Read Chapter 15: “Organizational Structure.”
Chapter 15 covers the following information:
Principles of Organizational Behavior: Knowledge of an organization’s internal structure contributes to
explaining and predicting behavior in organizations.
Organizational structure: The importance of these implicit models of organizational structure should not
be overlooked. People respond to their perceptions rather than objective reality.
How does organizational structure impact you on the job?
As the business environment becomes more competitive, companies are looking to maximize efficiency
while maintaining as much flexibility as possible (especially in certain industries like technology). The
more bureaucratic the organization, the less flexibility the organization has to adapt to changing
circumstances. If a competitor comes to market with a totally new product that seems to elicit great
consumer demand, now the organization must adapt quickly to either get their version of this new type
of product on the market or come out with an equally exciting product in order to stay competitive.
If you are a manager and are tasked with coming up with this new product, to the extent that personnel
are empowered to make decisions and your organizational structure is of the flexible kind, this allows
you the ability to respond more quickly to the challenge. You are able to quickly form task-oriented
teams that can act in an entrepreneurial manner to come up with a solution and innovative response. If
however, your employees are not used to working in adhoc teams, are not used to sharing ideas and
making decisions without lots of layers of upper management involvement, the organization may not be
able to respond on a timely basis. Which type of organization will be around in the long term in your
opinion? Which organization would you want to work for?
References:
Pearce, J. A. & Robinson, R. B. (2011). Strategic management: Formulation, implementation, and control
(12th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2013). Organizational Behavior
