contingency

• Contingency Theory


  The "it depends" theory - Behavior must be selected to fit the particular circumstance. This answers the problem of both classical and neoclassical theories.
• Joan Woodward's Contingency Model

  • For maximal performance, org structure needed to match the type of production technology
  • 3 types of manufacturers: Small-batch, mass production, and continuous production
  • Producers of small batches of specialty products required a span of control that was moderate in size and a short chain of command
  • Mass Production, large span of control and long chain of command
  • Continuous process, largest span of control
  • Deals only with manufacturing organizations
• Lawrence and Lorsch's Model


  • Asserted that two processes determine the company's ability to keep up with external changes: differentiation and integration
  • Proposed that the stability of the environment dictates the most effective form of organization
  • Mechanistic Organization: an organization that depends on formal rules and regulations, makes decisions at higher levels of the organization and has smaller spans of control (for stable environments)
  • Organic Organization: organization with a large span of control, less formalized procedures, and decision-making at middle levels (for unstable environments)
  • Differentiation: complexity of the org structure – number of units, various orientations and philosophies of the managers, and the goals and interests of the organization's members
  • Integration: amount and quality of collaboration
• Fiedler's Contingency Model


  • Any individual's leadership style is effective only in certain situations
• Mintzberg's Contingency Model


  • Argued that one could describe an organization by looking at several categories of characteristics
  • The key mechanism used by the organization for coordinating its efforts
  • Functions and roles of people in the organization
  • The context in which the organization operates
  • The priority level depends on the goals
• Basic Forms of Coordination

  • Mutual Adjustments based on Informal Comms
  • Direct Supervision
  • Standardization of Work Process
  • Standardization of KSAOs
  • Standardization of Outputs
  • Standardization of norms (Culture)
• Seven Basic Parts of an Organization

  • Operating Core – responsible for conducting basic work duties that give the organization its defining purpose; transform raw goods into a sellable products
  • Strategic Apex – responsible for the overall success of the entire organization; associated with executive leadership
  • Middle Line – ensures that overall goals set by strategic apex are being carried out by the operating core; mid-levels managers
  • Technostructure – possess specific technical expertise that facilitates overall operation of the organization; accounting, HR, IT, law departments
  • Support Staff – aid the basic mission of the organization and typically includes the mailroom, security, and janitorial services
  • Ideology – belief system that compels commitment to a particular value; organizations should have singularly devoted to a particular mission, and all its actions are in pursuit if that mission; employees behave in accordance with their sincere conviction in the ideology of the organization, and can perform their work relatively independent of each other
  • Politics – side effect of ideology, causes divisiveness and conflict; the basis is the use of power that is neither formally authorized or widely accepted in the organization
• Lewin's Change Model


  • Change as a matter of modifying those forces that are acting to keep things stable
  • Any behavioral situation is characterized both by forces operating to maintain stability or equilibrium and by forces pushing for change
  • Intervention: the program or initiative suggested or implemented by the change agent
  • Evolutionary Change: continual process of upgrading or improving processes
  • Revolutionary Change: drastic changes
  • Change Agent: initiates the change, usually external to the organization, people who enjoy change and often make changes just for the sake of it
  • Client: recipient of the change effort
  • Change Resistant: individuals who prefer to keep things the way they are
  • Change Analysts: not afraid to change or make changes but want to make changes only if the changes will improve the organization
  • Receptive Changers: people who probably will not instigate change but are willing to change
  • Reluctant Changers: not instigate or welcome change, but they will change if necessary
  • Planned for change to occur in organizations with the least amount of tension and resistance
• 3 Steps of Change Process

  1. Unfreezing - forces that maintains the status quo are broken down, and the system is opened up for change

  2. Moving - real org change begins to happen

  3. Refreezing - changes become stabilized, and the organization reaches a new level of equilibrium
• Action Research Model


  • Cyclical nature
  • Initial research about the organization
  • Results from the research could be the guide for further activities
  • Sensemaking: what employees do to gain a better understanding of their workplace
• Perrow's Model


  • Examined information technology, which refers to all aspects of jobs
  • The structure of the organization adjusts to the technology
  • Among the various units of the organization
• Kotter's Change Model


  1. Increase Urgency

  2. Build Guiding Team

  3. Develop the Vision

  4. Communicate the Vision

  5. Empower Action, Remove Obstacles

  6. Create Short-Term Wins

  7. Build on Wins

  8. Embed changes into culture
• Adam Smith's Invisible Hand Theory

  Individuals are driven by self-interest and rationality will make decisions that lead to positive benefits for the whole economy
• Rational Choice Theory


  Individuals use rational calculations to make rational choices and achieve outcomes that are aligned with their own personal objectives
• Peter and Waterman's Well-Managed Model

  • Aims at formulating a descriptive model of choice which focuses on the expressive character of decision making in the organization
  • Based on empirical perception of how successful organizations are being run
• Vroom-Yetton Model


  • Provide a flowchart that can tell a leader process to go through when making a decision
• Social System


