1. Why did Unilever’s decentralized organizational structure make sense from the 1950s through the 1970s? Why did this structure start to create problems for the company in the 1980s?

2. What was Unilever trying to do when it introduced a new structure base on business groups in the mid-1990s? Why do you think that this structure failed to cure Unilever’s ills?

3. In the 2000s Unilever has switched to a structure based on global product divisions. What do you think is the underlying logic for this shift? Does the structure make sense given the nature of competition in the detergents and food business?