BU 307-7: Organizational Change-discussion 4

Discussion Prompt(s)

Organization structure is concerned with how to divide the overall work into subunits and how to coordinate these subunits for task completion. The basic structure is shown in Figure 12.1. Organization structures should be designed to fit with at least four factors:

1. the environment,
2. organization size,
3. technology, and
4. organization strategy.

Organizations traditional structure themselves into one of three forms:

1. functional, task-specialized departments,
2. self-contained divisional units, or
3. matrix structures which combine both functional specialization and self-containment.

Accelerating environmental changes have encouraged some organizations to utilize more flexible forms including process structures, customer-centric structures, or network-based structures.

Work design means creating jobs and workgroups that generate high levels of employee fulfillment and productivity. The engineering approach focuses on efficiency and simplification, and results in traditional job and work-group designs. Traditional jobs involve relatively routine and repetitive forms of work. Job enrichment involves designing jobs with high levels of meaning, discretion, and knowledge of results. Self-managed teams rely on social and technical aspects of work systems.

• Research and discuss an organization of your choice and identify the structure and work design. Identify both pros and cons to their type of structure.