Session 1: Introduction To Organizations
Session 1: Introduction To Organizations
Session 1: Introduction To Organizations
Introduction to Organizations
1. Course Objectives
2. Pedagogy
4. Class preparation
5. Assessment
6. Project work
7. Evaluation
8. Attendance
2
Level of Analysis
Inter-organizational,
community, ecological
system
Organizations
Groups /
departments
Individuals
3
Course Objectives
4
Class Syllabus and Reading Material
5
Pedagogy
6
Assessment
7
Group Projects
Program office will form groups of class participants.
9
Questions?
10
Society of Organizations
11
1. How can we understand
today’s organizations?
2. How can we live in today’s
organizations?
3. How can we live with today’s
organizations?
12
Organizations are instruments or
mechanisms for:
• Accumulation of resources
• Developing capabilities using these
resources
• Delivering goods and services
using these capabilities
13
Organizations – Definition
4. Specific products/services
6. Social entities
7. Legal entities
14
Types of Organizations
1. Size – Large and small
2. Ownership – Public, private, hybrid
3. For-profit and not-for profit
4. Manufacturing, service, advocacy
5. Different industrial sectors of economic activity –
construction, finance, education, food, etc.
6. Geographic reach – Domestic (national) and
multinational
7. Governmental and non-governmental
Question – what are the commonalities and differences
between these organizations? On what
characteristics? 15
Question – Why might be some differences between a for-
profit and a not-for-profit organization?
For-profit Not-for-profit
• Clear focus on • Focus on social issues/
products, services, impact – products,
customers, revenue, services, customers
profits might not always be
• Revenue stream based clear.
on sales effort – • Revenue stream from
offerings have to meet donations – Donors
customer requirements. very important.
• Paying customers • Non-paying customers
• Efficiency and • Efficiency and
effectiveness clear effectiveness not clear
• Competition • Competition??
16
Ways of looking at organizations
17
Organizations may be viewed as:
18
Organizations as Open Systems
• Open • Closed
• Changing • Stable
• Unclear cause-effect • Clear cause-effect
• Irrational / Intuitive • Rational / Logical
• Random / • Replicable /
unpredictable predictable
19
Organizations Metaphors
• Machines
• Organisms
• Brains
• Cultures
• Political systems
• Psychic prisons
• Instruments of domination
20
Organizational Archetypes / Patterns (Mintzberg)
Top
Management
(Boundary
Spanning)
Technical Administrative
Support Middle
Support
(adaptation) Management (maintenance)
Technical Core
(transformation)
21
My Model for the Course
External Environment
Strategies
Organizational Leadership
Organization Structure
Human Resources
22
Environment Environment
Scope of Organizational
Theory
• Structure
• Technology
• Decision making
• Cultures
• Innovation
• Change and development
• Conflict, power and politics
• Inter-organizational
relationships
Environment Environment
23
Environment
Environment
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
AND PROCESSES
25
26
27
28
29
History of Organizational Theory
Standardization of work (division of task / labor)
Scientific management – Frederick Taylor
Principles of management
Administrative principles – Henri Fayol, Chester Barnard
Bureaucracy – Max Weber
Human Relations
Hawthorne experiments
Informal structure – interplay of formal and informal structure
Environment
Contingency theory – Notion of fit among factors (Woodworth,
Thompson, Lawrence and Lorsch)
Flexibility and responsiveness