Organic and Mechanistic Organizational Structures An organic structure is a one that can do well to adapt to many changes. It has a decentralized management, collaborative teamwork, and empowered roles (Daft, 2013). This form of organizational structure is good for small businesses where the culture is more easy going. These businesses can be successful because they have more horizontal communication which reduces the barriers that a mechanistic design may encounter. Two organic designs are the team and network structures. These structures maintain more of a flat structure that spreads the decision-making power to the employee group level, unlike the mechanistic organization (Johnson, Organic Structure of Organizational Design, 2017). The advantages of having an organic structure is the flexibility it gives the company and employees. There are many companies that start out as an organic structure. Google has an organic structure. Since Google is a company that must be on the cutting edge of product development, they need the best and the brightest people, along with the company culture that nurtures creativity. Google has a culture of openness, innovativeness, smart with an emphasis on excellence, hands-on, and supports the small-company-family rapport (Smithson, 2017). Google can change with its environment. If something changes and the company needs to change with it, Google will be able to adapt. When the market fluctuates, the company can be agile and change as well.
A structure depends on the organization 's objectives and strategy. In a very centralized structure, the highest layer of management has most of the choice creating power and has tight management over departments and divisions. In a much suburbanized structure, the choice creating power is distributed and also the departments and divisions could have totally different degrees of independence. Wal-mart’s structure is built upon its risk management, safety and claims management process. Google Inc. has gained much attention and acclaim for its unusual organizational culture, which is designed to establish loyalty and creativity. Although both Google and Wal-mart focuses on risk management and they specialized on two different factors. Google focus more on creativity, loyalty and keeping its employees happy. Wal-mart tends to help customers by saving money, claims and promoting within the company.
The relationship between an organization’s strategy and structure are extremely important because it “directly impacts a firm’s performance” (Rothaermel, 2013, p. 309). Also, as an organization grows, it should reevaluate the current strategy and structure to ensure that it remains the optimal choice for the organization (Rothaermel, 2013). The four types of organizational structures, listed in order of least to most complex according to Rothaermel (2013), are: (1) simple, (2)
In his article for The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid”, Nicholas Carr gives the argument of how the internet is changing the way people are now reading less than they used to a century ago. People all over are becoming less interested in reading material that is longer than a few pages sometimes they can't even comprehend to finish reading a paragraph. The concentration someone had while reading a lengthy book is now gone, one of the smallest distractions can get your attention even just boredom itself can make you drift away from your reading. The more time people spend online, the more their ability to concentrate on their readings diminish until they no longer can stay focused on reading something that is longer than three sentences. Because of the way the use of internet on a daily use has made it more efficient for people to search and find what they were looking for right away, the need to be searching through books or other types of informational mediums, is no longer something that is done as often, sense it would take less time and effort to look something up rather than read through a book to find the
In the Atlantic article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” Nicholas Carr discusses the changes in a human’s thinking style and concentration ability that have occurred since they start depending on the internet for information. The author begins describing the new struggle that he is facing with reading lengthy texts. He indicates that this change is caused from spending a long time on the internet. Carr noted that this universal medium does not only provide endless benefits for the public, but also shapes the process of their thoughts. The internet is affecting human cognition; therefore, controls their brains, causes lack of capacity to concentrate, and disengages their ability to read, absorb, and interpret articles. The author is not the only
In case of Good Sport it restructured the organization, established formal channels for information sharing, granted flexibility and increased budget setting authority. The company also uses the organic structure for ensuring that the resistance from sales and production that is seen in the simulation of Managing across the Organizations is overcome. The production and sales responsibility is not given to the company workers from the top they come from the different project leaders.
According to the article “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” by Nicholas Carr, the Internet is beginning to change how people’s brains work. He states that reading articles online can remap how the brain functions. It has become harder for people to read a lengthier article due the brain’s capacity of obtaining the information. Minds begin to drift away after reading only a couple of pages and some people would not even bother to read a long article. The reasoning for all of this is that the media, including the Internet, is giving them all the answers that they need. Due to this, people are relying more on the Internet to obtain their information instead of their intelligence. Nickolas Carr argues in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” that the ability to focus and understand is being reduced by the Internet.
Technology seems to be the topic for debate these days. Is it making a positive or negative impact on humans? Another question, are computers smarter than us humans is the real question? In the reading, Is Google making us Stupid? by Nicholas Carr this author seems to states that the internet/technology affects many different areas in our lives and not positively, such as: cognition, reading skills, etc. with many reasonable explanations to support his theory. Yes, technology has made our lives easier and convenient, but are we becoming spoiled with computers? If that is even possible.
How often do you use Google, Bing, or any other internet search engine on a daily basis? Each time you search for something you are bombarded with information, constantly absorbing said information. Nicholas Carr, author of the article “Google Is Making Us Stupid,” states that Google is changing the way he and many others think. However, with the constant influx of information presented in a Google search, our brains have the option to expand and retain more information than ever before. Access to these search engines provides us with a breadth of information never before conceived. If there is anything on any subject that you want to know,
The organic and decentralized structure of Omega was considered an advantage for the company because it created flexibility, innovative thinking, and unity within the organization.
Culture at Google – Has there not enough been spoken about the culture at Google?
Functional structures are proved to operate well in stable environments where business strategies are less inclined to changes or dynamism, the amount of bureaucracy makes it tough for organizations to respond to changes in the market quickly.
It did so in order to better focus its resources on changing customer needs as well as emphasize its strengths in the market place. The organizational structure now consists of centralized engineering and marketing organizations. This way the company has the ability to prevent product and resource overlaps and more effectively allocate its resources to areas yielding optimum profitability. The engineering side has eleven technology groups with people heading multiple groups and reporting to one person who then reports to the CEO. The marketing side has one head who reports to the CEO as well.
The mechanistic view of an organization began with the industrial revolution. The view is a reflection of society's radical change from a rural agricultural base to one more impersonally based on centralized urban industry employing great numbers of people. The first changes began in the late 1600's and early 1700's with rudimentary machines replacing manual labor or accomplishing things not previously possible because of size, weight, or sheer numbers. The greatest industrial growth was during the 1800's period, which was exponential at its end and the outset of our century.
At least two different organizational structures are identified, described, and compared in terms of their design principles.
Moving away from “Mechanistic” metaphor originated from the bureaucratic organizational theories in the early 1920s. Morgan (2006) presents a more biological view of the organization. Described as a living system the “Organism” metaphor is dependent on wider environment and functions. Such organizations are open systems and more inclined to adapt, grow, survive and to meet the needs of organizations to operate more efficiently. The flexibility to change to the best-suited structure also introduced. As organizations tend to appear and thrive in certain environments, the functions are adjusted to establish more orderly and stable environments. In line with Morgan’s “Organism” metaphor (Morgan. 2010), if they do not adapt, organizations become week and die when those needs not met.