Organizational Effivtiveness

Organizational Effectiveness

Team "A"

University of Phoenix

Seminar in Human Resources Management

HRM/591

Jessica Wilson

Jan 20, 2007

Organizational Effectiveness

Organizational Structure

Organizational structure plays an important role in day-to-day functions of an organization. The delegation of authority, work specialization, and employee reporting framework are some of the elements that help determine what the organizational structure should be.

Organizational effectiveness is directly related to organizational design. The right organizational design adds to organization effectiveness by reducing duplication of activities, improving decision making, increasing coordination, facilitating efficient use of resources, ensuring proper level of management, and valuing employee’s opinion. An effective organization is critical in today’s dynamic, constantly changing, and highly competitive business environment. Organizational design encompasses several key areas. Leaders must address these areas of organizational design with the goals of the organization in mind. When contemplating the design or re-design of any organization, give careful consideration to organizational principles, structures, effectiveness, and change.

The first and most fundamental test of a design is whether it fits the company’s market strategy. There should be no dispute among senior members on the company’s market segments. If disputes exist, then new strategic thinking must be accomplished before continuing with the design process. Strategy and structure are misaligned when the organization cannot effectively respond to change. Competitors grabbing market share and the organization does not respond because cannot recognize the threat, downplays the threat, receives information of the threat in its corporately sanitized form, loses innovative ideas to deal with the threat stuck in is own bureaucracy (Levinson, 1994). Once market share is lost then come the lay-offs, employees signing on with other companies, and innovative accounting to provide good news.

Organizational Processes and Controls

Today the world has more and more of free flow of information leading to transfer of knowledge from a person or an organization to others. Whereas this invariably leads to faster development, it also impacts the competitive advantage held by the innovators of processes or technology. It has therefore become strategically