In addition to that, the structure of the company is a lattice structure that is working in an organic environment with no formal hierarchy and decentralization. The prime characteristics of the lattice structure are differentiation, shared adjustment, significance of informal organization and decentralization in terms of authority.
Property rights:
The company has given property rights to their associates that is clearly evident in the policies for human resources. These policies acted as a direct interpretation of the vision lead by the founder of the company. The culture of the company and these policies are interdependent and in turn exemplifies the culture of the company. The culture of the company is base on treating all associates and sponsors equally to avoid any discrepancies and thus avoid the culture of “we." In addition to that, the company has never setup any priorities for associates or special treatment for anyone like reserved parking areas for CEO or Vice President. The company exists on the basis of treating all associates with transparency and fairness.
All the associates in the company are pushed to make teams, make commitments, being innovative, advice suggestions for the betterment of the company. In turn, company gives a proper feedback to their associates two times in a year. This feedback is backed by the peer reviews and ratings. Along with that, the management of the company provides weekly informal feedback to the associates as well.
People:
The employee’s commitment towards the organizational policies and the vision of the founder play a vital role in determining the foundation of the organizational culture. The founder of the company Bill has gone through with other companies like DuPont where he identified and realized that excellence, productivity and ideal entrepreneurship is based on four basic instrumental values i.e. freedom, commitment, fairness and discretion. The founder has penetrated these values in the organizational culture and later diffused to their employees and associates as well. Apparently, the company is willing to attract those people who can easily adjust with the company’s value and culture.
Ethics:
Along with giving emphasis to their associates, Bill has set values that were solely based on ethical and moral considerations. The company has never been taken advantage of being a single supplier of the medical products and focused on making their prices and costs lower than expected. These are the some aspects that reveal professional and personal characteristics of the company on which the culture has built and fostered that in turn motivated employees to make their commitments fulfil.
Values:
The major values of the company are based on innovation, perfection, excellence and high quality in everything. In addition to that, values that help associates to reach these values are freedom, discretion, fairness and commitment. Management at Gore encourages those associates who are risk takers and like to do an experiment to bring innovation. In turn, employees take responsibility and commitment to make an appropriate use of the company’s resources.
Figure 2: Origin of company's culture
Q 3: Why don't more firms emulate or do What W. L. Gore does? Why are Gore-type businesses rare?
It is hard for other companies penetrate Gore’s culture into their organizations. Often the companies are curious about the success at Gore and often send their supervisors, workers and managers to learn the ways and the culture of the company. Other companies are inspired by the way company has built positive reputation and created a loyal, innovative and motivated associates.
Other companies can only emulate company’s culture by doing business process reengineering and re-structuring the core values, beliefs and culture of the company. The culture of the company is created by the founder and thus deeply penetrated in the company’s roots. Other firms can adopt and imitate the culture at Gore, but the success is not obvious. A company with proper business structure, chain of command, hierarchical levels and managerial positions may found it difficult to adopt the company’s culture. The culture followed at Gore can be best implemented to small enterprises where communication is easier, and the hierarchy is small and the atmosphere is informal in nature...................................
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