I believe that the type of structure best suited to a multinational internet retailer is Matrix Organization and its form of Virtual Organization. Internet retail teams are targeting diverse foreign markets and specific buyer types in each of them. This orientation requires control over three elements: resources, sales results, and marketing (servicing designated users, market development or penetration, promotion, etc.). Virtual organization, i.e., a team network, is an ideal solution for operations that require quick adaptation in diverse and turbulent environments. Its major advantages are flexibility and efficiency of a strategic approach to satisfy demand by bringing international customers as close as possible to the supplier.
Virtual organizations are founded upon a temporary cooperation among independent functional partners, who perform planning and administering of retail operations with the aid of IT innovation and virtual communication. One of the main features of such operations is the real-time remote coordination and control over all of the links in the retail virtual network. Members of the network can exchange information, consult each other, and participate in joint decision-making in online mode. This business interaction directly involves not only internal organizational elements but also external forces: suppliers, stockholders, consumers, and other related parties. They receive access to online catalogues, databases, interactive logistics, and business reports. Consumers are also able to provide valuable feedback directly to the top management at the corporate headquarters. This is an excellent tool for measuring the success of organizational design in structure and culture.
Virtual organizational structure also brings a solution to the main challenge of traditional Matrix Structures, i.e., the problem of double accountability. The phenomenon of double accountability emerged when team members had to report both to its functional manager and Chief Manager of retail operations. In virtual teams, central management of a Multinational Corporation can choose to maintain control leverage over those units that require such. In other cases, it can vest virtual teams with greater ownership and independence. Basically, virtual teams exist as a strategic alliance of highly qualified professionals, who use their key competencies to maximize performance and productivity of team operations.
In team operations, culture is an important factor of success. For virtual teams, it is vital. Employees and managers, international suppliers and recipients of the goods, all coming from diverse cultural backgrounds, face a need to communicate with each other constructively on an everyday basis with no opportunity to meet in person. In other words, international business is dependent upon its successful cooperation with the cultural environment it is operating in. I would not try to build a uniform culture. Instead, I would try to overcome the cultural risk by building a cross-cultural dialogue.
This type of inter-cultural respect is grown through communication, when an efficient multilateral dialogue is formed in search for consensus and solutions to different business issues and development paths. I would initiate interactive trainings and seminars to develop a learning organizational capacity. Resistance emerges to something we do not understand. If employees get a chance to learn about cross-cultural differences, they will reduce uncertainty and increase understanding. Awareness is the key to tolerance while tolerance in the beginning of acceptance and appreciation. By improving relations with their team-mates, employees become increasingly responsible for the team-work results and strive to increase their contribution by growing professional skills, developing common goals, mitigating conflicts, building trust, and sharing experience. Such evolution transforms virtual teams into self-regulating groups. Overall, I would try to show that cultural differences are not a problem but an advantage to business operations. Organizational behavior and ethics embracing cultural differences could become a unifying force that makes virtual teams a whole entity and generates a sustainable strategic is diverse customer environment.
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