Differences Between Organisation as Structure and Organisation as

Process

Organization is an identity in which the activities of employees are

coordinated, motivated and supporting each other in order to reach the
common business targets and aims. There are differences between
organizations, either as structure or process. The design of the
organization is duly dependable on the requirements of an organization;
its business environment, location or business field or the model of
business in which they are active. We can not design and apply similar
type of organization to an army or to a shopping centre or to a factory
who have completely different facts and dynamics of business. (Harte,
1997, p.177)

Organization as Structure

This type of organization is mainly concentrated on who does the job.

The design is mainly interested in job descriptions, functions, territories.
The processes are not fully clear. Even though people have different
jobs, they perform their job with limited responsibility and performance.
These organizations are mainly vertical organizations divided in to
departments which have their own responsibilities and tasks. In an
organization as structure, the details of the job and how it is done can be
missed across the units in organizations such as departments, regions,
etc. Besides, even processes will not end up with a complete design.
These type of organizations can be shaped according to the structural
factors as functional, technology, process, geographic based, product
line, customer or market oriented according to the needs and the targets
of the company and to meet customer requirements and to give value to
the stakeholders. (Rupietta, Walter, 2005, p.570). Of course, there is a
disadvantage of how these teams are managed well and we can not
address all structural factors which can cause weakness in organization
management.

Organization as Process

This type of organization is mainly concentrated on how the job is done.

The design is mainly interested as tasks, projects, group, work, input &
output, methods, cross- functional connections & communication. We
can say that it is dealing with the design of processes in the terms of
time, space, funds, materials and human resources, focusing the outcome
of the work.

Identified processes can be complicated and challenging to control &

manage because they break organizational boundaries. In the
organization as process, workflows are defined and people are well
minded to their roles in the activity chain.

These organizations are not centralized organizations, mainly horizontal

who can manage themselves. For this reason, you can not see great
status differences in the organization and great collaboration in terms of
sharing information & teamwork and in terms of communicative
processes. (Miller, K., 2008, p.53)

As a conclusion, organization as process are mainly productive for

flexible and highly-market and customer concentrated business fields
who do not make repetitive actions as routines. Creativity, productivity,
communication, performance & efficiency are the parameters of these
organizations.

Organizations as structure are organizations that are more concentrated

on repetitive actions who needs control of procedures, directives and
rules. Non-profit organizations or army can be a good sample.

References

Harte, John (1997) “Management crisis and business revolution”,

Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, p.177.

Miller, K (2008). “Organizational Communication-Approaches and

Processes”, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Fifth Edition, 2008, p.53.

Rupietta, Walter (2005 ) “Workparty- Business Processes and

Workflow Management”, Handbook of Architectures on Information
Systems, Second Edition, Springer, 2005, p.570