Wilson Sporting Goods Company (www.wilson.com) is one of the world's leading manufacturers of sports equipment (including uniforms/apparel and footwear) and focuses on making technologically advanced products to help the average player play better. Its core sports categories include football, basketball, baseball, volleyball, soccer, youth sports, golf, and racquet sports (tennis, racquetball, squash, badminton, and platform tennis). Wilson is owned by Amer Sports, based in Helsinki, Finland, and is one of the world's leading sports equipment companies with its internationally recognized brands of Wilson, Atomic, Suunto, and Precor.Wilson's corporate headquarters are located in Chicago, Illinois; the company currently has more than 3,000 employees worldwide (most are U.S.-based employees, while several hundred are international).

Given the company's geographically diverse locations, its various core sports categories, and its multiple products, it is important for the company to employ individuals who specialize. Within the company, Wilson has company executives, manufacturers, distributors, sales representatives, and so forth for individual product lines. Each of these subunits needs to be staffed by individuals with appropriate skills and attitudes. Each division of Wilson is organized differently in order to cope with changing requirements and environment. Wilson employees must exhibit a variety of persuasive and analytical skills in responding to their respective environments.

For example, Billy Morgan is a baseball equipment sales agent. He needs to interact with reluctant buyers in order to persuade them to carry the Wilson line of gloves, bats, balls, and bags. In order to convince them, he must be aware of and able to communicate key product information. For example, to sell the Wilson A 2000 XL-B, he emphasizes the fact that it is the same glove that five-time All-Star Curt Schilling used in leading the Boston Red Sox to their first World Series title in more than 85 years. In addition, he has to show buyers the glove's special features and display it in a way that is attractive.

Jeannie Smith, on the other hand, is employed in the purchasing department of the baseball equipment division. Her responsibilities include being knowledgeable about the purchasing needs of the different departments within the division. She also must evaluate the sales messages of other companies to determine if their products meet the company's needs. If they do not, she must turn the salespeople away.

Because of their different job responsibilities and interactions with the company's external environment, Billy and Jeannie have varying attitudes toward their duties at Wilson Sporting Goods Company.

1. How would you integrate the different units of Wilson? Explain.
2. Explain the concept of differentiation as it relates to the Wilson organization.
3. Discuss the Wilson Sporting Goods Company in terms of Lawrence and Lorsch's three subsystems and their respective relationships to the environment.
4. Describe the roles of Billy and Jeannie, their respective environments, and their interactions with those environments.
5. What types of authority structure and internal/external networks do you think are most important to Wilson? Explain.
6. Using the Wilson Sporting Goods Company website (www.wilson.com), identify all the different units or subsystems. Show how these areas differ from one another and explain the influences of each environment.