................................................................12
Conclusion...........................................................................................................................................15
References...........................................................................................................................................17

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Introduction
Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology-based company. The company is
developing, designing and sells the consumer electronics, online services and software. The
company is producing hardware such as smartphones, iPod tablet computer, Apple
smartwatches, Apple TV digital media player, iPod media player etc. The company was
found in the year in April 1976. Apple considered is to be the world largest data technology
company by profits and the world second largest mobile phone producer aster the Samsung.
The organization has to have the good customer base which is waiting for the innovative and
creative model develops by employees. The company has around 123000 full-time employees
and are able to maintain more than 500 retail stores in 22 countries (Hotelling, 2010). All this
can be done with the help of the organizational structure, culture and behaviour followed in
the organisation. Leadership given by the Tim Cook is giving the back to back success in the
market.
In the year 2017, company is able to earn around $229 billion. The company is enjoying the
high level of brand loyalty from their customer as well as the employees. The company can
easily retain its most of the employees for the long period of time (Csaszar, 2012) due to the
policy and rules adopted by Apple. In the report, the matters related to the structure followed
in the organization are discussed which depicts whether the organization is working in the
functional structure or the divisional structure. Culture followed in the organization like
Apple is that it provides the flexible environment in which easy work and implementation of
the new policy can be done in the organization. The leadership strategy and the
organizational behaviour followed in the organization are discussed which considered the
Tim Cook strategy followed in the organization (Anton, 2009).

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The HR strategies followed in the organization by the managers in the organization are
considered which depicts the change in the organization is done due to the changes are done
in the environment. The organization has to make a change in the organization due to changes
made in the internal and external environment. The implementation of these changes can be
done by the human resource department as they are liable for scanning the environment and
implement the changes that will occur in the business. For this, the human resource
department does the work of planning; provide leadership to make certain changes when
required in the business (Albrecht et al., 2015).
About Apple Inc.
Organizational Structure
Every company has its own structure irrespective of its size and nature of its business.
Similarly, Apple has its own and unique organizational structure. This structure is seen in the
hierarchy in which there are different levels of the organization. This structure in Apple is
established by the founder and former CEO late Steve Jobs in order to ensure focused
understanding of his innovative ideas and a clear idea for the business (Martin, 2012).
In the company, the organizational structure has been using the decentralization in the
business. Using the decentralization in the business the decision making is increased by two
folds. Decentralization in business leads to encouraging the innovation and creativity in the
business at various levels. After using the decentralization in the business the hierarchy in the
organization will be retained in the business (Claver, 2012).
The organizational structure is grouped under various heads which include the product based
grouping. Every product of the Apple such as iPad, Apple TV, iPhone, iPod and watch a
outcome of the collaboration of product based groups.

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(Source: Research Methodology)
In Apple Inc. board of Managers consist of eight members which are following the strong
leadership in the organization. Three are acting as the CEO’s of the company and other two
are the former chairman. The advantage of hierarchy in the organization structure is that it
maintains the control over the organization and its functioning. In Apple, all the functioning
are operated and controlled by the top level management. The promotion strategies and
opportunities by the company motivate the employee to achieve well and there are clear
stages of power and responsibility (Damanpour and Aravind, 2012).
Features of the Apple Structure

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The Apple structure is working with the innovation that enables the business to grow rapidly
in the business. The production of new product and services offered by the company can be
seen through its new innovation in the organizational structure.
Spoke and wheel hierarchy
In this type of hierarchy, all the judgements are taken by the top level management of the
company that is the decisions are taken by the Steve Jobs. But after the leadership of the Tim
Cook, there are slight changes in the organization are find out in which there is collaboration
with the other department also. These departments include the hardware and software
departments. This will give employees autonomy which is absent before, so the workings will
be faster. Thus now the company structure is less stiff now (Belschak and Hartog, 2010).
Function-based grouping
This structure is basically for the top level and middle level of managers group. In this type of
structure, the department and decisions are taken according to the functions performed by the
individual. For example; Apple has an SVP for industrial design, an SVP for marketing etc.
Product based grouping
The lower level of the Apple’s administrative structure has product based grouping. In this
type of structure, the organizational structure is divided into the subparts, for example, Apple
has VP for iOS apps and VP for consumer apps. This type of organizational structure is good
for identifying a specific product or product components (Van and Patterson, 2015).
Culture
Culture is the values and ethics followed in the organization by the individuals working in the
company. Apple is following the culture which is considered to be the factor of the success.

