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PoM > DISCONSIDER (too long) > Flashcards

DISCONSIDER (too long) Flashcards

1
Q

common features of organizations

A
  • membership
  • specified member roles
  • formalized rules
  • clear objectives
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2
Q

Economic foundations of business administration

A
  • Role of markets
  • Role of the entrepreneur and the purpose of the firm
  • The firm in classical economics
  • Basic variables
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3
Q

Efficiency

A

using as little resources as possible to attain a certain goal

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4
Q

How to design organizations so that they can fulfill a certain task?

A
  • modern technologies enable large scale production
  • large organizations enable specialization
  • large organizations require coordination efforts
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5
Q

Classical organization theories

A
  • Weber
  • Taylor
  • Fayol
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6
Q

Weber

A

Individuals follow authority if they regard it as legitimate

  • different forms of authority in society.
  • traditionally charismatic authority: makes them leaders.
  • Traditional authority (kings).

Charismatic and traditional get replaced or complemented by legal authority.

Legal authority: future of modern society. Bureaucracy is legal authority

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7
Q

bureaucracy characteristics

A
  • rules
  • specified competencies
  • hierarchy
  • technical training
  • neutrality
  • written recording of rules and decisions

follow these and you’ll organize in the most efficient way. least resources. It’s reliable. Things don’t change unless changed formally. Work as precise as a machine

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8
Q

Critique and re-assessment to bureaucracy

A
  • efficient, reliable, stable, and precise form of organization, but it might produce “one-dimensional” individuals, because there’s no space for freedom, creativity or emotion
  • Analogy of machines is problematic
  • oftentimes criticizes as the symbol for inefficiency.
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9
Q

Why is bureaucracy a symbol for ineffiency nowadays?

A
  • blind rule following: employees lose sight of the organizational goals and instead follow the rules in an unreflected manner (rule following becomes the main objective)
  • limited sustainability of rules to cover relevant tasks. Cannot cover everything in rules, so many things are beyond rules. Also need to rely on common sense in every organizational level
  • inability of (per definition stable) rules to keep pace with dynamics in the organizational environment. Not flexible.
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10
Q

Taylor’s scientific management

A
  • focus on the optimization of the labour process
  • organization management based on scientific rules

basic ideas:
- separation of planning/control and execution of work
- managers concentrate on planning and control
- division of labour enables specialization and measurability

  • time studies as a way to measure average time required for specific tasks. Leads to formulation of expected performance levels.
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11
Q

specialization and efficiency

A
  • specialization leads to efficiency and optimal social welfare

because:

  • learning effects: the most often a task is accomplished, the less effort is required
  • economies of scale: cost per produced unit decreases with increasing quantities
  • synergies: accomplishing similar tasks reduces overall effort
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12
Q

critique for Taylor’s scientific management

A

motivation exclusively through money

increased breakdown of work tasks into smaller subtasks leads to several negative things:
- monotony
- increased speed of work
- alienation: no worker understands the product to which they contribute
- increased surveillance: performance can be measured by the second. might be efficient, but humanly-speaking, simply not nice
- loss of self-determination

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13
Q

Fayol’s administrative approach

A
  • critical insights from managerial practice as an instruction for successful organization and management
  • within an optimal organization, a manager should focus mainly organizing, planning, and delegating: their only job is to make the organization optimal
  • focus on the management process as a whole
  • organizing as the design and implementation of an optimal organizational structure
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14
Q

“functions of management” by Fayol

A
  • planning
  • Organizing
  • Command
  • Coordination
  • Control
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15
Q

Critique for Fayol’s administrative approach

A

Management principles as generally valid recipes for designing efficient organizations, but his principles are rather abstract. There is no empirical proof, so can the principles really be proved?

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16
Q

assumptions about the individual

A
  • people are unreliable. There is a need for control and continuous supervision.
  • individuals are unable to understand the organization and take responsibility. Managers understand what’s going on, and they’re in the position to tell the others what’s happening.
  • individuals need to follow rules
  • individuals are exclusively motivated by money.
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17
Q

assumption about the organization

A
  • coordination need to come from the top of the organization
  • all that matters is efficiency, no place for emotions
  • the future can be foreseen - planning is possible
  • division of labour always increases efficiency
  • hierarchy as the only way to manage efficiently
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18
Q

assumptions about theory

A
  • it’s able to produce generally applicable rules
  • should aim at increasing organizational efficiency
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19
Q

