Corporate Structure and Globalization: A Marks and Spencer Case Study

This research project investigates the impact of globalization on the corporate structure of large international organizations, using Marks & Spencer as a case study. The project begins with an introduction outlining the aims and objectives, including understanding globalization, identifying challenges faced by M&S in the international environment, and determining the relationship between globalization and corporate structure to identify the best structure for global competitiveness. A comprehensive literature review explores the concept of globalization, issues faced by Marks & Spencer, and the relationship between globalization and corporate structure. The research methodology details the methods used to collect and analyze data. The project then presents data analysis, followed by recommendations and a conclusion. Project management tools like Gantt charts and WBS structures are used to manage the research effectively, ensuring the project's organization and timely completion. The study aims to provide insights into how globalization affects corporate structure and to offer practical solutions for Marks & Spencer to maintain its competitiveness in the global market.

Research Project

Table of Contents
Title: “To determine the globalization effect upon corporate structure of large international
organization and in facilitating major challenges that are faced by an enterprise– A case study of
Marks and Spencer.”........................................................................................................................1
CHAPTER 1....................................................................................................................................1
Introduction.................................................................................................................................1
Objectives and Aims of this research .........................................................................................1
CHAPTER 2....................................................................................................................................2
Literature Review .......................................................................................................................2
To understand the concept of globalization................................................................................3
To determine certain issues that are faced by Marks and Spencer in international environment.
.....................................................................................................................................................3
To determine relationship between globalization and corporate structure. ...............................4
To identify best corporate structure that can be used by Marks and Spencer to maintain its
competitiveness in global market................................................................................................4
Tools of project management .....................................................................................................5
CHAPTER 3....................................................................................................................................7
RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES ............................................................................................7
CHAPTER 4....................................................................................................................................9
DATA ANALYSATION ................................................................................................................9
CHAPTER 5..................................................................................................................................23
Recommendations ....................................................................................................................23
REFLECTION .........................................................................................................................23
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................24
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................25

Title: “To determine the globalization effect upon corporate structure of large
international organization and in facilitating major challenges that are faced by
an enterprise– A case study of Marks and Spencer.”
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Corporate structure is defined as such enterprises which constitutes of various business
units and departments within a business organisation. On the basis of goals of an organisation
and the industry in which an enterprise operates its activities , the structure of corporate differs in
that way only (Anselma, Altenburg and Chinapaw, 2019). Globalisation is defined as the growth
in independence of economies of the world, its populations, cultures, which is brought up by
trade in cross-border among technology, products and services and among the flow in
information, people and investment. This research project is based upon Marks & Spencer which
is a British based retail organisation that deals with high fashioned clothes, accessories, and so
on for men, women and kids. This report determines the impact of globalisation among overall
business activities of this organisation and the challenges that can be faced by this enterprise
from globalisation.
Overview
Marks & Spencer is UK based multinational retail organisation that operates its activities
at international level. It deals with high fashioned clothes and accessories for men, women and
kids. This company has strong brand image in the market and it is famous for selling high quality
of goods. It also deals with home appliances and food products and it has around 959 stores all
over UK and 8087 skilled workforce in it (Badiru, Rusnock and Valencia, 2018). This enterprise
has generated revenue of £ 10,377.3 million in the year 2019.
Objectives and Aims of this research
Aim
The aim of this project report is, “To determine the globalization effect upon corporate
structure of large international organization and in facilitating major challenges that are faced by
an enterprise– A case study of Marks and Spencer.”
Objectives
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The objectives towards which this research is conducted are-
 To understand the concept of globalization.
 To determine certain issues that are faced by Marks and Spencer in international
environment.
 To determine relationship between globalization and corporate structure.
 To identify best corporate structure that can be used by Marks and Spencer to maintain its
competitiveness in global market.
Research Questions
 What is the concept of globalization?
 What are certain issues that are faced by Marks and Spencer in international
environment?
 What is the relationship between globalization and corporate structure?
 What is the best corporate structure that can be used by Marks and Spencer to maintain
its competitiveness in global market?
Rationale
The research topic has been selected for performing an investigation upon a specific topic
for creating understanding about the globalisation concept. Another reason to choose this topic is
to determine the manner in which globalisation can affect the corporate structure of a specific
organisations (Bartoli and Betti, 2018). Moreover, an investigator after conducting research upon
a specific topic is done for identifying certain challenges that international organisations faced in
the global environment. Moreover researcher has conducted this study to identify the solution for
different problems that can be faced by global organisations. Investigator in this regards wants to
help Marks & Spencer's managers to address best corporate structure that can be adopted by
them to remain competitive in global market.
