Organizations Book – B200
Chapter 7
Definitions of organization:
-
J. Thompson defined organization as: an instrument, a deliberate and
rational means for attaining known goals.
-
Organization: is as a formal analytical point of reference, primacy of
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.
-
An organization is a collection of people working together under a defined
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
-
Official goals of an organization – the general purposes of the
organizations are put forth in the charter, annual reports, public
statements by key executives and other authoritative pronouncements.
-
Operative goals, which designate the ends sought through the actual
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.
The staff members are personally free, observing only the impersonal
duties of their office.
2.
There is a clear hierarchy of offices.
3.
The functions of the offices are clearly specified.
4.
Officials are appointed in the basis of a contract.
5.
They are selected on the basis of a professional qualification, ideally
substantiated by a diploma gained through examination.
6.
They have a money salary and usually pension rights. The salary is graded
according to position in the hierarchy.
7.
The official’s post is his sole or major occupation.
8.
There is a career structure and promotion is possible both by seniority or
merit and according to the judgment of superiors.
9.
The official may appropriate neither the post nor the resources which go
with it.
10.
He is subject to a unified and disciplinary system.
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
(bureaucracies) rational, for whom are they rational? Or, even
more broadly, how are they structured, and why?
These features for establishing control arise from an attempt to introduce
standardization of techniques
(for example, through the introduction of
techniques associated with scientific management
).
When a situation arises whereby members for an organization are constantly
pressured into reliability, certain effects follow:
1.
There is a reduction in personalized relationships. Thus, a more
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.
An over-internalization of the rules of the organization may occur,
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.
An emphasis on control can lead to the position where categorization is so
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
‘red tape’, a situation when
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.
The former typifies a situation where the rules are both enforced by
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.
Punishment-centred bureaucracy, on the other hand, represents a situation
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
the attempts by
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.
-
Direct control may be achieved by a high centralization of decision –
making in the organization.
-
Indirect control may be achieved through invoking the bureaucracy rules
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.
Organization structure and the role of choice
The change in direction to which we are referring eventually came to be known as
‘
contingency theory’. This theory, argued that the formal structure of
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.
Contingency theory argues that the analogue of a biological organism is
appropriate for the study of complex organizations.
2.
The theory employs an ‘open systems’ perspective.
3.
There is an interdependence between an organization and its environment.
4.
Those using contingency theory tend to focus upon the organization per se
and seek to separate it from the environment.
5.
It is the actual nature of relations between organization and environment
that constitutes the primary focus of contingency theorists.
6.
The ‘survival need’ for the organization is perceived as the central
relationship between organization and environment.
7.
Each organization, in addition to being a sub-system of the environment,
consists of a number of interdependent sub-systems each of which is a
‘functional imperative’ in relation to the total process.
8.
The sub-system or key processes comprise the strategic control, the
operational, the human and the managerial. These four interact and
engage in a process of mutual influence with themselves and their
environments.
9.
There is a considerable variation in each of the sub-systems stressing
strategic, technological and organizational choices.
10.
Environments may be distinguished by the degree of uncertainty
they experience, bearing in mind that the notion of a stable, predictable
environment is perhaps only theoretically possible.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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