INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION–MGT111 VU

LESSON 14

ORGANIZATION

At the end of the lecture the students will be able to understand:

1. The concept of organization roles;
2. The concept of organizing;
3. What are the types of organization?
4. The concept of organization

Organizational Roles
Organizational roles are the part or position that a person is assigned in the organization, for
example the role of manager sales or your role as a student. People will cooperate effectively in
organizations if they know the part they have to play in the organizations i.e. if they know their roles in the
organization

Following are the requirement of organizational goals:

1. Clear objectives; People must know the objectives that they have to achieve clearly, student must
know their objectives.
2. Clear idea of duties or activities: People must know their duties and activities that they must
perform. E.g., student duties are to study, be disciplined
3. Clear area of authority: In organization people must know the extent of authority that they have.

What is Organizing
Organizing means that there should be clear line of authority and all should know who reports to
whom. Following are the main steps in organizing:

1) Classification of activities: First all activities in organization must be classified i.e. activities similar
in nature should be identified separately.
2) Grouping of activities to achieve objectives: Similar activities should be grouped.
3) Assigning a manager to each group of activities: A manager should be assigned
4) Coordination of group of activities both horizontally and vertically:

Coordination means the interrelationship among activities.

Organization
Now we have talked about concepts of ‘roles’ and ‘organizing’, we will connect these two concepts
with the concept of organization. Organization means a formalized intentional structure of roles and
positions. Here we refer to organization as a structure in which people work. E.g., school is organization.

Types of Organization
Organizations can be categorized into following types:
1. Formal Organizations
2. Informal Organizations

Formal Organizations
Formal organizations mean the intentional structure of roles in a formally organized enterprise. The
structures are created by people to achieve certain defined goals. The formal organizations could be
hospitals, schools, Water and Power Development authority (WAPDA).

Informal Organizations
A network of personal and social relations not established or required by the formal organization
but arising spontaneously as people associate with each other is called informal organization. The example
of informal organization is friendship within the organization amongst people working at various levels.

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INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION–MGT111 VU
The figure below illustrates the concept of formal and informal organization. While the formal organization
is the people working who are assigned roles and given a position in a box. There are four levels in an
organization and the straight lines show formal structure. However the irregular lines show informal
relationship or informal structure.

Figure-1

Formal Org.
Informal Org.
Title
Name

Title Title Title

Name Name Name

Organizational Levels and Span of Management

Organizational levels exist because there is a limit to the number of persons a manager can
supervise effectively, even though this limit varies depending on situations. Organizational span, therefore,
means the number of people a manager can supervise. It is generally believed that a number of people that a
manager can effectively supervise are between 7 and 10. But this is a not a principle.

While span refers to number of people a person can supervise organizational level refers to “ties”
or level. In the figure-2 horizontal arrow indicate span and vertical arrow shows the organizational level. In
figure-1 the organizational level are shown by numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Figure-2
Organizational Span

Principle of Span of Control

There is a limit to the number of subordinates a manager can effectively supervise, but the exact
number will depend on the impact of the following:

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INTRODUCTION TO PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION–MGT111 VU
Factors Determining an Effective Span
ˆ Training of subordinates: The more trained and experience the employees, the less supervision they
require, and therefore, the manager can supervise more employees.
ˆ Clear delegation of authority: Delegation of authority means to give part of authority to
subordinate. Thus, if managers can delegate authority clear to each subordinate being supervised;
more employees can be brought under supervision.
ˆ Clarity of plans: When the plans are clearly understood by the employees, the manager can
supervise more people.
ˆ Use of objective standards to determine whether employees are following plans
ˆ Rate of change
ˆ Communication techniques
ˆ Amount of personal contact Needed
ˆ Variation by organization level
ˆ Personal abilities of managers
ˆ Need for balance

Department
One way of grouping activities is establishing ‘department’. A department is a distinct area, division,
or branch of organization over which manager has authority for performance of specified activities.

Departmentalization
Grouping activities and people into departments makes it possible to expand organizations to an
indefinite degree.

Types of Departmentalization
By Number
By Time
By Function
By Geography
By Production
By Customer

Concepts:

ˆ Organization: a formalized institutional structure that shows

ˆ Organizational roles:
ˆ Formal organization:
ˆ Informal organization:
ˆ Span of organization:
ˆ Organizational level:
relationship amongst “organization role”
the position that each person is assigned in the
organization, for example a peon, manager sales, deputy
secretary training etc. Each role has specific task to
perform.
the structure of the organization as is indicated in figure
1. But the formal structure is the relationship between
straight lines.
it can be organization of informal relationship that
people in organization have beyond the formal
relationship. This is shown in figure1 in irregular line.
is the number of people a manager can supervise.
it refers to levels in the organization and relates to
hierarchy.

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