The Multidimensional Organization Theory - Essay Example

The Multidimensional Organization Theory I. Introduction Every individual subsist in an organizational world; practically, all of us are born in an organization. However, the definition of the concept of ‘organization’ is persistently confused with other social collectivises such as small groups, family units, mobs and others. Some social scientists such as Scott distinguished that “most analysts have conceived of organizations as social structures created by individuals to support the collaborative pursuit of specified goals” (1992, p.10). Likewise, Talcott Parsons (1956) differentiate organizations from other social collectivises through emphasizing that organizations had some functions and objectives. Similarly, Donaldson (1995) supported the general connotation that organizations are established and preserves in order to achieve specific intentions. This goal-oriented or active perspective regarding organization indicates that organizations are meeting places of individual efforts that are more or less synchronized to accomplish objectives that could not be otherwise achieved through solitary action. Nevertheless, aligning the notion of organization with the framework of goal pursuit is to some extent problematic, and there is a large collection of literature that deals with the model of an organizational goal and whether or not the construct carries great weight. For instance, several organizations have within them members or employees who either is not aware with the organization’s mission statement or if they have substantial knowledge of it, they do not essentially support it. An actual example is the goal of most publicly managed corporations in several developed nations which is profit maximization or the capitalization of shareholder value; this corporate objective is in stark contrast with the concerns of the many employees who are more focused on their job security and their comparative influence or prestige than they are about revenues. One instance is a contract manufacturer or employee who is not familiar with the components of corporate accounting and consumes more labour hours because of the common belief that the more hours of work the more income they will earn. However, the target of maximizing overtime was not an organizationally endorsed or even acknowledged goal. Furthermore, the objective of maximizing shareholder value does not produce much dedication or motivation among most organizational contributors (Pfeffer, 1997). On the other hand, Pfeffer and Salancik emphasized that “organizations are... a process of organizing support sufficient to continue existence” (1978, p. 24). Organizational continuation receives focus as an objective since survival must be constantly realized and is by under no circumstances habitual. March and Simon (1958) maintained that organizations make available encouragements for social actors to partake in them and as a return acquire contributions that become motivations for others. In line with this perspective, an organization is workable and survives only as long as the incentives –inputs equilibrium is positive, such that the available enticements are adequate to generate the charitable contributions of involvement and effort necessary to sustain the organization. Subsequently, organizational survival is more difficult to realize than the survival of some other social networks because assets and energies must be disposed in order to fuel the operations of the organization. Individuals must be hired and offered with reasonable incentives to remain in the organization; resources to prop up the organization must also be mined from the environment, and even the core legitimacy of the organization and its activity-based management must sporadically be preserved against conflict (Pfeffer, 1997). Predominantly, organizations have at least a single goal, which is the survival if not the improvement of the organization. Individuals who are not willing in supporting the organization’s thrust towards growth commonly leave. Individuals’ welfare and status are often at least fairly interconnected to the interests and standing of the organization in which they are an affiliate or an employee, creating some cohesion of interests in keeping the organization functioning. This can be viewed through noting the frequency of individual identification through their occupation and their employment and other associations. Membership in prestigious organizations bestows status on the member, and employment in an organization that is bigger or takes home more monetary value typically conveys larger financial compensations (ibid). Hence, it is safe to assume that organizations are more likely than other social networks to uphold an aim of survival and self-perpetuation, have more evidently distinct, differentiated, and protected limitations, and frequently have some formal relationship with the state that acknowledges their existence as discrete social entities, duty-bound to recompense taxes as a unit, probable of taking legal action and being litigated, and so forth. II. Organizations from a Critical Theory Perspective A great deal, although not all, of the literature on organizations attempts to take in hand managerial problems, such as the process of enhancing organizational performance, the method to exercise more efficient control over behaviour in any work-related task or activity, the practice of creating and managing organizational culture, the course of action of recognizing and developing leaders, and so on. The prevailing framework in most of the literature available on the topic of organizational theory is the functionalist perspective, which states that, “The functionalist paradigm has provided the foundation for most modern theory and research on the subject of organizations. The perspective, encourage/s us to see the role of values as a separate variable in the research process. Functionalist theory has typically viewed organization as a problematic phenomenon, and has seen the problem of organization as synonymous with the problem of ‘efficiency’ and, more recently, of ‘effectiveness’ (Morgan, 1990, p. 15). The language of competence and success, the assumption of intended reciprocity and transactions, as far as the economic model is concerned, and the summons of environmental or other competitive regulatory systems, restrictions and pressure are often addressed in the organizations literature. Apiece of these linguistic and hypothetical principles has the end product of reproducing several organizational outcomes as unavoidable and generated without much involvement of human agency. Restraints, competition, and