Organizational Behavior
Answer the following questions:
1. Administrative theorists concluded many decades ago that the most effective organizations have a narrow span of control. Yet today's top-performing manufacturing firms have a wide span of control. Why is this possible? Under what circumstances, if any, should manufacturing firms have a narrow span of control?
The best-performing manufacturing operations today rely on self-directed team, so direct supervision is supplemented with other coordinating mechanisms. Self-directed teams coordinate mainly through informal communication and specialized knowledge, so formal hierarchy plays a minor role.
A narrow span of control is necessary where employees perform highly interdependent jobs because employees tend to experience more conflict with each other, which requires more of a manager’s time to resolve. 2. Leaders of large organizations struggle to identify the best level and types of centralization and decentralization. What should companies consider when determining the degree of decentralization?
A company should consider the size of the organization, as the number of employees increase, jobs specialization increases due to a greater division of labor. The greater division of labor requires more elaborate coordinating mechanism
3. IBM is becoming a globally integrated enterprise. What does this organization look like in terms of departmentalization? What challenges might face companies that try to adopt the globally integrated enterprise model?
IBM has an established Chain of Command, currently the vice president of worldwide engineering, day to day work locations is where the procurement center located.
A company that wants to work towards a globally integrated enterprise may face challenge on their guest. For instance getting sensitive to cultural and market difference and having local representation to support that sensibility.
4. From an employee perspective, what are the advantages and
1. Administrative theorists concluded many decades ago that the most effective organizations have a narrow span of control. Yet today's top-performing manufacturing firms have a wide span of control. Why is this possible? Under what circumstances, if any, should manufacturing firms have a narrow span of control?
The best-performing manufacturing operations today rely on self-directed team, so direct supervision is supplemented with other coordinating mechanisms. Self-directed teams coordinate mainly through informal communication and specialized knowledge, so formal hierarchy plays a minor role.
A narrow span of control is necessary where employees perform highly interdependent jobs because employees tend to experience more conflict with each other, which requires more of a manager’s time to resolve. 2. Leaders of large organizations struggle to identify the best level and types of centralization and decentralization. What should companies consider when determining the degree of decentralization?
A company should consider the size of the organization, as the number of employees increase, jobs specialization increases due to a greater division of labor. The greater division of labor requires more elaborate coordinating mechanism
3. IBM is becoming a globally integrated enterprise. What does this organization look like in terms of departmentalization? What challenges might face companies that try to adopt the globally integrated enterprise model?
IBM has an established Chain of Command, currently the vice president of worldwide engineering, day to day work locations is where the procurement center located.
A company that wants to work towards a globally integrated enterprise may face challenge on their guest. For instance getting sensitive to cultural and market difference and having local representation to support that sensibility.
4. From an employee perspective, what are the advantages and