Organizational Culture and Organizational Structure

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BMGT 364 (section number)

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Introduction

Every company around the world has an organizational culture to which it subscribes. Organizational culture helps to create a system of values, behaviors, and beliefs that govern employees at the workplace. A strong and positive organizational culture goes a long way in steering the company in realizing its objectives. Also, the application of the right organizational structure will help the company in having a sense of direction since everyone knows where they are supposed to be and what is expected of them. The right combination of organizational culture and organizational structure has the potential of pushing the company toward success.

ZenDesk’s Organizational Culture

The organizational culture of ZenDesk can be described as a clan culture which is characterized by a friendly working environment. The people working at ZenDesk look happy and content with their kind of work. A clan organizational culture is one where people have a lot of similarities and seem to get along with one another (Ehrhart, Schneider, & Macey, 2014). The leaders in an organization practicing the clan organizational culture are seen as mentors and guide individuals toward realizing their full potential. This is seen by the CEO of ZenDesk in different scenarios wherein one scenario he is wearing casually and interacting with employees of the company, and another instance where he is seen in a boardroom with executives. This shows that he can blend in with people of all levels in the organization.

There also seems to be great involvement among the employees. The video shows the different teams, engineering, finance, HR, working together in their different capacities. A clan organizational culture does well in inspiring tradition and loyalty, and therefore employees can stay on the course of business operations to help it realize its set objectives and goals (Ehrhart, Schneider, & Macey, 2014). The commitment of the employees at ZenDesk is what has seen the company grow from just three members to a whole team of people, who are still giving their best to see the company grow further. This element of commitment has helped the company to maximize productivity and growth and the company has over the years increased in size.

The culture of teamwork is so powerful that the in the engineering team it is different to tell apart those who are a manager from those who are not, it does not matter for it is just a team. This is an important feature of the clan organizational culture which places individuals as team members rather than seniors and juniors (Ehrhart, Schneider, & Macey, 2014). This is a similar case when looking at the executive where it is not simple to exactly point out the CEO of the company. Removing the veil of superiority is important for it enables individuals to be comfortable and are therefore able to give their best without being intimidated.

The company has managed to use this organizational culture to create a competitive advantage of enabling its employees to work together as a team and are therefore able to come up with great ideas that build company software for customer engagement. The friendly business environment is what inspires the team to develop software that helps other companies handle their customers well and improve their business performance.

ZenDesk’s Organizational Structure

ZenDesk uses a functional organizational structure as can be seen by the representation of the different teams namely engineering, support group, IT, marketing, creative department, sales, services, documentation, finance, and the executive. These groups represent functional areas of the organization and are put in that way depending on their knowledge and skills (Singh & Khatri, 2016). Each of the functional areas carries its special operations which it reports to the top management for decision making. The engineering team is involved in product development, the IT team is involved in supporting employees in the company with matters to deal with the computer systems at the company, the marketing team is involved in the promotion of the company’s products, the documentation team is involved in keeping records at the company in an organized manner, the HR departments helps the company in recruiting the best talent to steer the company’s growth, the finance helps in keeping the management informed of the financial position of the company.

A functional organizational structure helps to put individuals with the same skills and expertise together thus improving productivity and making it of high quality. This is so because it leads to specialization which makes individuals in various departments to be familiar with what they do and excel in it. The specialization honed by functional structures helps to create in-depth skill and knowledge development among workers, leading to the realization of functional goals (Singh & Khatri, 2016). High productivity is also achieved in a functional structure since efficiencies are achieved as the different employees gain confidence in their skills. It offers a clear nature of the path that one’s career is to take and creates space or one to move up the management of the company.

Conclusion

The proper combination of the organizational culture and structure at ZenDesk has enabled the company to grow from just a small company to a big one to employ a large group. The clan organizational culture has enabled employees of the company to build a friendly environment where anyone can thrive. The culture is so strong that the CEO can relate well with members of the company, and also it is not easy to tell who is senior and who work under the other. The functional organizational structure has helped the company to group together individuals of the same skill and knowledge to create a synergy that increases productivity.

Ehrhart, M. G., Schneider, B., & Macey, W. H. (2014). Organizational climate and culture : an introduction to theory, research, and practice . New York: Routledge.

Singh, C., & Khatri, A. (2016). Principles and practices of management and organizational behaviour. Los Angeles: SAGE.