Sydney Theatre Company - Organizational Decision-Making and Planning - Case Study Example

Sydney Theatre Company (STC) Name Course Name and Code Instructor’s Name Date Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 3 Organization Design 4 Elements of Organizational design 7 Organizational Decision Making and Planning 8 Aligning Organizational Strategy to Design 10 Human Resource Management 12 Communication within the Organization 13 Conclusion 14 References 15 Introduction Progressive organizations are designed with functional entities destined for success. Successful organizations are structured in a manner that influence the people working within it, provides a link between the organizational structure and the overall organizational strategy, and it must have the ability to identify the contingency factors for its design together with the connections in order to design the outcomes. In simple terms, organizing in any organization is the art of arranging people and other resources to work together to accomplish the organization’s set goals; it comprise of creating a division of labour for task performance and coordinating results in order to achieve a common purpose. For this matter, if the organization has a well defined mission, core values, objectives and the overall strategy, organizing starts with the process of implementation through clarification of jobs and working relationships. The organization’s design and management processes are the main critical factors the will ensure its success or failure. Sydney Theatre Company is a forward thinking and successful company; the company rose to this status through sponsorship, distributors and innovative style of management (Kumar, 2010). The top management has decided that the company should be transformed into a progressive company by employing the use of progressive management techniques. For instance, in order for them to achieve the desired competitive edge they need to change their organizational design and management styles (Radburn, 2008). This report recommends that Sydney Theatre Company should review its organizational design, organizational decision making and planning, align organizational strategy to the design, human resource management, and define how communication within the company should be conducted. By so doing, the company will be integrated into a modern day company with vast potentials of growth and development while at the same time diversifying its theatre activities in a professional manner. With regard to this, the above identified points of review will be discussed independently for comprehensive understanding. Organization Design This is the art of arranging and structuring work with a singular objective of accomplishing the company’s goals and objectives. In other words, it is the process of creating an organization’s structure; a formal arrangement of jobs within the organization and how they coordinated to achieve the company’s mission (Brooks, 2003). For instance, when the company’s top management changes the organization’s structure, they are said to be engaged in organizational designing. Organizational design is also referred to as the series of decisions that align the company strategy with its major tasks, its structure, its formal organization, its decisions and reward systems together with the people who will do the work or employees (Samson & Daft, 2005). Organization design provides a framework within which an organization aims and objectives to realize its qualities as defined in its vision statement. The infrastructure into which business processes are deployed to ensure that the primary goals and qualities of the company are realized across all business processes implemented within the organization (Banfield and Kay, 2012). Organizational design gives the company the ability to consistently achieve their core values with regard to the products and services they offer their customers (Simon, 2011). Organizational design is describes as successful when it provides quality management during operations. In this regard, effective and efficient organizational designs are characterized by their simplicity, flexibility, reliability, economy and acceptability. There are different organizational structures; these are visible charts that report the relationships, division of labour across the organization and how they are coordinated. Organizational designing creates the structures and processes by linking activities within the organization to produce the output and thus delivering organizational performance. In essence, the main purpose for organizational design is to provide the performance capacity, deliver the company strategy and defines how things are done within the organization (Torrington, Hall & Taylor, 2002). With regard to the above explanation, the organizational design must be adaptable in order to deliver both efficiency and effectiveness, and must capture the benefits of specialization without impacting on employee satisfaction and effectiveness. The organizational structure must have contingency variables that will ensure the success of the organization. The structural contingency variables that must be taken into consideration are strategy, technology, environment and size (Daft, Murphy & Willmott, 2010). There are two types of organizational strategies: stability oriented strategies, which assume that little change is occurring in the external environment and hence plans can be programmed to be implemented routinely with regard to these changes (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Growth oriented strategies dictates that the organization needs innovation and flexibility in order to respond to the continued external changes. Technology on the other hand defines the knowledge, skills, equipment and work methods that the company must use in order to transform inputs into outputs (Triplett, 2007). In this regard, the core production technology can be based on small batch production, mass production, or continuous production (Mobbs, 2011). The human resource is also a vital human resource that the company must consider; in this regard, a dependable organization design must provide people with supporting structures appropriate for them to achieve the set goals. The modern management theory dictates that there must be a good fit between the organizational structures and human resources. Organizational structure: Different entities of the organization are formally arranged in this way. It is the system of tasks, workflows, reporting relationships and communication channels linking the operations within the company. For the organization to be effective, its structure must be handled in the same way as contingencies, for instance, if environments and situations change the structure must also change. There are two types of organizational structure: Formal and Informal structures. Formal structure: this structure provide a clear division of work; for instance, positions and titles defines the work responsibilities, the flow of communication, submission of reports to managers, and levels of management are also specified. The operations are formal, planned, procedural, officially sanctioned, fixed and rigid, based on authority, on record, and reliant upon position. Informal structure: this is a shadow organization without definition of official positions of working relationships between the members