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O&M: Analyzing The Organization: Objective: To Give You Insight Into The Way Real-World Organization Work by Analyzing

The document outlines an assignment for students to analyze an organization in groups of five over the course of a term. Students will select an organization to study, collect information on it according to modules provided by the instructor, and submit reports analyzing the organization's structure and design based on principles of organizational theory. The first module requires students to describe introductory details of their selected organization like its mission, size, stakeholders, and goals, and provide an initial analysis of its structure.

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Vipul Panwar
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58 views

O&M: Analyzing The Organization: Objective: To Give You Insight Into The Way Real-World Organization Work by Analyzing

The document outlines an assignment for students to analyze an organization in groups of five over the course of a term. Students will select an organization to study, collect information on it according to modules provided by the instructor, and submit reports analyzing the organization's structure and design based on principles of organizational theory. The first module requires students to describe introductory details of their selected organization like its mission, size, stakeholders, and goals, and provide an initial analysis of its structure.

Uploaded by

Vipul Panwar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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O&M: ANALYZING THE ORGANIZATION

Objective: To give you insight into the way real-world organization work by analyzing
an organization that you choose against the relevant principles of Organizational Theory.

Methodology: You will work in groups of five. At regular intervals your instructor will
give you an Organization Design module for which you must collect and analyze
information about an organization that you will select now and study during the entire
term. You could expect these modules at the end of every fifth session.

For each module you will prepare a report and submit to the instructor within the
specified deadline. You will integrate the information you collect into a final report to be
presented to the instructor at the end of the term.

Suppose you select General Motors. You will collect the information specified in each
organization design module, present and summarize your findings on GM, and then
produce a final report. By the end of term, by completing each module, you will have a
clear picture about how organizations operate and how they deal with problems and
contingencies they face.

The first step is to choose a well-known organization about which a lot has been written
or you are sure about the accessibility of relevant data through Internet and/or E-mail. If
a group member had worked in an organization and he/she would have access to
data/information -that would be another way of choosing your organization. The best
sources of information are national and international business periodicals like Business
India, Business Today, Business World, Fortune, Business Week, and Forbes; Financial
Dailies, news magazines like Time and Newsweek; and on-line information service
including websites on the Internet. In addition, you should write to “your” company and
ask for a copy of its current annual report (you might find previous annual reports in
libraries or on the Internet), and you should check industry and trade publication.

If you consult these sources, you will obtain a lot of information that you can use to
complete the design modules. You may not get all the specific information you need, but
you will have enough to answer many of the design module questions. To obtain
information that you lack, do not be afraid to e-mail your organization and contact its
public relations department or other relevant sources. You will be surprised at how much
companies will tell you if you ask the right questions.

If you use only written sources to study a very large organization, you will get a lot of
interesting information that relates to organizational theory, because the organization is
large and complex and is confronting many of the problems discussed in this course. But
you may not be able to obtain all the detailed information you want.

Whatever selection approach you use, be sure that you have access to enough interesting
information to complete the majority of the organizational design modules. The issue is
to make sure that you can gain access to enough information to write an interesting
report.

Evaluation: The Group Project carries 20% weightage. The following parameters would
form part of the evaluation: Quality of the information obtained in terms of relevance and
insight; Promptness in submitting the individual modules; Ability to integrate the
information into a coherent final report; and Performance in the project viva-voce which
may be conducted randomly at the end of each module.
ANALYZING THE ORGANIZATION: MODULE # 1

Deadline: September 30, 2019

ASSIGNMENT: This module attempts to get at some of the introductory details of your
organization. Also what basic operating principles that your organization uses to perform
its tasks. From the information you have been able to obtain, you are also asked here to
describe the aspects of your organization’s structure

1. What is the name of the Organization? What goods and services does it
produce/provide? Describe the company’s organizational mission. Describe the
way it has grown and developed.

2. How many employees does the organization employ? Who are the organization’s
major stakeholders? Do the goals of various groups conflict? Which stakeholder
group’s goals receive priority in your organization? Does the organization do a
good job in managing its stakeholders? How do you know?

3. How do the organization’s managers judge its effectiveness? What goals,


standards, or targets are they using to evaluate performance? How well is the
organization doing when judged by the criteria of control, innovation, and
efficiency?

4. Analyze the effect of the forces on the complexity, and dynamism of the
environment. From this analysis, how would you characterize the level of
uncertainty in your organization’s environment?

5. Draw a chart of the main inter-organizational linkage mechanisms (for example,


long-term contracts, strategic alliances, mergers) that your organization uses to
manage its resource interdependencies. Do you think the organization has
selected the most appropriate linkage mechanisms? Why or why not?

6. Draw an organizational chart of the top management in your organization. Write


down the names of the top managers and the positions they occupy. What is the
span of control of the CEO? Is this span appropriate, or is it too wide or too
narrow?

7. How differentiated is your organization? Is it simple or complex? List the major


roles, functions, or departments in your organization. Does your organization
have many divisions? If your organization engages in many businesses, list the
major divisions in the company.
8. How has your organization responded to the design challenges? (a) Is it
centralized or decentralized? How do you know? (b) Is it highly differentiated?
Can you identify any integrating mechanisms used by your organization? What is
the match between the complexity of differentiation and the complexity of the
integrating mechanisms that are used? (c) Is behavior in the organization very
standardized, or does mutual adjustment play an important role in coordinating
people and activities? What can you tell about the level of formalization by
looking at the number and kinds of rules the organization use (d) Does the
informal organization play an important part in influencing the way members
behave? How can you tell?

9. How many levels are there in the organization’s hierarchy? Does the organization
experience any of the problems associated with tall hierarchies? Which ones?
What is the span of control of the CEO? Is this span appropriate, or is it too wide
or too narrow?

10. To what degree has your organization followed bureaucratic principles in


designing its hierarchy? How bureaucratized is it? How do you know?

11. Does your analysis lead you to think that your organization conforms more to the
organic or to the mechanistic model of organizational structure? Why?

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