soc of orgs part 2 Flashcards
Bureaucracies
hierarchic organizations characterized by rules and regulations
Weber’s idealized types of rationality
Substantive - feelings based
Practical - accepting realities (it is what it is)
Formal - traditional, shaped by habituation
Theoretical - abstract concepts guide interactions
emotional labor
Surface acting (fake): Where an individual’s underlying emotions or feelings run
counter to how they’re behaving at work. Tends to reduce personal well‐being
and job performance outcomes
Deep Acting : here an individual aligns required and true feelings. Tends to
be unrelated to measures of personal well‐being but does correspond to
positive job performance
involves tasks in which a worker
produces (or manages) an emotional state in themselves or others
-Workers’ emotions may be suppressed through routinized
performances
Taylorism (scientific management)
Scientific Management is characterized by:
1. Empiricism and efficiency
2. Transformation of craft production into mass production
3. Standardization of best practices
4. Knowledge transfer from skilled workers into tools,
processes, and documentation
Ritzer’s mcdonaldization
An organization characterized by McDonaldization emphasizes:
1. Efficiency – The minimization of energy or cost used to achieve an
outcome. Identification of an optimum solution
2. Predictability – The capacity to forecast a desired outcome.
Products and experiences conform to expectations
3. Calculability – An emphasis on quantifiable measures, often
resulting in a focus on quantity over quality
4. Substitution of nonhuman for human technology, and the
deskilling of work by humans
5. Control over uncertainty – The minimization of risk and the
unknown
Make or buy decisions
buy external:
Buy when:
less expensive
(cost considerations)
- production facilities
are limited
- Suppliers’ have specific expertise
- Desire to maintain stable workforce
make in house:
- It’s less expensive to make than buy
- Desire to learn/integrate operations
- Need to exert direct control over
production or quality
-suppliers unreliable
-Secrecy required
Vertical and horizontal integration
vertical: involves control
over more stages of the supply chain
horizontal: involves
increasing market share by expanding
into the same level of the supply chain
Formal organizational structure
Job Design
-Details specific job expectations, responsibilities, and qualifications
-Helpful for hiring, training, and developing performance metrics
formal org structure:
refers to the official division of responsibilities, definitions of how work is to
be done, and reporting relationships
- Frequently details authority and lines of communication
Chain of command
refers to a company’s hierarchy of reporting relationships ‐‐ from the bottom to the top of an
organization, who must answer to whom
Authority (power to give orders) ,
unit of command (should be reporting to no more than 1 person), The
corporate ladder goes from top to bottom without
disconnect
matrix organizations, hybrid
Boundaryless organizations
modular organizations
Social capital
the resources you accrue by network position and relationships you have
Give you resources and signals (Signals of trust , ability and status )
Weak ties:
Novel information a lot better
strong ties
Better aid and support
strong tie can never be a bridge, bridges that connect local networks are expected to be
weak ties
Classifying tie strength
Mutual confiding
Look at time spent together
1) Interaction frequency
2) Emotional intensity
3) Mutual confiding
4) Reciprocal services
forbidden triad
Person a has a strong tie to person b and c, very unlikely that B and C will NOT have a connection
Network bridges
a connection in a network which provides
the only path between two clusters
-weak ties
structural holes theory
Bridges
Information access
Brokerage opportunities (control)
a gap between two actors (typically clusters
of actors) within a network
An actor that “bridges” a structural hole with a network connection
may realize certain benefits if they represent the sole path between
otherwise disconnected groups
role of networks
Important for influence and effectiveness
Helps for financing (venture capital done through contacts)
Learning (coaching from networks)
Marketing (done through word of mouth)
span of control
refers to the number of employees that a
manager can efficiently and effectively direct
narrow= closer supervision
wider= more efficient
organization (associated with reduced bureaucracy and
lower management costs)
Centralization / Decentralization
“Tall” or Centralized
- Decisions made at the top and communicated down via authority relationships
- Use when goals/activities are generally clear
- May suffer from bureaucracy, excessive management
- Examples: Federal Government, U.S. military
use when goals are clear, efficiency and
predictability are important, coordination is essential
“Flat” or Decentralized
- Decisions/tasks completed through groups with similarly‐ranked members
- Suggestive that indivs. closer to problems may have better knowledge/info
- Use when org. is small; tasks require innovation or entrepreneurial solutions
- Examples: Universities, startups
Use decentralized (flat) orgs when: goals are unclear, markets are
dynamic, knowledge/diverse interests are important
Departmentalization
Departmentalization is the subdivision of a business
into units
- The basis by which jobs are grouped together so that
common tasks can be coordinated (integration)
- At the same time, it distinguishes different jobs from
one another (differentiation)
friendship paradox
