Question 1
You have just been hired by a large organization to serve as a first line supervisor, but because you are in an influential department, you have the opportunity to meet the top managers at a company party and to dialogue with the CEO on his responsibilities. Knowing the responsibilities and types of decisions made by top management as we studied them in organization theory, what would you discuss the organization with the CEO?
Response:
Awareness is necessary with preparedness for the conversation or discussion with the CEO about the organization. Initially, I would discuss about the advantages of the organization as a tool to the common objectives of the company regardless of departments that the tools help analyze and understand different aspects in the organization. I would emphasize that the theories are powerful to help the employees and top managements to comprehend various strategies to enjoy possible success of the organization, and to operate in the global business sophisticatedly. The organization theories help explain the past events and the future events, and every human force of the organization can manage the organization with its respective assignments in different departments effectively and efficiently. In addition, every concept of the theories is necessary to the own organization, and to any types of organizations in different industries linked to the organization itself. Let the CEO know how effective the theories are to adapt the shifting in the environment externally in a continuous manner. To show how potential, I am as the first line supervisor of the organization that I can help to face new challenges in the organization. Lastly, to show my gratitude as a newly hired human force of the organization. Question 2
Compare and contrast the three (3) types of organizational control strategies; then, describe Weber’s three (3) types of authority that explains the creation and control of larger organizations.
Response:
The three types of organizational control strategies are strategic control, management control, and operational control strategies. The strategic control is the process of strategy evaluation; practiced after both the strategy formulation and implementation. The management control focused on the accomplishments of the objectives of the sub-strategies that comprise the master strategy, and the intermediate plan. The operational control concerned to individual and group performances as compared to the individual and group role prescriptions that required by the organizational plans.
The strategic control, concerned with the proper path strategy as implemented and any issues detected in the areas or the potentiality of issues may occur in the process and make necessary adjustments. A significant time interval occurs in the initial implementation and achievement of the strategy, and the results intended. The strategic control is necessary to steer the organization, and provides means of correcting the direction based on performance and new information. The recognition of the different ways of strategies differs in the importance of system and evaluation for the organization to monitor the performance and make corrective actions from the intended plans on strategies and results.
The imposed management control functioned in the framework established by the useful strategies. The objectives or standards, established for the major sub-systems in the organization such as products, projects, responsibility centers, and functions. Typically, the management control measures include the residual income, ROI, product quality, and cost. The corrective actions involved minor and major changes in the strategies, leadership, motivation, training, termination, or discipline.
The operational control, designed to ensure that every action is consistent with its objectives and plans. It focused on the events where the operational control derived from the required system of the management. The difference between the operational control and strategic control is that, each, highlighted by the reference to the definition of the management control; it is a set of analysis, measurement, and decisions required for the management of continuous operation of processes in a timely manner.
The three types of authority are traditional authority, rational-legal authority, and charismatic authority. The traditional authority is a legitimate sanctity of tradition; its ability and the right to rule passed down through heredity, and it does not change abruptly, does not facilitate in the social changes, irrational and inconsistent, and perpetuates in the status quo, respectively. As per statement of Weber is that, “The creation of a new law that is oppositely traditional norms deemed impossible in principles” . Typically, the embodiment of traditional authority is in feudalism or patrimonial. For example, in feudalism, the servants are not personal servants of the lord; however, it is independent, and in purely patriarchal structure, the servants are dependent upon the lord, completely and personally.
In the rational-legal authority, it is empowered by formalistic beliefs in the content of the legal law and rationality or natural law. The obedience, not given to specific individual leaders, traditional or charismatic; it is a set of uniform principles. For Weber, rational-legal authority is as bureaucracy, political, or economic. As found in the modern state, private and public corporations, city governments, and voluntary associations. The development of the modern state is identical with the modern officialdom and the bureaucratic organizations, and the increased economic enterprise.
The charismatic authority, found in a leader with its mission and vision inspired by the majority, and based on the perception of extraordinary characteristics of the people involved. Weber favored in the charismatic authority, in fact, spent more of good deal time in discussing the type of authority. The leaders in charismatic are the heads of new social movements instilled with supernatural or divine powers. Question 3 Compare and contrast traditional organizations and learning organizations
Response:
In learning organizations, mistakes and errors are seen as learning opportunities; a sign that process or procedure that need to be reviewed or improved or to be introduced to prevent mistakes being repeated. Its emphasis is more on the systems compared to its specific individuals seen in isolation. Similarly, the positive outcomes can be highlighted as opportunities for imitation by other units, departments, or teams. In the traditional organizations, mistakes are more readily seen as opportunities to criticize, complain, or discipline the guilty party. Sometimes, denial is utilized to avoid facing painful realities. Consequently, the significant lessons are not learned, and a repeated history happened. Question 4
What are the similarities and differences between a functional structure with horizontal linkages and a divisional structure?
