Organizing Function of Management

Organizing Function of Management

"Organizing is the function of management that deals with the gathering and sorting of resources that an organization needs in order to achieve the organizations goals effectively and efficiently" (McNamara, 1997-2007). The organization function is what develops the structure of the organization in reaching its goals. Organizing is how an organization uses its resources to assign authority figures, divide the work into specific departments and tasks, and to coordinate different tasks within the organization that need to be done, in order for the organization to reach its goal. Organizational structure can be defined as, the division of duties, authority and responsibilities within an organization among its members. An organizations structure will have a deep impact on how well the organization succeeds.

Organizations today have to be open-minded. In today's world, an organization has to be open to change and be willing to change rules that had been set earlier on, in order for their organization to succeed. In addition, the organization has to prepare their management staff for change, and encourage the staff to find better methods toward improvement, and to implement those methods. An organization with a decentralized structure is prepared for change because lower level managers have the authority to make important decisions and changes when needed. Cargill Corporation uses a decentralized organization for most management decisions.

Cargill is a world-renowned corporation, the largest private corporation in the world. Cargill is an international provider of food, agricultural and risk management products and services. They make everything from pharmaceuticals to food ingredients to cattle feed. I have been employed by Cargill for the past three years and have first hand knowledge of their business practices. Cargill employs over 158,000 employees at 1,100 locations in 66 countries. What makes them stand out from other corporations I have worked for is they entitle a great more deal of trust to their business unit level manager and those managers use knowledge management. "Knowledge management is the collection of processes that govern the creation, dissemination, and utilization of knowledge" (Newman, 1991, p1). Cargill knows that an efficient and effective manager needs to have the knowledge in order to run the plant, so hands on training is provided for the staff, plus once a year for four days they attend safety and production training. This yearly refresher enables Cargill to meet with all of management to discuss new issues, problems, to hear news from other business unit's, and to find out company news. Not only does Cargill use the resource of knowledge to run their organization, they also use the resource of physical assets.

The definition of physical assets is "an item of economic, commercial, or exchange value that has a tangible or material existence"(Investopedia, 2007, p1). All managers have the responsibility of maintaining Cargill's physical plants. Maintaining the plants includes hiring properly trained contractors who employ skilled pipefitters, electricians, steamfitters, and welders. They also hire licensed workers for repairs that are beyond regular maintenance. Each manager is responsible for walking the entire plant to make sure everything is in ship-shape order. Often these duties are delegated out to key maintenance team positions. The managers know how important it is to keep the equipment and buildings in good condition. Not only does keeping up with maintenance improve reliability of equipment, but our plant is inspected regularly by government food safety inspectors and we can't afford to be shut down due to failure of passing an inspection. Taking care of the physical assets is just as hard as the financial assets.

Each department's accounting team handles financial assets. Each business unit receives their own budget and the managers have to distribute those funds as they see fit. The funds are divided into several categories. These categories are safety, production issues, equipment maintenance, emergency maintenance, petty cash, and long term improvements. It is up to each management team to decide what the best use of these funds are in regards to safety and profitability, and accept the responsibility of their decisions should Cargill's corporate office have a question about the use of the funds. This decision making