Foundations of Organization Structure Flashcards
Identify seven elements of an organization’s structure.
- Work specialization: the division of labor into seperate activities.
- Departmentalization: grouping jobs together so common tasks can be coordinated
- Chain of command: an unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of the organization to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom. Uses unity of command and authority.
4.Centralization: centralization refers to the degree to which decision making is concentrated at a single point in the organization. - Decentralization
- Formalization: the degree to which jobs within the organization are standardized.
- Boundary spanning: occurs when individuals form relationships with people outside their formally assigned groups.
What’s a simple structure?
In a simple structure the manager and the owner are one and the same.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of bureaucracy
Strengths of bureaucracy: the ability to perform standardized activities in a highly efficient manner.
Weeknesses of bureaucracy: subunit conflicts, unit goals dominate, obesessive concern with following the rules and covering weak management.
Distinguish functional and divisional structure.
Functional structure groups employees by their similar specialities, roles and tasks, while divisional structure groups employees into units by product, service, customer or geographical market area.
What’s the matrix structure?
This structure combines two forms of departmentalization, functional and product. Functional puts specialists together and product facilitates coordination.
What’s the virtual organization?
Typically a small, core organization that outsources major business functions, highly centralized.
What’s the team structure?
Structure that eliminates the chain of command and replaces departments with empowered teams, breaking down external barriers, removing vertical and horizontal boundaries and flattening the hierarchy and minimizing status and rank. May break down geographic barriers.
What’s the circular structure?
A structure where in the center are the executives, and rading outward in rings grouped by functions are the managers, then the specialists then the workers. Best for creative entrepreneur, but employees may be confused whom should they report to.
What’s downsizing?
Systematic effort to make an organization leaner by selling off business units, closing locations or reducing staff.
What dimensions do the current strategy frameworks focus on?
Innovation strategy
Cost minimization strategy
Imitation strategy
What factors shape an organization’s structure?
It’s size, technology, environment and institutions.
What’s an organization environment?
Includes outside institutions or forces that can affect its performance as well as the organization workforce, etc…
Dynamic environments create significantly more uncertainty than stable ones and to minimize this uncertainty organizations should broaden structure to sense and respond to threats and form strategic alliances.
Relate organizational designs and employee behavior.
Work specialization contributes to higher employee productivity, less centralization is associated with higher satisfaction and national culture influences the preference for structure.
To sum:
- Specialization can make operations more efficient, but remember that excessive specialization can create dissatisfaction and reduced motivation.
- Avoid designing rigid hierarchies that overly limit employees’ empowerment and autonomy.
- Balance the advantages of remote work against the potential pitfalls before adding flexible workplace options into the organization’s structure.
- Consider the scarcity, dynamism and complexity of the environment, and balance organic and mechanistic elements when designing an organizational structure.
- Downsizing your organization to realize major costs savings, and focus the company around core competencies, but only if necessary, because downsizing can have a significant impact on employee affect.
