Introduction to Organizations

Lecture 1
McFarland Lectures
What is an Organization?
What is an organization?
What is NOT an organization?







Hospitals
Schools
Businesses
Stores
Companies
Factories
Families
Professional associations
Social movements
Friendship cliques
Random collectivities
Isolated individuals
What makes something an organization or not?
What is an Organization?
A simple working definition:
Organizations are groups whose members coordinate their
behavior in order to accomplish shared goals or to put out a
product.
Examples Qualities
Organizations Companies, schools,
families and voluntary
associations
Roles, rules, goals,
recurring behaviors, clear
boundaries.
Not Organizations Random collections of
persons, isolated
individuals
No roles, rules, goals,
pattern of recurrence, or
boundary.
Ambiguous Cases Street gangs, friendship
groups, social movements

Less clear roles, rules, and
goals, porous boundaries
and fluid participants.
What is an Organization?
We can reflect on how common these
organizations are. They are everywhere
and extremely important!
They serve many functions in society!


What is an Organization?
Organizations vary greatly.

Size
Market sector
Social Structure
Environmental context
Organizational problems and reform
Theyre everywhere and complex problems arise!
We feel compelled to reform organizations...
But what about them do we change?


List of Educational Reforms

The teacher wrote as follows:
Course Aims and Its Value to You
The course is for advanced undergraduate,
masters students, and Ph.D.s. interested in
organizations

Whats the utility of this course to
policymakers and researchers? Why should
you care?


Youll better understand the problems that
organizations confront.


This course exposes you to a variety of
actual CASES of organizations and
THEORIES that help make sense of what
you have observed.

Organizations are everywhere!
Goals, tasks, coordination/implementation, input,
output, participants, environmental fit
END

Analytical Features
of Organizations
Lecture 2
McFarland Lectures
Organizational Elements (Scott, p. 18)
ORGANIZATION
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
McFarland Lectures
Organizational Elements: Participants
Participants
Technology Goals
Participants
McFarland Lectures
ORGANIZATION
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
PARTICIPANTS:
Organizational
participants that make
contributions to and
derive benefits from the
organization
Organizational Elements: Participants
Participants
Technology Goals
Participants
Boss/Employee
Faculty/Students
Organizational Elements: Participants
Participants
Technology Goals
Participants
Organizations in a field
Organizational Elements: Structures
McFarland Lectures
ORGANIZATION
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
Persistent relations
existing among
participants in an
organization
Social Structure: Different Forms
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
Social Structures: Formal vs Informal
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
Social Structures: Deep Structure
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
What principles and beliefs shape these
recurring patterns?

Normative structures

Cultural-cognitive structures
Organizational Elements: Goals
Participants
Technology Goals
Goals
McFarland Lectures
ORGANIZATION
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
GOALS:
Desired ends that
participants attempt to
achieve through the
performance of task
activities
Organizational Elements: Goals
Technology Goals
Goals
Our goal for Citigroup is to be the most
respected global financial services company.
Like any other public company, we're
obligated to deliver profits and growth to our
shareholders. Of equal importance is to deliver
those profits and generate growth
responsibly.
We fulfill dreams through
the experience of
motorcycling, by
providing to motorcyclists
and to the general public
an expanding line of
motorcycles and branded
products and services in
selected market segments.
People love our clothes and trust our
company. We will market the most appealing
and widely worn casual clothing in the
world. We will clothe the world.
Organizational Elements: Goals
Technology Goals
Goals
Aiming towards the ideal of enabling all people to
achieve maximum benefit from their educational
experiences, the Stanford University School of
Education seeks to continue as a world leader in
ground-breaking, cross-disciplinary inquiries that
shape educational practices, their conceptual
underpinnings, and the professions that serve the
enterprise.

