The Organizational Structure of Walgreens
Georgeanna McLean
MGT/230
December 6, 2012
Yuvonne Richmond
The Organizational Structure of Walgreens
“At the corner of happy and healthy” is the snappy jargon that reminds all people of one legacy and business, Walgreens. Walgreens began in 1901 and was founded by Charles R. Walgreen Sr. This super conglomerate began in the south side of Chicago and now has over 7,000 stores nationwide, continues to re-innovate, and opens about 425 new stores a year (Tucker-McLaughlin, n.d.). With this company’s continual growth and constant upholding of a competitive edge with other similar companies, a strong organizational structure and design is needed to maintain such a fast growing company.
Walgreens Organizational Structure
Walgreens has a vertical organizational structure in place. With a vertical structure basis, Walgreens is headed by, like most major corporations, a board of directors. The "Walgreens Board of Directors and Corporate Officers" (2012), website reports that Walgreens currently holds fourteen people on the board of directors and 27 other corporate officers. Most of the individuals that sit on this board are not directly responsible for the managing areas of Walgreens; however they do oversee the company’s corporate governance which includes financial reports, tactical control, ethical, legal, and public responsibility. Walgreens is built on a hierarchy system and an authority structure, which entails the higher levels giving direction to the lower levels of the company. However, Walgreens is considered a more centralized organization because more of the major managing decisions are made at a management level (Bateman & Snell, 2011). Compared to some smaller pharmacy stores, which have a more face-to-face communication systems, Walgreens must have a highly functional departmentalization. The responsibility of overseeing the numerous Walgreens stores is broken down into certain regions...