Wal-Mart Stores’ Organizational Structure

Wal-Mart stores were started founded back in 1962 by Sam Walton in Arkansas. The main objective of Wal-Mart Stores is to give the consumers, their customers, the lowest prices for the goods they buy. Over the years the company has grown tremendously in terms of the number of stores it has both in America and internationally. (Wal-Mart.com)

Wal-Mart stores have so far established 7390 stores and also Sam’s clubs in 14 markets and the employees total over 2 million. The Wal-Mart chain has different categories of stores. There are the Wal-Mart Discount Stores which are 911 in number and deal in home furniture goods, health and beauty products, hardware goods, jewelry, family clothes, gardening tools, etc. The Wal Mart Supercenters on the other hand concentrates on one-stop family shopping goods such as groceries and merchandise in general. They also have under one roof specialty stores like salons, pharmacies, banks, vision centers, studios, tire centers. There are also Wal-Mart Neighbourhood Markets which are also distributed all over the country. The goods they deal in are more like the ones in supercenters. (Wal-Mart.com) Recently Wal-Mart introduced the Marketside stores which are basically community pilot grocery stores and also offer prepared meals. Walmart.com is mainly for internet shoppers.

Wal-Mart stores have outlets in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Central America, India, China, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom. (Wal-Mart.com) According to Sims, an organizational structure is a way in which the workers in an organization are arranged in accordance with the different jobs they do. The organizational structural design adopted by Wal-Mart is that of the divisional structure. The stores usually operate independently of one another but the autonomy of these stores is usually limited to being controlled and organized by the headquarters of Walmart. The management hierarchy in all these stores is basically the same but there is control by the top management. In practice, it applies both organic and organic structures since it has clearly defined rules responsibility and authority. Apart from these the managers also have some level of independence in decision making. (Haery, 2006)

References

Haery Sihombing. Organisations Structures. Web.

Introduction and Designing Individual Positions. Web.

Ronald R. Sims. Managing Organizational Behavior. (2002).

Wal- Mart Markets. Web.

Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Web.

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