HOW DOES APPLE INC.

WORKS 1

How Does Apple Inc. Works

Mariana Barraza

South Texas College

ORGL 4341: Management Theory

How Does Apple Inc. Works

Have you researched how Apple Inc. works and all their behind management,

organizational structure, and other business sections? As everyone knows already, we know that

Apple Inc. is a large company that centralizes in technology by making electronic devices like

iPhones, iPads, MacBooks Air, Apple Watches, etc. This means that we only know the outer

information about Apple Inc., but there is still much more that we can learn from them besides

just knowing that they make different types of electronic devices. Apple Inc. gives us the

opportunity to learn about the way they operate and how they succeed in their company by

incorporating different business processes into their company. We are going to research, analyze,

and make recommendations about their organizational structure, their advantages and

disadvantages of either their mechanistic or organic structure they may have, if they are

considered as a centralized or decentralized management, and their goals. Before we get started,

the researcher would include a short brief history about them, so we can get to know how the

company first started. According to A Slice of Apple’s History (2011), when Apple Inc. first

started, they had a different type of logo. Their first logo featured Isaac Newton sitting under a

tree and an apple almost hitting his head. What made them change the logo was because it was

hard to read when shrunk down and stuck on a product. It was when the monochromatic apple

logo was first introduced in the year 1998. Another fact was that “to buy parts and build the first

few Apple I’s, Jobs sold his Volkswagen van Steve Wozniak sold his Hewlett-Packard 65

scientific calculator for $500. The HP-65 retailed for $795 and was marketed as the smallest

programmable computer ever” (A Slice of Apple’s History, 2011). By looking at their brief

history, we can know that Apple Inc. has had success throughout the years. We can also know

that there is a direct relationship between Apple Inc. and their different business processes.
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Apple Inc. organizational structure

The first topic we are going to research about is Apple Inc. organizational structure. We

are going to discover what type of organizational structure they have and how this style works

for

them. Before starting with the research, the researcher would like to implement what

organizational structure refers to, so we can know about what we are talking and discovering

about. According to Carpenter et al. (2012), “Organizational Structure refers to how individual

and team work within an organization are coordinated. To achieve organizational goals and

objectives, individual work needs to be coordinated and managed”. Now, going into the research,

what we discover according to Organimi was that the type of organizational structure that Apple

Inc. has is a functional structure. “This means that the company has been organized around areas

of expertise, rather than individual products. The products themselves are then worked on by

individuals from across the different areas of expertise” (Organimi, n.d.). By reading what

Organimi concluded about Apple Inc. organizational structure, we can know that they decided to

have that type of structure so that every person in there had their own area of expertise. Going

back into Organimi article, he also added that Apple is splitted into focused divisions. This refers

that there is an upper management and vice president for each division in there. If you still do not

get how they work, to better understand what they do is for example, in the operations section,

there is a senior vice president which is Sabih Khan, in the other section which is the hardware

engineering they have another vice president named Dan Riccio, and lastly, for the machine

learning section they have John Giannandrea (Organimi, n.d.).

Advantages and disadvantages of either mechanistic or organic structure

Going into the second topic, we are going to research about finding out the advantages

and disadvantages of either mechanistic or organic structure they may have. According to

Mayesha Tasnim, Apple is considered to be both mechanistic and organic structure. This means

that Apple has different beings from both structures. The advantages of Apple being an organic

structure is that their employees always have the right and freedom to incorporate their ideas,

decisions, innovation, and creativity into the projects. The disadvantages of being also a

mechanistic structure is that in some sections of Apple for example in retail, operations, and

sales, the employees cannot take decisions. The only ones that are able to take decisions are the

vice presidents, senior vice presidents, or the CEO (Tasnim, 2018).

Centralized or decentralized management?

Now, passing next into the third topic which is doing research on finding out if Apple

Inc. is considered as a centralized or decentralized management. What we found according to

Principles of Accounting, is that Apple is considered to be a centralized management structure.

This means that only the CEO which is Tim Cook has much of the decision-making

responsibility. Due to this, Apple has been viewed as a strong organization because they

maintain a high level of centralized control over the company’s strategic initiatives for example

in their developments of new products, the markets they will operate in, and their acquisitions

(Principles of Accounting, n.d.). What we can conclude by this is that the decision-making is

limited in a centralized environment such as Apple. To get to know more about what

centralization means, I would add the meaning from Carpenter et al. (2012). Centralization

means that the decisions-making process is only authorized in higher levels of the organization.

