International Business

Question: Discuss about theInternational Business. Answer: Introduction: Walmarts business activities are determined by the organizational structure of the company. The organizational structure of the company helps the organization to solve its business related problems in an efficient manner. In accordance with Walmart, the organizational structure depicts the way in which people will react to the challenges at the workplace. However, in the long history of Walmart, it is growing and flourishing at both national as well as international aspects (Epstein and Buhovac 2014). This is because of the organizational structure and culture of Walmart that have helped the organization to achieve competitive advantage and success as well. Discussion: The organizational structure functions hierarchically and the main features of this structure are hierarchy and function based definition. This feature of hierarchy is associated with the vertical lines of command as well as the authority across the organizational structure. In order to provide a suitable example, it can be said that only except the Chief Executive Officer, each employee of the organization has a superior (Terpstra, et al. 2012). The line managers down to the regular staff of the Walmart stores implement directions and orders coming from the top management level of Walmart. On the contrary, the feature of function-based definition of Walmart involves employees in a group for serving certain purposes of the company. Walmart currently has a separate department for managing the human resources, another department for dealing with the information technology related issues as well as other departments for the functioning of technology (Albers et al. 2013). These are one o f those departments among numerous function based other departments. The most crucial effects of the hierarchical organizational structure of Walmart is that, it enables the managers of the organization to influence the complete organization very easily. Therefore, in this way Walmart achieves a distinguishingly effective monitoring and control mechanism. The main difficulties associated with this organizational structure are that it provides organizational flexibility as low as possible. Walmarts organizational culture is amalgamates four main components and these components affect the behavior of the employees. These components are, Service to clients, respect for the persons, striving for superiority and acting with honesty. Now, as Walmart is willing to enter the Chinese market it is quite evident that this organizational structure is ideal for the company for operating globally. On the contrary, should improve its beliefs in the context of its organizational culture. Though these beliefs are ideal for the company, it is evaluated on several grounds for not addressing the concerns of the employees regarding lower wages (Albers et al. 2013). Therefore, the company should look into this matter and try to solve this problem as effectively as possible. On the other hand, as the company is planning to operate in China, it should also take into account the operability of its organizational structure and culture in accordance with the Chinese culture and mentality of the residents of the country (Griffin et al. 2016). In order to conclude, it can be said that the organizational culture and structure of Walmart is quite well for operating in Chinese framework. However, the company should try to develop a better understanding about the Chinese market structure and cultures and thereby adapt its organizational structure and culture accordingly. Reference List: Albers, S., Wohlgezogen, F. and Zajac, E.J., 2013. Strategic Alliance Structures An Organization Design Perspective. Journal of Management, p.0149206313488209. Epstein, M.J. and Buhovac, A.R., 2014. Making sustainability work: Best practices in managing and measuring corporate social, environmental, and economic impacts. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Griffin, R.W., Phillips, J.M. and Gully, S.M., 2016. Organizational behavior: Managing people and organizations. Nelson Education. Terpstra, V., Foley, J. and Sarathy, R., 2012. International marketing. Naper Press.