Organizational Theory

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: A machine Pyramid Words: Efficient Impersonal Goal-driven Phrase: 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: Family Words: 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: smoke-filled room battle Words: 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."

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.

Power Over power is scarce and limited giving orders punish non-compliance negative beliefs about people Power With power increases when shared orders are determined by the situation participatory problem-solving positive beliefs about people Human Side of Power

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 don’t do that” “our way.” Image: village, anthropologist

Seidman: Agency culture and personality “Attempts to change organizations without understanding its culture—norms, beliefs, and values—are bound to fail.

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?

Organizational Theory