Organizational behavior core concepts by kinicki chapter13

Learning Objectives • Define organizations and their basic dimensions • Explain commonly used metaphors for organizations as closed or open systems, military/mechanical bureaucracies,

Organizational Design: How

a Structure Connects Employees and Tasks

Copyright © 2008 by the McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc All rights reserved.

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

Organizational Behavior, Core Concepts

Learning Objectives

• Define organizations and their basic

dimensions

• Explain commonly used metaphors for

organizations as closed or open systems, military/mechanical bureaucracies, and

biological and cognitive systems

• Describe basic criteria for organizational effectiveness

Learning Objectives

• Summarize what is involved in the

contingency approach to organizational design

• Discuss new-style and old-style

organizations, including virtual organizations

What is an Organization?

• Organization

– system of consciously coordinated activities

of two or more people

What is an Organization?

• Four common denominators

– Coordination of effort– Common goal

– Division of labor– Hierarchy of authority

Designing Effective Teams

See an article from

Administrative Science Quarterly

on designing effective teams

What is an Organization?

• Unity of command principle

– each employee should report to a single manager

Organization Charts

• Organization chart

– boxes-and-lines illustration showing chain of

formal authority and division of labor

Sample Organization Chart for a

Hospital

Figure 13-1

Organizations as

Biological Systems

• The complex organization is a set of

interdependent parts which together make up a whole because each

contributes something and receives something from the whole, which in turn

is interdependent with some larger environment

The Organization as an Open

System: The Biological Model

Figure 13-2

Organizations as Cognitive Systems

• Organizations have mechanisms to

interpret ambiguous events and to provide meaning and direction for participants

• Resource acquisition

– organization is effective if it acquires necessary factors of production

• Strategic constituencies satisfaction

– Strategic constituency: any group of

people with a stake in the organization’s operation or success

• Resource acquisition

– approach is appropriate when inputs have a traceable effect on results or output

• Strategic constituencies

– appropriate when powerful stakeholders can significantly benefit or harm the organization

• Organic organizations

– Flexible networks of multitalented individuals who perform a variety of tasks

Question?

In what type of decision making do top

managers make all key decisions?

A Centralized

B Decentralized

C Fundamental

D Primary

Approaches to Decision Making

• Centralized decision making

– top managers make all key decisions

• Decentralized decision making

– lower-level managers are empowered to make important decisions

New-Style versus Old-Style

Organizations

Table 13-1