1. Amazon’s About Page

a. The information acquired from this page largely pertained to what Amazon declares to the world about their company. Information about their charitable programs, their current business ventures, their location, and some general facts and figures about the company were obtained from this source.

b. We would argue that this source is highly reliable because it is all information coming directly from the company itself. There is not a better source of information than directly from the subject.

c. The information found here is highly valuable because it tells Amazon’s story from their perspective. It provides information about employment at the company from the position of the company, which is very useful to a prospective employee.

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2. The New York Times’ Article titled, “Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace”

a. This source provided the most information of all. It gave a lot of evidence about what it is like working at Amazon from firsthand accounts. It told of both those who love working there and those who hate working there.

b. The New York Times is incredibly reliable. They are a very well respected publication that spends a lot of resources on making sure that their articles are correct and unbiased.

c. The information was very useful because it pulled back the curtain and showed what Amazon is really like underneath it all.

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3. The Forbes’ Article titled, “How People Who Work for Amazon Really Feel”

a. The information from this article followed up on the New York Times Article. It gave some statistics on Amazon employee satisfaction ratings prior to the other article being written.

b. The argument for the reliability of this source has a lot to do with the fact that it is Forbes, which is a huge publication. Forbes is a highly respected publication that devotes a lot of time and energy into making sure that their stories are factual and unbiased.

c. This information was highly valuable because it helped to soften the attack that the New York Times article created against Amazon. It showed some polls and information on how employees rated the company before the other article had come out and altered employee perceptions.

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4. Amazon’s Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter pages

a. The information from these sources was mostly just the follower numbers and mission statement of the company. A timeline and current slogan for Amazon were found as well.

b. The argument for reliability here is that these sources are all run by Amazon. They are given merit in that they are what Amazon chooses to tell the public about the company and its employees.

c. The information was very useful to get a sense of where Amazon is in respect to the customers’ opinions on the company. The social media sites also provided a general timeline basis while doing further research.

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5. Amazon’s Investor Relations Page

a. The information from this source was stakeholder documents, past, current, and future projections, as well as some interesting background on the company.

b. The reliability for this source is unquestionable. This is the information that the company gives to its stakeholders. It cannot be untruthful or in any way inaccurate or else they will face consequences not only with the stakeholders, but with the government as well.

c. The information was very valuable. It gave a sense of where the company was, is, and where it could be in the future. It also gave a very credible look into the company and its value placed on its stakeholders.

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6. Amazon’s Jobs Page

a. The information from this source was mostly about the leadership principles and some about benefits that employees of Amazon receive for working there.

b. This was another very reliable source. Amazon uses this page to entice people to come work for them, so it is full of useful information to create a profile for the company.

c. The information was very valuable in the sense that it told the leadership principles outright as well as gave some understanding of what you get for working at Amazon.

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7. Our Interview with Amazon employee Thamarai, conducted by Ty Blokzyl

a. This source gave some information including employee benefits and the mission statement, but the employee was not very forthcoming with information (being that he kept just sending links to Ty during the interview).

b. This is a pretty reliable source. It was an employee who has the company’s best interest at heart, so answers were factually based.

c. This information was useful in that it gave some interesting insight into the employee mindset and how they run their operations from an employee perspective.

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8. The Mid-American Journal of Business article titled, “The Gender Equity Gap in Top Corporate Executive Positions”

a. This source provided information regarding the opportunity for women to attain executive positions in corporate America. It also provided information concerning the amount of power women have in these positions in comparison to men.

b. We consider the information in this article to be very reliable because of the studies performed to achieve the results. The Mid-American Journal of Business is also a peer-reviewed publication, which leads us to believe it is credible.

c. Due to the gender gap in Amazon’s top-level management, it was important to find additional information about the gender gap in American corporate management. The information received from this article was very useful because it provided insight to current gender issues in the United States. This information would be beneficial to someone who is planning on working at a company where they may never get the opportunity to advance to the top.

