fundamental characteristics of organising
Essay Questions:
1. Discuss the fundamental characteristics of organising.
Organising is important because it follows the management function of planning. Planning and strategy define what to do; organising defines how to do it. Organisation structure is a tool that managers use to harness resources for getting things accomplished. Organising is the deployment of organisational resources to achieve strategic goals. The deployment of resources is reflected in the organisation's division of labour into specific departments and jobs, formal lines of authority, and mechanisms for coordinating diverse organisation tasks.
Work specialisation, sometimes called division of labour, is the degree to which organisational tasks are subdivided into separate jobs.
The chain of command is an unbroken line of authority that links all persons in an organisation and shows who reports to whom.
The span of management is the number of employees reporting to a supervisor. Sometimes called the span of control, this characteristic of structure determines how closely a supervisor can monitor subordinates. The average span of control used in an organisation determines whether the structure is tall or flat. A tall structure has an overall narrow span and more hierarchical levels. A flat structure has a wide span, is horizontally dispersed, and has fewer hierarchical levels.
Centralisation and decentralisation pertain to the hierarchical level at which decisions are made. Centralisation means that decision authority is located near the top of the organisation. With decentralisation, decision authority is pushed downward to lower organisation levels.
2. Describe functional and divisional approaches to structure.
Functional structure
Functional structure is the grouping of positions into departments based on similar skills, expertise, and resource use.
A functional structure can be thought of as departmentalisation by organisational resources because each type of
1. Discuss the fundamental characteristics of organising.
Organising is important because it follows the management function of planning. Planning and strategy define what to do; organising defines how to do it. Organisation structure is a tool that managers use to harness resources for getting things accomplished. Organising is the deployment of organisational resources to achieve strategic goals. The deployment of resources is reflected in the organisation's division of labour into specific departments and jobs, formal lines of authority, and mechanisms for coordinating diverse organisation tasks.
Work specialisation, sometimes called division of labour, is the degree to which organisational tasks are subdivided into separate jobs.
The chain of command is an unbroken line of authority that links all persons in an organisation and shows who reports to whom.
The span of management is the number of employees reporting to a supervisor. Sometimes called the span of control, this characteristic of structure determines how closely a supervisor can monitor subordinates. The average span of control used in an organisation determines whether the structure is tall or flat. A tall structure has an overall narrow span and more hierarchical levels. A flat structure has a wide span, is horizontally dispersed, and has fewer hierarchical levels.
Centralisation and decentralisation pertain to the hierarchical level at which decisions are made. Centralisation means that decision authority is located near the top of the organisation. With decentralisation, decision authority is pushed downward to lower organisation levels.
2. Describe functional and divisional approaches to structure.
Functional structure
Functional structure is the grouping of positions into departments based on similar skills, expertise, and resource use.
A functional structure can be thought of as departmentalisation by organisational resources because each type of