CHAPTER 2
Literature Review
Literature review refers to a guide which includes significant and existing knowledge and
understanding such as theoretical concepts and finding and contribution regarding specific topic.
It is based upon alternate sources like newspapers, google, journals, and so on (Bell, 2018). This
literature review will help project manager to understand this topic in more better and
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appropriate manner. For analysing the topic upon impact of globalisation upon corporate
structure of multinational organisation and to identify major challenges that an organisation can
face in the global business environment.
To understand the concept of globalization.
As per John Williamson (2019), Globalisation has been manifested in world trade growth
which is in proportion to output. It has been reflected that in explosion of FDI, it has increased in
countries which are developing and has increased from $2.2 billion in the year 1970 to around
$154 billion in year 1997. Also the growth procedure takes it off when developing economies
elites take it off came to know about certain opportunities that has been applied to world class
techniques within an organisation and it also introduces certain institutional arrangement which
helps in permitting pursuit of individual for serving in general that is considered to be good at
social level.
According to C. Rangarajan (2019), globalisation refers to economies and societies
integration which is through the cross country that has various flows of ideas, goods,
technologies, services, information, people and finance. The globalisation essence is connectivity
and the integration in cross-border can have many dimensions such as economic, political, social
and cultural which is even more than that economic integration (Blake, M. and Gallimore, 2018).
Although, this term is utilised in limited economic integration sense that can takes place in three
channels such as capital movement, finance flow and goods and services trade. Moreover it is
not phenomena and is old as history.
To determine certain issues that are faced by Marks and Spencer in international environment.
According to (Polonsky and Waller, 2018), the international business of Marks &
Spencer is supported by franchise partners in around 30 countries in the world. In this, operation
management plays an important role in breaking and making of an enterprise (Burton and
Cherry, 2018). The major issue that is faced M & S by global chain of supply is changes in tastes
and preferences by customers towards a specific product. There are certain researches that can be
undertaken on insight and impression, recollection, performance, approach and the level of
contentment for understanding consumer behaviour. The judgement has been done in worldwide
market that is affected by customers procedure and by the available facts. The thing which
matters in this is pre occupied customer thoughts regrading customer purpose and opinions.
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According to (Rekha and Jahan, 2019) , it becomes essential for Marks & Spencer that it
should be aware about the competition that is prevailing in market from other retail enterprises.
There is high amount of competition in the retail sector, especially Zara, H&M, Forever 21, who
are ruling the fashion world at international level (Chodorow, 2018). This organisation is facing
high amount of competition at international level and it becomes essential for it to take corrective
actions and develops necessary plans that must be implemented in existing conditions of market.
To determine relationship between globalization and corporate structure.
According to (Roberts-Holmes, 2018), Corporate structure do not insulate from the
globalisation. Because of supply chain internationalisation, it is important for globalised teams to
transmit such tasks and match it across borders. Such matrix structures are required by more
effective utilisation of resources and short access over market which has introduced the
complexity in incentive provision, monitoring and communication. In modern organisations,
managers are required to increase leading cross functional teams that are across borders. In
addition to this, the compensation is not invariant towards changing patterns of management and
internal corporate hierarchies (Davies and Francis, 2018). In consequent to economic research,
which has been increased the overall interest in firm's internal structure.
According to (Stylianou and Zembylas, 2018), each multinational organisation includes
functions of corporate support and production. It is different in multiple dimensions that
introduce the heterogeneity within organisations. First is that the production function has various
levels of hierarchy that is supported by few functions. The function in between variation into
hierarchical depth is considered here which reflects differences that can be seen personnel sizes.
Second thing is that it varies by span of control of management, which is a more free size
hierarchy measure. The production function includes a supportive and flat typically narrow
hierarchies. This, in contrast to the function of production support that produces intermediate
inputs and they are insulated from the external competition at high level.
To identify best corporate structure that can be used by Marks and Spencer to maintain its
competitiveness in global market.
According to (Williamson and Whittaker, 2019), each enterprise has some of the goals
that it aims to achieve and such goals must be achieved by combining various resources efforts
which includes work division, numerous activities grouping that are performed within a business
entity (Drenth, 2018). For attaining such goals it is significant for an enterprise to have an
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effective organisational structure. For achieving maximum level of performance, the corporate
structure is required to be appropriate and must be matched with changes in business
environment.
The corporate structure that is best suitable to Marks & Spencer is formal hierarchy of
reporting that is from low to high level (Edwards, 2018). There must be some identical activities
that have to be grouped in an department so that specific machines, expertise, processes and
equipments can come under the head of one department. Moreover, effective coordination of
certain activities must be available there and its authority should be specialised.
