This assignment aims to explore the relationship between organisational design and
organisational development, specifically focusing on OK Zimbabwe supermarkets. The
organisation has 64 retail outlets across the country that are structured into three distinctive
brands: 48 OK stores, 8 OK Mart stores, and 8 Bon Marchè outlets. The leadership structure
is composed of 13 board members, 10 senior managers, and 64 operational managers at
branch level. The combined number of employees at OK Zimbabwe stands at around 5,289
(OK Zimbabwe Limited, 2024).
Organisational design is defined as the process of setting up an organisational structure for an
organisation that clarifies the reporting relationships within the organisation and determines
the flow of communication and the chain of command (Armstrong, 2021). OK Zimbabwe,
subscribes to a geographical organisational design with each branch having a branch
manager, a branch accountant, and a buyer as the operational leaders. All other employees fall
within that structure. A geographical organisational structural design is important for
consistency and efficiency of operations in terms of establishing a clear reporting structure
and flow of communication as well as a chain of command (Dess & McNamara, 2021).
A geographical organisational structure promotes organisational agility to respond rapidly to
specific environmental trends (Cunha et al., 2020). Branch management at Bon Marchè outlet
in Borrowdale and OK Mbare are better positioned to respond to the unique needs within the
operating environments due to the power bestowed on them as opposed to centralised
management of the stores. The organisational design of OK Zimbabwe is important in
ensuring that branch management has significant control over the day-to-day human
resources operations (Botha & Venter, 2022). Strategic management is responsible for
expanding the number of shops and ensuring that OK Zimbabwe maintains a nationwide
footprint in line with their growth strategy.
Human resources issues are firstly dealt with at branch level before they can be escalated to
the head office. In essence, a branch within OK Zimbabwe operates more like a single entity
within which industrial relations issues are dealt with. The uniformity of the organisational
structure across all 64 branches within OK Zimbabwe has helped to promote consistency in
running such a big organisation due to the existence of a predefined organisational structure,
which clarifies the chain of command, the flow of communications and reporting
relationships. Any issues encountered at branch level are escalated by the branch
management who report directly to the tactical and strategic managers.
Organisational development is defined as a systematic approach to improving the capability
of the organisation to function effectively by ensuring the involvement of its people
(Armstrong, 2021). At OK Zimbabwe, organisational development is dealt with at strategic
level. Key issues of organisational development like employee training and development are
part of the long-term strategy of the organisation. Branch managers simply translate and
implement employee training and development initiatives. For example, OK Zimbabwe has a
centralised training centre and clinic housed at OK First Street Branch with a dedicated
training manager and a certified and registered nurse. This shows that employee health,
welfare and competency are cardinal to the sustainability of OK Zimbabwe. Moreover, OK
Zimbabwe has a centralized management trainee program whereupon completing, managers
are deployed to any of the 64 branches across the nation. The same applies when it comes to
the centralised recruitment of high-value employees. While basic recruitment of low-level
jobs like till operators is the responsibility of the branch accountants.
The essence of organisational development within the perspective of OK Zimbabwe is that it
enables the retail outlet to be agile, adopt new business models and enhance its learning and
adaptive capabilities (Kuo, 2024). The disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic
resulted in the OK Zimbabwe giving more prominence to online shopping which is as
organisational development initiative that all the 64stores had to embrace.
In relation to OK Zimbabwe, organisational development takes precedence over
organisational design. Which implies that strategic management sets up the organisational
development goals, which are cascaded down to all 64 branches across the country. Each of
the 64 branches under the OK Zimbabwe stable has the same structure in terms of the
management. This clarifies the reporting relationships and regulates the flow of
communication and the chain of command. It is apparent that organisational development
strategies such as smart working, change management, employee talent and knowledge
management, development and engagement, business process and model redesign are the
preserve of strategic management.
The geographical organisational structure of OK Zimbabwe is congruent with its
organisational strategy of growth and agility. These are implemented through the
organisational structure across all 64 branched and 5 289 employees. This is essential in the
promotion of goal congruency across a diversified retail chain. While organisational
development is centralised for consistency of organisational strategy implementation. It also
benefits in leveraging the use of resources and optimises operational efficiency (Armstrong,
2021).
References
Armstrong, M. (2021). Armstrong’s Handbook of Management Resource Strategic Human:
Improve business performance through strategic people management. Kogan Page.
Botha, T., & Venter, P. (2022). Practising Strategy: A southern African Context. In Journal
of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical (3rd ed., Issue 8). Juta.
[Link]
Cunha, M. P. e., Gomes, E., Mellahi, K., Miner, A. S., & Rego, A. (2020). Strategic agility
through improvisational capabilities: Implications for a paradox-sensitive HRM. Human
Resource Management Review, 30(1), 100695.
[Link]
Dess, G. G., & McNamara, G. (2021). Strategic Management: Textx and Cases. McGraw
Hill.
Kuo, S. Y. (2024). Improving innovation performance through learning capability and
adaptive capability: The moderating role of big data analytics. Knowledge Management
Research and Practice, 22(4), 364–376.
[Link]
OK Zimbabwe Limited. (2024). Annual Report.
