chapter - Pearson
chapter - Pearson
chapter - Pearson
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Chapter 1 Organizational Behavior and Management<br />
weeks, Bezos was forced to relocate to new larger premises and to hire new employees<br />
as book sales soared. The problem facing him now was how to organize his people<br />
and resources to best meet his new company’s goals. His solution was to organize<br />
his workers into groups based on the tasks they needed to perform to satisfy his customers.<br />
First, Bezos created a research and development department to continue to<br />
develop and improve the in-house software that he had initially developed for<br />
Internet-based retailing. Then, he established an information systems department to<br />
handle the day-to-day implementation of these systems and to manage the interface<br />
between the customer and the organization. Third, he created a materials management/logistics<br />
department to devise the most cost-efficient ways to obtain books<br />
from book publishers and book distributors and then to ship them quickly to customers.<br />
Currently, the department is implementing new information systems to<br />
ensure one-day shipping to customers. As Amazon.com grew, these departments<br />
helped Amazon to expand into providing many other kinds of products for its customers<br />
such as music CDs, electronics, and gifts as a visit to the company’s Web sit<br />
(www.amazon.com) will show.<br />
To ensure that Amazon.com strived to meet its goals of providing books<br />
quickly with excellent customer service, Bezos paid attention to the way he controlled<br />
his employees. Realizing that customer support was the most vital link<br />
between customer and organization, to ensure good customer service he decentralized<br />
control and empowered his employees to find a way of meeting customers’<br />
needs quickly. Second because Amazon.com employs a relatively small number of<br />
people, about 2,100 people worldwide, Bezos was able to make great use of socialization<br />
to motivate his employees. All Amazon.com employees are carefully selected<br />
and socialized by the other memebers of their work group so that they quickly learn<br />
their organizational roles and, most importantly, of Amazon’s important norm of<br />
providing excellent customer service. Finally, to ensure that Amazon.com’s employees<br />
are motivated to provide the best possible customer service, Bezos gives all<br />
employees stock in the company, and employees currently own 10 percent of their<br />
company.<br />
Finally, on the leadership dimensions, Bezos is a hands-on manager who works<br />
closely with employees to find cost-saving solutions to problems. Moreover, as<br />
CEO, Bezos acts as a figurehead to his employees, personifying Amazon’s dedication<br />
to the well-being of its employees and customers. Indeed, he spends a great deal of<br />
his time flying around the world to publicize his company and its activities, and he<br />
has succeeded because Amazon.com has the most well-recognized name of any dotcom<br />
company. At Amazon.com, all of Jeff Bezos’s actions are designed to improve<br />
employees’ work attitudes and behaviors and to increase the performance and wellbeing<br />
of employees and customers alike.<br />
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS<br />
1. What management functions and roles is Jeff Bezos performing that make<br />
him such a successful manager?<br />
2. How easy would it be for other CEOs to manage like Bezos?<br />
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