effectiveness imply that what has taken place is either a necessity of organizational survival or willingly favoured by those involved or both. The position of those victimized by the thrust for efficiency, the reality that some are underprivileged by organizational manipulations and the probability that social arrangements are and can be selected is oftentimes lacking from the arguments. Social scientist generally create a sense of the concept of the backward-looking accounts produced by economic frameworks that illustrate the efficiency of organizational structures, and make recommendations on the basis of social science theories to reinforce managerial control. Therefore, in a sense, many of those who conduct organization studies merely become ‘servants of power’ (Baritz, 1960). As a response to the dominance of the managerialist and functionalist perspective, a few of alternatives of critical theory have emerged to challenge traditional interpretation of organizations and to suggest other theoretical frameworks for understanding them. Critical theory or critical studies have materialized in law, the humanities and the social sciences. One of the logical definitions of critical theory was declared by Alvesson and Willmott, “A fundamental claim of the proponents of CT is that social science can and should contribute to the liberation of people from unnecessarily restrictive traditions, ideologies, assumptions, power relations, identity formations, and so forth, that inhibit or distort opportunities for autonomy, clarification of genuine needs and wants, and thus greater and lasting satisfaction” (1992, p. 435). A good deal, although not completely all, of critical organization theory originates from Marxist roots, and there have been several of experimental studies in a Marxian orthodox that disputed a number of the accepted knowledge of organization theory. Fundamentally, the Marxist approach began in essence as an analysis of the prevailing rationalist views; Marxist dispute that organizational arrangements are not rational systems for performing task-related activities but rather, they are instruments of the power elite system established to take full advantage of control and profits. The division of labour and effort is not in fact to enhance efficiency and productivity but to ‘deskill’ workers, to put out of place good judgment from workers to managers and to produce simulated divisions among the labour force; then a hierarchical structure develops as a tool of control and a channel for the accumulation of capital through the requisition of surplus value. Moreover, human networks and reforms are misled due to the lack of challenge to the deep-seated oppressive and exploitative nature of organizations. In reality, they rally round it to nourish it through taking for granted the importance of a genuine correspondence of goals (Scott, 1992). There are two issues in which the Marxist tradition creates the most straightforward challenge to conventional organization theory, which are the structuring of tasks and responsibilities within enterprises and in the appreciation of relations among ventures and between ventures and the society and the underlying causes for those social networks. III. Industrial Organization Theory Media economists, over the years, have exploited industrial organization theory to investigate on a variety of issues with which policymakers have been concentrating upon. These concerns include “the extent to which various media industries are highly concentrated, what should be done to increase television program diversity, the presence of and impact of vertical integration in media markets, and the impact of various markets structure variables on the pricing of advertising time and space” (Wirth, 1995, p. 15). The fundamental assumption of the most generally recognized approach to industrial organization analysis is that firm or industry performance is established through the behaviour of the firms within a specified market conditions, and that firm performance is verified by several market composition variables. Generally, it is supposed that variables linked with market configuration can be manipulated or modified through policy involvement to bolster firm performance and, consequently, market behaviour. When policymakers amend the constitution of a market to enhance firm efficiency and in due course market conduct, it is referred to as ‘structural remedy’. Whereas, when policymakers endeavour to openly manipulate firm performance through putting limit to firm conduct via the sanctioning of behavioural parameters, the policy is referred to as a ‘conduct remedy’ (ibid, p. 15). Nevertheless, this paradigm of the industrial organization theory has been subjected to major criticisms such as that market structure is not internally agreed on because performance and behaviour often influence market orientation; that market conduct is a multi-dimensional model and hence extremely complicated to characterize and measure for application as a dependent variable in multiple regression analysis (Cable, 1994, p. 3). Moreover, the fundamental statements of this paradigm result in the conclusion that perfect competition is the ultimate market structure; have guided economists who rebuff the neoclassical framework to industrial organization analysis to reject the paradigm. New industrial organization economists have initiated the use of the game theory to rise above some of the problems of the paradigm aforementioned. The game theory has the potential to develop oligopoly structures of the strategic activities of firms in markets and of individual managers within firms. Oligopoly frameworks formulated in this condition have, “yet to yield compelling mechanic solutions to oligopoly pricing problems. It has helped identify certain general structural characteristics of rivalries involving conflict mixed with incentives for cooperation. It confirms that anything can happen in oligopoly, depending upon firm conjectures about rival behaviour, and it suggests that those conjectures depend crucially on past interactions in an uncertain environment” (Scherer & Ross, 1990, p. 220). The concept of contestability corresponds to one instance of amending the assumption that market orientation is intrinsic. Baumol (1982) maintains that firm size allocation within an industry derives from competitive constraints to regulate costs, proposing that industry performance creates industry formation. Hence, Baumol finalizes that monopoly has an unbiased to positive result on society. Conclusively, Downs (1957), Buchanan (1968) and Tullock (1976) have formulated innovative industrial organization