Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Behavior, 9/E
Schermerhorn, Hunt, and
Osborn
Prepared by
Michael K. McCuddy
Valparaiso University
Organizational design.
– The process of choosing and implementing a
structural configuration.
– The choice of an appropriate organizational
design depends on the firm’s:
• Size.
• Operations and information technology.
• Environment.
• Strategy for growth and survival.
Co-evolution.
– The firm can adjust to external changes even
as it shapes some of the challenges facing it.
– Shaping capabilities via the organization’s
design is a dynamic aspect of co-evolution.
– Even with co-evolution, managers must
maintain a recognizable pattern of choices in
organizational design.
– Long-linked technology.
• The way to produce desired outcomes is known
and broken down into a number of sequential
steps.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 18 10
Study question 1: What is organizational
design and how is it linked to strategy?
Woodward’s view of technology.
– Small-batch production.
• The organization tailor makes a variety of custom
products to fit customer specifications.
– Mass production.
• The organization produces one or a few products
through an assembly line system.
– Continuous-process technology.
• The organization produces a few products using
considerable automation.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 18 11
Study question 1: What is organizational
design and how is it linked to strategy?
Woodward’s view of technology (cont.).
– The proper matching of structure and
technology is critical to organizational
success.
• Successful small-batch and continuous-process
plants have flexible structures with small work
groups at the bottom.
• Successful mass production operations are rigidly
structured and have large work groups at the
bottom.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 18 12
Study question 1: What is organizational
design and how is it linked to strategy?
Adhocracy.
– An appropriate structural design when
managers and employees do not know the
appropriate way to service a client or produce
a particular product.
IT and learning.
– IT systems empower individuals and expand
their jobs.
– IT encourages the development of a “virtual”
network.
– IT transforms how people manage.
IT and e-business.
– Many dot-com firms adopted some variation
of adhocracy.
– As the dot-coms grew, the adhocracy design
became problematic.
• Limits on the size of an effective adhocracy.
• Actual delivery of products and services rested
more on responsiveness to clients and maintaining
efficiency than on continual innovation.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 18 20
Study Question 3: Can the design of the
firm co-evolve with the environment?
Understanding the environment is important
because an organization is an open system.
General environment.
– The set of cultural, economic, legal-political, and
educational conditions found in the areas in which the
organization operates.
Specific environment.
– The owners, suppliers, distributors, government
agencies, and competitors with which an organization
must interact to grow and survive.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 18 21
Study Question 3: Can the design of the
firm co-evolve with the environment?
Environmental complexity.
– The magnitude of problems and opportunities
in the organization’s environment, as reflected
in:
• Degree of richness.
• Degree of interdependence.
• Degree of uncertainty.
Environmental interdependence.
– Linkage between environmental independence
and organization design may be subtle and
indirect.
• Organization may co-opt powerful outsiders.
• Organization may absorb or buffer demands of
powerful external elements.
Virtual organization.
– An ever-shifting constellation of firms, with a
lead corporation, that pool skills, resources,
and experiences to thrive jointly.
– A design option when internal and external
contingencies are changing quickly.
Organizational learning.
– Process of knowledge acquisition, information
distribution, information interpretation, and
information retention in adapting successfully to
changing circumstances.
– Adjustment of organization’s and individual’s actions
based on experience.
– The key to successful co-evolution.
Scanning.
– Involves looking outside the firm and bringing
back useful solutions.
Grafting.
– The process of acquiring individuals, units, or
firms to bring in useful knowledge.
Deficit cycles.
– A pattern of deteriorating performance that is
followed by even further deterioration.
– Factors associated with deficit cycles.
• Organizational inertia.
• Hubris.
• Detachment.
Benefit cycles.
– A pattern of successful adjustment followed
by further improvements.
– Firms can successfully co-evolve by initiating
a benefit cycle.
– The firm develops adequate mechanisms for
learning.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 18 41
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 2005 © John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction or translation of this work beyond that permitted in Section
117 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act without the express written
permission of the copyright owner is unlawful. Request for further
information should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley
& Sons, Inc. The purchaser may make back-up copies for his/her own use
only and not for distribution or resale. The Publisher assumes no
responsibility for errors, omissions, or damages, caused by the use of these
programs or from the use of the information contained herein.