NATURE OF ORGANIZATIONS

Definition of organizations

An organization is a collection of people working together in a coordinated and structured fashion to achieve one or more goals.

Organizations role in society

Organizations exist to allow accomplishment of work that could not be achieved by people alone.

As long as the goals of an organization are appropriate, society will allow them to exist and they can contribute to society.

Organizations and People

Organizations are strongly influenced by the people that form part of them.

Organizations can take in part the personality of the people within them and the attitudes, perceptions and behaviors affect how an organization will operate.

Organizations Require Management

Organizations use management to accomplish the work that is required to achieve the goals.

The nature of the ORGANISATIONAL environment

The environment faced by an organization can be categorized by:

The external environment

The general environment is the nonspecific dimensions and forces in its surroundings that might affect its activities.

The task environment consists of specific organizations or groups that are likely to influence an organization.

The general environment

The general environment consists of:

The task environment

The task environment consists of the following actors;

The internal environment

Board of directors

A board of directors is only required of organizations that are incorporated; however, many other firms have them. The board of directors is elected by the stockholders and is charged with overseeing the general management of the firm to ensure that it is being run in a way that best serves the stockholders' interests.

Employees

When the organization's employees hold the same values and goals as its management, everyone wins. However, when managers and employees work toward different goals everyone suffers. The composition of the organization's employees is changing, and managers must learn how to deal effectively with these changes.

Culture

The culture of an organization is the set of values that helps its members understand what the organization stands for, how it does things, and what it considers important.

A strong organizational culture can shape the firm's overall effectiveness and long-term success and help employees to be more productive.

Culture develops and blossoms over a long period of time. It often starts with the organization's founder, however, corporate success and shared experiences also shape culture.

In order to manage corporate culture, managers must first understand the current culture. If the culture is one that is in the best interest of the firm, managers can reward behavior that is consistent with the existing culture in order to enforce it.

If the culture needs to be changed, managers must know what it is they want the culture to be and then bring in outside people, adopt slogans, or tell stories among other things that will help to change the culture into the type management wants.

 

The nature Of management

Management is a set of activities (including planning and decision making, organizing, leading, and controlling) directed at an organization's resources (human, financial, physical, and information) with the aim of achieving organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner.

Efficient means using resources wisely and without unnecessary waste.

Effective means doing the right things successfully.

A manager is someone whose primary responsibility is to carry out the management process. In particular. a manager is someone who plans and makes decisions, organizes, leads, and controls human, financial, physical, and information resources.

This process is illustrated on the following figure

The management process

Planning and decision making: determining courses of action

Planning means setting an organization's goals and deciding how best to achieve them.

Decision making, a part of the planning process, involves selecting a course of action from a set of alternatives.

Organizing: Coordinating activities and resources

Organizing is grouping activities and resources in a logical fashion.

Leading: Managing people

Leading is the set of processes used to get people to work together to advance the interests of the organization.

Controlling: Monitoring and evaluating activities

Controlling is monitoring the progress of the organization as it works toward its goals to ensure that it is effectively and efficiently achieving these goals.

Kinds of managers

Differentiation by levels of management

Top managers (CEO, VP) control the organization by

. These managers make important decisions about which activities the organization should be involved in, such as acquisitions, research and development, and expanding capacity.

Middle managers (plant manager, operations manager) are the largest group of managers in most companies. They primarily take the goals and strategies designed by top managers and put them into effect.

First-line managers (foreman, supervisor) supervise and coordinate the activities of operating employees. The majority of their work is direct supervision of the work of their subordinates.

Differentiation by areas of management

Marketing managers help to find ways to get consumers and clients to buy the organization's products and services.

Financial managers deal with accounting, cash management, and investment functions.

Operations managers are concerned with creating and managing the systems that create an organization's products and services. IE's are often in these positions. They achieve their goals through production control, inventory control, quality control, and plant site selection and layout.

Human resource managers are responsible for hiring and developing employees.

Administrative managers are generalists who have some basic familiarity with all functional areas of management rather than specialized training in any one area.

Other kinds of managers have specialized management position.

Critical roles and skills

Managerial roles

Interpersonal roles

A figurehead attends activities to represent the organization.

A leader encourages employees to improve productivity and shows them how to do it.

A liaison coordinates the activities of two or more people, groups of people, or organizations.

Informational roles

A monitor actively seeks information that may be of value to the organization.

A disseminator transmits information to others in the organization.

A spokesperson transmits information about the organization to people outside the organization.

Decisional roles

An entrepreneur develops new ideas and initiates changes in the organization.

A disturbance handler handles problems that arise such as strikes, copyright infringements, and energy shortages.

A resource allocator determines who should receive the available resources and who should have access to the manager's time.

A negotiator represents the organization in a negotiation setting such as collective bargaining for a union contract or developing an agreement with a consultant.

Managerial skills

Technical skills are the skills necessary to accomplish or understand tasks relevant to the organization.

Interpersonal skills are the ability to communicate with, understand, and motivate individuals and groups.

Conceptual skills are the ability to think in abstract terms and the mental capacity to understand the "big picture" or the overall workings of the organization and its environment.

Diagnostic and analytic skills are the ability to recognize the symptoms of a problem and then determine an action plan to fix it.

The skills required by mangers varies with their position in the organization

 

The nature of managerial work

Managerial work is fast paced, uncertain, and filled with interruptions and fragmented activities. The tasks performed by a manager every day are varied and intense. However, managers who are able to make good decisions in a short amount of time find a great deal of satisfaction in their jobs.

Managers are largely pragmatic, they use what ever works.

The scope of management

Management in profit-seeking organizations

Large businesses e.g. Microsoft, Wells Fargo, United Airlines.

Small and start-up businesses must run as efficiently as large businesses (if not more efficiently) because they have less of a margin for error. Some small businesses grow into large businesses over time.

Management in not-for-profit organizations

Government organizations are supported by tax dollars

Educational organizations need to be run efficiently because the funds they are supported by, tax dollars

Some Healthcare Organizations