Organizational Theory, Design, and Change – Term Paper

Organizational Productivity

In organizations, it is practically impossible to understand its design if one does not possess organization theory and design knowledge. In an institution of higher education, making decisions entirely depends on the structure of the organization, the culture supported and the effectiveness and efficiency of leaders in meeting needs and wants. For example, the scientific theory of management as Fredrick Taylor theorized it helps my understanding of specialization, and contribution to organizational effectiveness, and overall productivity. Specialization improves the understanding of a task, and once an individual takes their usual roles and duties seriously, they will find it easy to handle them in future, easier to navigate obstacles and identify opportunities and gaps to increase productivity and minimize effort. The realization works for me because in an institution of higher education, identifying effective and staled policies becomes easy. On the other hand, the proper utilization of resources proposed in the resource dependence framework serves one with the realization that utilizing the few resources within an organization to enhance performance can work for them. In my case, I always believe in doing my while minimizing resources. My decision stems from the idea that using many resources while keeping output at a limited point works against an organization and exposes it to negative consequences. However, minimizing resource use and maintaining productivity levels improves an organization’s performance in the end.

Taking into account the theoretical approaches applicable to organizations, an employee can predict the supported culture in an organization, and use it to determine the relationship that the two entities; an organization and an employee can possibly forge. For example, an organization whose leaders preach resource interdependence and properly observe the functions of managers can make a potential or existing employee understand the level of growth that an organization targets to gain. In my case, knowledge of organization theory and design has improved my understanding of the effective and non-effective strategies and cultures that purport to work against employees while benefitting an organization. With the understanding, I have strategically improved my relationship with organizations that work to meet both the needs and wants of employees and organization while seeking to strike a balance. However, having knowledge of organization theory and design but lacking the capacity to interpret the content can lead to disastrous experiences for an employee or experience. With the above observation, I always ensure that my understanding theory and relating it to real-life experiences in organizations can serve to improve the situation.

Importance of Leadership in an Organization

Organizational leaders play a crucial role to success, and position their actions and decisions at the heart of their organizations. The leadership process in organizations meets several responsibilities in outlining a supported organization design. Most important to the process entails steering planning activities and following the laid-down ethics as pertains to planning. Today’s organizations call for leaders to take planning seriously. However, there can arise obstacles if such leaders do not identify the proper routes that can enhance the realization of effective planning. For instance, without understanding external opportunities, creating a clear action plan and knowing the possible challenges, a leader may find it hard to plan activities and events (Mittenthal, 2002, p. 1). Among the factors that fall under this category, and which continually threaten a leader’s ability to plan include political social and economic issues. As much as all the three factors can generate opportunities that will propel a business entity or organization’s leaders to plan, they can at the same time cause drawbacks due to the challenges that may occur from their fluctuation. With the observation in mind, proper and easy planning should come easy, and the opposite is possible in the absence of the realization of the challenges and other external factors.

In addition to the social, political and economic factors that influence planning, it is also possible for a leader to find it hard to plan if there is a lack of a comprehensive and realistic evaluation of the weaknesses and strengths of an organization. In relation to this view, gaining as much information as possible pertaining to stakeholders and shareholders can improve the overall outcome of a planning process (Mittenthal, 2002, p. 2). The research that a leader needs to conduct in this instance includes the operating costs of resources and other services and operations that directly or indirectly influence an organization. In addition to a review of the surging costs of resources, it may also seem difficult for a manager to plan and execute plans if they lack the necessary knowledge and skills to assess the growth levels of an organization. Such an evaluation criteria will give rise to a fruitful realization of the need to change policies, introduce new ones or adopt improved practices to support purported changes. Planning should also consider an inclusive approach. For example, if a leader fails to include all the employees, funders, clients, stakeholders and other parties meant to fit into a specific plan, a proposed plan can fail or cause the planning process to meet several obstacles that can influence negative results. One of the issues to consider when it comes to the inclusion of all the stakeholders and shareholders within a planning process includes checking their opinions to identify the extent to which they agree or disagree with a plan. Most important to a planning process includes the power of the planning committee. It is extremely possible for a leader to plan in today’s organizations if they pick the right individuals to head a planning process. Picking qualified and competent individuals from a team may seem hard and simple at the same time. As a result, a leader should practice caution when constituting their team, and should ensure that members within a planning team own the aggressiveness to make such a plan succeed (Mittenthal, 2002, p. 4).

