Chp 14 - Organizational Structure Flashcards
What is Organizational structure?
Formally dictates how jobs and tasks are divided and coordinated between individuals and groups within the company
What is an organizational chart
Is a drawing that represents every job in the organization and the formal reporting relationships between those jobs.
What are the 5 elements of organizational structure that describes how work task, authority relationships, and the decision making responsibilities are organized within the company.
- Work specialization
- Chain of command
- Span of control
- Centralization
- Formalization
Define Work specialization.
Is the way tasks in an organization are divided into separate jobs.
- companys division labour
Define Chain of command
Answers the question of who reports to whom and signifies formal authority relationships.
Define span of control
Represents how many employees they are responsible for.
Define centralization
Aspect of structure that dictates where decisions are formally made in organizations
Define Formalization
When there are many specific rules and procedures used to standardize behaviours and decisions.
When is high specialization of task acceptable? and when is it problematic?
Larger firm –> high sepc
Small firm –> problematic
Is it true that when jobs are highly specialized job satisfaction increases? As they are getting better right?
FALSE. It decreases doing the same task is borrrrrringgggg
What is the benefit of narrow span of control and determent?
Benefit
- more hands on with employee
- directive leadership with close mentoring relationship
Determent
- requires more manager = inc cost
- employee resentful at being too closely supervised
Small span of control tend to create ______ structure
Bigger span of control tend to create _____ structure
Taller : Flat
Organizational performance increases as _______?
span of control increases. Low performance = narrow span of control
Why cant organizational performance continue to increase forever when span of control increases?
Because only up to a peak it works then managers no longer have the ability to coordinate and supervise the large numbers.
What 3 things happen when an organization becomes taller?
- More layers of management = pay more
- Communication becomes more complex
- decision making is slower
If only the top managers within a company have the authority to make final decisions, we would say the organization has a highly _____________ structure.
Centralized
If lower-level employees are given authority to make decisions, an organization has a _____________ structure.
Decentralized
When does decentralization become necessary?
When company gets larger, because they can not make every single decision
Why is formalization important?
Because it helps to standardized product or deliver a standardized service.
What does mechanistic organization mean?
These are efficient, rigid, predictable, and standardized organization that thrive in stable environment.
What does mechanistic organization relay on?
- High levels of formalization
- hierarchical chain of command
- High work specialization
- High narrow spans of control
- High Centralization of decision making
What does organic organization mean?
- flexible
- Adaptive
thrive in dynamic environment
What do organic organization relay on?
- Low level of formalization
- Weak or multiple chains of command
- Low work specialization
- Wide span of control
Organic organization likely allow for what type of leader?
transformational leadership
What is the organizational design?
Is the process of creating, selecting, or changing the structure of an organization.
Ideally, organizations don’t just let a structure develop on its own; they proactively design it to match their_____ and ______?
circumstances, needs
What factors influences the process of organizational design?
- Business environment
- Company strategy
- Technology
- Company size
What does business environment consist of?
- customers, competitors, suppliers..
- Outside environment being stable or dynamic
What is a company strategy describes?
An organization objectives and goals and how it tries to capitalize on its assets.
2 common strategy
- Low cost producer or a differentiator
Technology is the method by which it transform inputs into outputs.
Company size relation to structure?
Become larger they need to rely on some combination of specialization, formalization, and centralization to control their activities
*150 ppl
What are simple structure and some examples?
features one person as the central decision-making figure. Manager, president, and owner are the same person.
- Family owned grocery stores
- individual owned retail outlets
- churches
What is a bureaucratic structure?
Is an organizational form that exhibits that is like mechanistic organization.
what are the 5 forms of a bureaucratic?
- Functional
- Product
- Geographic
- Client
- Matrix structure
What is a functional structure?
Groups employees by the roles they fulfill in the organization.
- Like vice president of marketing, Finance,
When we have too much of a functional structure then individuals within each function get so wrapped up in their own goals and viewpoints that they lose sight of the bigger organizational picture. Why does this happen?
Because employees don’t communicate as well across functions as they do within functions.
What is multi-divisional structure?
employees are grouped into divisions around products or geographic regions.
What is an example of multi-divisional structure?
add customers that require localized versions of its product, geographic structure and client to handle the product variations.
What is product structure?
groups business units around different products that the company produces.
- Like Vice president of girl toy, boy toy, etc
- should communicate to learn
What is geographic structure?
Is generally based on the different locations where the company does business.
- Like vice president of Asia, Europe
What is the client structure?
An organizational form in which employees are organized around serving customers.
- Small banks
- like vice president of costumer sales, government contract
What is matrix structure?
A complex form of organizational structure that combines a functional and multi-divisional grouping (Product structure)
What is the problem with the matrix structure?
2 chains of command, 2 groups with which to interact and 2 source of info
= high stress levels
= 1 of 2 has more power
A given manager can do many things to try to motivate, inspire, and set up an effective work environment so that employees have high levels of performance and commitment. At the end of the day________
Managers must work within the structure created by the organization.
Restructuring means changes in specialization, centralization, or formalization. It may lead to confusion about how exactly employees are supposed to do their jobs, which hinders learning and decision making. Which??
Has a small negative effect on task performance
Why does restructuring have a more negative significant effect on organizational commitment?
Restructuring efforts can increase stress and jeopardize employees’ trust in the organization. Lower level of affective commitment.
How do we adapt organizations to environment?
reconstructing.
- change from a product based to functional
- remove one or more of layers to reduce cost
To reduce the negative effects of restructuring, organizations should focus on managing the stress levels of the employees who remain after the restructuring. Providing employees with a sense of control can help them learn to navigate their new work environment. T or F?
True.