  • Structuring events or happenings, it has no formal structure, apart from its functioning
  • Sometimes referred to as informal component of an organization
• Components of Social Systems

  • Roles
  • Norms
  • Organizational Climate and Culture
• Roles


  • Expectations of others about appropriate behavior in a specific position
  • Impersonal
  • Related to task behaviors
  • Difficult to pin down, some people might define your role differently as how you define it or the other way around
  • Learned quickly and can produce major behavior changes
  • Roles and jobs are not the same, some people have several roles in one job (e.g., Head Manager, also specifically watches the production department, a mother)
• Role Issues


  • Role Conflict – when an individual is faced with incompatible or competing demands
  • Role Ambiguity – uncertainty about the behaviors to be exhibited in a role, or boundaries that define a role
  • Role Overload – when an individual feels overwhelmed from having too many responsibilities
  • Role Differentiation – the extent to which different roles are performed by employees in the same subgroup
• Norms


  • Shared group expectations about appropriate behavior
  • Establish the behavior expected of everyone in the group
  • Descriptive norms – developed through a process of observation
  • Injunctive norms - developed through a process of conforming to gain social approval
  • There is "oughtness" or "shouldness"
  • Usually more obvious for behavior judged to be important for the group
  • Norm must be first defined and communicated, either explicitly or implicitly
  • The group must be able to monitor behavior and judge whether the norm is being followed
  • Group must be able to reward conformity and punish nonconformity
• Organizational Climate


  • Shared meaning organizational members attach to the events, policies, practices, and procedures they experience and the behaviors they see being rewarded, supported, and expected
  • How things are done within an organization
• Organizational Culture


  • Languages, values, attitudes, beliefs, and customs of an organization
  • Complex pattern of variables that, when taken collectively, gives each organization its unique "flavor"
  • Three layers: Observable Artifacts (symbols, language, narratives, and practices), Espoused Values (values endorsed by the management), and Basic Assumptions (unobservable and are at the core of the org)
• Organizational Culture Profile


  Organizational reps sort 54 "value statements" describing such things as organizational attitudes toward quality, risk taking, and the respect the organization gives to workers into meaningful categories to provide a descriptive profile of the organization
• Organizational Practices Scale


  Designed specifically to measure organizational structure assesses the company's culture in terms of dimensions such as whether the organization is "process versus result oriented," etc.
• Person-Organization Fit (Person-Organization Congruence)


  • Process of gauging the degree of fit between the two parties is mutual
  • People populating the organization who most define its culture
• Downsizing


  • Decision to cut jobs, one of the most radical and tumultuous ways an organization can change in response to pressures
  • Reducing cost
  • Reduction-in-force
  • Greatest losses come from middle line, technostructure, and support staff
  • Horizontal Cut: involves the loss of jobs within a department, but the department remains within the organization
  • Vertical Cut: involves elimination of all jobs in the department
• Outsourcing


  Company use external employees to perform internal functions which known to be less costly than hiring its own employees to perform these services
• Offshoring


  Work performed domestically is exported to cheaper labor markets in overseas countries
• Organizational Merger


  Marriage of two organizations of equal status and power
• Acquisition


  • Procurement of property by another organization
  • Hostile Takeover: dominant organization thus acquires an unwilling partner to enhance its financial status
  • Parent: acquiring organization
  • Target: organization being acquired
  • 3 Phases: Precombination (emphasis on financial issues), Combination (clash between people as they focus on differences between partners), Postcombination (integrating two cultures)
• Organizational Structure


  • Arrangement of positions in an organization and the authority and responsibility relationships among them
  • The division of labor as well as patterns of coordination, communication, workflow, and formal power that direct organizational activities
• Division of Labor


  • Subdivision of work into separate jobs assigned to different people
  • Leads to job specialization to increase work efficiency
  • An organization's ability to divide work among people depends on how well those people can coordinate with each other
• Coordinating Mechanisms in Organizations

  • Informal Communication – sharing information on mutual tasks; forming common mental models to synchronize work activities
  • Formal Hierarchy – assigning legitimate power to individual, who then use this power to direct work processes and allocate resources
  • Standardization – creating routine patterns of behavior or output
• Elements of Organizational Structure

  • Chain of Command
  • Span of Control
  • Centralization and Decentralization
  • Formalization
  • Mechanistic vs. Organic Structure
• Traditional Organizational Structure


  • Have formally defined roles for their members, very rule driven, and are stable and resistant to change
  • Bureaucracy
  • Line-Staff Organizational Structure (Principle)
• Nontraditional Organizational Structure


  • Less formalized work roles and procedures (organic)
  • Generally, have fewer employees and may also occur as a small organization that is a subunit of a larger, more traditionally structured organization
• Team Organization


  Workers have defined jobs, not narrowly specialized positions common to traditionally structured organizations, collaborate among workers, and share skills and resources (e.g., group of psychologists working on a single case)
• Project Task Force


  Temporary, nontraditional organization of members from different departments or positions within a traditional structure who are assembled to complete a specific job or project (e.g., Avengers)
• Matrix Organization


  Structured of both product and function simultaneously