Orgs 2010 Midterm Notes

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o Work/Life Balance

o Technology (Virtual teams/work)

o Demise of “command and control”, empowerment

• Corporate Governance & Ethical Behavior

o TBL, CSR

The org as a strategic design

Typical q’s about the org’s design:

• What is my job description? Who do I report to? How much will I be paid? How is the corp ladder?

How managers can make the org more effeicnet and effective

• understanding basic principles of organization design

• by aligning the organization’s design with its strategy,

• by making sure strategy and design fit the environment in which the organization is operating

• Efficiency: involves accomplishing strategic goals with the least possible expenditure of resources

• Effectiveness involves ensuring that goals are accomplished to the standard necessary for the organization to succeed.

Key strategic questions whose answers shape organization design

• Which activities should be inside the boundaries of the organization and which outside?

o For example, should a company make its own components, or purchase them from outside vendors?

KEY ELEMENTS OF ORGANIZATION DESIGN

• Strategic design sees information as the key resource – helps achieve the orgs’ strategic goals.

o People need to share it

o Create it through cooperation

o Direct it to those who can use it

Tasks

• Task is the basic element of org design; the smallest unit of the activities that need to be performed if the organization is to realize its strategic goals.

• Varies in complexity: cane be simple or hard

• Varies in level of routinization: the extent to which the activity can be specified and programmed. – mostly simple tasks are routine

• Varies in interdependence – high to low

o sequential interdependence: when one task is completed and then handed off for the next stage.

♣ Harder to manage then pooled, bcus info flows are dense. But easier then reciprocal bcus it involves sustained and interactive linkages b/w units.

o pooled interdependence, when interdependent tasks are undertaken at the same time, and the final results that put together or pooled.

♣ Easiest to manage – little exchange of info b/w units

o reciprocal interdependence, when tasks are conducted in repeated interaction with each other

Org design process: Grouping, linking, alligning

• strategic grouping: the differentiation of clusters of activities, positions, and individuals into work units

• once they are grouped they must be linked: c

• Finally, they must be aligned: ensuring the ppl in the org have the necessary resources and motivation needed in order to complete their assigned tasks

Strategic grouping

• Each strategic grouping option has strenghts and weaknesses

• every organization design must address all three elements of expertise/function, business/product, and geography/customer.

• The choice of structure depends on:

o the organization’s strategy

o kind and nature of information processing

o information creation that this strategy requires

• Basic grouping structures: functional grouping, output/product grouping, market grouping, hybrid: matrix and front end/back end grouping, modular grouping

Strategic linking

• involve a structure or process to ensure that information passes as needed be b/w 2 units who are separated by groups and tasks are interdependent.

• This information flowing upward tends to be specialized

♣ In hybrid structures, individual managers can quickly become overloaded

• increase in complexity of coordination issues causes attention rises

• key decisions may be delayed

• Also horizontal flows of information are often critically important in successfully accomplishing the organization’s goals

Linking and interdependence

• Linking mechanisms intensity is influenced by the level of interdependence across groups - which depends in part on the tasks they perform

• pooled, sequential, and reciprocal. These tend to involve different needs for linking and integration.

• reciprocal interdependence > coordination than does sequential interdependence, which in turn demands > coordination than pooled interdependence

• Connect people and units separated by strategic grouping

• Coordinate their activities as needed to achieve the organization’s strategic goals

• The flow of information is the key element of their role,

Linking mechanisms

• “Dotted line” Relationships

o occurs in formal direct reporting structures

o where a lower‐ranking person is formally responsible for supplying all relevant info to the higher‐ranked person but has no formal authority over lower person beyond the info flow

o used for support activities when these are distributed across sub‐units.

o Ex: finance function reports to CEO

• Liaison