Organizational Theory
Chapter 1
1.1 Current Challenges of Organizations.
Globalization: Differences in production costs from developed to
developing countries. Multi-national companies can afford these
expansions but not everyone.
Ethics and Social Responsibility: Nowadays we care about
sustainability, human rights, equality between genders,
transparency over finances, way of operation business
Speed of responsiveness: More and rapid competition than
before, the pace of our daily life has been increased over the
years.
Digital Workplace: E-commerce, Big data, helps keep things
more organized and accessible and we saw what covid-19 did,
pushing organizations to constantly explore new ways of
operations.
Chapter 2
2.1 Open vs Closed systems
Closed systems aims to limit the influences from external
environment and focuses on internal ideas and design. Early
management philosophies tended to use it us they assumed that
the organization could be more effective and limit the possibilities
of compromising its context.
Open systems pay attention to open boundaries between the
organization and its context, for example even in the same
company, departments communicate with each other. Phillips
, struggled a lot due to a closed system as it missed many product
opportunities.
Organizational configuration:
Technical Core:
Staff that does the basic work, produces the product and services
of the organization
Technical Support:
Engineers and researchers that scan the environment for
problems, opportunities, technological developments and
innovations helping the organization to adapt and change
(marketing, research, technology, R&D).
Administrative Support:
Responsible for smooth operation and upkeep of the organization.
Includes human resource activities, employee training as well as
maintenance activities like cleaning of buildings, service and repair
of machines. Is a combination of human resource department and
maintenance staff.
Management – Top and Middle:
Responsible for directing, coordinating, setting goals, strategies
and policies, the parts of the organization.