Chap. 7 Organization, Teamwork, and Communication

Decision making

Decision making requires that a lower level managers have strong ?? skills

Horizontal

Exchange of information among colleagues and peers on the same organizational level, such as across or within departments, to inform, support, and coordinate activities both within the department and between other departments Task forces, project teams, communication from the finance department to the marketing department concerning budget requirements

Upward

Flows from lower to higher levels of the organization Progress reports, suggestions for improvement, inquiries, grievances

Formal and Informal Communication

Formal channels of communication are intentionally defined and designed by the organization. They represent the flow of communication within the formal organizational structure, as shown on organizational charts. describes the different forms of formal communication. Traditionally, formal communication patterns were classified as vertical and horizontal, but with the increased use of teams and matrix structures, formal communication may occur in a number of patterns.

Working Group

Has strong, clearly focused leader, Has individual accountability, Has the same purpose as the broader organizational mission ,Creates individual work products, Runs efficient meetings

Monitoring Communications

Technological advances and the increased use of electronic communication in the workplace have made monitoring its use necessary for most companies. Failing to monitor employees of e-mail, social media, and the Internet can be costly.

its structure

The arrangement or relationship of positions within an organization is known as

Downward

Traditional flow of communication from upper organizational levels to lower organizational levels Directions, assignments of tasks and responsibilities, performance feedback, details about strategies and goals, speeches, employee handbooks, job descriptions

Diagonal

When individuals from different levels and different departments communicate A manager from the finance department communicates with a lower-level manager from the marketing department

organizational culture

a firm's shared values, beliefs, traditions, philosophies, rules, and role models for behavior. Also called corporate culture, an organizational culture exists in every organization, regardless of size, organizational type, product, or profit objective

grapevine

an informal channel of communication, separate from management's formal, official communication channels. Grapevines exist in all organizations. Information passed along the grapevine may relate to the job or organization, or it may be gossip and rumors unrelated to either. The accuracy of grapevine information has been of great concern to managers.

Flat

an organiztion structure that has few layers of management and board span of control

Product-development teams

are a special type of project team formed to devise, design, and implement a new product. Sometimes product-development teams exist within a functional area—research and development—but now they more frequently include people from numerous functional areas and may even include customers to help ensure that the end product meets the customers' needs

Quality-Assurance Teams or quality circles

are fairly small groups of workers brought together from throughout the organization to solve specific quality, productivity, or service problems. Although the quality circle term is not as popular as it once was, the concern about quality is stronger than ever. Companies such as IBM and Xerox as well as companies in the automobile industry have used quality circles to shift the organization to a more participative culture. The use of teams to address quality issues will no doubt continue to increase throughout the business world.

Project Teams

are similar to task forces, but normally they run their operation and have total control of a specific work project. Like task forces, their membership is likely to cut across the firm's hierarchy and be composed of people from different functional areas. They are almost always temporary, although a large project, such as designing and building a new airplane at Boeing Corporation, may last for years.

Customer Departmentalization

arranges jobs around the needs of various types of customers.

Product departmentalization

as you might guess, organizes jobs around the products of the firm.

Centralized Organizations

authority is concentrated at the top, and very little decision-making authority is delegated to lower levels. Although decision-making authority in centralized organizations rests with top levels of management, a vast amount of responsibility for carrying out daily and routine procedures is delegated to even the lowest levels of the organization. Many government organizations, including the U.S. Army, the Postal Service, and the IRS, are centralized.

COMMUNICATING IN ORGANIZATIONS

can flow in a variety of directions and from a number of sources, each using both oral and written forms of communication.

specialization

dividing specific tasks into smaller jobs on employee skill

wide span of management

exists when a manager directly supervises a very large number of employees.

narrow span of management

exists when a manager directly supervises only a few subordinates

Geographic Departmentalization

groups jobs according to geographic location, such as a state, region, country, or continent.

Functional departmentalization

groups jobs that perform similar functional activities, such as finance, manufacturing, marketing, and human resources. Each of these functions is managed by an expert in the work done by the department—an engineer supervises the production department; a financial executive supervises the finance department. This approach is common in small organizations. Green Mountain Coffee is departmentalized into six functions: sales and marketing, operations, human resources, finance, information systems, and social responsibility. A weakness of functional departmentalization is that, because it tends to emphasize departmental units rather than the organization as a whole, decision making that involves more than one department may be slow, and it requires greater coordination. Thus, as businesses grow, they tend to adopt other approaches to organizing jobs.

Line-and-Staff Structure

has a traditional line relationship between superiors and subordinates, and specialized managers—called staff managers—are available to assist line managers Line managers can focus on their area of expertise in the operation of the business, while staff managers provide advice and support to line departments on specialized matters such as finance, engineering, human resources, and the law. In the city of Pineapple Paradise for example, assistant city managers are line managers who oversee groups of related departments. However, the city attorney and business development manager are effectively staff managers who report directly to the city manager (the city equivalent of a business chief executive officer). Staff managers do not have direct authority over line managers or over the line manager's subordinates, but they do have direct authority over subordinates in their own departments.

group

has been defined as two or more individuals who communicate with one another, share a common identity, and have a common goal.