Tools of project management
Project management tools are the techniques which helps the organisation in the assitance
of individuals and team for organising work in effective manner and also to manage all projects
and tasks in an effective way. For conducting this research, there are two project management
tools which are used for managing this research, that are, Gantt Chart and WBS structure.
WBS Structure- Work breakdown structure is defined and elaborated as a hierarchical structure
which is taken into action to outline research and than after it to break it down into smaller
portions that can be easy to manage (El-Emam and Khamis, 2019). It also helps to elaborate and
explain the work and activities of a project effectively and appropriately.
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Gantt Chart- This tool for project management is determine as a technique that helps project
manager to schedule a particular project effectively and efficiently (Hines and Taylor-Grover,
2019). It also helps to determine and demonstrate a relationship that is conducted between
activities which are schedules currently and the status.
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CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES
It includes a specific techniques which are involved in procedure of investigation for gathering,
collecting and evaluating information. It determines certain techniques that can be used for
assembling equate data in a specific study of research. Basically, it is defined as a procedure of
investigation that can be done by utilising various methods such as surveys, group discussions,
interviews, questionnaires, and so on (Jones, Petrie and Murrell, 2018). It is done to help the firm
in collecting relevant information which is regarding this research project. It is considered crucial
as it helps to solve various operational conflicts and issues and in solving different planning. It
includes decision making procedure and in considering the cause and effect relationships study
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which is among various components that helps in assisting them in finding out certain trends and
behaviour in specific forces.
Research Philosophy- The belief is made regrading the manner that data and information about
a specific phenomenon can be collected, utilised and analysed. There are around two main
positions that are known such as interpretive and positivism through which data is assembles and
can be utilised in the research project (Jones, 2019). This project of research, researcher utilises
interpretive philosophy of research for completing the project of research.
Research Approach- It is determined as procedures and plans that are used for conducting
research which are data collection, interpretation and analysation. Its determination as in overall
includes such approach which must be used for studying a topic. There are around two
approaches such as inductive and deductive approach. The deductive approach begins with
smaller and than it gets bigger. On the other hand, inductive starts with wide theory and than it
maintains its focus upon smaller components. In this project, the approach which is used by
researcher is deductive approach.
Research strategy- It is defined as a plan which is conducted step by step and it provides
direction towards efforts and thoughts and it also helps researcher in a systematic manner for
developing high quality results and in detailed reporting. For this purpose, both quantitative and
qualitative method can be used by the project manager for collecting data. Qualitative method
refers to non statistical and this method is of unstructured nature. Under this method, information
is gathered by interviews, documents reviews and focused groups. Qualitative method on the
other hand is structured in nature and its information is collected by books, record reviews and
surveys. For conducting this research, the method which is utilised by investigator is qualitative
method of collecting data.
Data source- It is defined as various manners in which project manager collects and gathers
necessary information (Konrad and Bakker, 2018). There are two different manners from which
the data is collected from resources such as secondary and primary resources under which
primary resources are more relevant. The researcher have collected first hand and pure
information which is collected by interviews, questionnaire and surveys. Moreover, in secondary
sources, data is gathered by others for their own well defined work. In this, researcher gathers
information through books, company websites, magazines, journals, articles and government
sites.
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Research sampling- It is determines as individuals group that are selected by project manager
from a large margin of population in order to get effective and collective information. This
sample do the presentation of population for assuring that the things that can be generalise from
the sample of research (Oakley, 2018). In this, there are 30 respondents which are selected as
representative in order to collect necessary and relevant information about research which will
help to analyse information in more efficient manner.
CHAPTER 4
DATA ANALYSATION
Questionnaire- It is defined as an instrument for conducting research which includes a series of
questions for gathering necessary and relevant information and data from selected respondents.
In this research, a questionnaire has been prepared for achieving the objectives of this research
and 30 respondents are selected (Petrie, Jones and Murrell, 2018). These respondents are
stakeholders of this organisation and their answers were recorded. Following is the elaborated
questionnaire that is prepared with the respondents answers in it-
Theme 1: The concept of globalisation.
Q1) Are you aware about the concept of
globalisation?
Frequency
a) Yes 25
b) No 5
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Interpretation: From the above graph, it has been interpreted that 25 out of 30 are aware about
the concept of globalisation, whereas, 5 out of 30 respondents are not aware about the concept
and benefits of globalisation upon overall organisational benefits.
Theme 2: Whether globalisation provides benefits or not.
Q2) Do you agree that globalisation
provides benefits to an organisation?
Frequency
a) Agree 25
b) Disagree 5
10
a) Yes b) No
0
5
10
15
20
25
Frequency