Motivation and Organizational Behavior Quiz

Learning Objectives (Chapter 7)

• Identify factors influencing managers' choice of organizational structure
• Explain how managers group tasks into motivating and satisfying jobs for employees
• Describe types of organizational structures and why one is chosen over another
• Explain the need for managers to coordinate jobs, functions, and divisions using the hierarchy of authority and integrating mechanisms
• Describe how technology aids in building strategic alliances and network structures to enhance efficiency and effectiveness

Designing Organizational Structure

• Organizing is the process by which managers establish the structure of working relationships among employees to achieve goals
• Organizational Structure is a formal system of task and reporting relationships that coordinates and motivates organizational members to reach organizational goals

Factors Affecting Organizational Structure

• Organizational environment
• Strategy
• Technology
• Human resources

Job Design

• Job Design is the process managers use to divide tasks into specific jobs
• Job Simplification is reducing the number of tasks each worker performs
• Job Enlargement is increasing the number of different tasks in a given job by altering the division of labor
• Job Enrichment is increasing the degree of responsibility a worker has over a job

Job Characteristics Model

• Skill variety: Employee range of skills used
• Task identity: Worker's involvement in all aspects of the production process
• Task significance: Worker's feeling that the task is meaningful to the organization
• Autonomy: Employee freedom to schedule tasks and carry them out
• Feedback: Worker receiving direct feedback on job performance

Grouping Jobs into Functions

• Functional Structure is the organizational structure that combines all departments required to produce a company's goods or services.
• Functional Structure (Home Depot) Advantage: Promotes learning among employees performing similar jobs; Easy for managers to monitor and evaluate workers
• Functional Structure (Home Depot) Disadvantage: Difficulties with communication between departments, Departments focus on department goals rather than organizational goals

Divisional Structures

• Composed of separate business units where functions work together to produce a specific product for a specific customer
• Product Structure: Each product line or business is served by its own division
• Advantages of Product Structure: Functional managers specialize in one product area; Division managers become experts in their area; Corporate managers do not need direct supervision of the division; Divisional management improves the use of resources
• Geographic Structure: Each region or country is served by a self-contained division
• Global Geographic Structure: Managers locate different divisions in each world region where the organization operates
• Global Product Structure: Not the country or regional managers, but the product divisions, decide where to manufacture and market their products in foreign countries
• Market Structure: Each kind of customer is served by a self-contained division.

Matrix Design Structure

• Organizational structure grouping people and resources by both function and product
• Product structure: Employees are permanently assigned to a cross-functional team

Coordinating Functions and Divisions

• Authority: Power to hold people responsible for actions and decisions about organizational resources
• Hierarchy of Authority: Organization's chain of command
• Span of Control: Number of subordinates reporting directly to a manager
• Line Manager: Individual in the chain of command with formal authority over people and resources
• Staff Manager: Individual responsible for managing a specialist function like finance or marketing

Tall and Flat Organizations

• Tall Organization: Many levels of organizational hierarchy relative to company size.
• Flat Organization: Fewer levels of organizational hierarchy relative to company size.

Centralization and Decentralization of Authority

• Decentralizing Authority: Giving lower-level managers and non-managerial employees the right to make important decisions about how to use organizational resources

Integrating and Coordinating Mechanisms

• Integrating Mechanisms: Tools to increase communication and coordination among functions and divisions
• Liaison Roles: A role to facilitate communication and coordination among individuals in different departments
• Task Forces: Group of managers from different departments working together to perform organizational tasks
• Cross-Functional Teams: Group of managers from different departments performing organizational tasks
• Integrating Roles: A position or role whose sole purpose is to integrate different areas of the organization

Strategic Alliances

• Formal agreements that engage two or more companies to exchange and share resources in order to produce a desired product
• B2B network structure: A series of strategic alliances that an organization creates to ensure it can produce and market a product
• Outsource: Using outside suppliers and manufacturers to produce goods and services
• Boundaryless Organization: Members are linked through technology rather than seeing each other daily

Knowledge Management Systems

• Company-specific virtual information system that systematizes the knowledge of employees and facilitates sharing and integration of expertise.

Organizational Control

• Controlling: Process where managers monitor and regulate how effectively and efficiently an organization and its members are performing the activities necessary to achieve organizational goals

Control Systems and Technology

• Formal target-setting, monitoring, evaluation, and feedback systems to track how well the company’s strategy and structure are performing.