Apple Inc. Human Resource Management

Lastly, we are going to research about Apple Inc. Human Resource Management.

Researching about how they operate in their human resource management is really important

because we can learn how the company treats their employees, what is required for them to do,

and all

other strategies the company has for them. According to Source Essay Writing Service, “The HR

strategies of Apple always seem to hire a diverse, independent, talented employee who does not

need direction. Apple follows non egalitarian methods which suggest Apple fills 95% of the

roles that are critical to business success through a quality. By knowing the importance of full-

time work execution, Apple has developed a broad and focused advantages bundle for its

corporate representatives with self-awareness programs. This imprints Apple’s willingness to be

the best tech company in the world, by allowing great ideas for the company (Source Essay

Writing Service, 2022). Also, some of their strategic human resources activities that Apple Inc.

incorporates to their employees according to Source Essay Writing Service, are selection and

recruitment. This activity is about how Apple tends to hire the talented and right candidate for

the company. Their process in hiring and knowing who the right candidate is by verbal

communication. Another activity they have is about employee rewarding and appreciation. That

type of activity focuses on a program named Apple Fellow, this program recognizes the

employee that has the major contribution to the company. The way the company appreciates the

employee is by being rewarded and can also be designed later as leaders (Source Essay Writing

Service, 2022).

Recommendations to be a decentralized company

After we have finished researching all about Apple Inc. inner part information which is

all about their business sections/process, the researcher would have to make some
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recommendations in some sections that she would like for them to change and improve on. The

first recommendation she would like to give to Apple Inc. is about the type of management they

have which is centralized. We already know that they deal with centralized management. A

centralized management means that only top management professionals, which are the

executives, have the right of managing the planning and decision-making process. An example I

can give so we can get to know more about what this type of management refers to is for

example in the military, the followers should follow the instructions given by their superiors.

Now, she wants to recommend to them that it would be better for them if they have a

decentralized type of management. A decentralized type of management according to Carpenter

et al. (2012) means, it gives more authority to lower-level employees, resulting in a sense of

empowerment. Decisions can be made more quickly, and employees often believe that

decentralized companies provide greater levels of procedural fairness to employees. It would be

a good recommendation from me to them for various reasons. The first reason would be because

the decision-making process would be easier and quicker, this means it would not be a waste of

time for the company and executives to worry about. The second reason is because there will be

more brains in the time of planning and decision-making, this means there would be more

creativity and newer ideas that can lead the company to a newer surface and future. And lastly

because you are giving the opportunity to your employees to feel confidence in their

professionalism, and it would benefit the company in the way that your employees will last

longer working for the company because they are in a job where they can express themselves and

feel that they count.

Now, the analyst knows her recommendation would be helpful because she has evidence

from case studies which talks about how businesses have had success due to having a
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decentralized type of management. The first case study she would present is about a company

named Eventbrite. According to Maggie Wooll, Eventbrite is an event management and ticketing

website. Eventbrite is considered as a decentralized management company which means that the

event creators also take the role of managers. They have various reasons for why it is beneficial

for them to work that way. The first reason is because event creators do not only dedicate

themselves to that, but they have the luck of also knowing how to be event promoters. A second

reason is because event

creators have a good experienced in attracting customers to buy their tickets. This means that

they know how to communicate which lets them achieve to convince the ticket buyers. A third

reason is because local managers have more knowledge on different areas and consumers to sell

tickets or ideas that will work better. Also, according to Maggie Wooll, “Eventbrite understands

that event creators (also known as promoters) have a better chance at securing attendees than

they do. As a result, they powered 4.7 million events in 2019 and served more than 949,000

event creators (Wooll, 2021).

The analyst would like to present a second case study that really got her attention that

represents how decentralized companies have been successful in the business industry.

According to Olli Lauren, the decentralized machinery has been more successful and into a good

road more than their non-decentralized peers (Olli, 2020). By this we can know that the

machinery that has a decentralized management is more successful, strong, and has the power

than centralized. Also, according to Olli Lauren she says “based on our story of 28 global

machinery companies and their performance over five years, 100% of decentralized companies

had positive market-cap growth, while only 33% of the non-decentralized companies

experienced the same. Not surprisingly, decentralized organizations also outperformed their
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peers in terms of average revenue growth and EBIT margin growth over this time period (Olli,

2020).

Recommendation on their functional organizational structure

Another recommendation, the researcher would like to give to Apple Inc. is based on

their functional organizational structure. This recommendation is important for the researcher

because since she is a consumer of their electronic products, she would like to keep being one.

