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MGMT1003 > Designing Adaptive Organisations > Flashcards

Designing Adaptive Organisations Flashcards

1
Q

What is organisational structure?

A

The vertical and horizontal configuration of departments, authority and jobs within a company

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2
Q

What is organisational process?

A

The collection of activities that transform inputs into outputs that customers value

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3
Q

What is Departmentalisation?

A

Subdividing work and workers into separate organisational units responsible for completing particular tasks

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4
Q

What are the types of departmentalisation?

A
  • Functional
  • Product
  • Customer
  • Geographic
  • Matrix
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5
Q

What is functional departmentalisation?

A

Organises work and workers into separate units responsible for particular business functions or areas of expertise

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6
Q

What are the pros/cons of functional departmentalisation?

A
  • Allows work to be done by specialists
  • Lowers costs by reducing duplication
  • Communication & coordination of workers with similar experience or training is less problematic
  • Cross department coordination can be difficult
  • As companies grow may lead to slower decision making and produce workers with narrow experience
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7
Q

What is product departmentalisation?

A

Organises work and workers into separate units responsible for producing particular products or services

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8
Q

What are the pros/cons of product departmentalisation?

A
  • Allows workers to specialise
  • Managers and workers develop a broad set of experiences and expertise
  • Easy for top managers to asses work-unto performance
  • Decision making is faster because managers and workers are responsible for the entire product line rather for separate functional departments
  • Duplication is caused
  • Challenge of coordinating across the different product departments
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9
Q

What is customer departmentalisation?

A

Organises work and workers into separate units responsible for particular kinds of customer

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10
Q

What are the pros/cons of customer departmentalisation?

A
  • Focuses the organisation on customer needs rather than on products or business functions
  • Allows specialisation and adaptation to customer needs and problems
  • Leads to duplication
  • Challenge of coordinating across the different product departments
  • Emphasis on meeting customers needs may lead workers to make decisions that please customers but hurt the business
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11
Q

What is geographic departmentalisation?

A

Organises work and workers into separate units responsible for doing business in particular geographic locations

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12
Q

What are the pros/cons of geographic departmentalisation?

A
  • Helps companies respond to the demands of different markets
  • Can reduce costs by locating unique organisational resources closer to customers
  • Leads to duplication of resources
  • Difficult to coordinate
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13
Q

What is matrix departmentalisation?

A

A hybrid structure in which two or more forms are used - Employees report to two bosses

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14
Q

What is the most common form of matrix departmentalisation?

A

Functional and product

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15
Q

What are the two types of matrix departmentalisation?

A
  • Simple Matrix

* Complex Matrix

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16
Q

What is a simple matrix?

A

Managers in different parts of the matrix negotiate conflicts and resources

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17
Q

What is a complex matrix?

A

Managers in different parts of the mantric report to matrix managers who help them sort out conflicts and problems

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18
Q

What are the pros/cons of matrix departmentalisation?

A
  • Lead to much more cross-functional interactoin
  • Allows companies to efficiently manage large complex tasks like R&D, marketing or complex global business
  • Avoids duplication
  • Pool of resources for all tasks is large
  • Require significant coordination between managers
  • Requires high management ability
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19
Q

What is authority?

A

The right to give commands, take action and make decisions to achieve organisational objectives

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20
Q

What is the chain of command?

A

The vertical line of authority that clarifies who reports to whom throughout the organisation

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21
Q

What is the unity of command?

A
  • Workers should report to just one boss

- To prevent conflicting commands/confusion

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22
Q

What is the difference between line/staff authority?

A
  • Line authority - The right to command immediate subordinate in the chain of command
  • Staff authority - The right to advice, but not command, others who are not subordinates in the chain of command
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23
Q

What is the difference between a line/staff function?

A
  • Line function - An activity that contributes directly to creating or selling the company’s products
  • Staff function - Does not contribute directly to creating or selling the company’s products, HR, legal, accounting
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24
Q

What is delegation of authority and what does it entail?