Control Systems and its elements

• Be flexible so managers can respond quickly to organizational changes
• Provide accurate and timely info regarding organizational performance
• Should be able to respond as needed, be accurate and provide info in a timely manner

Three Types of Control

• Feedforward Control: Anticipate problems before they occur
• Concurrent Control: Manage problems as they occur (immediate feedback) during the process
• Feedback Control: Manage problems and correct errors after they arise

Four Steps in Organizational Control

1. Establish standards (goals) against which performance is evaluated
2. Measure actual performance
3. Compare actual performance against standards
4. Evaluate and initiate corrective actions if needed

Output Control

• Financial measures of performance such as return on investment (ROI), liquidity ratios (current and quick ratios), profit margin
• Organizational goals and operating budgets

Behavior Control

• Direct supervision: Engaging in direct monitoring of an employee’s behavior
• Management by Objectives (MBO): Establish goals and objectives with subordinates and evaluate extent to which they are being achieved.
• The Balanced Scorecard: Financial, customer service, internal business processes, and organization's capacity for learning and growth.
• Bureaucratic control: A comprehensive system of rules and standards to control behavior

Organizational Culture and Control

• Organizational Culture: Shared beliefs, expectations, values, norms, work routines that influence how members relate and work together to achieve organizational goals
• Clan Control: Control exerted through shared values, norms, standards of behavior, and expectations

Adaptive versus Inert Culture

• Adaptive Culture: Values and norms help build momentum and grow and change as needed for effectiveness
• Inert Culture: Values and norms do not motivate employees or inspire them leading to stagnation and failure.

Organizational Change

• Movement away from the current state to a desired future state to improve efficiency and effectiveness

Lewin's Force-Field Theory of Change

• Two opposing forces impacting organizational change: Forces for change, Forces resisting change.
• Three Stages: Unfreezing, Changing, Refreezing

Four Steps in Organizational Change Process

1. Assess the need for change
2. Decide on and define the change
3. Implementing the change
4. Evaluate the change

Organizational Learning

• Process by which managers increase abilities of organizational members about how to understand and respond to changes, for decision making about implementing change

Implementing Change

• Top-Down Change: Top managers initiate change throughout the organization
• Bottom-up Change: Managers at all levels develop a change plan together

Recruitment and Selection

• Recruitment: Activities to develop a pool of qualified candidates
• Selection: Process to determine qualifications of job applicants and likelihood of successful job performance

Human Resource Planning

• Human Resource Planning (HRP): Forecasting current and future human resources needs
• Outsourcing: Using outside suppliers to perform services or build products
• Job Analysis: Identifying tasks, duties, responsibilities of a job and knowledge, skills, and abilities that are required to perform the job
• Recruiting - Internal Recruiting, External Recruiting, Lateral Move
• Selection Process
• Reliability: Measuring the same outcome every time
• Validity: Measuring what is intended

Performance Appraisal and Feedback

• Performance appraisal: Evaluating employee performance and contributions.
• Objective appraisals: Numerical data, metrics
• Subjective appraisals: Judgement-based appraisals
• 360-Degree appraisal: Evaluating performance by peers, subordinates, superiors, and clients
• Formal appraisals: Evaluating performance at specified intervals
• Informal appraisals: Evaluating ongoing performance

Pay and Benefits

• Pay: Base salaries, pay raises, and bonuses
• Pay Level: Relative position of an organization's pay compared to other organizations in the same industry
• Benefits: Legally required benefits (social security, workers' compensation, unemployment insurance) and voluntary benefits (health insurance, retirement plans, daycare).
• Benefits Plan types: Cafeteria-style benefit plans

Labor Relations

• Activities managers engage in to create effective relationships with labor unions representing the workers' interests
• Collective Bargaining: Negotiation process between labor unions and management to resolve conflicts and disputes.

Training and Development

• Training: Teaching organizational members how to perform existing jobs, skills, knowledge
• Needs Assessment: Evaluating what skills and knowledge employees need
• Types of Training: Classroom instruction, on-the-job training, apprenticeships
• Types of Development: Varied work experiences, formal education

Effective Communication

• Communication: Sharing of info to understand between 2 or more parties
• Communication process: Transmission phase (sending of messages/info) and feedback phase (ensuring common understanding)
• Information Richness of communication media: Quality of info carried by different channels (Face-to-face, spoken communication electronically, personally addressed written, impersonal written)
• Communication Networks: Formal (organizational chart), informal (grapevine) External (interest-oriented)
• Communication Skills: Importance of managers as senders (clear, complete messages, appropriate mediums) and receivers (attention, listening, empathy)