On the other hand, this recommendation is also important for them because whatever failure they

get by having this type of functional structure may cause them to not have growth in future years.

We know that being a functional structure is a centralized structure which means each

department has its leader/director. For the researcher having this type of organizational structure

is stressful because you are causing stress to your employees by always wanting them to

complete assigned day-to-day tasks. In result, the researcher thinks this would make their

employees always feel pressure, and what will happen is that they will only have in mind to

finish their task and not adding creativity or seeking newer ideas to make more products. The

company will start to fail in the way that they will lose employees in a facility way because they

will feel stress and pressure from Apple wanting to put instructions and what needs to be done.

The researcher will recommend for them to change their type of organizational structure so that

their employees may have liberty, feel like they are in their home, and have more opportunities

to participate in their job. Not only that, but it will also benefit them as a company because their

employees will last longer, they can get newer ideas when designing newer products, how to get

work done, and even in the process of decision making.

The researcher would like to present a page that supports and defends her

recommendation given that having a functional organizational structure may cause a big failure.
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This page name “Main disadvantages of functional organizational structure” published by ORG

Chart, centralizing in the part of main disadvantages of a functional organization structure, gives

the disadvantages of why having a functional type of structure may cause the company to fail.

The first disadvantage according to ORG Charts, is that “it will lead to poor communication and

coordination across functional units” (ORG Chart, n.d.). This disadvantage is the same as that it

can cause a slow reaction in response when they change employees to different sections of the

company because they will not know nothing because they were only focused on their tasks.

Another disadvantage according to ORG Charts, is that “they focus more on their own goals and

neglect the overall company objectives” (ORG Charts, n.d.). This type of disadvantage is the one

that the researcher believes more because their head executives are only ordering their section

employees to complete tasks but are not letting their employees to corporate on company

objectives. A last disadvantage according to ORG Charts, is that “Communication in

organizations with functional organizational structures can be rigid” (ORG Charts, n.d.). This

third disadvantage means that their employees may have a bad type of communication, and it can

cause the company to have a negative image to their consumers.

Conclusion and Future Research

In conclusion, we have finished with the research for the company Apple Inc. focusing on

their organizational structure, their advantages, and disadvantages of their mechanistic and

organic structure they have, their consideration as a centralized management, and their goals. We

have also finished analyzing and giving some recommendations which, the researcher think

would benefit them based on two topics which were their consideration as a centralized

management and their future goal. We discover and learn different topics such as how Apple Inc.

have a functional organizational structure. We also discover that they have both mechanistic and
HOW DOES APPLE INC. WORKS 10

organic advantages and disadvantages inside their company. Something that was very interesting

for the researcher that she did not believe they had that she learned was their type of role

management which was a centralized type. Lastly, we discovered their future goal which was not

that of a good idea for the researcher. Finalizing this, she hopes Apple Inc, keeps giving us the

opportunity to learn more about their business topics, so we can keep up with future research.
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References

9.1 differentiate between centralized and decentralized management - Principles of Accounting,

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https://openstax.org/books/principles-managerial-accounting/pages/9-1-differentiate-be-

tween-centralized-and-decentralized-management 

Apple's corporate structure [interactive chart]. Organimi. (n.d.). Retrieved August 11, 2022,

from https://www.organimi.com/organizational-structures/apple/ 

A Slice of Apple’s History. (2011). Professional Safety, 56(12), 56.

Carpenter, M. A., Bauer , T., & Erdogan, B. (2012). 7.2 Organizational Structure. Organiza-

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HR strategy at Apple make their employees creative and innovative. Online essay writing ser-

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egy-at-apple-make-their-employees-creative-and-innovative/ 

Main disadvantages of functional organization structure. Org Charting. (24AD). Retrieved Au-

gust 12, 2022, from http://www.orgcharting.com/functional-structure-disadvantages/ 

Olli, L. (2020). Making a case for decentralized companies | Industryweek. Retrieved August 12,

2022, from https://www.industryweek.com/leadership/article/21145316/is-decentralizing-right-

for-your-company 
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Tasnim , M. (2018). An organizational analysis on Apple - IISTE. Retrieved August 12, 2022,

from https://iiste.org/Journals/index.php/EJBM/article/viewFile/42125/43369 

Wooll, M. (2021, April 20). What are decentralized organizations? The Complete Guide. What

Are Decentralized Organizations? The Complete Guide. Retrieved August 11, 2022, from

https://www.betterup.com/blog/decentralization-in-management 
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3 Year Growth Graphs