of the organization. Here, members of the organization are free to communicate despite their positions. Informal management structures are considered as important resource for organizational growth and development. This structure is characterized with informal, emergent, officially illegitimate, encourage comparative dynamic and flexible based on trust and reciprocity, off the record, reliant upon personal affinity or political allegiance. Elements of Organizational design Work Specialization: this is the process of dividing work into specific job tasks, which are simple and easy for each worker to specialize in the field that he/she is best suited. Departmentalization: this is the art of grouping jobs in order to accomplish organizational goals. Chain of command: this is the line of authority that clarifies who reports to whom. Span of Control: this is the number of subordinates that a manager can direct efficiently and effectively Decentralization/Centralization: centralization is where decision making process is concentrated at upper levels of the organization. Decentralization on the other hand, is where lower level employees are allowed to participate or actually make decision. In this regard, there is delegation of responsibilities and thus sufficient authority is also delegated. Formalization: this is the degree to which jobs within an organization are standardized and the extent which employee behaviour is guided by rules and procedures. High formalization describes a company that is highly regulated, while low formalization describes a company that is less structures. The current trends have established that organizations rely less on rules and standardization. Organizational Decision Making and Planning Within the organization, the information flows horizontally and vertically to facilitate problem solving and decision making. Similarly, the top managers use the available information to formulate strategies, policies, long term plans and objectives; in this regard, they make strategic decisions. The middle level managers are responsible for formulating operational plans and objectives to implement the formulated strategies while at the same time make operational decisions. The first level managers are responsible for implementing operational plans and objectives, make short term decisions, and transact day-to-day business operations. Progressive organizations have information systems that are very significant and essential in aiding the process of decision making. Managers are regarded as the information processing nerve centre. The information management system employed by the organization must fulfil the decisional roles including entrepreneurship, resource allocation, disturbance handling/conflict resolution and negotiation. Similarly, it must meet company’s informational needs such as the information sought, received, and transferred among the people within and outside the organization. Above all, the system must meet the interpersonal roles like information used for ceremonies, motivation, and networking. For the company have such a high end information system it must implement Information Technology, have computer and information literate employees. There are two types of managerial decisions: Programmed decisions; this involves the application of solutions from past experience to a routine problem. Non-programmed decisions; this demands the application of specifically crafted solutions for a unique problem. A crisis within an organization is an unexpected circumstance that has potential to cause a management disaster if not resolved timely and appropriately. Progressive organizations have managers that are ready for crisis to occur and hence plan in advance to deal with them. People approach decision making using three different styles: avoiding the problem, solving the problem, while others are problem seekers. Problem seekers are regarded as proactive managers since they actively process information and constantly look for problems to solve. Organization managers have different ways of decision making depending on whether they use systematic or intuitive thinking. Intuitive thinking approach is where the manager is flexible and spontaneous in solving the problem. On the other hand, the systematic thinking approach the manager is rational and analytic in solving the problem. Strategic opportunism is very essential as it gives the manager the ability to focus on the long – term organizational goals while being flexible to deal with the short –term problems. The decision making process within any organization is required to be neat and logical. A logical decision making process starts with finding and defining the problem, generating and evaluating alternative solutions, select the preferred solution and conduct ethics double-check, implement the solution, and lastly evaluate the results. This process can be recycled as necessary. Decision making can be individual or group thinking process. Knowledge management is also a critical factor that helps the company to use the intellectual capital competitive advantage. The intellectual assets include patents, intellectual property rights, trade secrets and special processes and methods together with accumulated knowledge and the understanding of the entire workforce. Planning is an essential part of the organization as it helps in establishing management goals and objectives (Mobbs, 2011). Planning renders the organization ready to tackle or take the initiative by making them more result oriented, priority oriented, advantage oriented and change oriented. Organizational plans can be categorized into strategic plans; define long term needs while at the same time setting action direction for the organization. Tactical plans are usually developed and used to implement strategic plans (McIntyre, 2010). They are intermediate-term plans that specify how the organization’s resources can be used to put strategies into action. Situations may arise requiring immediate adjustments to solve problems or exploit opportunities in order to advance the overall strategy. Operational including production, financial, facilities plans, marketing plans, and human resource plans describes what needs to done in the short term to progress strategic objectives. Aligning Organizational Strategy to Design Matching the organization design with the organization strategy ensures that organization has the ability to deliver on the strategy, create value for the customers and stakeholders (Scott, 2008). The connection between the strategy and design must be defined; managers manage the inter-relationship of strategy across all organizational levels including functional: business, corporate, and global level; structure and culture in order for the organization protects its domain and create value for customers, shareholders and stakeholders (Burton, Obel & DeSanctis, 2011). By doing this, the company will be able to create a sustainable competitive advantage that allows the company to deal with market and environmental forces better than its competitors. The main objective of the organization is to not only gain the competitive advantage but also make it sustainable. Achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage is extremely challenging. Sustainability in this regard is the use of resources to enable the society to achieve the current needs without compromising the