Organization and Management Theories
Organizations are a social unit of people that is structured and managed to meet or pursue collective goals. All organizations have management structures that determine the direction of the organization. The importance of an organization in society is substantial and understated as an organization can improvise, test, experiment and invent new strategies and approaches.
Therefore, with an organization being such a prominent factor in society the study of formal organizations has evolved and resulted in organizational theories. As organizations are implemented over time many people experiment with methods, ideology, and practices to determine the best approach to forming a viable organization. These experiments lead to organizational theories that are the study of organizations and their interrelationship with the environment in which they operate. Being that there is a vast array of organizational theories out there, each theory provides a differentiated view of the structure of an organization each with their unique advantages and disadvantages. As the structure of an organization is such a factor within these theories the importance of management is emphasized in order to achieve the objectives and goals defined. Therefore, the value of management has lent itself to its own set of theories that are implemented to help increase organizational productivity and service quality.
This has created an intertwined relationship between the
Classical organization theory evolved during the first half of this century. It represents the merger of scientific management, bureaucratic theory, and administrative theory.
Organizations tend to adopt three major theoretical perspectives that form the basis of their systems. The three include the open, rational and the closed systems (Scott, 2003). There is the crucial need to ensure one can understand these perspectives to understand how the organizations operate. The three perspectives are a representation of the scientific development of the organizations.
Structure is the basis through which an organization seeks to create control the direction of an organization. This is completed through clear definitions of the allocation of work, differentiation, and the coordination of having those responsibilities working together towards the efforts of the organization, integration (Bolman & Deal, 1993, pp). Through these methods, the organization is able to devise a division of labor that collaborates to bring about the missions and goals of an organization. The structure that comes about from this can be varied in their rigidness and flexibility it allows, and to an extent this is a great contribution to its success.
response so that it is easy to make comparisons among the six forms of organization. You
Organisations must organise a structure so that their objectives can be achieved. A company will have different departments and procedures with each one having a special function. All of these organised departments and procedures are linked so the company can run efficiently. For many organisation this can be very complex has they will have offices in international countries around the world.
We must see that organizations exist in the socioeconomic environment the way fish exist in the ocean, and the way we exist in the physical environment.
In order for one to evaluate and identify with the diverse business structures, he/she must be aware of the meaning and standards that makes that structure. Various businesses functions in different ways as the world is full of technology and new structures, company cultures and new ways in which companies are run. In order to fully grasp the concepts of Organizational structure and culture in the movies, I will use the Movie Up in the Air and The Devil Wear Prada movies to analyze a business scenario from them.
Organizational theory studies the various variables that influence the behavior of an individual(s) working within an organization, but also, “prescribes how work and workers ought to be organized and attempts to explain the actual consequences of organizational behavior (including individual actions) on work being performed and on the organization itself.” (Milakovich & Gordon, 2013, p.145). Of the many approaches to organizational analysis, Classical Organizational theory has been, even to this day, extremely influential by focusing on more formal concepts such as bureaucracy, rationalization and scientific management. Although, over the decades organizational management has taken on a more human relations approach to getting more productivity out of employees, it is contributors like Max Webber, Fredrick Taylor, and Luther Gulick that laid down the basic foundation organizational theories by recognizing the need for control and procedures.
According to Miles et al. (1978, p. 547), an organization is both its purpose and the mechanism constructed to achieve the purpose. It means that the concept of organization is embracing both goals and all the elements that represent unique combination. Miles et al. (1978, p. 553) draws the conclusion that structure and the processes taking place inside the organization are closely aligned; it is hard to speak about one without mentioning the other. It is important to understand the conclusion drawn by Miles et al. (1978). It illustrates how the
As mentioned early, a multiple perspective is the best approach in understand organization theory. Organization theory is a very complicated category to understand; what even more difficult to grasp are the perspectives that embraces or supports the theory. Three of the most common perspectives are modernism, symbolic-interpretive, and postmodern. Reiterating Hatch and Cunliffe statement that it’s
The organization falls under one or two people under a flat organization. It starts to spread out to more employees as companies start to move into a functional organization.
Organisational goals - the overall mission of a business that have been established by its management and
"There are always, in any explanation of organisational structure, four types"#, with any breakdown of viewpoints of organisation culture, whether it be by structualists or ideologists , they all agree there is always 4 cultures and 4 structures. Four types of structure which are identified by structualists, are common within organisations today, these are Functional Structure, Matrix Structure, Web Structure and Closter Structure.
In modern theory, an organization is defined as a designed and structured process in which individuals interact for objectives (Hicks & Gullet, 1997) Modern Theory has three different Approaches: 1. The systems approach: it views the inter connectedness between several components such as, individual, environment, communication, balancing and decision analyzing as the goal of organization as well. 2. Socio- technical approach: it is based on technical system and environment of organization. An organization uses tools and techniques on producing their products to make the organization more effective technologically. 3. Contingency or situational approach: it is based on inter-relating to the environment. When different environments require different organizational relationships for maximum effectiveness in correlation with social. Legal, political, technical and economic factors.(refer to appendix 1)