Chapter 1

Question 1

What are the Top Challenges Organizations are currently Facing?

Answer 1

• Globalization
• Ethics and Social Responsibility
• Speed of Responsiveness
• The digital workplace
• Diversity

Question 2

Explain the Globalization challenge that organizations are facing?

Answer 2

world is shrinking with rapid advances in tech/communications > takes less time to influence the world from remote locations.
o Today’s orgs must feel “at home” anywhere in the world.
o Contracting functions to orgs in other countries or partnering with foreign orgs gives global advantage - > can do the job for 50-60% less than other orgs.
o Growing interdependence -> environment becoming more complex and competitive because orgs must learn to cross lines of time, culture, and geography to survive.

Question 3

What are organizations?

Answer 3

Social entities (1) that are goal directed (2), designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity systems (3), and linked to the external environment (4).

Question 4

Why do organizations exist?

Answer 4

1) Bring together resources to achieve desired goals/outcomes
2) Produce goods/services efficiently à most efficient creator of goods/services
3) Facilitate innovation
4) Use modern manufacturing and into tech
5) Adapt to and influence a changing environment
6) Create value for owners, customers, employees à turn ideas into customer benefits
7) Accommodate challenge of diversity, ethics, and the motivation/coordination of employees

Question 5

Compare and Contrast Open Vs Closed System?

Answer 5

• Closed system: doesn’t depend on environment; autonomous, sealed from worldàcannot truly exist, but early org studies focused on internal systems
o Mgmt. would be easy since environment is stable and predictable
o Primary mgmt. issue would be to run things efficiently
• Open system: interacts with environment to survive; consumes/exports resources; adapts
o Internal efficiency, finding needed resources, interpret/act on environment changes, dispose
of outputs, control/coordinate internal activities with environmental disturbances o Ex: the human being, Earth, Air Canada, etc. are all open systems

Question 6

Explain Henry Mintzburg’s theory about organizational configuration?

Answer 6

every org has 5 parts that vary in size and importance
• The 5 parts are interrelated and can serve >1 subsystem function; several parts serve the
boundary spanning function –> tech support works with external environment to learn about
new tech developments, and admin support has HR working with environment to find workers.
1) Technical core: people who do basic work of the org; production subsystem, actually produces
output. Transformation from input to output is here.
–> Production, teachers/classes, etc.
2) Management: distinct subsystem for directing/coordinating parts of the org.
a) Top mgmt. provides direction, strategy, goals, and policies for org/major divisions.
b) Middle mgmt. implements and coordinates at dept level, mediates top mgmt. & tech core.
3) Technical support: helps org adapt to environment; engineers and researchers scan
environment for problems, opportunities, and tech developments. They create innovations.
4) Admin Support: smooth operation and upkeep of the org, including physical and human
elements. HR activities, training, maintenance activities (cleaning, repair), etc.

Question 7

What are the Two types of Organizational Dimensions?

Answer 7

• Structural dimensions: provide labels to describe the internal characteristics of an organization. They create a basis for measuring and comparing organizations
• Contextual dimensions: characterize the whole organization, including its size, technology, environment, and goals. They describe the organizational setting that influences and shapes the structural dimensions.

Question 8

Explain the Structural Dimensions of Organizational Design?

Answer 8

Formalization: amount of written documentation;
they describe behaviour and activities. Measured by
counting the # pages of documentation within the org.
2) Specialization: degree to which org tasks are
subdivided into separate jobs. Extensive specialization
means each workers has narrow range of tasks.
3) Hierarchy of authority: who reports to whom, span of control for each manager. Vertical lines on org chart!à
Span of control = # workers to a supervisor. Narrow
spans of control means tall hierarchy (vs. wide = short)
4) Centralization: hierarchical level that has authority to
make decisions. If decisions are kept at top level, the
org is centralized (vs. decentralized).
5) Professionalism: level of formal education/training of workers –> avg. # years of education
6) Personnel ratios: deployment of people to various functions and depmts. Measured by dividing
the # employees in a classification by the total # of org employees –> ex: admin ratio

Question 9

Explain the Contextual Dimensions of Organizational Design?

Answer 9

1) Goals & Strategy: purpose and competitive techniques that set the org apart; goals are written,
and strategy is the plan of action describing resource allocation/activities for dealing with
environment to reach the goals. They define scope of ops and relationships.
2) Environment: all elements outside org’s boundary; industry, govt, other orgs, etc.
3) Size: org’s magnitude as reflected in the #people in the org; for whole org or components –> typically measured as # employees or total sales, total assets, etc.
4) Culture: underlying set of key values, beliefs, understandings, and norms shared by workers –>glue to hold org members together. Unwritten, but can be seen in stories, dress, layout, etc.
5) Tech: tools, techniques, and actions used to transform inputs to outputs.
• All the dimensions (contextual+structural) are interdependent – ex: large size, routine tech, and
stable environment means greater formalization, specialization, and centralization.