ability of the future organization to meet their needs. Rather than reducing productivity and profits, most organizations have discovered that embracing sustainability enhances productivity and profitability. Organizational strategy is a pattern in a stream of organizational decisions, which must be viewed in the context of several decisions and the consistency among decisions. The strategic intent focuses and applies to organizational energies on a unifying and compelling goal. Strategies change with the environmental changes. Strategic management is defined as the process of formulating strategies to accomplish long-term goals and sustain competitive advantage. It involves looking ahead, understanding the environment and the organization and positioning the organization for competitive advantage in changing times (Cornelius, 2001). Experts in strategic management argue that ultimate goals for the business should and must have superior profitability. This creates above average returns for shareholders. Strategic management goals can be monopolistic, oligopolistic, and hyper-competition. Strategic management decision-making process involves identifying and analysing current mission, objective and strategies. Analyse external and internal environments including the industry and external environment (opportunities and threats) and organizational resources and capabilities (strengths and weaknesses); revise the mission and objectives and select new strategies including corporate, business and functional; implement strategies: corporate governance, management systems and practices, and strategic leadership; and evaluate results including strategic control, review strategic management process. There are two strategic management processes: strategy formulation the process of creating strategy, which involves assessing the existing strategy, organization and environment to develop new strategies capable for delivering future competitive advantage. Strategy implementation involves the allocation of resources and putting the strategy into action, and once the strategies have been created, they must be acted on to achieves the desired results. Human Resource Management This is the process of attracting, recruiting, and maintaining a quality workforce to support the organization’s mission, objectives and strategies. This organizational entity relies on workers with relevant skills and enthusiasm and the task of the HRM department is to make these workers available. HRM process usually begins with attracting developing and maintaining quality workforce. In this regard, attracting a quality workforce involves the HR planning and recruiting and selection. Developing a quality workforce on the other hand includes employee orientation, training development and career planning. Maintaining a quality workforce on the other hand is management of employee retention and turnover, performance appraisal and remuneration and benefits. Strategic HRM requires managers to understand the jobs that need to be done including job analysis, job description, and job specification (Hewlett, 2006). The HRM also is responsible for developing job management systems that include performance management systems and performance appraisal. In order to maintain a quality workforce, workers must be successfully trained, nurtured, and managed for long-term effectiveness. Similarly, the organization must work to ensure there is work-life balance; balancing career demands with personal and family needs. Remuneration and benefits must also be planned in a manner that will motivate employees to deliver more. Base remuneration in the form of salary or hourly wages usually makes the organization desirable for employment. Flexible benefits programs allow employees to choose from a range of benefit options. Motivation is another vital HR factor, which is defined as forces within the individual account for the level, direction and persistence of effort expended at work. A reward is a work outcome of positive value to the individual (Baligh, 2006). There are extrinsic rewards: those that are externally administered. They are valued outcomes given to someone by another person. Intrinsic rewards are self-administered (feelings of competency, personal development and self-control people experience in their work). Various theories have been developed with regard to motivation and they include theory X and Y, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, ERG theory, Herzberg’s 2 factor theory and acquired needs theory. Communication within the Organization Various discussions are centred on employee involvement or engagement in organization, communication plays a vital role in engaging employees. Functions of communication within an organization include control; organizational goals, strategies, directions, procedures and job design are achieved through communication, Motivation; feedback, clarification and acknowledgement within the organization are also accomplished through communication (DeFillippi, 2002). Communication is key in emotional expression including social interaction, frustration, and satisfaction. Information transmitted across the organization through communication as a means of getting things done. It is that task of the organization to ensure that communication and interpersonal skills are improved within the organization. Effective communication is achieved when the intended message of the sender and the interpreted meaning of the receiver are the same. On the other hand, efficient communication occurs when minimum cost in terms of resources expended like time and money. Communication may not always be effective; however, effective communication may not always be efficient. Barriers to interpersonal communication include physical distracters like telephone interruptions and lack of privacy. Emotions, information overloaded, defensiveness, language or jargon, and national culture are other barriers to communication. Overcoming communication barriers may involve the use of feedback, simplify language, listening actively, constraining emotions, watching non-verbal cues, asking questions, and checking out what is happening (Handy, 2006). The use of technology is one of the means of improving communication as it encourages faster and regular communication thus providing up-to-date information for problem solving and work implementation. The use of the internet, internet voice technology like Skype, and smartphones has made communication easier and faster. Further, valuing of culture and diversity is another essential way of improving communication. Conclusion Organizational design and management although is strenuous and involving, it is an essential task that any progressive company must undertake. From the above discussion, various organizational entities have been extensively described and explained. For the Sydney Theatre Company to have a basis on which to evaluate its progress, the above discussion gives an inherent literature that the company can use. Organizational design, organizational decision-making and planning, align organizational strategy to the design, human resource management, and define how communication within the company should be conducted can successful achieved by STC. References Baligh, H. (2006). Organization Structures: Theory and Design, Analysis and Prescription. 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