Organizational Structure and Culture

• Covers organizational structure and culture
• Resources by Fred C. Lunenburg and Allan C. Ornstein (2012) discusses educational administration: concepts and practices (pp.38-67)

Focusing Questions

• What is organizational structure?
• What are the key components of organizational structure and their functions in schools?
• How participatory management models influence organizational structure in schools?

Organizational Structure

• Framework that organizes, coordinates, and manages activities.
• Formal hierarchy of authority, roles, responsibilities, and relationships within the organization.
• Foundation for dividing, supervising, and executing work to achieve organizational goals.
• The entire system defines how vertical and horizontal control are organized and activated.
• Similarities exist between the key components and Henri Fayol’s 14 principles of management

Job Specialization

• Dividing work into specialized tasks and organizing them into distinct units.
• Examples include dividing a school into elementary, middle, and high school levels.

Alternatives to Job Specialization

• Systematically moving employees from one position to another occurs during job rotation.
• Broadening a job by increasing the number and variety of activities performed occurs during job enlargement.
• Job enrichment adds depth to a job by incorporating administrative activities (decision-making, staffing, budgeting, reporting).
• Job enlargement and job enrichment enable teachers to play a more active role in schools.

Departmentalization

• The organization-wide division of work.
• Departments indicate hierarchical relationships, with examples like Rector-University, Dean-Faculty, and Head-Department.

Functional Departmentalization in Educational Organizations Advantages:

• People performing the same functions work together.
• Each department is staffed by experts.
• Decision-making and coordination are easier.
• Resources are used more effectively.

Functional Departmentalization in Educational Organizations Disadvantages:

• Personnel possess narrow technical skills and knowledge.
• Overlooking the total system.
• Communication and coordination might be difficult.
• Conflict among departments.

Chain of Command

• The flow of authority and responsibility within an organization is the chain of command. -The flow involves two underlying principles: Unity of command and scalar principle

Unity of Command

• Each subordinate is responsible to only one person.
• They receive authority and responsibility from only one person.

Scalar Principle

• Authority and responsibility should flow in a direct line vertically from top management to the lowest level.
• This creates a hierarchy in organizations.
• Organizations vary in their degree of vertical division.
• Military and academia differ in this regard.

Authority and Responsibility

• The right to make decisions and direct the work of others indicates authority and responsibility.
• These legitimize organizational hierarchy and provides a basis for direction and control.

Centralization/Decentralization

• The pattern of sharing power is centralization/decentralization.
• Centralization retains authority at upper levels.
• Decentralization delegates authority to lower levels.

Decentralization Advantages

• The benefits include better use of human resources.
• Top-level administrators are less burdened.
• A more rapid response to external changes is achieved.

Line and Staff Authority

• A superior exercises direct supervision over a subordinate.
• Supervision occurs within the direct line of the chain of command, which relates to unity of command and the scalar principle.

Staff authority includes:

• Advisory roles. Collecting, developing, and analyzing information for line personnel to advise.
• "Assistant to" positions provide assistance but cannot give orders.

Span of Management

• The number of subordinates reporting directly to a superior.
• Larger spans occur at lower levels.
• Lower-level subordinates performing routine tasks can be effectively supervised over larger spans.

The Bureaucratic Model

• From bureau translated as "office," literally means "desk" plus kratia denoting "power of" which translates to power of office.
• Negative perceptions include rigidity, meaningless rules, red tape, paperwork, and inefficiency.
• Max Weber saw bureaucracy as the ideal form of organizational structure that activates rationalized behavior.

Bureaucratic Characteristics

• Divides all tasks into highly specialized jobs.
• Establishes responsibility and authority to carry out tasks.
• Rules ensure each task is performed according to a consistent system of abstract guidelines.
• Helps to ensure task performance is uniform.
• Arranges all positions according to the principle of hierarchy, and each lower office is under the control of a higher one.
• A chain of command exists from the top to the bottom of the organization.

Weberian Bureaucracy

• Maintaining social distance between managers and subordinates to implement impersonality, and ensures rational consideration influences decision-making instead of favoritism or prejudices.
• Promotions based on job-related performance ensures competence by basing employment on qualifications.
• Employee protection from arbitrary dismissal results in high levels of loyalty.

Bureaucratic Dysfunctions

• Weber's bureaucracy includes built-in dysfunctions despite being based on rational behavior .
• A high degree of division reduces the challenge and novelty of many jobs.
• Results may involve decreased performance, absenteeism, and turnover.
• Heavy reliance on bureaucratic rules can cause inefficiency and inertia, that become ends in themselves unrelated to the process, that may result in excessive red tape and rigidity.
• Hierarchy is practiced downward, as subordinates withhold information from superiors that leads to frustration because subordinates have no opportunity to participate in decision-making.
• Impersonality leads to rigid, control-oriented structures over people.

Participatory Management Model (PMM)

• An extension of the bureaucratic model.
• Stresses employee morale and satisfaction (integrates human relations and behavioral science approaches).
• Organization is developed to motivate employees.
• Leads to increased performance and productivity.

Theory X and Theory Y

• Douglas McGregor developed the theories in 1960
• Illustrates management views of people, control, operating practices, and organizational structure.

Theory X

• Assumes the average person dislikes work and will avoid it if possible.
• Employees must be coerced, controlled, directed, and threatened by authority.
• Incompatible with democratic and participatory organizations.

