Current centralization
Medtronic takes great pride in its policy of decentralizing its operational, quality and ethical decisions. The company officials see this as an outgrowth or consequence of the company's clear and consistent mission and values. Below, Medtronic CEO William George makes clear the connection between them: "(W)e are able to decentralize and delegate quality and ethical decisions to people because there is a frame-work from which they can make good decisions. We say, 'You don't have to make a trade-off between cost and taking care of the patient. You always take care of the patient, and the cost will take care of itself.' That makes an easy framework for people.
We operate from a Medtronic standard of values, not a U.S. standard, not a Saudi Arabian standard, not a Japanese standard. We explain the standard and ask our employees to sign a statement each year saying that they have complied with that standard and are committed to complying with it next year. The most important thing, of course, is that they understand the values. But if they say they're committed, then we can delegate and decentralize. There's no way I can ever know what's going on throughout the organization." This statement would seem to indicate that, overall, the level of centralization at Medtronic is not high, and may even be low. There was very little information in the accounts, however, that spoke directly or indirectly about the extent to which Medtronic decentralizes decision-making. However, given the apparent ubiquity of, and compliance with, the Medtronic mission statement, we conclude the following:Top management direct involvement
Top management interpretation
Top management direct control of the execution of decisions
Based on the above we further assume that typical middle managers have some discretion in establishing their budget, selecting evaluation criteria for their units, hiring and firing of personnel, setting personnel rewards, purchasing equipment and supplies, establishing a new project or program, and deciding how work exceptions are to be handled.
A certainty factor of 85 is assigned to all of these answers.