Chapter 3

Organizing

Definition

Organizing is the second function of management, which involves the assignment of tasks, the grouping of tasks into departments, and the allocation of resources to departments.

Organizing is deciding how best to group organizational activities and resources.

Just as the child selects different kinds of building blocks, the manager can choose a variety of structural possibilities. And just as the child can assemble the blocks in any number of ways, so too can the manager put the organization together in many different ways.

Basic Organizing Elements that managers must address:

• designing jobs

• grouping jobs

• establishing reporting relationships between jobs

• distributing authority among jobs

• coordinating activities between jobs

• differentiating among jobs

According to Edgar Henry Schien, a prominent psychologist, all organizations share four characteristics:

• Coordination of efforts

• Common goal or purpose

• Division of labor

• Hierarchy of authority

Benefits of Organizing

Productivity increases when human and material resources are effectively organized.

Synergism- combining efforts to collectively accomplish the tasks that would exceed simple sum of individual efforts. It is achieved through the integration of specialized tasks.

Effective organizing provide the following benefits:

1. Division of work that avoids duplicate, conflict, and misuse of resources, both material and human.

2. Clarity of individual performance expectations and specialized tasks.

3. A logical flow of work activities that can be comfortably performed by individuals or groups.

4. Established channels of communication that enhance decision making

5. Coordinating mechanisms that ensure harmony among organization members engaged in diversified activities.

6. Focused efforts that relate to objectives logically and efficiently.

7. Appropriate authority structures with accountability to enhance planning and controlling throughout the organization.

Management effectiveness is improved by obtaining the right resources , organizing management and employees to work together toward organizational objectives, and efficiency is improved by using the most productive combinations of material and human resources.

Effectiveness is doing the right things, whereas efficiency implies doing things right.

Decisional Roles of ManagersHenry Mintzberg identifies four decisional roles that

reflect managers’ choice-making responsibilities:

1. Entrepreneur. Some mangers do not start their own firms, but for complex organization, they act as entrepreneurs by discovering new ways to use resources and technology.

2. Disturbance Handler. Managers are for resolving problems, which is their most stressful and challenging role.

3. Resource allocator. This requires careful proportioning of scarce resources such as time, money, material or manpower to accomplish all that is expected.

4. Negotiator. Negotiating extends to internal and external managerial activities such as negotiating materials or supplies prices and terms, wages and conditions of employment, sales and union contracts.