The Dow Corning Organization’s Structure

Introduction

Dow Corning is a pioneer in researching and synthesizing organosilicon materials with more than seventy years of development. Over its history, the company has undergone several shifts in the organizational structure associated with both rapid advancement and strategical miscalculations. Although Dow corporation is rightfully considered a leader in its field and continues to improve today, the company experienced significant problems in structure and manufacturing in the 20th century. Therefore, it is essential to thoroughly analyze the company’s history and establish the reasons for its successes and failures.

Organizational Structure Analysis

In 2000, Dow Corning strengthened its position as an innovation leader by implementing a global information platform. Growing demand for organosilicon materials worldwide allowed Dow Corning to build an industrial complex for the production of siloxanes in Asia (Dlabay et al., 2018). As a result, the business expansion globally allowed the organization to mitigate some of the previous mistakes and return to its position as the leading company in the industry. At the time, Dow corporation had a governing element in the form of a board of directors and the president of the company (Dlabay et al., 2018). In other words, the responsibilities in the organization were divided among employees and delegated according to competence. At the same time, the management of the corporation had a hierarchical structure, where the CEO & the president determined the critical vectors of the organizational development.

Main Factors of Organizational Structure Shifts (Question 1)

Nevertheless, the company has undergone several structure shifts throughout its history, and it is essential to conduct a thorough examination of its development. At the earlier stages of the company before the territorial expansion, the key component of the organization was a wide selection of manufactured products with an emphasis on one group of production, which reinforced customer loyalty. However, when the corporation grew to a larger scale, the management decided to change the management scheme, replacing it with a divisional one. Therefore, the two primary factors for replacing a functional system were the rapid territorial expansion and variety of production. These influences resemble the standard factors of organizational shift, with size and business development stage being the most influential ones.

Consequently, the company shifted to the matrix organizational structure associated with specialist functions and expanded to ten major business centers instead of five. This change was associated with increasing territorial scope of influence and contrast in the demand between foreign and domestic markets. Therefore, the company needed another organizational shift that would allow various business strategies, depending on the production demand, which is another common influence of structural change. Furthermore, the matrix system would improve the overall coordination of organizational units and increase the speed of response to potential challenges. Ultimately, considering the six common influences, Dow Corning primarily concerned only internal factors, such as expansion, deficiency of organization, and conflicting production. At the same time, external factors, such as technological, social, and political changes affected the company to a lesser extent.

Problems of Matrix Organization (Question 2)

As mentioned briefly before, the number of control elements increased while the quality of operations decreased, implying the matrix organizational structure problems. Dow Corning achieved international success created by authority; however, customers faced numerous delays and challenges (Tool, 2019). After all, the matrix structure accelerates the turnover of staff, which, in turn, implies employees’ dissatisfaction with their management (Morris & Oldroyd, 2020). Furthermore, staff turnover makes it necessary to devote more time and resources to training and searching for new specialists (Morris & Oldroyd, 2020). It led to further escalation of the conflict, with managers being accused of exceeding their authority.

Furthermore, bureaucracy is one of the significant drawbacks of the matrix organizational structure. At this point in the company’s history, there was a surplus of managers, which led to an extensive number of mistakes due to the human factor. The company’s operations were ineffective, with some tasks contradicting each other, large amounts of managerial confusion, and abundant bureaucracy. Consequently, the matrix structure significantly reduced the level of competitiveness of Dow Corning. The critical advantage of the company was a wide selection of products, implying that it was necessary