Ebay's Organizational Structure And Design

3 Pages 703 Words

1. Describe the organizational structure of eBay’s internal and external communities. In doing so, make sure to discuss its organizational design, operations technology and production strategy, decision-making processes, authority and power relations.

eBay has found success as an Internet based company, where so many other companies have failed, revolutionizing business approach to organizational structure and design. The company’s business model has challenged traditional production strategies through changing what it means to be customer-oriented. This is most profoundly exemplified by the impact of the external community on the internal structure of eBay’s organization, in turn, redefining corporate internal alignment. All facets of eBay’s organizational design reflect a strict commitment to maintaining a company culture that has been the foundation for the websites success. The result of such an approach is reflected in the shared values that transcend normal corporate-customer boundaries by having the external community define internal culture. eBay’s organizational structure and design facilitates operations decisions in production strategy, technological development, and authority and power relations.
The functional format of eBay’s business is to provide a forum where anybody can trade anything with anyone, which has led eBay to become the largest person-to-person Internet trading community. Even through the company’s business model is facilitated by the auctions provided, they are recognized as nothing more than a platform enabler. The true foundation of eBay’s operations focuses on providing users with a unique sense of community, an unparalleled method in production strategy that guides the development of the website making it distinctively user-powered. As such, the internal community culture was designed to mirror the external community culture through preserving a strong set of values as emb...