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Company culture structure depicts the capabilities in supporting the changes and
implementation of the new policies and new strategies in the new business. In the case of
Apple, the employees are highly believed in the theory of behaving and marinating the
culture. In Company like Apple, different diversity are present so to cope with them they
have to maintain the culture accordingly in which all personnel’s can remain satisfied and no
equality will be there. There are various benefits of having the good culture in the business; it
will lead to the making of the innovating ideas in the business.
Hofstede Cultural dimension theory
Hofstede theory is made to differentiate in the organization between the varied diversities of
culture are operating there. This theory defines the effect of society’s philosophy on the
values of its members and how these values are going to relate with the behavior, by using
the structure derived from the factor analysis (Thompson, 2013). In this there are six
dimensions which are discussed below:
Dimension 1: Power Distance
In this dimension, Apple decides the formal roles and hierarchies in the organization. The
subordinates are told that they are reported to whom. The authority relationship is been
developed in this dimension. Employees are made clear that they have to report and to whom
and all the decision making are decentralized in it (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault, 2015).
Dimension 2: Individualism
In this dimension, the concept of me has been changed with us. In this dimension, the
company is focusing on the overall development of the organization. The promotion of

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people is done on the basis of their achievement and result. There would be the difference
between the private life and the work life of the individuals (Tee, 2013).
Dimension 3: Masculinity
Masculinity indicates a society’s preference for achievement, confidence and material reward
for achieving success. On the contrary, the feminist signifies a preference for the cooperation,
quality of life and caring for the weak. In this type of dimension, there is equal treatment of
all the individuals working in the organization (Panmore Institute, 2017).
Dimension 4: Uncertainty avoidance
In this dimension, follow of the strict rules and regulations are there in the organization.
There is a very low-risk appetite in the culture of the business. In this dimension, the culture
depicts that the person does not adhere to the ambiguity and uncertainty (Marwic and Boyd,
2014).
Dimension 5: Long-term orientation
In this dimension, the culture adopted in the organization should be for the long term as the
cultures do not change frequently. It will remain for the period of time. Using the short-term
orientation, peoples are looking for the immediate actions and results which involve a large
amount of spending in it (Orr and King, 2015).
Dimension 6: Indulgence
This dimension is related to the needs and desires of the society in which the business is
operating. The degree to which society can exercise the control over the desires and needs is
the indulgence (Oh, Eom and Rao, 2015).

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Leadership
Leadership is the process of guiding and directing the behaviour of the employees so that the
implementation of the new strategies and policies can be done on the company easily.
Leadership is the attitude or behaviour of an individual from which person can able to make
the work done by others. In the company Apple Inc., Steve jobs use the autocratic style of
leadership in which he is not concerned for the employee engagement in the decision-making
process of business. Previously jobs considered the marketing of the goods and service to be
the wastes of time while saying that customer does not know what they want to purchase.
Jobs considers to waste this resource in employee engagement and marketing, this fund will
be invested in producing something innovative products and features in the existing products
that people want to purchase (Panmore Institute, 2017).
But after the modernization, this concept has been changed by the jobs and he considers the
marketing is not the waste of resource as well as time. The entire place will have its own
position in the company. If the production of an innovative product is necessary then
investing the funds in marketing and employee engagement is also equally important. In the
present scenario, the company is using the democratic style of leadership in the business in
which the employees participate in the making the decision-making process. Employees are
given more freedom in taking the decision it will enhance and motivate the employees to
perform better in the organization as they think they are the part of the organization
(Research Methodology, 2018). The Tim Cook is found to be the situational leader which
takes the decision according to the situation faced by the company. Tim is focusing on the
existing product and employee relation in the company as he considers the employee and
product offered in the market to be the important asset of the organization (Heracleous,
2013).