U-form

A
  • unitary structure
  • division of labour and specialization increase efficiency through learning effects and economies of scale
  • for increasingly large organizations this implies functional differentiation
20
Q

functional differentiation

A

creation of sub-units with focus on specific tasks

21
Q

limits of the unitary structure

A

Major risk: increasing size leads to increasing complexity

  • too many interfaces: inefficient communication
  • diffusion of responsibility because many actors contribute to a certain objective
  • administrative load becomes overwhelming at the top
  • low flexibility as a result of high specialization: how to handle unexpected issues?
22
Q

M-form

A
  • multidivisional structure
  • aim: avoiding challenges of the u-form
  • potential criteria for divisionalization: products/product groups; regions; customers
23
Q

alternative designs for M-form

A
  • divines as departments
  • divisions as separate firms: holding
24
Q

major dilemma of the M-form

A
  • decentralization as manes to increase efficiency

vs

  • loss of control for the CEO/top management
  • independence of functions and units (“centrifugal tendency”)
25
Q

Matrix-organization

A
  • Avoiding the centrifugal tendencies of large U- and M-form organizations
  • leadership of functions focus on efficiency
  • leaders of products/projects focus on the integration of production
26
Q

downsides of matrix-organizations

A
  • Opacity
  • lengthy decisions
  • high coordination costs
  • conflicts: stress
  • high documentation effort
  • too much communication effort
27
Q

project-organization

A
  • projects as means to organize under conditions of uniqueness (e.g.: development of new product) and novelty (e.g.: no standard routine available)
28
Q

ways to organize projects

A
  • matrix-project-organization
  • pure project organization
29
Q

Most large organizations are frequently subject to reorganization as. a result of

A
  • mergers and acquisitions
  • strategic re-orientation
  • management fashions
30
Q

integration

A

bringing together the different elements of a task to enable consistent processing of a task

31
Q

modes of integration

A
  • vertical integration (hierarchy, programs/rules)
  • horizontal integration (meetings, coordinators, facilitators)
32
Q

dilemma differentiation vs integration

A

specialization and functional differentiation in order to increase efficiency, but it also increases complexity, so integration is required

33
Q

What makes bureaucracy so special?

A

Its characteristics

34
Q

Burns & Stalker’s study

A

-study of the electronic industry

  • dependent on the degree of environmental “turbulence”, successful companies have different organizational structures
  • stable environment: mechanistic structures
  • turbulent environment: organismic structures
  • If an organization is very focused on efficiency, it’s very hard to adapt to what is changing and happening in the environment
  • If too turbulent, then must switch to organismic system
35
Q

turbulence

A

speed of innovation

36
Q

characteristics mechanistic system

A
  • high differentiation
  • task as basic orientation: they work with tasks
  • hierarchy
  • responsibility concentrated on specific functional roles
  • distributions of responsibility as functions
  • top of the organization has the knowledge
  • vertical communication
  • governance by superiors
  • loyalty towards superiors
  • focus on internal knowledge
37
Q

characteristics of organismic system

A
  • low differentiation
  • goals as basic orientation: work with goals
  • interaction as mode of coordination
  • shedding of responsibility or no shifting responsibility
  • responsibility as a general commitment
  • knowledge is anywhere in the organization
  • lateral communication
  • governance through information and advice
  • loyalty towards tasks
  • focus on general expertise
38
Q

Contingency theory

A
  • Organizational structures are determined by the organizational environment
  • there’s no one best way to manage or lead. Instead, the best approach depends on the specific situation, including factors like the environment, tasks, and people involved.
39
Q

foundational assumptions of organizational contingency theories

A
  1. Each environmental state implies one optimal organizational structure
  2. Organizations cannot change their environments
  3. Organizations need to deliver specific performance levels
40
Q

contingency theory critique

A
  • there is not one single solution for a problem, there are oftentimes “functional equivalents”
  • organizations can choose their relevant environments and can also shape them through PR, or lobbying, as examples
  • Organizations aren’t required to be maximally efficient
41
Q

global environments

A
  • Technological
  • Political/legal
  • Socio-cultural
  • Ecological
  • Macro-economic
42
Q

Task environments

A
  • Competitors
  • Potential competitors
  • Substitution products
  • Demanders
  • Suppliers
  • Industrial relations
43
Q

dimensions for characterizing organizational environments

A
  • complexity: number and heterogeneity of elements in the environment
  • dynamics: degree of changes in the environment
  • pressure: degree of threat emanating from elements in the environment
44
Q

features of information

A
  • uncertainty: absence of information, implies that one can always know more. In order to understand change, just need to do some research and then adjust and adapt
  • equivocality: existence of multiple and conflicting interpretations about an organizational situation. People don’t know what’s happening
45
Q
A

PoM (3 decks)

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