Organizational Theory

1) ORGANISATIONAL THEORY

Organisational theory is designed to understand the nature of the organisations. By which organizations can evaluate its overall business by putting the right structure and operate in different ways. Organisational theory also helps us understand how processes such as change and decision making can be managed. It deals with different structures and cultures such as large organizations have different structures and cultures than small ones, and the manufacturing organisations operate in a different way than those in the service sector.

(Burton & Obel, pp. 11 to 12)

2) ORGANISATIONAL DESIGN

Organization Design is a formal, guided process for integrating the people, information and technology of an organisation. It is used to match the form of the organisation as closely as possible to the purpose the organization seeks to achieve. Through the design process, organizations act to improve the probability that the collective efforts of members will be successful.

(Burton & Obel, p. 13)

3) ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE

Organisational structure has long been described as a mechanism through which effort is integrated through the coordination and control of activities There are many different types of structures and for years researchers and practitioners attempted to determine what type of structure was in fact the most effective. This line of inquiry has led ultimately to a contingency view of structure, that is, the most appropriate structure for a given organisation is a function of the type of environment that organisational operates within and the technology it utilizes.

4) ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE

Organisational culture is the personality of the organisation. Culture is comprised of the assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs (artefacts) of organisation members and their behaviours. Members of an organisation soon come to sense the particular culture of an organisation. Culture is one of those terms that's difficult to express distinctly, but everyone knows it when they sense it. For example, the culture of a large, for-profit corporation is quite different than that of a hospital which is quite different that that of a university. You can tell the culture of an organisation by looking at the arrangement of furniture, what they brag about, what members wear, etc. -- similar to what you can use to get a feeling about someone's personality.

(Burton & Obel, p. 104)

5) ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE

Typically, the concept of organisational change is in regard to organisation change, as opposed to smaller changes such as adding a new person, modifying a program, etc. Examples of organisation-wide change might include a change in mission, restructuring operations (e.g., restructuring to self-managed teams, layoffs, etc.), new technologies, mergers, major collaborations, "rightsising", new programs such as Total Quality Management, re-engineering, etc. Some experts refer to organisational transformation. Often this term designates a fundamental and radical reorientation in the way the organisation operates.

(Burton & Obel, p. 13)

6) RELATIONSHIPS AMONG THEM

In today's business environment, without having proper design, structure and culture a business cannot survive and also it should have the capability in changing its business environment affected by its internal and external environment. Organisational structure, design, culture and change are all interrelated with each other, especially structure, design and culture. Organisational theory is able to analyse the structure and culture of their organisations, solve the problems and utilize the process of organisational design and make adjustments that helps the organisations to achieve its goals. Organisational design influences both the structure and culture of the organisation because of increased competitive pressures and increasing use of advanced information technologies, organisational design has become one of the important priorities of the management (CBA 2004). The evolution of an organisation's structure is integrally related to the evolution of its culture and vice versa. Mechanistic structures and organic structures, for example, give rise to totally different sets of cultural values. In a tall, centralised organisation, people have relatively little personal autonomy, and desirable behaviours include