Chapter 7 - Designing Organization Structure

While on the topic of Alfredo's sausage, Which of the following characteristics would you expect Alfredo's Sausage to have? Option 2

This organizational structure is particularly effective when operating in an environment that demands flexibility.

Steps- 1. Raise and take care of sheep 2. Shear sheep to obtain pounds of wool 3. Prepare wool to be turned into blankets 4. Weave blankets 5. Bring blankets to market for sale Suppose Brian proposes that—instead of each man performing all five tasks—they divide the tasks so that Brian raises and takes care of all the sheep, Cedric shears the sheep to obtain the wool, Daesun prepares the wool to be turned into blankets, Nick makes the blankets, and Jake brings the blankets to market for sale. The men agree to this proposal and find that specialization yields both positive and negative outcomes. Benefit or Drawback The machinery that Daesun buys is much more efficient than Cedric's machinery, so Daesun often has downtime while he waits for Cedric to shear more sheep.

Drawback

While on the topic of Alfredo's sausage, Which of the following characteristics would you expect Alfredo's Sausage to have? Option 1

Decision making in this company is decentralized, with responsibility pushed to lower levels.

Nat Windom is the chief operating officer (COO) of your company. He has been reading about relational coordination and has learned that it is a "powerful driver of performance when work is interdependent, uncertain and time constrained." He has also read that improving the quality of coordination in this way can improve "quality, safety, efficiency, engagement, learning and innovation." With these benefits in mind, he is very excited about implementing relationship coordination at your company. Nat knows that you have been studying how organizations coordinate the activities of people and departments, and he calls you into his office to ask for your advice. "If our company achieves a high level of relational coordination, what can we expect in terms of employee behavior?" What's the third advice

Information will flow across a network of informal relationships rather than primarily through a formal chain of command.

In a xxx effort, Hallmark reimagined and redesigned the way in which it brought new cards to market, cutting the time from three years to less than one year.

reengineering

Federated Investors has a xxx , with each mutual fund being managed by several portfolio managers who together take responsibility for the fund's performance.

team-based structure

Restaurants provide their patrons with a product, food, and with a service, the dining experience. Food is primarily the output of "the back of the house," or the kitchen. The dining experience is primarily provided by "the front of the house," or the dining room staff. In the video, Andy and Scott clearly express a passion for innovation and a high level of customer service. Due to their high commitment to excellence, they would want to use the best possible organizational structure to provide their product and service. According to research, the best structure depends on a company's strategy and the technology it uses. For the front of the house, where employees interact directly with customers to produce a dining experience, which structure is the best fit?

An organic, decentralized structure

Steps- 1. Raise and take care of sheep 2. Shear sheep to obtain pounds of wool 3. Prepare wool to be turned into blankets 4. Weave blankets 5. Bring blankets to market for sale Suppose Brian proposes that—instead of each man performing all five tasks—they divide the tasks so that Brian raises and takes care of all the sheep, Cedric shears the sheep to obtain the wool, Daesun prepares the wool to be turned into blankets, Nick makes the blankets, and Jake brings the blankets to market for sale. The men agree to this proposal and find that specialization yields both positive and negative outcomes. Benefit or Drawback If it used to take each man 4 hours to monitor one fifth of the sheep, it now takes Brian less than 20 hours to monitor all the sheep.

Benefit

Nat Windom is the chief operating officer (COO) of your company. He has been reading about relational coordination and has learned that it is a "powerful driver of performance when work is interdependent, uncertain and time constrained." He has also read that improving the quality of coordination in this way can improve "quality, safety, efficiency, engagement, learning and innovation." With these benefits in mind, he is very excited about implementing relationship coordination at your company. Nat knows that you have been studying how organizations coordinate the activities of people and departments, and he calls you into his office to ask for your advice. "If our company achieves a high level of relational coordination, what can we expect in terms of employee behavior?" What's the third advice

Employees in different departments or divisions will share information easily.

When you examine the organizational chart of a xxx , you find that managers have wide spans of control and fewer layers of reporting relationships between frontline supervisors and senior executives.

flat structure

Steps- 1. Raise and take care of sheep 2. Shear sheep to obtain pounds of wool 3. Prepare wool to be turned into blankets 4. Weave blankets 5. Bring blankets to market for sale Suppose Brian proposes that—instead of each man performing all five tasks—they divide the tasks so that Brian raises and takes care of all the sheep, Cedric shears the sheep to obtain the wool, Daesun prepares the wool to be turned into blankets, Nick makes the blankets, and Jake brings the blankets to market for sale. The men agree to this proposal and find that specialization yields both positive and negative outcomes. Benefit or Drawback Each worker will become more productive, because he will develop a high level of expertise in his task.

Benefit

A chart where each section has it's own category to deal with (ie. Ceo - Product [Human resources, Marketing, Accounting] and Product [Human resources, Marketing, Accounting])

Divisional Structure

People in manufacturing communicate mostly with other manufacturing employees and relatively little with people in engineering and sales. Functional or Division

Functional

The managers and employees in the manufacturing unit share a common outlook and find it easier to communicate with each other because they have similar training and experience. What kind of structure?