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9. The Work & Stress journal article titled, “Relationships between stressful work environments and bullying: Results of a large representative study”

a. This article provided information connecting stressful work environments with workplace bullying. It proved that destructive management and stressors at work can lead to intimidation behaviors in employees.

b. We believe the article to be reliable because of the detailed study it contains. The article was published in a journal dedicated to research regarding stress caused by work, which leads us to believe that it contains high quality material.

c. Because of the information we found about the stressful environment at Amazon, we thought it would be appropriate to find articles that go more in depth about the effects of stress at work. The information received from this article was valuable in the sense that it provided problems that an employee might deal with while facing work related stress at Amazon.

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10. The Indian Journal of Industrial Relations article titled “Workplace Gender Diversity & Inclusive Growth in Public & Private Organizations”

a. This article offered information concerning the status of women in organizations in regards to equal treatment, opportunity, and participation. It provided insight into how members of organizations felt about the level of equality offered to women in the company.

b. We consider the information in this article to be reliable because of the detailed study it provides. The authors retrieved data from employees in multiple organizations to examine gender equality issues in the workplace.

c. The information obtained from this article was valuable in the sense that it provided insight into how employees felt about gender issues in the workplace. It proved that women are slowly and steadily tearing down the glass ceiling in the corporate world, which is very good news for a women planning on applying to Amazon, were there are no women in top-level management.

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11. The Journal of Occupational Health Psychology article titled “Stressful Work Environment and Wellbeing: What Comes First?”

a. This article provided information connecting stressful work environments with physical and mental health problems such as emotional suffering and sleep issues.

b. We feel that the information provided by this article is very reliable due to the fact that it was published by a well-respected scholarly journal, The Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. This journal is affiliated with the American Phycology Association, which is a very well respected organization. The article also contains detailed studies and findings about stressful work environments.

c. We consider the information retrieved from this article to be useful because it provided us with direct consequences from working in a stressful environment. This knowledge would be very important to a prospective Amazon employee since they would be working in a workplace filled with stressors every day.

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12. The Social Indicators Research journal article titled, “Balancing Work and Family: A Panel Analysis of the Impact of Part-Time Work on the Experience of Time Pressure”

a. This article provided information about balancing work and home lives, particularly when the employees have children.

b. We consider the information in this article to be reliable because of the detailed study it contains. It is also published in an esteemed journal, The Social Indicators Research, which is a leading journal on the problems related to quality of life. The Social Indicators Research is supported by the Springer Science & Business Media B.V., which is an esteemed publisher.

c. The information provided by this article was useful because it gave insight into what workers can do to balance work and life. This information would be particularly important to a prospective Amazon employee because of the high demands Amazon necessitates during and after work hours.

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13. The Journal of Organizational Behavior article titled, “From expectation to experience: Graduates entering a large corporation”

a. This article offered information about how new graduates feel when they begin careers in large corporations, and how their experiences change throughout their time at the organization.

b. We feel that while the information in the article is interesting and informative, the article is too old to be considered very reliable.

c. The information retrieved from this article was valuable in the sense that it would help a potential Amazon employee prepare for work life in such a large organization. It could quiet the fears an employee might have about being dissatisfied with the job upon entrance into the company.

 

               Overall, we believe that the information about Amazon was somewhat easy to find. General and historical information were relatively easy to find through Amazon’s webpages, social media, and external articles, while in depth information regarding the inside workings of Amazon were more difficult to obtain. We had a very difficult time contacting someone at Amazon to speak with about the company’s culture. When Ty called Amazon, he was redirected multiple times and then told to contact someone through live chat to answer his questions. Once Ty found the live chat, he began speaking with Thamarai. Thamarai seemed very nice, but he did not go into much detail with his answers. When asked about a typical workday at Amazon, he just sent a link to a Forbes article, rather than explaining his own feelings about the work environment at the company. Finding the journal article information wasn’t very difficult, but it was very time consuming finding relevant articles and reading through them all.