The School also seeks to develop the knowledge,
wisdom, and imagination of its students to enable
them to take leadership positions in efforts to
improve the quality of education around the globe.
Our mission is to create ideas that deepen and advance our
understanding of management and with those ideas to develop
innovative, principled, and insightful leaders who change the
world.
Organizational Elements: Technology
Participants
Technology Goals
McFarland Lectures
ORGANIZATION
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
TECHNOLOGY:
Means by which organizations
accomplish work or render inputs
into outputs
Organizational Elements: Technology
Technology Goals
Technology
Desired ends that
participants attempt
to achieve through
the performance of
task activities.
ORGANIZATION
McFarland Lectures
Organizational Elements: Environmental Linkages
ORGANIZATION
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
McFarland Lectures
The physical, technological, cultural, and social context
in which an organization is embedded
Organizational Elements: Environment
Participants
Goals
Technology
McFarland Lectures
Technology-
environment linkage
Organizational Elements (Scott, p. 18)
ORGANIZATION
Social Structures
Participants
Technology Goals
McFarland Lectures
Theories: Rational, Natural, Open
How can these organizational elements work together in a
system?

Rational Systems
An organization as a collectivity oriented toward the pursuit of
specific goals and whose behavior exhibits a formalized
structure.
Theories: Rational, Natural, Open
How can these organizational elements work together in a
system?

Natural Systems
An organization as collectivities whose participants pursue multiple
interests, forged in conflict and consensus, but who recognize the
value of perpetuating the organization as an important resource.
Theor: Rational, Natural, Open
How can these organizational elements work together in a
system?

Open Systems
Organizations are congeries of interdependent flows and activities
linking shifting coalitions of participants embedded in wider material-
resource and institutional environments.
Classes of Organizational Theories (Summary adapted from Scott)
Rational Natural Open
Primary Unit
of Analysis
Single organization, or
administrative unit
(organization as unitary
actor)
Single organization
w/multiple actors and
divisions (organization as
coalition)
Multiple organizations
(organizational field)
Organizing
Concepts

Actors /
Participants
Leaders, organization
(admin unit)
Participants across roles
and in direct environment
Stakeholders, employees,
and even mass consumers

Social
Structure
Formal & planned /
hierarchical
Informal & emergent >
formal (external seeps
in/ norms enter)
External world permeated
internal organization
(beliefs enter)

Goals Specific missions /
objectives
Multiple, conflicting
goals
Survival / legitimacy in
environment

Technology /
Tasks
Maximization / Decision
trees / Standard operating
procedures
Contingent decisions /
Unintended outcomes
(efficacy)
Less decision, more
emergence &
environmental
determinism (legitimation)

Environment Ignored Minor role Major role


END

Case Application
Lecture 3
McFarland Lectures
Elements Description
Actors / Participants Organizational participants that make
contributions to and derive benefits from the
organization.
Social Structure Persistent relations existing among
participants in an organization.
Goals Desired ends that participants attempt to
achieve through the performance of task
activities.
Technology / Tasks Means by which organizations accomplish
work or render inputs into outputs.
Environment The physical, technological, cultural, and
social context in which an organization is
embedded.

Classes of Organizational Theories (Summary adapted from Scott)
Case Application
Case Application - Adams Avenue School
New Magnet Middle School
Individually Guided Education (Small Schools)
Story of how they build an positive school
culture that alleviates some of its problems of
discipline and achievement.
Recounting the Case
Adams Avenue School
History
Parent involvement
Individually Guided Education
School character
Recounting the Case
Adams Avenue School
The program in practice
IGE Influence
On school character
On curriculum
On reward structure / incentives
On tasks and relationships

Recounting the Case
Adams Avenue School
Physical location
Faculty culture and ethos
Leadership principal Michaels

Summary
CASE: Adams School (IGE Magnet) Summary
Main Story-Line (dominant pattern of inference)
Technology Structure in good way in spite of population disadvantage and potential for
divisiveness.

CASE: Adams School (IGE Magnet) Summary
Case Application
Natural system perspective the technology
(small schools and IGE) and social structure
(norms) coalesce, forming a more
personable context.
The plan wasnt explicitly this to form a
nurturing climate of rapport building rapport -
but it happened.
Moreover, the reform / culture is never fully
embraced it is an accomplishment.
END