A
  • The assignment of direct authority and responsibility to a
    subordinate to complete a task for which the manager is normally responsible
  • Manager transfers full responsibility and authority and receives accountability
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25
Q

What is centralisation of authority?

A

The location of most authority at the upper levels of the organisation

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26
Q

What is decentralisation?

A
  • The location of a significant amount of authority in the lower levels of the organisation
  • Workers closest to the problems are authorised to make decisions necessary to solve the problem
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27
Q

What is the benefit of decentralisation?

A

Develops employee capabilities throughout the company and leads to faster decision making and more satisfied customers and employees

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28
Q

What is standardisation and how does it relate to the degree of centralisation?

A
  • Solving problems by consistently applying the same rules, procedures and processes
  • Standardisation is important - stay centralised, unimportant - decentralise
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29
Q

What is job design?

A

The number, kind and variety of tasks that individual workers perform in doing their jobs

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30
Q

What is job specialisation and when is it useful?

A
  • Occurs when a job is composed of a small part of a larger task or process
  • Simple, easy-to learn steps, low variety and high repetition
31
Q

What are the pros/cons of job specialisation?

A
  • Very economical
  • Experienced employees can be replaced with new ones and lose little productivity
  • Wages can remain low as no need to attract highly experienced, educate or trained workers
  • Quickly become boring - low job satisfaction, high absenteeism and employee turnover
32
Q

What is job rotation?

A

Periodically moving workers form one specialised job to another to give them more variety and the opportunity to use different skills

33
Q

What is the benefit of job rotation?

A

Makes jobs less boring and more satisfying

34
Q

What is job enlargement?

A

Increasing the number of different tasks that a worker performs within one particular job

35
Q

What are the pros/cons of job enlargement?

A
  • Increased variety

- More stress

36
Q

What is job enrichment?

A

Increasing the number of tasks in a particular job and giving workers the authority and control to make meaningful decisions about their work

37
Q

What is the jobs characteristic model?

A

An approach to job redesign that seeks to formulate jobs in ways that motivate workers and lead to positive work outcomes

38
Q

What is internal motivation and what must true for it to occur?

A
  • Motivation that comes from the job itself rather than from outside rewards
  • Workers must experience work as meaningful
  • Workers must experience responsibility for work outcomes
  • Workers must have knowledge of results
39
Q

In the job characteristics model, what promotes internal motivation?

A
  • Skill variety
  • Task identity
  • Task significance
  • Autonomy
  • Feedback
40
Q

In the job characteristics model, what is skill variety?

A

The number of difference activities performed in a job

41
Q

In the job characteristics model, what is task identity?

A

The degree to which a job, from beginning to end, requires the completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work

42
Q

In the job characteristics model, what is task significance?

A

The degree to which a job is perceived to have a substantial impact on other inside or outside the organisation

43
Q

In the job characteristics model, what are the techniques to job redesign?

A
  • Combining tasks
  • Form natural work units
  • Establish client relationships
  • Vertical loading
  • Opening feedback channels
44
Q

In the job characteristics model, what does combining tasks achieve?

A

Increases skill variety and task identity (internal motivation drivers)

45
Q

In the job characteristics model, what does forming natural work units achieve?

A

Increases task identity and task significance (internal motivation drivers)

46
Q

In the job characteristics model, what does establishing client relationships achieve?

A

Increases skill variety, autonomy and feedback (internal motivation drivers)

47
Q

In the job characteristics model, what is vertical loading and what does it achieve?

A
  • Pushing some managerial authority down to workers

- Increases autonomy (internal motivation driver)

48
Q

In the job characteristics model, what does opening feedback channels achieve?

A

Increases feedback (internal motivation driver)

49
Q

As it relates to organisational processes, what are the two types of organisations?

A
  • Mechanistic organisations

* Organic organisations

50
Q

What are mechanistic organisations, when do they work best and what is their focus?

A
  • Characterised by specialised jobs and responsibilities; precisely defined, unchanging roles and a rigid chain of command based on centralised authority and vertical communication
  • Works best in stable unchaining environments
  • Design focused on organisational structure
51
Q

What are organic organisations, when do they work best and what is their focus?