Functional Structure

you accept new job at Matrix structure. Company consult firms (business strategy advice to corporate clients). Employees do both functional area & Customer group division. You work at marketing and sales department. you are assigned to the Small Business Accounts division. In your new job, what's one thing you can expect?

If the environment is rapidly changing, the company will be able to respond quickly.

What problem might the CEO (Alfredo Sasuage) expect if the company switches to a functional structure?

The new structure will be slower to respond to changes in the environment.

you accept new job at Matrix structure. Company consult firms (business strategy advice to corporate clients). Employees do both functional area & Customer group division. You work at marketing and sales department. you are assigned to the Small Business Accounts division. In your new job, what's another thing you can expect?

Two-boss employees will have to resolve conflicts between the competing priorities of their managers.

The Oriental Trading Company uses a cost leadership strategy. It has a "110% Lowest Price Guarantee," which says that if a customer can provide an advertisement with a lower price from another company, the Oriental Trading Company will refund 110% of the difference in price. The Oriental Trading Company will be more effective if it has a xxx structure. Which of the following reasons explain this? what's Another?

mechanistic Centralized decision making allows the organization to place tighter controls on the way work is done and, in the process, achieve economies of scale.

The trend recently has been for organizations to adopt xxx structures, in which employees lower in the hierarchy have more decision-making authority.

more decentralized

Andy contrasts Barcelona restaurants with other establishments where employees are "told how to answer a phone and how to set a table and how to greet guests and it's all in giant books that they have to memorize." Barcelona's more relaxed work rules could help it achieve:

relational coordination

As an organization becomes more mechanistic, its communication flow becomes xxx

more vertical .

While on the subject of the kitchen manager of Barcelona. What's another disadvantage

A need for many meetings to resolve conflicts

While on the subject of the kitchen manager of Barcelona. What's one disadvantage

Confusion and frustration from having two bosses

Human resources is done separately in each of the seven units serving different geographic areas, and having seven smaller HR departments is less efficient than having one. Functional or Divisional

Divisional

"I am thinking about decentralizing, allowing employees lower in the organization to make more decisions. When does decentralizing usually make sense?" option 1

When running a company which serves different customers in different regions differently

You would study a business's organization xxx to see a visual representation of its vertical structure, including the chain of command.

chart

Your manager has xxx when he has the right to tell you what work to do and to hold you accountable for doing it.

line authority

To solve a problem, a manager might establish and lead a temporary xxx of people from different departments. This group would disband once the problem was solved.

task force

The CEO of Alfredo's Sausage is considering moving to a functional structure. What would be the best reason to make such a move?

To gain more control over how the organization operates and centralize decision making

Because each unit, such as the unit serving New England, is relatively small, it can respond quickly to changes in the business environment. What kind of Structure

Divisional Structure

"I am thinking about decentralizing, allowing employees lower in the organization to make more decisions. When does decentralizing usually make sense?" option 1

When environmental conditions are changing rapidly and the company needs empowered employees to make decisions quickly

If Barcelona has a kitchen manager whom all kitchen staff report to, and a dining room manager whom all waitstaff report to, as well as a manager for each restaurant whom everyone working in that restaurant reports to, the company has a xxx structure.

divisional

The Oriental Trading Company uses a cost leadership strategy. It has a "110% Lowest Price Guarantee," which says that if a customer can provide an advertisement with a lower price from another company, the Oriental Trading Company will refund 110% of the difference in price. The Oriental Trading Company will be more effective if it has a xxx structure. Which of the following reasons explain this? what's one?

mechanistic Functional structures create highly trained, specialized employees who are extremely efficient at what they do.

When your manager assigns you a task, you have the xxx to carry out that task as assigned.

responsibility

Nat Windom is the chief operating officer (COO) of your company. He has been reading about relational coordination and has learned that it is a "powerful driver of performance when work is interdependent, uncertain and time constrained." He has also read that improving the quality of coordination in this way can improve "quality, safety, efficiency, engagement, learning and innovation." With these benefits in mind, he is very excited about implementing relationship coordination at your company. Nat knows that you have been studying how organizations coordinate the activities of people and departments, and he calls you into his office to ask for your advice. "If our company achieves a high level of relational coordination, what can we expect in terms of employee behavior?" What's the third advice

Employees will be empowered to collaborate directly with each other across organizational boundaries.

All of the employees who work on the shop floor at Alfredo's Sausage are responsible for creating the best quality product possible. This means that they investigate problems and find ways of dealing with them. In addition, the employees are responsible for selecting, training, evaluating, and, if necessary, terminating the employees who work with them. There are very few layers of management. Here is the organizational chart showing the structure or departmentalization for Alfredo's Sausage: Diagram: Top: - Ceo- Bottom: Bratwurst Salmi Frankfurters

Team based structure

While on the topic of Alfredo's sausage, Which of the following characteristics would you expect Alfredo's Sausage to have? Option 3

The emphasis in this company is on horizontal communication, which facilitates rapid decision making.

When a company's output is consumed immediately and employees and customers interact directly, the firm uses xxx and will tend to be flexible, informal, and decentralized.

service technology