BUS 599 MOD 03 SLP: Congruence Model of Organizational Behavior

Congruence Model of Organizational Behavior
Name:
Institution:
Congruence Model of Organizational Behavior
Background of Whole Food Market Industry
Established in 1980 in Austin Texas, Whole Food Market has grown to one of the best performing grocery industries in the world. Today, the organization boasts of over 290 grocery stores located across the United State, United Kingdom and Canada (Hamstra, 2008). In terms of performance, the company has managed to claim a place in the Fortune Magazine’s as one of the best companies to work for having been ranked in the 22nd position in the 2009 list of Top 100 Best Companies to Work For. All these progresses have been associated to the organization’s best practices in its human resource department that enhances the organization’s missions, goals, structure, reward systems, strategies and benefits. However, as much as the organization’s performance has been improved thanks to its adherence to Nadler-Tushman Congruence Module, few issues in Whole Food Market strategy are yet to meet the requirements of the module as shall be discussed below.
Analysis of Whole Food Market Strategy
The major goal of Whole Foods Market is to increase its sales and provision of value added products to its consumers. However, a number of obstacles that have befallen the organization progress towards achieving these goals. They include factors such as the general perception of its consumers that the cost of the organization’s products is high and the existence of other substitute companies like Safeway and Wal-Mart that also competes in the same market (Whole Foods Market,2009). Subsequently, WF main strategy of ensuring that it attains its objective of recording a sales increase has been based on the following actions that have so far been undertaken by the organization.
The first action is the product differentiation aspect that has seen the company increase its market share by producing different sets of food, that is the natural food and quality prepared restaurant foods. Differentiation strategy has also enabled Whole Fvood Market to come up with unique products from the ones produced by its rival competitor companies. The second aspect of WF strategy that has been implemented so far is the expansion of the company’s market share through establishment of more new ‘stores in various locations.
This has been achieved thanks to the extra 110 store that the company acquired from its rival natural grocer organization the wild oats in 2007 and the 21 new stores that it build in the United States (Gregory et al, 2007). Finally, WF has been forced to lower its stock price, which has fallen since 2008 as a way of reacting to the consumers’ perception of the higher WF prices.
The above-mentioned aspects of Whole Food Market strategy are in one way or the other adhering to Porter’s generic strategies. Porter’s generic strategies model implies that in order to gain a competitive advantage, it has to consider the following basic strategic options. First is the cost leadership, the second being differentiation and finally the Focus. Whole Foods Market has incorporated the cost leadership strategy by reducing their stock prices as a way of luring more customers, who in return ensures that the company maximizes its profits from the potential consumers.
Differentiation aspect Porter’s strategy has been incorporated in Whole Food strategy through the company’s act of producing both the natural food and restaurant prepared food as a way of expanding its market in order to command different consumer markets. These examples therefore affirm that Whole Food Market strategy best fits differentiation and Cost focus strategies of porter’s generic model.
Review Whole Food Market Input
Environment Category Input
The major critical issue that Whole Food Company faces in its environment is the competition from other supermarkets like the Safeway and Wal-Mart among other companies producing the same products at a very competitive price and the key input that the company has put in place is the product differentiation strategy (Whole Foods Market Benefits, 2009). Competition from rival companies is critical since it poses a threat to a company’s monotonous control of a specific market.
Resource Category Input
An example of a major critical input that several experts have praised about Whole Food Market in its resource category is the employee influence thanks to the of motivation and appraisal culture, which are cultivated among its employees. Whole food has indicated that it values employees input by offering training to new employees and their fellow employees determine their performance (Whole Foods Market, 2009). This is believed to have been one of the factors that have offered an extra competitive advantage for Whole Food Market. Training of new employees is a critical input since it ensures that continuity is restored in the production system of a specific company thus ensuring production of best quality is consistent regardless of shifting and shuffling of employees.
History category input
A critical input in the company’s history category is its diversity. Historically, the company has been driven by non-discriminatory policies in its workplace, a factor that has enabled it to acquire a “green Zone” status among the few companies that have uphold the non-discriminatory culture in workplaces hence offering a competitive advantage. Besides diversity, the company has also cultivated the culture of producing quality and healthy products together with exceptional customer care services. Criticality in diversity culture input comes out in that without diversity, a company can hardly establish new invention, which is an important factor in achieving product differentiation (Whole Foods Market, 2009).
Alignment of WF Key Inputs and its Strategy
As discussed above, the major environmental issue that Whole Foods Market faces is the competition from the rival companies such as the Wal-Mart and Safeway among other companies. However, the company input in of countering the competition issues arising from the rival companies is the act of producing unique, quality and healthy products. This way the company manages to brush off its competitors s its products stands out among the consumers compared to those that are produced by other rival companies. Therefore, it is arguable that existence of external competition from other companies has influenced the existence of differentiation aspect that is ...