Organizational Theory

Organization
Greek Organon: meaning a tool or instrument.
So, organizations are tools or instruments to meet goals, objectives, to carry out tasks.

Theories as Frames:
Frames or Windows
filter order the world

Structural Frame Human Resource Frame Political Frame Cultural Systems

Structural Paradigm
Image:
Words:

Phrase:

A machine Pyramid Efficient Impersonal Goal-driven The One Best Way

Structural Assumptions:
Exist to accomplish its goals Problems usually reflect an inappropriate structure Specialization permits higher levels of individual performance. Coordination and control are accomplished best through the exercise of authority and impersonal rules.

Structural Paradigm
Control
Control Control

Truth or Fiction?
Bureaucracy is the single best form of
organization for providing consistency,

predictability, stability, efficient performance,

rationalism and professionalism.

Which is True?
Rules promote fairness and accountability in the conduct of public business. Rules are also the enemy of progress and dispatch.

Human Relations Frame

Image: Words: Family Caring, Nurturing, Supportive Spirit Concepts: motivation, empowerment, development, communication

Human Relations Assumptions

Organizations exist to serve human needs

Organizations need the ideas, energy, and

talent that people provide

Incentives
To get them to cooperate you must induce
them to join the organization and then

induce them to contribute.

Incentives
Material: money, compensation, bonuses Personal: prestige, distinction, power Values: loyalty Opportunity: participation, efficacy Security: job security, support

Follett:
We cannot put the individual on one side and
society on the other, we must understand the complete interrelation of the two. Each has no value, no existence without the other There is no such thing as a self-made man.

Where is your organization?

Does it value people? Does it treat people like adults? Does it develop people? Do managers treat employees as customers?

Political Paradigm
The political frame views organizations as alive political arenas that house a complex variety of individuals and interest groups. This is not about elections and elected positions.

Political Paradigm
Image: Words: smoke-filled room battle wheeling and dealing My way or no way.

Political Paradigm
It is a world where men speak of moral principles but act on power principles; a world where we are always moral and our enemies always immoral.

Political Paradigm
Morgan: "Power is the medium through which

conflicts of interest are ultimately resolved."

Dahl: "Power involves an ability to get another

person to do something that he or she would

not otherwise have done."

Human Side of Power

Power Over
power is scarce and limited giving orders punish noncompliance negative beliefs about people

Power With
power increases when shared orders are determined by the situation participatory problem-solving positive beliefs about people

Power Paradigm Assumptions

Important decisions: allocation of scarce resources. Organizations are coalitions composed of a number of individuals and interest groups

Individuals and interest groups differ in their values,

preferences, beliefs, information, and perceptions of reality. Goals and decisions emerge from ongoing processes of bargaining and negotiation among individuals and groups.

 Authority Expertise Control of Resources Control of Process Information Personal

Sources of Power

Exercise:
Who has power in your organization?
What are your sources of power?

Cultural Paradigm
A pattern of basic assumptions,

invented, discovered, or developed by

a given groups as the correct way to

perceived, think and feel

Cultural Paradigm
Words: norms, values The way it is done here We dont do that our way. Image: village, anthropologist

Developmental Stages for the Multicultural Organization MULTICULTURAL

Shares power and influence with all; major culture change

NONDISCRIMINATORY
Unfair advantage of majority group removed, but no culture change

MONOCULTURAL
Exclusion of minorities and women from power

 Geert Hofstede, discovered that most differences among

national cultures were described by four cross-cultural

International Dimensions

dimensions:

Uncertainty avoidance Masculinity-femininity Individualism-collectivism Power distance

In later research, Canadian researcher Michael Harris Bond,

uncovered a fifth dimension

Long-term/short-term orientation

Agency culture and personality

Attempts to change organizations without
understanding its culturenorms, beliefs, and valuesare bound to fail.

Seidman:

Open Systems
Organizations can be seen as open systems, like organisms which constantly adapt to their internal and external environment
Image: organism Words: flexible, fluid, changing

Systems Paradigm
What endures is process: dynamic adaptive creative

Wheatley:
Life is an open system: Open systems
that engage with their environment and continue to grow and evolve.

Assumptions
External conditions influence the flow of inputs,
outputs and can affect the internal operations.

Organizations use many of their products, services,

and ideals as inputs to organizational maintenance or growth

Assumptions
Subsystems are all interrelated and influence each other; Organizations are constantly changing. An organization's success depends on its ability to adapt to its environment Any level or unit within an organization can be viewed as a system.

Colleges/Universities
Inputs? Outputs? Technology? Goals and Strategies? Behavior and Processes? Culture? Human Resources? Structure?