The remainder of employees are part-time and work approximately 20 hours a week (Wal-Mart, 2007) This staffing decision by WalMart of the mix of full and part-time employees is also complimentary to their organizational structure as it is hierarchical in design yet needs to be flexible in responding to supply chain, seasonal selling demand, and economic change. As a result, this has been very effective for the company and has given employees stability over time as WalMart is not forced to hire and fire to keep their stores profitable. In terms of motivating teams this structure allows for greater levels of task ownership and product expertise (Gereffi, Christian, 2009). Full-time employees are defined to teams within departments and stay with assignments for the long-term. The motivational aspects of this are that it allows for autonomy, mastery and purpose of roles within structure to be...

This gives employees a greater sense of ownership over their jobs. From a conflict resolution standpoint, WalMart believes in having an arbitration process within departments, first, then stores and if necessary to divisions. The hierarchical structure defines specific roles, responsibility and authority for arbitrating conflict. Not as collaborative as other organizations yet effective in resolving conflict, WalMart has been successful with this approach (Drogin, 2003).
References

Richard Drogin, Ph. D. (2003) - STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF GENDER PATTERNS IN WAL-MART WORKFORCE, February, 2003 Drogin, Kakigi & Associates, Berkeley, CA 94705

Gereffi, G., & Christian, M.(2009). The Impacts of Wal-Mart: The Rise and Consequences of the World's Dominant Retailer. Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 573.

Wal-Mart Annual Report -- 2007.…