Business Management Case Study: Aliibaba Company Found In China

Alibaba Group is a company found in China, and as mentioned above China is one of the countries, which has highest power distance. However, Jack Ma, the founder and the CEO of the company, aims to create a low power distance-working environment and tend to adopt a decentralization strategy (Wolf, 2010). The company’s subsidiaries have developed independent technology teams, that is having no Chief Technology Officer to guide or to handle the operations while other following the decision of the (CTO). This kind of strategy has maximized the flexibility of employees to operate in the organization and can have innovations rather then complying with a decision given by the head of the department. They can cooperate with each other subsidiaries in a harmonious and supportive internal environment.
Bottom-up process refers to subsidiaries submitting plans to headquarters to go through the reviewing process by Chief Strategy Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief People Officer and Chief Executive Officer. Through this, the subsidiaries are encouraged to do things their own way instead of having boundaries and limitations set by the CEO. They do things in the best and efficient way they believe in.

Besides, Jack Ma believes that employees are the most valuable assets in a company, so he puts a great amount of resources to train his employees so that they can excel in everyway possible. He believes that investing employees is more profitable than investing money into a bank. He cares a lot about his employees that once he even attended an employees wedding event and gave them his blessing.

The result for such a low power distance company in a high power distance country is really surprising. It is the largest e-commerce company in China