Organizational Theory: Determinants of Structure -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the Objective Here Is to Understand Why Organizations Have the Structure That They

The structure and design of organizations have drastically changed over the last twenty-five years. Organizations develop new goals at the beginning of the year or after the completion of previous goals, and heavily depend on planning to help achieve these goals. Planning is an integral part of organizational success, as upper management receives substantial information on various needs such as risk uncertainty, available resources, employee development, and unforeseen changes in technology (Daft, 2013). Most importantly, successful planning allows management to make effective decisions when unforeseen events arise within the organization. Not participating in planning is equivalent to taking a road trip across the country without a

Organizational structure defines how the tasks are to be divided, coordinated and grouped in organizations. By structure, it means how the leadership is to be chosen, how decisions are to be made and how the members are to be accepted.

Alexis Writing (n.d.) states, “organizations are set up in specific ways to accomplish different goals, and the structure of an organization can help or hinder its progress towards accomplishing these goals. There are three main types of organizational structures: functional, divisional, and matrix structure.”

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.

When an organization does not use a holistic approach towards their culture, structure and systems, the organization could create a poor working environment for its employees and poor results for their customers. An example of culture, structure and systems not working well together can be seen in General Motors (GM). GM prior to its bankruptcy was seen to be a “highly bureaucratic company in which brands, departments and regions operated like self-governing and competing states with a federation” (Smerd, J. 2009).

L.G. Bolman and T.F. Deal’s (2013) bestseller provides four-frame model of an organization, which incorporates the structural, human resources, political and the symbolic forms.

To have a successful organization, companies need to have an organizational structure. Organizational structure is used as a foundation to ensure each department as well as employees knows the proper direction to take. The Home Depot is one of the largest home improvement retailers in the world. Home Depot is one company that incorporates organizational structure in their day- to -day business. The Home Depot organization will be evaluated to compare and contrast the impact of organizational structure.

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.

Organisations are made up of individuals brought together to enable the organisation to achieve its mission. The organisation's structure will determine how these individuals are brought together and how they relate to one another. The success of the organisation is dependent on each individual working together to achieve the common

The structure of an organization can vary depending on the company. This is responsible for maintaining and outlining specific duties or task within the organization. Depending on the company they can choose between a centralized or decentralized structure. Centralized organizational structures focus management authority and decision-making in a single executive team, with information flowing from top managers to various business units (Centralized Vs. Decentralized Organizational Design, David Ingram, 2017). Decentralized organizational structures, on the other hand, look more like multiple smaller representations of a single structure, featuring management redundancies and more close-knit chains of command (Centralized Vs. Decentralized Organizational Design, David Ingram, 2017). Within these, there are more specified structures with different advantages and

Though it is obvious why understanding organizations is critical to business success, nevertheless it is worthwhile to review these reasons. The structure of a firm either enhances or hinders efficiency and productivity. In other words, how information flows and to whom, whether and how many parts of the work process is redundant, how clear and precise is the reporting structure, if and how new ideas and products are promoted - these and many more issues are obvious consequences of structure and profoundly affect the success of the business.

If we go back to the first half of the twenty first century, organization theory was dominated by classicists who viewed organizations as rational systems and valued efficient operations above all. They promoted the idea that management is a process of planning, organization, command, coordination n, and control and that design of an organization should be like that of a machine. This concept spawned the modern bureaucracy. (Morgan, 1997a)

Also, too much conflict is evident. Organization structure has to specify a single set of goals for the entire organization (Daft, 120).

In the early 1980s, Henry Mintzberg’s, constructed the organizational archetypes. In this model Mintzbeg introduces five types of organization structure and how they influence the functions of organizations. On the organizational model there are five categories which are: Entrepreneurial, Machine (Bureaucracy), Professional bureaucracy, The Divisional (Diversified), and Adhocracy. Entrepreneurial organization consists of one large unit with one or a few top managers. The organization is relatively unstructured and informal compared with other types of organization, and the lack of standardized systems allows the organization to be flexible.

This discussion will first look at the organization as an organism. Then, discuss the implications of open systems and the importance of the environment. Finally, evaluate the strengths and limitations of the organismic metaphor.