People and Organisation Management: Amazon vs. Facebook

This report provides a comparative analysis of people and organization management practices at Amazon and Facebook. It delves into various aspects, including organizational culture, leadership styles, organizational structure, motivation techniques, job design, and the dynamics of power and politics within each company. The report highlights how Amazon, as a leading e-commerce retailer, emphasizes customer satisfaction, employee development, and a functional organizational structure, while Facebook, a social networking giant, fosters a hacker culture, democratic leadership, and a matrix structure to promote innovation and employee engagement. The analysis covers the leadership approaches, job design strategies, and motivational factors employed by both companies, illustrating how these elements contribute to their respective successes. The conclusion summarizes the key differences and similarities in their management philosophies and practices, offering valuable insights into effective organizational strategies.

People and organisation
management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
To survive in this rapidly changing environment of innovation and technologies, it
requires great knowledge, motivation and proper leadership so that resources can be effectively
and efficiently utilised and objectives of the organisation are meet. There are various problems
faced by managers and management while dealing with people at work and the changing
environment. Organisation must develop an environment of learning, motivation, innovation,
growth and development. We have discussed about the 'People and organisation management'
and compared the two companies Amazon and Facebook We have discussed on the basis of
organisational culture, organisational leadership, their structure, motivation, job design, politics
and power.
Facebook is an online free social networking site which was launched on February 4,
2004 in California. The website was launched by Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow mates. The
main aim of making this website was to connect the world and bring openness among people by
allowing them to share whatever they like and can connect to whomsoever they want to connect
living in any part of the world.
Amazon is among the largest online retailer store in e-commerce world. It was founded
by Jeff Bezos on 5th July 1994 in Seattle, Washington. The company launched as online book
store 1995. But soon it entered into the retail market and started selling everything, as the logo
suggest A to Z. The online site has everything that an individual desires. They are known for
their minimum priced goods and they also try to meet the needs and wants of their customers all
time. They have best home delivery and easy return policy service.
MAIN BODY
Organization culture is defined as the beliefs, assumptions, values, attitudes and the ways
in which an individual interacts with an organization. They play an important role in
implementation and formulation of strategies (Schein, 2010).
Amazon has a culture which enables the company to track the demand in the e-commerce
market. Being the top e-commerce retailer in world, the company train and develop its
employees for long term competitive advantage. The company look for new opportunities to
satisfy their customers and with efficient services. Employees are promoted to give innovative
ideas and take risk. The company started with selling books online but now it has become the
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largest retail online store selling almost everything. Their focus is on customers and fulfilling
their needs and wants.
Facebook culture enables creativity and improvement in their employees. They describe
their culture as hacker culture which push their workers towards improvement and would help in
accomplishment of its mission and vision. They highly support creative heads and their ideas
which would support the social networking sites. The company provide rewards in form of
incentives, bonus, recognition to its employees. The company has given power to solve issue at
lower level before presenting it to higher authority. They enable their employees to find and
solve the problem which are relevant to company. The employees work in small team so that the
work can be completed soon. They focus on continuous improvement of their sites, apps and
other related products.
Organization structure refers to arrangement of task, coordination, rules, responsibility
and supervision in order to achieve organization's goals and objective(Zheng, Yang, and
McLean, 2010).
Organizational structure of Facebook is “matrix” structure. The have corporate teams to
manage their operational activities. When company has to perform research and development
they divide the team into small parts based on their function and operations like CEO, CFO,
technology, accountancy, marketing, legal human resource etc. They work on chain on command
basis where the leader, Mark Zuckerberg gives the command and employees are accountable to
follow his command. The company allows an individual who is using Facebook to connect to
the world while sitting at home.
Organizational structure of Amazon is “functional” structure. To perform every function
there is a team at Amazon to have successful operation and management. The structure is framed
as CEO, business development, amazon web series, finance and so on. They have vertical line of
command as they perform their services globally. Any direction from authority will have impact
on all its stores worldwide. The employees working for Amazon are divided into geographical
location and its operations in North America and other International regions.
Organization leadership refers to an approach that works to meet goals and objective of
an individual and organization as a whole(Shanafelt and et.al., 2015). It works to find out best for
individual and what is best for organization.
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Facebook has a democratic leadership style. Every one has right to speak and give their
views in the organization. The company focuses on maintaining group relations and encourages
their employees. The company has high level of experts and engineers who are giving their best
efforts, so there views are important that is why this style is best suited. This style provides job
satisfaction and friendly working environment at the workplace. Employees must use 5P's which
are passion, people, purpose, partnership and product while performing his job.
At Amazon, they follow different and distinctive leadership style which depends upon the
type of people they are working with. Sometimes they follow democratic style where they try to
maintain relations, sometime they follow Authoritative style where there is a strict chain of
instructions which are to be followed. The leader sets standards that are to be achieved at a given
time of span. These types are leader are competitive and focus on achievement of their aims and
goals.