economists with public choice theory, which postulates that politicians, legislators, policymakers, and others attempt to maximize their personal interests rather than the public’s wellbeing. This resulted in the insight that government intervention is not an assurance towards economic improvement (Wirth, 1995, p. 18). Decisively, these developments in industrial organization theory primarily focus on the processes by which economic means endeavours in activities that would improve their welfare over time in an unstable and dynamic world. However, economic decisions are guided by resorting to codes of behaviour. IV. Organizational Performance One of the most important objectives of organization studies is not merely to provide explanation and envisage outcomes within organizations but also to be proficient in understanding the differential performance among organizations; some organizations execute better than others. Apparently, there is a substantial managerial curiosity in grasping the various facets of performance, but there are theoretical causes as well for challenging to explain the phenomenon which shows that some organizations perform better than others. Performance disparities, once commonly apprehended, will almost completely result in efforts to replicate the success of the more competent organizations. Logically, performance variations build pressures for replication. Second, to the degree that competitive markets operate, both labour and resources will be extracted to more progressive organizations, in order that through time a rolling process of natural selection supports better performing organizations. Hence, recognizing the elements affecting performance can guide individuals to envisage the appearance of the distribution of organizational attribute in the future, particularly those features related with success will be more regularly embodied in the populace due to the courses of mimetic adjustment and natural selection (Pfeffer, 1997, p. 156). The examination of organizational performance is an expansive topic and incorporates inputs from economics as well as organization theory. The three most well-known organizational frameworks for understanding ‘performance-structural contingency theory and the literature on organizational design, the population ecology of organizations, with its focus on competition and natural selection as a way of understanding organizational births and deaths, and the recent work on the effects of management practices, particularly with respect to how the firm manages its human resources, on organizational performance typically measured in terms of productivity, quality, or stock market performance” (ibid, p. 156). The rapid development of organizational researchers situated in schools of business hoisted the amount of empirical studies. Declaring a discipline of organization theory and situating it within schools of business result in an emphasis rather dissimilar from that which would have taken place within the walls of the social sciences, chiefly as part of sociology. The sociological focal point was substituted by a more managerial point of reference. In a sociological approach in examining organizations, the focus is on who controls and the outcomes of that control. On the contrary, the main inquiry emerging from a business school bends forward to more understanding on how to appreciate and hence formulate resourceful and competent organizations (Hinings & Greenwood, 2002). V. The Prospect of the Organization Theory There are some major themes that surround the field of organization studies and controversies that illustrate attempts to understand these universal social entities. There are concerns given relatively diminutive importance by the field even though they are in reality significant in the environment and cause some remarkable challenges for a number of threads of organization theory. These concerns include the dynamic nature of organization limitations, the employment networks, and the dimension allocation of organizations, modifications in managerial independence in proportion by changes in the principal markets, shifting organizational demography as the labour force composition alters and as organizations globalize and alteration in the extent of wage inequality in organizations and, as a repercussion, in many developed countries (Pfeffer, 1997). On the other hand, it is quite recognized in the field of organizational theory that relationships matter. Through establishing connections with one another and maintaining those relationships over time, individuals are able to perform their tasks together to accomplish undertakings that they either could not realize by themselves or could only be pulled off with painstaking difficulties. The theory of social capital embraces this principle. People associate themselves to others through a series of networks and they are inclined to possess communal values and characteristics; to the scope that these networks represent a resource, they can be perceived as shaping a form of capital. Entrepreneurs and managers nowadays are venturing into the realm of social capital because of two important elements that trail with it, which are information and influence. Social capital may confer ease of access to information, which is then a crucial building block of entrepreneurial endeavors. Social capital improves the relevance and quality of information exchanged through social networks. Influence in the other hand, is another latent benefit of social capital. Individuals extract responsibilities from others in the set of connections and control these obligations at a later period. The influence and power of entrepreneurs and managers who have disconnected or distant networks are more favorable than those who maintain a closer social network ties. Organization theory has more value and relevance than simply as a modern instrument for senior managers. It has much to contribute on the nature of contemporary public and private organizations, the process of organizational development and the methods of design, operation and adjustment basically are fabricators of the privileged and the disadvantaged. An intellectual in one field of organization theory contends that as organizations progress, they continue to be a sign of the original attempts of foundation. Works Cited Baritz, J. H. ( 1960). Servants of power. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press. Baumol, W. J. ( 1982 ). "Contestable markets: An uprising in the theory of industrial structure". American Economic Review, 72, 1-15. Buchanan, J. M. ( 1968 ). Demand and supply of public goods. 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