 

               One thing Fred thought was interesting was when, about halfway through his research, his perception of the company culture changed slightly. In the beginning he was researching using mostly materials provided by Amazon itself, but he was then introduced to the New York Times,

and subsequently Forbes, article by Nikki. It talked about a deep dark underbelly of issues held behind the veil of Amazon’s words. Once he found out about this dynamic, his perception changed and he began to look at the information a bit differently.

 

               While we did struggle with finding information from Amazon about its company culture (this may have been due to the non-disclosure mentality at Amazon or just poor customer service), we feel as though we found a good deal of valuable information that would be beneficial for a prospective Amazon employee to know.

We know that our research is varied and complete because it provides a wide range of sources both inside the organization and from the outside looking in. The sources controlled by Amazon (i.e. its social media pages and its websites) are balanced pretty well by the outside sources (the New York Times and Forbes). Each source tells its narrative and works to fact check each other. We believe it to be complete because it gives an all-encompassing look into employment at Amazon, including the pros and cons. It does so in an unbiased manner and with high regard for what Amazon has been able to accomplish.

 

               We also used journal articles containing studies to supplement the company research. We feel as though the journal article research is diverse because it came from a variety of different business and psychology journals from multiple cultures. The articles discuss issues an employee might face while working at Amazon. We feel that the journal article research is complete because it provides information that would be beneficial to a potential employee who was considering applying to work at Amazon. The matters covered in the articles would prepare and educate an individual for the personal implications experienced while working at Amazon.

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Works Cited Page

 

About Amazon. (n.d.). Retrieved October 19, 2016, from https://www.amazon.com/p/feature/rzekmvyjojcp6uc?ref_=aa_navb_logo&pf_rd_r=8SZE5KEKWG3TG85036XP&pf_rd_p=913f552f-5076-4907-bc19-0624b398bba4

 

Adams, S. (2015, August 18). How people who work for amazon really feel. Retrieved October 22, 2016, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/08/18/how-people-who-work-for-amazon-really-feel/#217905ed5c7a

 

Amazon (@amazon) | Twitter. (2016). Retrieved November 9, 2016, from https://twitter.com/amazon

 

Amazon Facebook. (2016). Retrieved October 20, 2016, from https://www.facebook.com/Amazon

 

Amazon Instagram. (2016). Retrieved October 20, 2016, from https://www.instagram.com/Amazon

 

Amazon's global career site. (n.d.). Retrieved October 22, 2016, from https://www.amazon.jobs/en

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Bukhari, S. S., & Sharma, B. (2014, January). Workplace gender diversity & inclusive growth in public & private organizations. Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 49(3), 551- 563.

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Burress, J. H., & Zucca, L. J. (2004). The gender equality gapin top corporate executive postions. Mid-American Journal of Business, 19(1), 55-62. doi:10.1108/19355181200400006

 

Elovainio, M., Heponiemi, T., Jokela, M., Hakulinen, C., Presseau, J., Aalto, A., & Kivimäki, M. (2015). Stressful work environment and wellbeing: What comes first? Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 20(3), 289-300. doi:10.1037/a0038684

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FAQs. (n.d.). Retrieved October 20, 2016, from http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-faq

 

Hauge, L. J., Skogstad, A., & Einarsen, S. (2007). Relationships between stressful work environments and bullying: Results of a large representative study. Work & Stress, 21(3), 220-242. doi:10.1080/02678370701705810

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Kantor, J., & Streitfeld, D. (2015, August 15). Inside amazon: Wrestling big ideas in a bruising workplace ... Retrieved October 24, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html

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Laurijssen, I., & Glorieux, I. (2012, May 01). Balancing work and family: A panel analysis of the impact of part-time work on the experience of time pressure. Social Indicators Research, 112(1), 1-17. doi:10.1007/s11205-012-0046-4

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Nicholson, N., & Arnold, J. (1991). From expectation to experience: Graduates entering a large corporation. Journal of Organizational Behavior J. Organiz. Behav., 12(5), 413-429. doi:10.1002/job.4030120506

 

(Thamari, Amazon Support Online Interview, October 21, 2016)

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