BU398 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Decision-Making, Railways Act 1921, Virtual Team
Document Summary
Organizations use various structural alternatives to help them achieve their purpose and goals. Structural changes are needed to reflect new strategies or respond to changes in other contingency factors such as environment, technology, size and life cycle and culture. Introduce basic concepts of organizational structure and show how to design structure as it appears on the organization chart. Organizational structure: designates formal reporting relationships (# of levels in the hierarchy and the span of. Identifies the grouping together of individuals into departments and of departments into the total organization. Includes the design of systems to ensure effective communication, coordination and integration of efforts across departments. The organization should be designed to provide both vertical and horizontal information flow as necessary to accomplish the organization"s overall goals: organizations can choose whether to orient toward: Traditional organization designed for efficiency which emphasizes vertical communication and control. Centralized decision making: problems and decisions are funnelled to top levels of the hierarchy for resolution.
