Organizations Book – B200 Chapter 7 Definitions of organization: - rational means for attaining known goals. - orientation to the attainment of a specific goal is used as the defining characteristic of an organization which distinguishes it from other types of social system. - structure for the purpose of predetermined outcomes through the use of financial, human and material resources. One way is still to accept that goals are important both in distinguishing organizations form non-organizations - organizations are put forth in the charter, annual reports, public statements by key executives and other authoritative pronouncements. - operating policies of the organization, they tell us what the organization actually is trying to do, regardless of what the official goals say are the aims. A set of characteristics defines bureaucracy, these characteristics, which apply o all members of bureaucracy: 1. duties of their office. 2. 3. 4. 5. substantiated by a diploma gained through examination. 6. according to position in the hierarchy. 7. 8. merit and according to the judgment of superiors. 9. with it. 10. Contingency perspectives suggest that which is about formal structure of organizations might vary according to the circumstances of the organization. Bureaucracy – functional or dysfunctional and for whom? Weber established much of the agenda with which sociologists discuss the determinants of organizational structure by identifying the issues considered here: are organizations more broadly, how are they structured, and why? These features for establishing control arise from an attempt to introduce standardization of techniques techniques associated with scientific management When a situation arises whereby members for an organization are constantly pressured into reliability, certain effects follow: 1. bureaucratic style of management is adopted since formal relationships, in Weber’s analysis, leads to people in organizations being treated not as people but merely as office-holders. 2. suggesting that the function of the rules is changed whereby rule-following becomes an end in itself rather than as a means of achieving the goals of the organization. 3. restricted that the search for alternatives that is essential to decisionmaking becomes self-restricted. These three effects, in fact, have the function that was originally aimed for – making behavior of people in organizations highly predictable. Yet behavior becomes so predictable that it is also highly rigid. Clearly, we have here a situation often referred to as we can use the world bureaucracy in a pejorative sense. By taking the same characteristics as Weber we can see that instead if these characteristic having positive functional effects, they may in certain circumstances have negative and dysfunctional effects as far as the management of the organization is concerned. The two patterns of representative and punishment-centred bureaucracy display very different characteristics: 1. management and obeyed by workers; where few tensions are generated with little overt conflict; and where there is joint support for the rules buttressed by informal sentiments, mutual participation, initiation and the education of workers and management. 2. where the rules are either enforced by workers or management and evaded by the other; where tension and open conflict are rife; and where the system is enforced by punishment and supported by the informal sentiments of either workers or management. Bureaucratic dysfunction often appears to arise from management to increase control in the organization. Such attempts at control may derive from the need for greater efficiency or may be seen as management asserting its power – the two are not mutually exclusive. - making in the organization. - the imposition of the system of rules in the organization ensures standardization in functioning. Bureaucratic structures – some implications In Weber’s original statement on bureaucratic structures the issue of control is central. The formal structure of an organization may be so designed as to maximize the exercise of control by those processing legitimate power in the organization. Weber regarded the modern organization as a highly rational form of administration in which each of the characteristics is designed to enhance the rationality of the whole.
J. Thompson defined organization as: an instrument, a deliberate and
Organization: is as a formal analytical point of reference, primacy of
An organization is a collection of people working together under a defined
Official goals of an organization – the general purposes of the
Operative goals, which designate the ends sought through the actual
The staff members are personally free, observing only the impersonal
There is a clear hierarchy of offices.
The functions of the offices are clearly specified.
Officials are appointed in the basis of a contract.
They are selected on the basis of a professional qualification, ideally
They have a money salary and usually pension rights. The salary is graded
The official’s post is his sole or major occupation.
There is a career structure and promotion is possible both by seniority or
The official may appropriate neither the post nor the resources which go
He is subject to a unified and disciplinary system.
(bureaucracies) rational, for whom are they rational? Or, even
(for example, through the introduction of
).
There is a reduction in personalized relationships. Thus, a more
An over-internalization of the rules of the organization may occur,
An emphasis on control can lead to the position where categorization is so
‘red tape’, a situation when
The former typifies a situation where the rules are both enforced by
Punishment-centred bureaucracy, on the other hand, represents a situation
the attempts by
Direct control may be achieved by a high centralization of decision –
Indirect control may be achieved through invoking the bureaucracy rules
Organization structure and the role of choice The change in direction to which we are referring eventually came to be known as ‘ organizations might vary according to the circumstances of the organization. The basic principles of contingency model derived from the empirical studies from Burrell and Morgan: 1. appropriate for the study of complex organizations. 2. 3. 4. and seek to separate it from the environment. 5. that constitutes the primary focus of contingency theorists. 6. relationship between organization and environment. 7. consists of a number of interdependent sub-systems each of which is a ‘functional imperative’ in relation to the total process. 8. operational, the human and the managerial. These four interact and engage in a process of mutual influence with themselves and their environments. 9. strategic, technological and organizational choices. 10. they experience, bearing in mind that the notion of a stable, predictable environment is perhaps only theoretically possible.
contingency theory’. This theory, argued that the formal structure of
Contingency theory argues that the analogue of a biological organism is
The theory employs an ‘open systems’ perspective.
There is an interdependence between an organization and its environment.
Those using contingency theory tend to focus upon the organization per se
It is the actual nature of relations between organization and environment
The ‘survival need’ for the organization is perceived as the central
Each organization, in addition to being a sub-system of the environment,
The sub-system or key processes comprise the strategic control, the
There is a considerable variation in each of the sub-systems stressing
Environments may be distinguished by the degree of uncertainty
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