9-1 Project Part 3 Organizational Structure and Culture Report Adam Knapp

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Southern New Hampshire University *

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Apr 3, 2024

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1 9-1 Project Part 3: Organizational Structure and Culture Report Adam Knapp Southern New Hampshire University MBA 580: Innovation and Strategy for High-Performance Organizations Dr. Charlene Spann 11/12/2023
2 In order for Knapp Automotive to remain competitive within the automotive sector, we will need to take a look at our current organizational structure and what changes could be made in order to promote innovation and a faster turnaround time when it comes to decision making. The changes that will be described below will be beneficial for Knapp Automotive to change as the market changes. The delays due to organizational structure and lack of innovation due to the culture promoted within the workplace will need to be addressed and possibly changed in order to be ready for the changes that take place around us. CURRENT ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE Knapp Automotive manufactures and distributes automobiles across six continents. We currently operate under a tall matrixed structure, of which the levels of hierarchy are hard to determine. The tall structure we currently are working under places those who are deemed the decision makers, the furthest away from the customer. Due to those decision makers being so high up, communication efforts seem to be slow and difficult and decision making has been known to cause delays in project timelines. Enterprise-wide decisions are made centrally and at the top of the hierarchy, which makes it easier to implement common policies and practices and prevents parts of the organization from becoming too independent. The hierarchy allows specialized functions and organizations, also referred to as centers of excellence or centers of expertise (COE), which allow for deep knowledge and expertise. These COE’s allow for increased structure, governance, and control, which in turn allow for resource and process efficiencies. The problem that lies within each COE is that they can create functional silos or reduced cross functional coordination and lack of connectedness with other departments, as each function is striving towards its own goals. Because of the COE, matrixed structure of our organization, we pull specialists from different organizations to work on specific
3 projects, which then causes these specialists to report a to a project manager, as well as the manager of their department, which could cause confusion on the part of specialist regarding who they truly report to. The specialists who are chosen to work on specific projects, still work with their functional team to handle tasks that are not related to the specific project they are assigned to, which could result in a loss of focus for that project that is at hand. When looking at the organizational structure as a whole, we are very dependent on the top level to make decisions and because of that, this could cause unneeded delays in production times. With the everchanging market in the automobile sector, we cannot afford to wait for these decisions to be made at the top level, we need to have the ability to make quick decisions at the lowest level in order to keep production timelines moving. This organizational structure is also bad for innovation for the same reason. All the decisions are made at the top, so if someone were to come up with the process change/innovation for the production timeline to speed up, for a new IoT upgrade/addition, or a new vehicle concept, everything has to be approved by the top tier of the hierarchy, so those innovative ideas are not looked into as deeply as they should be. RECOMMENDED CHANGES TO ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE In order to reduce the decision making timeframe, as well as increase the number of innovative ideas, I believe Knapp Automotive should look to changing into a “flatter” organizational structure. A “flatter” organizational structure seeks to open up the lines of communication and collaboration by removing the hierarchal layers of an organization (Morgan, 2015) . While I do not believe in getting rid of the hierarchy completely, with this organizational structure, it will reduce the number of tiers within the hierarchy, which would make the decision making timeframe much shorter, which would mean less delays. The emphasis on strong communication and collaboration and improving the employee experience are the main reasons
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