Chapter Two: Organizational Structure and Process

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Chapter Two Organizational Structure and Process

• What we will cover
• 1) Understanding organizational structure and
  process
• 2) Knowing bureaucracys advantages and failings
• 3) Encountering alternative forms of
  organization

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Chapter Two Meanings of Organizational Structure

• A point of reference
• An information-processing mechanism
• A system form
• A resource for power
• A carrier of beliefs and attitudes
• A set of rules
• Something enacted or continually accomplished
• Something constraining as well as enabling

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Chapter Two Our Favorite Definition of Structure

• Those aspects of an organization that are
  pre-specified for a given situation. In this
  sense, structure becomes a shorthand version of a
  larger process of interaction-- as when a set
  agenda for a meeting stands in for a discussion
  of what that meeting ought to cover

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Chapter Two Structure/Process

• Structure is to process as
• a rivers banks are to its flow
• a national constitution is to democratic process
• a playbook is to a football or soccer game
• a dress code is to formality and
• habit is to spontaneity.

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Chapter Two The Duality of Structure

• Structures in organizations as in social life in
  general are both enabling and constraining.
  Lets draw an analogy to architecture certain
  configurations of walls, corridors, and common
  areas may facilitate interaction while others
  (perhaps in the same complex) limit them.

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Chapter Two The Three Main Dimensions of
Organizational Structure

• Hierarchy i.e., chain of commandthe
  relationships of vertical authority
• Differentiation or Specialization i.e., the
  number of distinct departments and positions
  (looking horizontally across the organization)
• Formalization i.e., the degree to which the
  entire system is solidified and institutionalized

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Chapter Two Why Bad News Has Trouble Going Up
The Ladder

• Insecurity about being labeled a poor performer
• Lack of trust in ones superiors
• Fear of retribution by top management
• Impression management by an employee
• Bad experiences previously
• Lack of a true open-door policy by management

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Chapter Two Systems TheoryHow Is It
Practically Useful?

• Interdependence of elements
• Equifinality
• Equilibrium
• Environment
• Entropy
• Feedback
• Openness versus closedness
• Variable coupling

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Chapter Two Max Webers Three Main Types of
Authority and Organization

• Charismatic e.g., the new religious sect
• Traditional e.g., the monarchy or nobility
• Legal-Rational e.g., bureaucracy
• And, the key elements of bureaucracy are . . .
  .?

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Chapter Two BureaucracyThe Organizational
Structure We Love to Hate

• Advantages
• Fair, systematic, non-arbitrary
• Useful for large systems
• Stable
• Disadvantages
• Over-concentration of power
• Threat to individuality
• Formal rationality over substantive rationality

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Chapter Two Alternative Forms of Organization

• Q Alternative to what?
• Q How can organizations be different?
• Q How can they be distinct from the crowd?
• Q What forces push organizations toward the
  same models?
• Q What organizations do you know where
  business is done in an unusual way?

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Chapter Two Emergent Structure

• Emergent structure means
• How informal relationships are adapted to
  situations over time (e.g., with rotating
  leaders)
• How systems come to know themselves and their
  environments so that they can adjust to new
  demands and circumstances (with feedback loops
  for self-correction)
• How communication processes manifest certain
  aspects of structure which are reinforced in
  interaction (e.g., with authority)