Theory Y

• Assumes work is as natural as rest or play.
• Commitment to objectives depends on rewards for achievement.
• People accept and seek responsibility under proper conditions.
• Focuses more on management philosophy than structure, wider spans of control and replaces hierarchy with decentralization .

Individual vs. Organization

• Organizational structure is incongruent with personal needs fulfillment.
• Bureaucratic organizations may treat employees as immature individuals.
• School administrators impose further restrictions on teachers.
• Reducing rigid rules minimizes bureaucratic restraints.
• More participatory practices can result in growth and development and eliminate incongruence between individuals and organizations.

System 4 Organization

• Rensis Likert opposed the bureaucratic model.
• His structural recommendations are organized under three key elements across four systems.

System 1 - Exploitative-Authoritative

• Bureaucratic or classical structure.
• Includes limited supportive leadership, centralized decision-making, fear-based motivation, and no teamwork.

System 4 - Participative Groups

• Involves high trust and confidence in superiors.
• Free communication in all directions.
• Cooperative teamwork.

System 4 has 3 key elements:

• Supportive managers who use support
• Group decision-making
• Manager's high performance goals for the institution.

Alternative Models of Organizational Structure

• Compliance (persuasion) theory includes three types of power to direct members' behavior and their involvement (Amitai Etzioni)

Persuasion Strategies:

• Rational persuasion, emotional appeal, social influence, or bargaining
• Consideration focuses on norms and social context, as well as ethical aspects.

Coercive Power:

• The use of force and fear to control lower-level participants results in alienative involvement: intense negative orientation and hostility.

Utilitarian Power:

• Remuneration or extrinsic rewards to control lower-level participants (fringe benefits, job security) results in calculative involvement: negative or positive orientation of low intensity, and desire to maximize personal gain.

Normative Power:

• Controls through allocating intrinsic rewards, and management manipulates symbolic rewards that results in moral involvement: positive orientation of high intensity and commitment to socially beneficial features, also forms of altruism may be performed.

Organizational Culture

• Shared philosophies, ideologies, beliefs, feelings, assumptions, expectations, attitudes, and norms and beliefs.

Characteristics of an organizational culture:

• Observed behavioral regularities and norms.
• Dominant values, philosophy and rules and feelings.
• Motivation, leadership, decision making, communication, change, job descriptions, selection, evaluation, control, and reward systems exert have influence organizational culture.

Creating Organizational Culture

• (Deal and Kennedy, Corporate Cultures) examines how leadership influences a specific culture

Creating Organizational Culture includes:

• Values, heroes, rites and rituals, and communication networks.
• general criteria, standards, or principles that guide the behavior.
• values has quality and instrumental and are exhibited by heroic, iconic figures
• there is rites and rituals performed around canonic figures
• Information circulates between priests and gossips.

Maintaining Organizational Culture

• The process of solidifying acceptance of values that involves creating role models is known as organizational socialization.

The elements of organizational socialization are as follows:

• Selection of staff.
• Orientation.
• Job mastery.
• Reward and control systems.
• Adherence to values.
• Creating role models.

Changing Organizational Culture

Involves various components:

• External enabling conditions.
• Internal permitting conditions.
• Controlling pressure.
• Triggering events.
• Cultural visioning.
• Culture change strategy.
• Culture change action plans.
• Implementation of interventions.
• Reformulation of culture. -Understanding their function involves understanding the organizational culture

Changing Organizational Culture Conditions

• The key is creating and promoting new cultural norms

External Enabling Conditions

• Support culture changes if they exist. Location in a school setting enables changes if they exist.

Internal Permitting Conditions

• A surplus of resources, system readiness, minimal coordination, and agent power.

Precipitating Pressure

• Atypical performance and stakeholder pressure.

Crises

• Crises associated with size and environmental uncertainty.

Environmental Calamities

• Trigger opportunities and large-scale shakeups. Revolution, desegregation, or a new administrative team.

Dimensions That Define the Culture of a School

• Creating a vision of a new climate.
• Strategy: Plan in place, actions and implementations, and then rewrite the overall function

Effects of Organizational Culture

• Administrative processes, leadership, and organizational processes influence change decision making and affect an organization’s structure.
• Key: The selection process, evaluation, and the reward system must all be in line with an organization’s culture.
• Important because this ensures performance because results are achieved

Typology of Organizational Culture

Carl Steinhoff and Robert Owens have developed this typology that has become a framework.

• This means analyzing organizational structure (history, beliefs, cultural norms, heroes)

Organizational Climate

• The total environmental quality inside an organization.
• The atmosphere between a school, school building, or department.

Key takeaway between climate and culture:

• Climate is rooted in psychology while culture is rooted in sociology.
• Climate has to do with individual perceptions in a current work setting, whereas culture reflects historical context.
• Culture refers to norms and climate refers to current atmosphere.
• Climate is more easily manipulated.

Open and Closed Climates

• An open climate presents an energetic, group driven environment.
• A closed climate shows apathy and no moving parts.

Healthy and Sick Schools

• Measured instrumentally.
• The instrument measures environment connection.
• Administrative/managerial control measured by student and principal behavior reflects outside elements.
• Healthier schools show healthy behavior between the elements.
• Schools become vulnerable without these elements.