A
  • Characterised by broadly defined jobs and responsibilities; loosely defined, frequently changing roles and decentralised authority and horizontal communication based on task knowledhe
  • Works best in dynamic changing environments
  • Design focused on organisational processes
52
Q

What are the two types of organisational processes?

A
  • Intra-organisational process

* Inter-organisation process

53
Q

What are intra-organisational processes?

A

The collection of actives that take place within an organisation to transform inputs into outputs that customers value

54
Q

How can intra-organisational processes be changed?

A

Reengineering

55
Q

What is reengineering?

A

The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service and speed

56
Q

What does reengineering do?

A

Changes an organisations orientation from vertical to horizontal

57
Q

What does reengineering change in an organisation?

A
  • Instead of taking orders from upper management, lower and middle level managers and workers take order from the customer who is at the beginning and end of each process
  • Instead of running independent functional departments, managers and workers in different departments take ownership of cross-functional processes
  • Instead of simplifying work so that it becomes increasingly
    specialised, reengineering complicates work by giving workers increased autonomy and responsibility
58
Q

What are the three types of task interdependence?

A
  • Pooled interdependence
  • Sequential interdependence
  • Reciprocal interdependence
59
Q

What is pooled interdependence and how does reengineering affect it?

A
  • Work completed by having each job or department independently contribute to the whole
  • Decreased by reengineering by redesigning work so that formerly independent jobs or departments now work together to complete processes
60
Q

What is sequential interdependence and how does reengineering affect it?

A
  • Work completed in succession, with one group’s or job’s outputs becoming the inputs for the next group or job
  • Decreased by reengineering by reducing the handoffs between different jobs or groups
61
Q

What is reciprocal interdependence and how does reengineering affect it?

A
  • Work completed by different jobs or groups working together in a back & forth manner
  • Increased by reengineering by making groups or individuals responsible for larger, more complete processes in which several steps may be accomplished at the same time
62
Q

What are the pros/cons of reengineering?

A
  • Because it allows few workers to do the work formerly done by many, reengineering is simply a corporate code word for cost curing and worker layoffs.
  • Claimed to hurt morale and performance
63
Q

What is empowerment?

A

Feelings of intrinsic motivation, in which workers perceive their work to have impact and meaning, and perceive themselves to be competent and capable of self determination.

64
Q

How can empowerment be achieved?

A
  • Permanently passing decision making authority and responsibility from managers to workers
  • Companies must give workers the information and resources needed to make and carry out good decisions and then reward them for taking individual initiative
65
Q

What does empowering employees result in?

A

Produces empowered employees who take active rather than passive roles in their work

66
Q

What is organisational authority characterised by?

A
  • chain of command
  • delegation of authority
  • line versus staff authority
  • degree of centralisation.
67
Q

What are the simple methods to decrease frustration with specialised jobs?

A

Job rotation
Job enlargement
Job enrichment

68
Q

What are the kinds of inter-organisational processes?

A
  • Modular organisations

* Virtual organisations

69
Q

What are modular organisations?

A

An organisation that outsources non-core business activities to outside companies, suppliers, specialists or consultants

70
Q

What are inter-organisational processes?

A

A collection of activities that take place among companies to transform inputs into outputs that customers value

71
Q

What are virtual organisations?

A
  • An organisation that is part of a network in which many companies share skills, costs, capabilities, markets and customers to collectively solve customer problems or provide specific products or services
  • Shorter term relationships than modular, composition is always changing
72
Q

What are the pros/cons of virtual organisations?

A
  • Let companies share costs
  • Fast & flexible from combined efforts
  • Loss of control of quality
  • Huge managerial skills required
73
Q

What are the pros/cons of modular organisations?

A
  • Can cost significantly less to run
  • Need reliable partners
  • Loss of control occurrs
  • Tech & environment change may lead to outsourced activities becoming basis for competitive advantage
  • Suppliers to whom work is outsourced can become competitors

MGMT1003 (14 decks)

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