Organizational structures are systems which direct the flow of activities in an institution by outlining a hierarchal design which lists all the stakeholders in a systemic manner. The organizational structure also shows the roles and responsibilities of the key employees of a body (Brescia and Paolo 137). They ultimately provide a clear framework of realizing the goals and objectives of a company, since each member is aware of his or her place of operation within the organization. The structure also directs the flow of information from the senior members to the subordinate individuals of an organization. For example, in many organizational structures, the senior manager reports to the chief executive officer (CEO) (Brescia and Paolo 141). The subordinate employees report to the manager. The main types of organizational structures are the functional, divisional, matrix and projectized models. The essay will discuss the organizational structure of the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT). The essay will explain NJIT`s type of organizational structure, the flow of information, the decision-making process and how the university can quickly adapt to environmental changes. An outline of how NJIT`S structure affects the handling of students within the institution will be made.
NJIT is run using a functional organizational structure. Several subdivisions within the system characterize functional organizational structures. They are suitable for institutions which have many departments. Each section is led by a senior employee who reports to the executive manager or director. New Jersey Institute of Technology has numerous departments which facilitate the university`s methods of administration and governance. The most senior body is the Board of Trustees. The Office of the President, General Counsel, and Treasurer to the Board report to the Board of Trustees. The Board of Overseers, Chief External Affairs Officer, Assistant Vice President, and Provost & Senior Executive Vice President then report to the Office of the President (NJIT Organization & Governance 1). All the college deans are under the office of the Provost & Senior Executive Vice President. The associate deans are under their respective college deans.
There are many other subsidiary sections such as the finance department, university senate, student senate, faculty senate, alumni association, innovation institute, Human Resource department, and Dean of Students (NJIT Organization & Governance 2). Most of the subsidiary departments do not report to a specific office. Some are individual entities, while others serve the purpose of connecting different departments. For example, the dean of students’ office is an independent office which serves various needs of the students. The university senate is a subsidiary body which has the responsibility of helping all departments, especially in disciplinary issues.
NJIT`s organizational structure determines the flow of information by outlining the roles and responsibilities of various offices and departments. The departments which perform a common objective are grouped in order to share their knowledge and skills. For example, all the dean offices are under one umbrella which is directed by the Provost & Senior Executive Vice President (NJIT Organization & Governance 3). The college deans can easily share their knowledge and skills among each other to ensure the smooth running of operations and efficiency in the various departments. The flow of information is also continuous and flexible. The subordinate employees can easily share information, sentiments, and opinions to their immediate managers. For example, if the college dean intends to share information to the office of the president, he or she is only required to report to the Provost & Senior Executive Vice President who subsequently reports to the president. The model protects the subordinate employees since they do not have to undergo the long and tiresome process of reaching the senior office.
The university can quickly adapt to environmental changes by conducting an assessment and re-evaluation of the roles and responsibilities of the stakeholder members. The functional organizational structure favors the university in case of an environmental change. They can quickly change the design of the department which has been implicated in the environmental changes, instead of restructuring the entire organizational structure (Brescia and Paolo 133). For example, if a new college is introduced to the university, the Provost & Senior Executive Vice President is only required to elect a college dean and assistant dean. The transformation does not alter with the current state of other sections within the university.
NJIT`s organizational structure has a positive effect on how I am treated as a student. It favors the students since they do not have a difficult time when trying to access services within the university. All the requirements of the students are served within their respective dean offices. All course related issues are solved by the assistant dean or the college dean. The dean of students` office solves the non-academic issues. The system ensures the provision of high-quality services for the students since the appropriate office addresses their issues. For example, the college dean of my department would be well-aware of any academic-related issue within the department than other employees from other sectors of the university. In addition to that, they serve a small group of students, to meet the learners` requirements and expectations.
Question Two: Cultures in Organizations
Organizational culture involves all the beliefs, underlying assumptions, and principles that present a unique social and psychological environment of the business institution or any other body. The norms, language, habits, and systems of an organization and its members also form the cultural aspects of an organization (Alvesson and Stefan 4). The leaders of an organization are responsible for making the cultural components, by directing the employees and stakeholders about their expectations. It creates a perfect framework of how people should behave and the guidelines of conducting business. It also ensures job satisfaction for the employees since they are guided by a set of fixed standards.
