Established in 1908, General Motors (GM), with its headquarters based in Detroit, Michigan was one of the world's largest automakers in the world. Their business operate in 140 countries with an employment of 204000 people, and together with their strategic allies, they produce cars and trucks in 34 countries (General Motors, 2010). However, in June 2009, GM filed for bankruptcy protection and reach out to U.S government for financial assistance (Taylor III, 2009).

In this essay, a look will be taken at the nature of GM’s organizational structure such as its organizational design and how GM’s operation is conceptualized, as well as its existence as an organization. How GM and the environment affect each other will be discussed too.

GM was born out as a conglomerate of firms (Bordenave & Lung 2003). From a multinational organization with a headquarter set in Detroit and unified products, design and manufacturing resources throughout its field of business, GM was quick in moving itself out to become a global organization whereby they valued diversity and flexibility to match with the changing pattern of opportunities and threats posed in the industry sector. They actually diverged from Ford’s monolithic structure, gained own corporate stability and shortly after, challenge Ford’s hegemony internally and globally (Bordenave & Lung 2003). A division of labour is set up, whereby production has been divided into different skills and tasks spread across countries (Hatch & Cunliffe 2006).

GM extended their network beyond traditional boundaries. Heterogeneity, a combination of local practices with foreign ideas was practiced without producing a uniform global culture. By getting borderless, organizational structure and design has transformed to transnational corporation. Drucker, having to do an assignment on GM said that the organization was more of a hybrid