Taking note of ethical ramifications in planning puts organizational leaders in a position to improve their understanding of the whole process and enhance the success of the whole process. In today’s organizations, one of the factors that has been sliding backwards, creating an ethical gap relates to trust. Trust, in its essentiality is a factor that contributes to the realization of an effective and working relationship between people in an organization (Butts, 2012, p. 125). As a result, planning without taking into concern the issue of trust can cause an ethical ramification on the side of a leader, and it may haunt them in the end. There exist many reasons that place trust as an important issue when considering the ethical ramifications that can arise from a planning process. For example, trust contributes to the economic value in organizations, improves strategic relationships and productivity, improves the working conditions that exit between a leader and their followers, empowers, and motivates job satisfaction (Butts, 2012, p. 125). Since planning is a critical process that needs the careful attention of a leader, it is in their interest to understand the role of being truthful to oneself and to an organization in making plans as a leader. Before coming up with a strategic plan, a leader needs to ensure that they do not in their plans, exploit the innocence of employees to include inappropriate clauses that may otherwise widen ethical ramifications if anything goes wrong (Butts, 2012, p. 127).At the same time, it is an ethical ramification if a leader, in their bid to plan, introduces obstacles that can block various processes and actions significant to an organization from taking place (Butts, 2012, p. 127). As a result, a leader needs to understand all the issues and possible effects that can result from their planning process, and conducting a proper background check can serve the issue better.

In conclusion, theoretical concepts of organization theory and design that have gained popularity in organizations include organizational culture by Edgar Schein, the resource dependence theory by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Gerald Salancik, the competing values framework by Cameron and Quin, Scientific Management by Fredrick Taylor, the functions of management by Henri Fayol and the balanced scorecard approach by Kaplan and Norton.In spite of the long list of theories, choosing the right strategy and making proper use of it works better than trying all the available options. At the same time, planning processes carry weight in organizations, and leaders need to work with the best practices to avoid confusions and future ethical ramifications.

References

Butts, J. B. (2012). Ethics in organizations and leadership.

Delke, V. F. (2015). The Resource Dependence Theory: Assessment and Evaluation as a

Contributing Theory for Supply Management.

Hasler, M. G. (2005). Leadership Development and Organizational Culture: Which Comes

First?. Online Submission.

Kaplan, R. S. (2008). Conceptual foundations of the balanced scorecard.Handbooks of

management accounting research, 3, 1253-1269.

Lincoln, S. (2010). From the individual to the world: how the competing values framework

can help organizations improve global strategic performance. Emerging Leadership Journeys, 3(1), 3-9.

Mahmood, Z., Basharat, M., & Bashir, Z. (2012). Review of classical management

theories. International Journal of Social Sciences and Education, 2(1), 512-5120.

McNamara, D. E. (2011). From Fayols Mechanistic To Todays Organic Functions Of

Management. American Journal of Business Education (AJBE), 2(1), 63-78.

Mittenthal, R. A. (2002). Ten keys to successful strategic planning for nonprofit and

foundation leaders. TCC Group, 7.

Poureisa, A., Ahmadgourabi, M. B., & Efteghar, A. (2013). Balanced scorecard: A new tool

for performance evaluation. Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research In Business, 5(1), 974-978.

Rahman, M. H. (2012). Henry Fayol and Frederick Winslow Taylor’s Contribution to

Management Thought: An Overview. ABC Journal of Advanced Research, 1(2), 32-41.

Szymaniec, K., & Austen, A. (2011). Resource dependence theory in public management.

Sun, S. (2009). Organizational culture and its themes. International Journal of Business and

Management, 3(12), 137.

Turan, H. Taylor’s “Scientific Management Principles”: Contemporary Issues in Personnel

Selection Period.

Yu, T., & Wu, N. (2009). A review of study on the competing values

framework. International Journal of Business and Management, 4(7), 37.