Ownership structure

The Novo Nordisk Foundation is a non-profit institution and there main goal is to make
contributions to scientific, humanitarian and social progress. Novo A/S is an unlisted
Danish public limited liability company, owned by the Novo Nordisk foundation and
established to manage the foundations funds. Novo A/S is the major shareholder of Novo
Nordisk A/S and Novozymes A/S, which form together the Novo Group.
Management structure
Novo Nordisk performs under the two-tier management structure: The Board of Directors,
which supervises the performance of the company, and the executive management, which
has the responsibility for the companys daily operations.
The Board of Directors is in charge of the supervision of the performance of Novo
Nordisk. This to make sure that achieving the companys mission is maximized. To do
this, the Board of Directors monitors the general management processes, management
team and ensures that the proper organizational structure is used. Furthermore, it oversees
financial developments.
The executive management of Novo Nordisk is in charge of the daily operations. It is a
group of individuals with high managerial skills performing on the highest managerial
functions. Because of this, they carry a high level of responsibility. There are other
functions with even a higher responsibility such as the shareholders and the Board of
Directors they do not focus on the day-to-day activities. Together with the Board of
Directors it sets organizational strategies to meet the companys vision and supervises
their implementation.

Coordination and control mechanisms according to Mintzberg

The Mintzberg configurations are maybe the most well-known way to analyze
organizations. Mintzberg created six basis configurations to analyze the structure of a
company:

The entrepreneurial organization.

The machine organization

(bureaucracy).

The divisional (diversified)

organization.
The innovative organization
("adhocracy").

The professional organization.

Missionary organization

We consider there is a 7th organization, which is called the overarching organization; this
means it combines elements of several organizational structures.
Novo Nordisk is characterized by two of the basis configurations: a divisional and an
innovative organizational structure. Novo Nordisk is a multinational company with
divisions in multiple continents. In these divisions, executives manage their own hiring,
budgeting and advertising, which are characteristics of a divisional organization.
But Novo Nordisk also has characteristics of an innovative organizational structure. The
pharmaceutical industry is known as being really competitive and innovative. Companies
strive to outperform each other year after year. Centralization and bureaucracy would be
the death of a company because this will lead to slow performance and thereby loss of the
revenue stream really quickly. Novo Nordisk is working project-based which means they
use people from a variety of areas to create a creative and functional team. Decisions are
made decentralized to create a fast business process. There are some problems that can
arise with this kind of structure: its hard to control the organization and there can be
conflicts when power and authority are ambiguous.