Organizational performance mainly revolves around the goals and objectives of a business institution. Every organization aims to attain an outstanding performance regarding its level of productivity, services provided and other essential components of the business. There is a significant relationship between the culture of an organization and its performance (Alvesson and Stefan 7). The two elements work hand-in-hand in ensuring good institutional outcomes. The essay will discuss the relationship between organizational culture and performance, the influence of culture on profitability, responsiveness to customers, and innovativeness. The paper will also elaborate on how organizational culture brings high performance for some companies and low performance for other organizations.
Organizational culture influences the behavior, thinking, and patterns of employees in an organization. They dictate about many issues such as the mode of dressing, work attendance, communication with customers, relationship between the management and workers, and many other dynamics of the workplace. According to Badrtalei and Bates (304), the culture of an organization may be its stronghold or liability depending on the method of implementation. The performance of an organization is mainly guided by the cultural aspects that have been implemented by the management. Badrtalei and Bates (308) point out that a corporate culture results in higher performance and better business outcomes. The performance is gauged using various indicators such as revenue, number of sales, market and stock value.
The culture of business should match with its environmental setting. For example, it is impractical to incorporate a rule of speaking a foreign language in an organization where most employees are not conversant with the language. Such as culture would cause low performance since the workers would be highly dissatisfied and demoralized. On the other hand, a technology company would realize a benefit from high employee performance by encouraging innovativeness and adaptability within the organization. A technology company which is led using solid principles and a firm respect for traditional aspects is more likely to show poor performance.
Organizational culture also improves the performance of employees by turning them towards the expectations, and goals of the company. For example, the management can ensure better customer service by training the employees to serve the customers from the client`s perspective. This would help the employees to have a better understanding of the customers` tastes & preferences, concerns, and expectations about a particular product. Such a culture also reduces the workflow of the management in giving constant directions to the employees about their work descriptions. The favorable organizational culture realizes high profitability due to better employees’ performance, the satisfaction of workers and customers, excellent customer care services, minimal refund costs, and innovativeness.
Hogan and Leonard (1615) point out that a detailed organizational culture profile should have the main components of innovation, team-orientation, aggressiveness, high outcome-orientation, stability and orientation towards the primary stakeholders. An aggressive culture is one which ensures competitiveness and outpacing the competitors. An innovative culture is one which encourages the employees to come up with new ideas and adaptability to transformations in the industry. An outcome-oriented culture places emphasis on attainment of exceptional results, and very high standards. A stable culture is one which is predictable, and bureaucratic. Stability ensures production of consistently high outputs. A people-oriented culture provides value for the employees and customers by promoting all their rights (Hogan and Leonard 1615). A team-oriented culture ensures collaboration and cooperation between all stakeholders in accomplishing the goals and objectives of the organization.
Microsoft Corporation is an example of a company which benefits from an excellent organizational culture which subsequently causes high performance. An aggressive culture guides Microsoft. It benefits by outperforming its competitors. The company has previously faced numerous lawsuits and disputes from its competitors who often complain about fraud and dishonesty (Hogan and Leonard 1609). The management responds to these manifestations by tuning their employees towards delivering high-quality products and services to the customers and subsequently “killing the competitors.” Their culture has enabled them to stay in the corporate industry for a long time without being challenged by competitors.
Kmart is an example of a company which shows a low performance due to poor organizational culture. The company focuses on sales and marketing (Badrtalei and Bates 306). Their employees are highly dissatisfied since they are only paid on commission, yet the company has a low market base. Many employees were also demotivated after the company eliminated all the full-time positions and reduced them to part-time.
Works Cited
Alvesson, Mats, and Stefan Sveningsson. Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge, 2015.
Badrtalei, James, and Bates, David. Effect of organizational cultures on mergers and acquisitions: The case of DaimlerChrysler. International Journal of Management. 2007, 24, 303–317.
Brescia, Colombo, and Paolo Landoni. Organizational structures of Knowledge Transfer Offices: an analysis of the world’s top-ranked universities. The Journal of Technology Transfer 41.1 (2016): 132-151.
Hogan, Suellen, and Leonard, Coote. Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A test of Schein's model. Journal of Business Research 67.8 (2014): 1609-1621.
NJIT Organization & Governance. Retrieved from https://www.njit.edu/oie/sites/oie/files/njit_orgchart.pdf 2018, pp. 1-17