Line Structure

has direct lines of authority that extend from the top manager to employees at the lowest level of the organization

Self-directed Work Teams

is a group of employees responsible for an entire work process or segment that delivers a product to an internal or external customer.28 SDWTs permit the flexibility to change rapidly to meet the competition or respond to customer needs. The defining characteristic of an SDWT is the extent to which it is empowered or given authority to make and implement work decisions. Thus, SDWTs are designed to give employees a feeling of "ownership" of a whole job. Employees at 3M as well as an increasing number of companies encourage employees to be active to perform a function or operational task. With shared team responsibility for work outcomes, team members often have broader job assignments and cross-train to master other jobs, thus permitting greater team flexibility

team

is a small group whose members have complementary skills; have a common purpose, goals, and approach; and hold themselves mutually accountable.

Task Forces

is a temporary group of employees responsible for bringing about a particular change. A task force typically comes from across all departments and levels of an organization. Task force membership is usually based on expertise rather than organizational position. Occasionally, a task force may be formed from individuals outside a company. Coca-Cola has often used task forces to address problems and provide recommendations for improving company practices or products. While some task forces might last a few months, others last for years. When Coca-Cola faced lawsuits alleging discrimination practices in hiring and promotion, it developed a five-year task force to examine pay and promotion practices among minority employees. Its experiences helped Coca-Cola realize the advantages of having a cross-functional task force made up of employees from different departments, and it continued to use task forces to tackle major company issues. Other companies that have also recognized the benefits of task forces include IBM, Prudential, and General Electric.

Decentralized Organizations

is one in which decision-making authority is delegated as far down the chain of command as possible. Decentralization is characteristic of organizations that operate in complex, unpredictable environments. Businesses that face intense competition often decentralize to improve responsiveness and enhance creativity. Lower-level managers who interact with the external environment often develop a good understanding of it and thus are able to react quickly to changes. Johnson & Johnson has a very decentralized, flat organizational structure.

Departmentalization

is the grouping of jobs into working units usually called departments, units, groups, or divisions. we shall see, departments are commonly organized by function, product, geographic region, or customer Most companies use more than one departmentalization plan to enhance productivity. For instance, many consumer goods manufacturers have departments for specific product lines (beverages, frozen dinners, canned goods, and so on) as well as departments dealing with legal, purchasing, finance, human resources, and other business functions. For smaller companies, accounting can be set up online, almost as an automated department. Accounting software can handle electronic transfers so you never have to worry about a late bill. Many city governments also have departments for specific services (e.g., police, fire, waste disposal) as well as departments for legal, human resources, and other business functions

Committees

is usually a permanent, formal group that does some specific task. For example, many firms have a compensation or finance committee to examine the effectiveness of these areas of operation as well as the need for possible changes. Ethics committees are formed to develop and revise codes of ethics, suggest methods for implementing ethical standards, and review specific issues and concerns.

Delegation of Authority

means not only giving tasks to employees but also empowering them to make commitments, use resources, and take whatever actions are necessary to carry out those tasks. Let's say a marketing manager at Nestlé has assigned an employee to design a new package that is less wasteful (more environmentally responsible) than the current package for one of the company's frozen dinner lines. To carry out the assignment, the employee needs access to information and the authority to make certain decisions on packaging materials, costs, and so on. Without the authority to carry out the assigned task, the employee would have to get the approval of others for every decision and every request for materials.

accountability

means that employees who accept an assignment and the authority to carry it out are answerable to a superior for the outcome.

restructure

or change the basic structure of an organization.

responsibility

or obligation, to employees to carry out assigned tasks satisfactorily and holds them accountable for the proper execution of their assigned work. The principle of accountability means that employees who accept an assignment and the authority to carry it out are answerable to a superior for the outcome.

multidivisional structure

organizes departments into larger groups called divisions. Just as departments might be formed on the basis of geography, customer, product, or a combination of these, so too divisions can be formed based on any of these methods of organizing. Within each of these divisions, departments may be organized by product, geographic region, function, or some combination of all three

Span of Management

refers to the number of subordinates who report to a particular manager.

Matrix Structure or project management structure

sets up teams from different departments, thereby creating two or more intersecting lines of authority

Organizational Layers

the levels of management in an organization. A company with many layers of managers is considered tall; in a tall organization, the span of management is narrow Because each manager supervises only a few subordinates, many layers of management are necessary to carry out the operations of the business. Organizations with few layers are flat and have wide spans of management. When managers supervise a large number of employees, fewer management layers are needed to conduct the organization's activities.

values

the organizational culture outline a company's widely spread ??? and provides unity and cooperation

Line-and-Staff Structure

those managers that provide advice and support to a line department on specialized matters such as finance, engineering and HR

culture

widely shared values within an organization providing unity and cooperation to acheive common goals