Essay About External Environment People And Activity Systems

Organizational Behaviour Notes
Essay Preview: Organizational Behaviour Notes
Report this essay
Organizational Behaviour NotesChapter 1 – Organizations and Organization Theory Organizational theory is a way to see and analyze organizations more accurately and deeply Patterns and regularities in organizational design and behaviour Administrative principles – looked at design and functioning of the organization as a whole – 14 principles, group together similar activities and have a manager control → developed bureaucratic organizationsHawthorne studies – people matter, human relations 1980’ things changed – with increased competition, globally – flexibility, response to customers, motivation Change is always occurring Globalization – interconnected, contract out to other companies, interdependence, companies are more competitive and complex – search for right structure and processes Ethics and social responsibility – pressure to be ethic (public and government) Speed of responsiveness – environmental changes, organizational crises, customer expectations, competitive and specialized goods, distribution, knowledge (information) of employees and less reliance on machines. Crisis management Digital workplace – e-business, manage relationshipsDiversity – globalization and customer base, changing workforce, organizational culture and conflict from different cultures and styles What is an organization Organizations are social entities that are goal directed, designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity systems, and linked to the external environment People, relationships, HR, empowerment of employees Non-for-profit – hard to measure efficiency – intangible goals, various stakeholders (clients and volunteers) Social enterprises – economic, social, and environmental → a form of community economic development in which an organization exchanges services and goods in the market as a means to realizing its social objectives or missions – get support (government, people, foundations), self-sufficiency Importance of organizations Bring together resources to accomplish specific goals Produce goods and services efficientlyFacilitate innovationUse modern manufacturing and information technologies Adapt to and influence a rapidly changing environment Accommodate challenges of diversity, ethics, and coordination Create value for owners, customers, and employees Perspectives on organizationsOpen systems Closed system – does not depend on environment, internal systems only (scientific management), run things efficiently, environment would be predictable and not cause problems Open systems – interact with environment, both consumes and exports resources to the external, care about internal efficiency, adapt with environment, all systems must interact with external System – set of interacting elements that acquires inputs from the environment, transforms them, and then discharges outputs into the external Subsystems – specific functions Production Boundary – exchanges with external (purchasing, marketing)Maintenance – operations Adaptive Management Organizational configuration Technical core – people who do the basic work, production Management – directing and coordinatingTop management provides direction, strategy, goals, policies Middle management  – implement and coordinate at department level, mediation between top management and technical core Technical support – adapt to change, innovation Administrative support – smooth operation, upkeep, HR, maintenance Boundary spanning – overlap of parts (more than one responsibility)  Dimensions of organizational design  – traits Structural dimension – labels to describe the internal characteristics (can measure and compare) Formalization – written documents (procedures, job descriptions, regulations, manuals), describe behaviour and activities. Measured by # of pagesSpecialization – degree to which tasks are subdivided into separate jobs. Extensive – narrow tasks. Division of labourHierarchy of authority – who reports to whom and span of control for managers (#)  Centralization – hierarchy level that has authority to make decisions (kept at top) vs. decentralized Professionalism – level of formal education and training of employees Personnel ratios – deployment of people to various functions and departments = # of employees in a classification / total employees Contextual dimension – characterize the whole organization – size, technology, culture, environment, goals and strategiesRepresent environment and organization Links to structural dimension and processes Goals and strategy – purpose and competitive techniques Goals are written down as a statement Strategy – plan of action that describes allocation of resources and activities for dealing with environment for reaching goals Environment – industry, government, customers, suppliers, financial Size – # of people or assets, magnitude, measure in whole or parts Culture  – underlying values, beliefs, understandings, norms Technology – production, tools, techniques, and actions  Efficiency – amount of resources used to achieve goals, doing things right Effectiveness – degree to which achieve goals, doing the right thing, but different people want different things – stakeholder approach – integrates activities to meet all demands (hard to meet all equally) – measures adaptability Contingency – one thing depends on other things. To be effective there must be a good fit between structure and environment. “it depends” Change from mechanical systems to natural, biological systems Chaos theory – relationships in complex, adaptive systems are nonlinear and made up of numerous interconnections and divergent choices that create unintended effects and render the universe unpredictable but can occur in large patterns of orderView as natural systems Learning organization – promotes communication and collaboration so that everyone is engaged in identifying and solving problems, enabling to continuously experiment, improve and increase its capability – equality, open info, adaptability, idea, solving problems         Widespread of information, everyone has information, ideas are shared, open channels of communication and environment Strategy – accumulated actions of workforce and can come from environment and partnerships, collaborate Culture – openness, equality, improvement and change, know the whole system and how it works, minimizes boundaries But still need to be stable Vertical structure – activities grouped, bottom to top, centralized, little collaboration. Good for efficiency, high level of skills, supervision but has info overload and cannot keep up with change Horizontal – group processes together, self-directed teams, Task – narrowly defined piece of work Role – dynamic social system, discretion and responsibility to meet goal – can change, few rules or procedures, control lies with worker, teamwork Level of analysis         Individuals – building blocks Group or department – collection of individuals to work together to preform tasks Organization – collection of groups or departments External environment – interorganizational set (multiple organizations working together) and community Organizational behaviour – micro, focuses on individuals as the unit of analysis Organizational theory – macro, organization as a whole, departments of people, structure and management  Meso theory – (in between) individuals and groups affect organization and how organization affects individuals and groups