For Amazon, Can Two Headquarters Still Equal One Culture?

In planning Amazon.com Inc.’s second headquarters, Chief Executive Jeff Bezos faces a new challenge: how to maintain the online retail giant’s carefully cultivated culture when he can’t be in two places at once.

The answer to his riddle may lie in one defining element of Amazon’s business practices. Its highly decentralized structure, with small, siloed teams, is the equivalent of “1,000 independent businesses, all marching in the...