Different Organizational Structures and Culture - Essay Example

Organizations and behaviour Introduction The Organizational structure is how an organization has a hierarchy of personnel whowork towards achieving a common goal (Abramowicz, 2009, p.4). The beliefs, attitudes and values employees in the organization are the description of its culture. The culture and structure of an organization are reflective of its aims and the strategies that it wants to accomplish. The structures of an organization can be divided into two broad categories, formal and informal (Talloo, 2007, p.413). When an organisation has a planned structure for controlling the performance of that organisation, it is known as the formal structure. Formal organisation has clearly organised structures that have departmental divisions, authority levels, line of communication and responsibility. The other kind of organisations are the informal organisations, they don’t have any specified structure or divisions of responsibilities properly laid out (Ferrell et al, 2009, p.192) this organisation type can be observed in the formal organisations. Compare and contrast different organizational structures and culture The Geographic structure is the structure where single head office is in power to control operations of all departments, even the territorial and regional departments where they also have running of their production or the service. An example can be certain airline company, they would have a head office based in one country where as the departments will be in different places over the globe. These departments, regardless of the fact that which country they are established in will have same structure, like human resource, marketing, sales and finance. Thus, their workings will be identical, in this case of airline company; sale of flight tickets. Advantages of this structure are that each of the department has autonomy to make decisions that would meet local demand (Daft and Daft, 2010, p.113). For instance, a burger which is spicy maybe launched by fast food chain in Thailand and because their main courses usually are spicy it may be successful, in Italy on the other hand this spicy burger would not have chances of becoming too popular. Another advantage of using this structure is that the organization may get cost benefits due to low labor costs in for example Africa compared to those in Europe. There are also disadvantages associated with this approach. Original standard that was set for a certain product may not be identical among the regional departments. A fizzy drink for example may taste different when produced in one country than from the other, even when they use same ingredients. This could be explained by a country’s diverse climate or difference in production of raw materials. The costs on certain hierarchical level can also be higher. Explain how the relationship between an organization’s structure and culture can impact on the performance of the business System where people with common skill sets are put together to form a division or a department is known as the functional structure (Drury, 2007, p.491). Each of these departments has clear command lines, specified objectives and thus, responsibilities. An example of this would be that a company could be organized if accounting department, department of human resource, marketing department, logistic department etc. is established. The benefits of using this structure are that the operations of a department are focused on specified tasks; the opportunity of specialization in that particular area becomes wider so that the services provided can be improved. It can also speed up the decision making process since the units within departments are only focused at a single field. The communication quality may also increase and so would the customer service in each department. The drawbacks of this structure would be the existence of possible communication barriers between the departments due to their autonomy and they may lack knowledge about what is happening in the other departments thus the aims may clash. The structure by the product or brand is similar to the functional structure, although it has additional divisional managers who are in charge for each product or the brands production line. For example, in some cosmetic company, one divisional manager will have responsibilities for a perfume brand, the other one will have the responsibilities for a shampoo, both the products being produced by same company. Advantages of using this kind of structure are that this may increase the specialization as now a department staff has only one product to focus on. The profit and loss can also be assessed on every single product separately, making it easier for decision making. Disadvantages may include the increase in overhead costs since additional managers will be required. The communication barriers between the departments, and also that neither resources nor customers would be shared between the divisions. A structure with combined features of both structures; functional and product based, with administration processes that are vertical and also horizontal is known as the matrix structure (Kerzner, 2009, p.106). This structure is usually adopted for the specific projects that are coordinated by the project managers. The benefits of this structure are that it relies on the expertise qualities and high skills in communication as well as coordination. On the other hand the problem that may occur with this structure is that existence of two leaders can result in conflicts as well as confusing among the staff. An organization’s culture is personality of that organization or beliefs, values and attitudes of the people working in that organization (Inceoglu, 2002, p.16). The different types of the cultures in an organization are: task culture, person culture, Role culture and Power culture (Naoum, 2001, p.165). The task culture can usually be seen in project teams or the matrix structures, where individuals belonging to separate divisions are put in one team together to work on certain projects (Handy, 1996, p.49). The person culture is when the organization pays attention of is concerned about its employee’s interests. Although this culture is rare in the organizations, and can usually only be seen in the one’s that run for charities or nonprofit businesses. Organizations that have separate functions, might adopt the role culture. This culture involves giving responsibilities to each of the managers to take care of the production line assigned to them which will lead to improvement of expertise. This culture is usually found in the organizations which have functional structures. The power culture is where the system of an organization is decentralized; the authority lies with central figure (Armstrong and Stephens, 2004, p.115), usually the owners, founders or chairmen of the company. This culture may limit the creativity and demotivate the staff. It’s extremely hard to perceive and fully understand what is it that people want or exactly think since everyone has their own perception and different personality. A person’s personality is their unique attitudes, behavior with others, feelings and thinking. An individual’s personality is reflective of these traits which will be different from another individual’s. Discuss the factors which influence individual behavior at work Five factors can help determine and classify the individual behavior and work. These are: Openness to experiences vs. unwelcoming to experiences; openness to experiences means when someone is willing to learn and develop from new experiences. Conscientiousness vs. undirected approach. Conscientiousness is when someone has motivation, organization and responsibility to achieve certain goals. Extraversion vs. anti-social attitude. Extraversion is when a person is enthusiastic, social and friendly. Agreeableness vs. resentment. Agreeableness is when someone has positive attitude towards others. Emotional instability vs. emotional stability. Emotional instability is the extent to which individual reacts to a situation emotionally like with heighted anger, anxiety and depression. People may also be influenced by compatibility in organization regarding different aspects like if that person has expertise or personality to suit the performance of a certain task, if the culture of management suits their beliefs or the personality of individual may have clashes with other staff members. It is therefore the manager’s responsibility to come up with solutions to adjust different personalities. Perception is another major factor since everyone has different viewpoints and these may influence their behavior in workplace. Conclusion This essay looks at different structures and cultures prevalent in an organization and attempts to compare and contrast them. It also highlights some of the factors that affect an individual’s attitude at work. It strives to answer different question and issues related with organizational behavior and culture. References Abramowicz, W. 2009. Business Information Systems. London: Springer. Armstrong, M. and Stephens, T. 2004. A Handbook of Management and Leadership: A Guide to Managing for Results. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Daft, R. L. and Daft, J. M. 2010. Organization Theory and Design. London: Cengage Learning EMEA. Drury, C. 2007. Management and Cost Accounting. London: Cengage Learning EMEA Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J. and Linda F. 2009. Business Ethics: Ethical Decision Making and Cases. London: Cengage Learning.‎ Handy, C. 1996. Gods of Management: The Changing Work of Organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Inceoglu, I. 2002. Organizational Culture, Team Climate, Workplace Bullying and Team Effectiveness: An Empirical Study on Their Relationship. London: Herbert Utz Verlag. Kerzner, H. 2007. Project Management: A Systems Approach to Planning, Scheduling, and Controlling. NY: John Wiley & Sons. Naoum, S. 2001. People and Organizational Management in Construction. UK: Thomas Telford. Talloo, T. 2007. Business Organization and Management (For Delhi University B.Com Hons. Course). 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