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There are different types of theories in leadership which includes the behavioral theory,
transformational theory, transactional theory, trait theory and many others. But the Steve job
followed the behavioural theory, situational theory and contingencies theory in the business.
In Apple Inc., the Tim cook used the different ways and have beliefs that shape the leadership
style which is as follows:
 The first belief is that doesn’t fix what has been broken that mean the things which are no
longer present, don’t wait for them and choose the right way to work.
 The second belief is to keep calm and have faith. This means that the company employees
should have faith in the workings and strategies adopted for them is for their own benefit.
 The third belief is not to try the other’s do but be remaining what you are. This means that the
employees and companies do not need to change but have to remain innovative ad they are.
 The fourth belief is that to remain the nice and competitive in the environment to grab the
large market share (Gu, Tang and Jiang, 2015).
Organisational behaviour
Organizational behaviour is the behaviour which is expected in the business by the persons
working there. It is a study which is done between the human and the organization in which
the business is operating. Considering the organizational behaviour is important in the
business to have the integrity and teamwork followed in the organization. The organizational
behaviour includes the company values followed, training and development of the
individuals, taking care of the employees in the business. The behaviour of an organization is
dependent on three levels which are the micro level, macro level and meso level that is the
workgroup (Boiral and Paillé, 2012).
The micro level environment consists of the individuals in the organization. These
individuals are the employees and managers working in the organization, individual
customer, and suppliers operating in the market have the capacity to affect the behaviour of

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the organization towards society and community at whole. The organizational behaviour is
nothing but maintaining the relationship between the human and organization to sustain the
business for the long span of time. Another level in the organization that is meso level which
include the employees working and relation in the company. These include the staff
members, coordination, and cooperation followed by them in the organization (Fox et al.,
2012). The macro level environment also affects the working of the organization. The macro
level factors include the economic factors, political factors, technological factors etc. these
factors are also able to affect the working of the organization (Goodrich and De, 2014).
In the Apple, the system model is followed in the organization in which the organization
looks at the overall structure and the team environment. This model is considered to be
contemporary in nature. The organization considers that individuals have different goals,
talents, and potential. This model used in the Apple focuses on to balance the goals of the
individuals with the organizational goals which mean there is a synchronization of goals of
the organization and employees working in that organization. The aim of this type of model is
to move in the direction in which the organizational goal and individual goals can be
accomplished without sacrificing any goals. In Apple Inc., both the individual and
organization require the creativity and innovation in their work to grow and develop
themselves more in the environment (Boschma, 2012).
Individuals want more remuneration, job security and that will only be achieved when the
organizational goals are achieved. From this, it can be concluded that the organizational goals
cannot be waived off as the individual will earn more only when an organization grows and
develop. The model of the system should be an overall partnership of managers and
employees with a common goal to achieve and where every individual feels that they have
the stake in the organization (Rurkkhum and Bartlett, 2012).

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Evaluation of Apple Inc. and HR strategies
Evaluation of Apple
The structure of the organization has been changed in the Apple according to the changes
done in the environment. Apple makes use of both structures exist in the organization that is
the top level may use the hierarchy followed in the organization to implement the new
decisions and policies in the organization whereas can also use the decentralization in the
business to communicate in the company without any disruptions in the channel. Basically,
the company is using both the centralization and decentralization in its business to implement
the fast decision in the business (Zayas-Ortiz et al., 2015).
The culture of the organization in the Apple is found to be ethical in nature. The top-level
management encourages the cross diversity in its business. The culture of th3e Apple
promotes the culture which is flexible in nature and can be adjusted through each level in the
organization. The culture adopted in the company like Apple is Hofstede in which all the
diversities are given the equal chance of participating in the organization. All diversities are
given the equal chance and there is no partiality followed in the organization on the basis of
racist caste, gender.
Leadership is considered to be the most significant part in the competitive organization like
Apple. The CEO of the company Tim Cook is considered to be the best leader after his
leadership in the business; the growth and success of the Apple come into existence. Apple
focuses on developing the product with the innovation which makes the company different
from others. This leadership is used by the Tim Cook to remain to differentiate in the market
from the others. This strategy used by the CEO is found to be beneficial for the organization
as it able to make them different and able to cover a large market with the brand loyal