Response:
In the functional structure, the activities, grouped according to its common function from the bottom to the top of the organization, and human knowledge or skills has consolidated in providing an in depth knowledge for the organizations. Functional structure is effective when the expertise meets the critical point of the organizational objectives, controls and coordinates the vertical hierarchy, and the necessity of efficiency. One of the strengths of the functional structure is that, it promotes the scale of economy in the function and the in-depth skill development of employees. The main weakness of the structure is that, it has a slow response to the changes of the environment that requires coordination across the other departments, and the innovation is slow due to its poor coordination, as the employees have restricted views of the overall objectives. Survey shows that the organization by functions is the prevalent approach to the design of the organization; however, in the modern and fast moving world, only few companies can achieve the fruit of success with a strict functional structure. One of the interesting utilizations of the horizontal linkages happened at Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden that consists of forty-seven functional departments.
The divisional structure is a genetic term for product structure or the strategic business unit. It organized in accordance to the services, product groups, divisions, major programs, profit centers, or businesses. Its distinctive feature, based on the organizational results; for example, the United Technologies Corporation or UTC has many divisions that include Carrier, Otis, Sikorsky, and Pratt and Whitney among the 50 largest United States industrial companies.
The difference between a functional structure and divisional structure is that, a functional structure re-designed in separate product groups, and it contains the R&D functional departments in every maximized product group. While the divisional structure promotes change and flexibility that, every unit is smaller and adapts to the environment necessity. In addition, the divisional structure decentralized the decision-making; the lines of authority converge in the hierarchy of its lower level. In contrast, a functional structure centralized; it forces decisions all through to the top before any issue affects several functions as resolved. Question 5 Discuss the factors that contribute to organizational decline. List (in order) and briefly describe the stages that result in an organizational dissolution.
Response:
The factors that contribute to organizational decline; these are organizational atrophy, vulnerability, and environmental decline or competition. The organizational atrophy occurred when an organization grows older, inefficient, and bureaucratized to an extent. There is deterioration in terms of environmental adaptation. Vulnerability reflected on the strategic inability to prosper in its environment of the organization, it happened usually to small less established organizations. There are some organizations that vulnerable due to unable to define the strategic awareness to fit the environment correctly. The environmental decline referred to the reduced energy and resources availability to support the organizations. The organization will scale down operations when the environment has less capacity to support the organization.
In addition, in other perspective, the decline phase entered when the organization experienced continuous reduction in resources and its revenue at a substantial period. There are many causes of a decline; these are quantitative and qualitative, due to adverse changes in the environment or internal operations of the organization. The quantitative reasons of a decline are the reduced workforce, reduced market share, and reduced profit or share price. The reduced workforce is a cutback in size of the organization that reflects the reduced total market, and lack of capability to deliver the product, reduced need of products. Reduced market share is the reduction in the market share of the company that implies many issues due to obsolete technologies or products. The reduced profit or share price, it provides the assessment of the investors of the company that operates margin, and its prospects of future growth. The qualitative reasons of decline are fierce competition, lack of customers, obsolete technology, economic downfall, and an organizational atrophy. Fierce competition includes the practices of luring the established client based with bonus deals, aggressive pricing, developing parallel products, and acquisition of competitive technologies. Lack of customers happened due to an unexpected decline in the market niche, or the organization failed to find the proper market for the product. The obsolete technology adversely affects its core competencies in the business. Economic downfall reduced the customer spending; the multiple vendors compete for the reduced share in the market. The organizational atrophy occurred in older organizations that experienced the hierarchical structure and long period of stability. The employees’ loose trust in the leadership and vision, and dipped satisfaction and operational efficiency of the employees.
The five stages of decline are the blinded stage, inaction stage, faulty action stage, a crisis stage, and dissolution stage. In the blinded stage, the organization failed to recognize the internal changes or the external changes that threatened its survival. The inaction stage, a sign of a deterioration performance is clearer than the blinded stage. However, the leadership still failed to take actions, and the leaders viewed the decline as temporary changes instead of a threat. The faulty action stage is on its downfall and pressure to have necessary corrective actions of the organization. It reduced the confidence in a leadership and talented employees, and ended up by leaving the organization. In the crisis stage, the organization reached a crisis stage when the priority actions failed, and its survival is questionable without major changes. In addition, the stakeholders lost faith in the organization. The last stage that is the dissolution stage is demise and irreversible, marked by finance depletion, diminished market for its products, and end of the talented employees. Even the new leadership with its strategies failed to revive the organization, and the responsibility lies in the dissolution of the organization and resources.
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