Organizational Theory and Design (Research Paper Sample)

                     Organizational Theory and Design     Student’s Name    Institutional Affiliation    Course Numbe and Name  Professor’s Name  Date   Organizational Theory and Design    Ranking as one of the most valuable business enterprises in North America, WeWork is a fast-rising real estate firm leveraging technology and business acumen to build and equip modern workplaces and deploying them into the business world for interested companies to access and utilize. Since its inception in the year 2010, WeWork has been consistently providing high-end real estate services to industry-leading companies while utilizing and integrating technological mechanisms into its business operations. WeWork gravitates towards becoming the Amazon Web Service in the real estate world in terms of overall business delivery (Reader, 2019). However, just as it’s common to typical businesses, WeWork has witnessed several highs and lows characterized by both internal and external factors such as swift and consistent business expansion as well as volatile losses of business revenue as high as surpassing the $1 billion benchmark during the cause of discharging its business operations.          Company Assessment  According to Novet (2023), WeWork initial step to go public occurred in 2019, and in its entirety, the company's structure is built on the premise of relevant business factors, such as Structure, Culture, Organizational Life Circle as well and Strategy which is analogous to competitive positioning.    The structure of the company is rooted in the interdependence of its various internal departments and their respective activities to attain the company’s goals and objectives. Typically, according to Reader (2019), the company leverages its team of professionals across all its departments, including designers, construction experts, community managers, architects, and technologists, amongst others, to grow its global network, hence, improving its business operations.      Similarly, the use of rational strategy gives WeWork an edge and a competitive advantage in the real estate business. In essence, the extension of WeWork into several segments contingent on its business operations which include architecture, consultation,  and office management as noted by (Reader, 2019) are strong strategic plans and decisions that position the company on the pinnacle of success above its competitors.     However, the assessment of the company’s organizational culture reveals the fact that despite the company being seen as a coworking entity, it extends beyond such purview as it strives to create a platform for all to thrive, hence the creation of its three verticals: WeLive, WeWork, WeGrow ( Reader, 2019).   Additionally, based on the four stages of the organizational life circle which include entrepreneurship, collectivity, formalization, and elaboration, WeWork life circle is evident in its steady exploration of the business world. Since the foundation of the company in a relatively small office in Soho, it has extended from a sole business entity representing the "Enterprise stage" into becoming an industry-leading enterprise which is analogous to the "Elaborate stage".   Environmental Assessment  Environmental factors including internal factors are strong determinants of WeWork’s operations. As such, they determine the degree of uncertainty of the company.     Stakeholders Identification    The assessment of the company’s internal stakeholders reveals that the aggregate workforce of WeWork, including its top-level managers, lower-level managers, and junior employees gravitates towards attaining the company’s goal as well as working towards achieving its mission and vision. However, there are strong external stakeholders such as the government and competitors like Regus which are also of great concern to the company.      Degree of Uncertainty    The degree to which WeWork is prone to business uncertainty is relatively high as well and it includes both positive and negative uncertainties. It is relatively possible that WeWork may undergo continuous expansion which is analogous to a positive uncertainty, whereas, there are also possibilities that the company may witness future staff turnover, pull out of investors, and may end up folding up due to its frequent and high loss of revenue as high as over $500 million which is termed as a monumental loss relatively unhealthy to a business of such (Gratham-Philips, 2023).         WeWork Organizational Approach - Strengths & Weaknesses  WeWork leverages an array of its core strengths to work to ensure the quality of its operations. These strengths include a keen passion for innovation and continual expansion; a team of dedicated experts and professionals across all its business segments, as well as strong strategic decisions, which are the company’s valuable approach to addressing its uncertainty. However, weaknesses such as weak leadership decisions, and clinging onto old-school management theories rather than conducting business with the modern-age intelligence are the company’s weak approaches to tackling its uncertainty (Novet, 2023).    Resource Dependence   WeWork partners with several top companies, the majority of which are ranked as Fortune 500 companies, in a bid to leverage these companies' absolute advantage into improving its business operations as well as having access to a pool of environmental resources. The company's partners include but are not limited to Microsoft, Zoom, and Salesforce, amongst others are part WeWork partnership network.      Population Ecology   WeWork operates in a vast ecosystem with the inclusion of several business partners who operate in an array of fields relevant to the business including but not limited to Software, E-commerce, Digital Marketing, Web Design, Software Technology, Data Management Technology, et cetera.    Institutionalism    Practically, the overall business operation of WeWork is based on the premise of providing services that are characterized by availing business entities a modified workplace atmosphere where business operations can be conducted seamlessly. Typically, Reader (2019) reveals that several companies leverage WeWork services to redistribute workers, as a result, a close look at such social services justifies the theory of institutionalism.       Organizational Change   WeWork since inception has gone through several organizational changes ranging from the change of leadership to changes in policy, to downsizing and restructuring as well as other significant areas of the business operations. In essence, the company strives to constantly adapt to changes as it gravitates towards reacting to change in the most resilient way as determined by circumstances. For example, according to Cohen (2019), WeWork during one of its most difficult times retrenched as many as up to 2, 400 employees in its global workforce in the year 2018, with a willingness to lay off more staff in the future if need be. Additionally, an example of the company’s organizational change was also evident in its change of leadership history when the company’s board of directors unanimously fired the company’s founder, Adam Neuman, and was replaced by Artie Minston and Sebastian Guinningham who both resumed the position as the company's joint Chief Executive Officers (Cohen, 2019).    How WeWork Implements Change  The Implementation of changes is done through several means at WeWork. The company utilizes several mechanisms, including but not limited to rolling out data with facts and analysis that strongly supports its decisions; issuing a memo of a newly changed policy across all departments; creating and developing strategic plans that support change implementation; constant monitoring of employees by managers, as well as organizing and holding a town hall meeting where employees are publicly addressed and informed of necessary changes. A typi...