OGL 481 Pro-Seminar I:

PCA-Structural Frame Worksheet

Worksheet Objectives:
1. Describe the structural frame
2. Apply the structural frame to your personal case situation

Complete the following making sure to support your ideas and cite from the textbook and other
course materials per APA guidelines. After the peer review, you have a chance to update this and
format for your Electronic Portfolio due in Module 6.

1) Briefly restate your situation from Module 1 and your role.

The situation that I will be analyzing in my PCA is that of a tough decision that had to be
made regarding the employment of two people. A new District Manager was hired and after the
hiring decision had been made it was found out that one of the locations that this new DM would
be covering had employed his niece as a barista. The difficulty was that we were unsure if this
would be a conflict of interest, or what our next steps would be if it were a conflict.

The relationship was determined to be a conflict and the barista was separated to eliminate
the conflict. My role in the organization is that of an internal District Manager and I was charged
with supporting the decision and communicating that to the barista and new District Manager.

2) Describe how the structure of the organization influenced the situation.

The structure of Starbucks is similar to that of other retail environments with both a Machine
bureaucracy as well a somewhat simple leadership hierarchy. The Machine bureaucracy means
that there are standardized procedures for almost everything in the day-to-day; there is consistent
uniformity. This type of of structure is more commonly seen at the store, level and outside of
that, and moves to a traditional leadership hierarchy within the corporation. This means that a
solution from the top may not always match the needs of the individual units. ( Bolman & Deal,
2021)

Policies and decisions are made at the top level and based on data and generic information.
These decisions are one size fits all, and leave little room for bargaining based on the specifics of
the situation. Because of that, there are tensions between middle managers and top executives as
the situations aren’t always consistent and the decisions made don’t meet the needs of the lower
level. In these situations, the middle managers are left to share the bad news with front-line
employees which demonizes the executives. In addition to that, there is the division of labor

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within any organizational structure. The situation could not be resolved based on the general
policies, thoughts, and opinions of the leaders involved. We also had to include the HR
department as another level of structure within the leadership arena.

3) Recommend how you would use structure for an alternative course of action
regarding your case.

Both the HR department and the traditional hierarchy are more variable than the machine.
Bureaucracy, I would have utilized them to determine a different course of action. The decision
was made based on the interpretation of the standardized procedures laid out in the policies.
However, rather than just sticking to them as written, we could have utilized the leadership
structure, and the HR department to interpret them differently.

The top-down leader could challenge the decision, but they did not. Using this structure, I
could have collected the data and challenged the decision myself. While this is an option
structure of a machine, bureaucracy creates a rigid environment, and I know that if I had decided
to challenge the decision, the result would have been unchanged.

4) Reflect on what you would do or not do differently given what you have learned
about this frame.

I would not do anything differently based on this frame. As the organization is so large,
the frame was chosen intentionally to keep each unit aligned and eliminate opportunities for
inconsistencies. This frame considers all things such as employee policies, product quality,
hiring strategies, and even store design. Without the amount of structure brought by the Machine
Bureaucracy Frame, the individual stores would be inconsistent, and a lot of work would be tied
up in dealing with the same type of problems.

I have personally worked with four separate situations that were around the same
concerns. Employees with personal relationships directly or indirectly supervise each other. If
I’ve experienced this while working with only 20 stores, then, not an organizational level, the
fiscal and resource impact of individually dealing with each situation would be significant. Well,
this frame isn’t always the best, I feel as if the decisions made in the situation were the most
appropriate.

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 Reference:

Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2021). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and
Leadership (7th ed.). Wiley.