Buckman Laboratories: Knowledge and Information Technology Buckman Laboratories is a small, privately held company. The company itself is a laboratory that produces more than 1000 specialty chemicals. It is a rapidly growing company. It has grown from a 50-gallon reactor in the basement of a small house to a global company serving industry in over 80 different countries, with 1,200 employees and annual revenue of $300 million. Company CEO Bob Buckman transformed the company from an old, pyramidal, bureaucratic, command-and-control structure into one where everyone in the organization has complete access to information and where no one continually tells employees what to do. While transforming the company, Buckman took into consideration various factors, such as organization design, organizational structure, technology, etc. As a result, Buckman has managed to remain global, efficient and effective. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay However, transforming the company into a structure where everyone would have complete access to information and where no one would always tell employees what to do was no easy task. Before the change, the company was based on an old pyramidal, bureaucratic, command and control structure. For change to occur, Buckman radically changed six key elements of organizational design. Work specialization has moved from high work specialization to lower one, thus allowing for an increase in knowledge sharing among employees. This also makes employees more satisfied with their work and strengthens the relationship between them in achieving a common goal. Due to the rapidly changing environment due to increased competition caused by globalization, the company must strengthen its geographic departmentalization. This is vital for the company, because by doing so it will strengthen its knowledge of local realities, thus creating products more suited to those realities. The departmentalization of processes should instead remain strong due to the multiplicity of products sold by the company. It is important that each product is treated as a different business unit so as not to lose touch with the competitive market. The chain of command has evolved from a traditional one to a more open one where employees have the power to make decisions that were previously reserved for management. In fact, the concept of chain of command has become less relevant due to self-managing employees and teamwork. This also leads to greater levels of control that reduce costs, speed up decision making, increase flexibility, get closer to customers – all necessary for businesses to survive in today's highly competitive markets. This obviously leads to a company having a highly decentralized structure. Through knowledge of Buckmans (KNetix) contributions are needed from managers to employees. A low level of formalization is also necessary in the structure because employees need freedom in how they do their work. Since all employees are connected to each other via KNetix, if one employee needs help or asks for advice through the forums, others should feel free to give advice to solve the problem. Due to the points mentioned above, we can see that the organic organization is the only one that fits into the Buckmans network which must necessarily be highly adaptive and flexible with little job specialization, formalization.