Abstract
W.L. Gore & Associates is a company unlike many others. Founded in 1958, this company has its headquarters in Newark and Delaware. With over 9,000 employees, this company has proven to be effective in their flat lattice team based organization. Each employee is considered an associate, and their bosses are considered sponsors with the intention of maximize associate’s potential in giving all their talents for self and company improvement. The purpose of this paper is to analyze their structure and environment, culture, strategies, technologies, and company’s current state of operations.
W.L. Gore & Associates
The most adequate word to describe W.L. Gore & Associates Company’s structure is organic. With their flat lattice structure, the company is well known for their ability to be extremely flexible and be able to adapt to environmental changes. These characteristics aid in the company having an easier transcendence in embracing new innovations that are well needed in their current environment. Communication is very high and Gore prefers to have informal meetings and meet his staff rather than sending e-mails to multiple people.
In their culture, people are encouraged to experiment and invent new product through trial and error. Both success and failures are celebrated because it is through the failures that success eventually happens. Thus this practice tends to bring out the best on their associates (not staff) who would feel like being part of something big instead of just being another employee working at a factory. Associates are encourage to use their thinking caps and to brainstorm ideas to produce new innovations that the company can venture into. There is no direct structure within the company and each associate has the ability to communicate with anyone within the company and get things done in a very short period of time. Therefore, we can see a horizontal grouping of associates who work in areas that match their skills with the...