The four accessible organizational design structures (Simple, Functional, Multidivisional, and Matrix) must be chosen by executives to organize operations. There are trade-offs to be made when choosing a structure because each one has distinct benefits and drawbacks. As we talk about this:
a) Please list and elaborate on some of the more important compromises that a business must make when choosing one of these alternative organizational structures.
To the point, please. (Rather than writing a long paragraph, please discuss in "list form").
b) Determine a business situation in which the chosen structure would be a suitable fit.
Also, why does this situation fit well?
a) The trade-offs a corporation must make while deciding on an organization design structures. Simple organization design structures, though allows tight controls by the business owner, the rate of workload is likely to become overwhelming as every approval has to be given by the person at the top. According to Jones (2010) unavailability of the top person can easily result to paralyses of the firm till they come back.
The functional organization design structure is quite advantageous as it allows for effective utilization of talents; as it operates in units that are mandated to carry out specific roles. This results in high productivity. Functional designs can be quite disadvantageous s they seem to discourage teamwork across the firm and may sometimes result in difficult for the management to control (Jones, 2010).
The multidivisional organization design structure is quite effective in small firms but seems not to work well in medium-sized firms. The effectiveness of this organizational structure is hampered by the easiness of duplication of roles, which can be quite costly in an organization (Jones, 2010).
Matrix organizational structure is unique as it brings together managers and employees from different departments within a firm to accomplish a specific organizational goal. The structure not only offers the best platform for exchange of ideas that can lead to effective accomplishment of the firm’s goals but also motivates the staff. By adopting this structure, the organization management has to invest it as bringing all employees together heavily is quite an expensive undertaking (Ashkenas, Ulrich, Jick & Kerr, 2015).
Learning Activity #2
In addition to organization design, there are several other factors that can cause a good strategy to fail: management, operations, marketing, finance, R&D and MIS issues. Review your response to Learning Activity #1 and determine which ONE of these additional factors could cause that specific strategy to fail. Clearly identify the factor, explain why it could cause the strategy to fail – fully support your response.
A firm’s management is a crucial factor that has the capability of leading to the failure of a successful strategy like product differentiation. For a strategy to be successful, the management not only has to bring the required resources together but have to ensure that every step of the strategy is successfully accomplished. Any laxity in part of the management will, therefore, lead a good strategy to fail.
References
Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., Jick, T., & Kerr, S. (2015). The boundary less organization: Breaking the chains of organizational structure. John Wiley & Sons.
Jones, G. R. (2010). Organizational theory, design, and change.
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