Even with a workforce of 600, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, based in Waterbury, Vermont, stays as entrepreneurial as when Bob Stiller founded the company in 1981 with one coffee shop and a handful of employees. The original plan was to open a series of coffee shops throughout New England. By the time Green Mountain Coffee had grown to twelve shops, profitability was struggling, so Stiller switched to importing, roasting, and wholesaling high-quality coffee beans to stores, food-service professionals, and restaurants around the country. Today, his company brews up profits from $137 million in annual sales to Aramark Food Service, McDonald’s New England outlets, Wild Oats Market groceries, Publix supermarkets, and 7,000 other businesses.

1. How is Green Mountain Coffee’s “constellation” of communication likely to affect the informal organization?
2. Does Green Mountain Coffee appear to have a networked, communal, mercenary, or fragmented culture? Support your answer.
3. Is Green Mountain Coffee a centralized or decentralized organization? How do you know?