Job design refers to details of methods, steps, rules and content required to perform a
job. This is the next step after job analysis. The jobs are designed in such a way so that job stress
and dissatisfaction can be reduced.
Facebook has designed their structure in a way so that they can maintain an adequate
workforce for their social networking sites. The company focus on recruitment of fresh and new
talent which may provide quality service to the company. The company allows the Ph.D. Holders
to work with the company and also give them chance to work with the company in the future.
They have designed their jobs in such a way that it provides better job satisfaction.
Amazon uses the program of in house employment and third party employment agency to
appoint its employees. The people are recruited for the vacant jobs for a short time period and the
company keep a track on their performance(Amazon.com Inc. Operations Management: 10
Decisions, Productivity, 2017). If the company like their work then they would offer them jobs to
work as a permanent employee but if not then they will remove them.
Motivation is the use of intrinsic and extrinsic factors to satisfy their people at workplace
and make them feel secure. It is a force used by employers which will help to improve
productivity and performance(McMahan and Griffin,, 2013). Job security, organizational
structure, performance appraisal, working environment are few factors that helps in motivation.
At Facebook, employees are motivated by different kinds of benefits which help them to
maintain their personal and business life. They also provide facilities to refresh mind during job
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by providing them time to play games or use cellphones or to watch videos. Motivation is most
important factor to make employees feel satisfied so that they can give best of them.
Amazon knows exactly how to attract, recruit, select, retain, train and develop best of
their talent and placing the right person at the right job as per their knowledge and skills. They
provide job opportunities to many job seekers who value time, quality and quantity and who are
customer focused. Employees feels motivated as they are appraised for their work and also get
perks for their extra efforts. Amazon also provide the service of work from home for those
employees who wish to work from home.
Power and politics are important dynamics in the organisation(Owen, 2013). They
involve the ability which controls the behaviour of the people in the organisation.
Facebook is run and ruled by Mark Zuckerberg. He is the king and can do whatever he
wishes. He can start and end any type of business who are depended on Facebook without even
asking them for permission. Though he follows a democratic style of leadership but never forget
he the CEO, CFO, executive of Facebook ans power to do anything.
Amazon has power to his empire. There are many ways in which amazon can use its
powers but they have never applied their powers and abilities. They will have to apply their
power and abilities to find out hoe potential they are.
CONCLUSION
From the above report we have concluded that Amazon and Facebook has very different
organisational culture, different leadership styles, they have different organisational structure and
have different power and politics. Both the companies are highly supportive towards their
employees and keep a track record of their good employees. They also involve their talented
employees in decision making process. Amazon follows a mixture of autocratic and democratic
leadership style and Facebook follows democratic leadership style where he organises weekly
meeting to meet his employees and collect new and different ideas from them. Amazon uses its
IT to ensure that its online store is working effectively and efficiently to meet up with the
customer requirements and expectation.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Cameron, K. S. and Quinn, R. E., 2011. Diagnosing and changing organizational culture: Based
on the competing values framework. John Wiley & Sons.
Chen, C. J., Huang, J. W. and Hsiao, Y. C., 2010. Knowledge management and innovativeness:
The role of organizational climate and structure. International Journal of Manpower,
31(8), pp.848-870.
Chhokar, J. S., Brodbeck, F. C and House, R. J. eds., 2013. Culture and leadership across the
world: The GLOBE book of in-depth studies of 25 societies. Routledge.
McMahan, G. C. and Griffin, R. W., 2013. Motivation Through Job Design. In Organizational
Behavior (pp. 33-54). Routledge.
Owen, R., 2013. State, power and politics in the making of the modern Middle East. Routledge.
Schein, E. H., 2010. Organizational culture and leadership(Vol. 2). John Wiley & Sons.
Shanafelt, T.D., and et.al., 2015, April. Impact of organizational leadership on physician burnout
and satisfaction. In Mayo Clinic Proceedings (Vol. 90, No. 4, pp. 432-440). Elsevier.
Woodside, A. G., 2010. Chapter 1 Introduction: Theory and practice of organizational culture,
B2B relationships, and interfirm networks. In Organizational Culture, Business-to-
Business Relationships, and Interfirm Networks (pp. 1-9). Emerald Group Publishing
Limited.
Youdell, D., 2010. School trouble: Identity, power and politics in education. Routledge.
Zheng, W., Yang, B. and McLean, G. N., 2010. Linking organizational culture, structure,
strategy, and organizational effectiveness: Mediating role of knowledge management.
Journal of Business research, 63(7), pp.763-771.
Online
Amazon.com Inc. Operations Management: 10 Decisions, Productivity, 2017[Online]. Available
through:<http://panmore.com/amazon-com-inc-operations-management-10-decisions-
areas-productivity>
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