Organizational Effectiveness

An effective organization is one that:

Maintains a culture of excellence Demonstrates integrity Leads by example (sets industry gold standard) Makes change an integral and ongoing part of business functions Invests in its people Recognizes performance in a meaningful way

Everything working together

Organizational development is a means to reach organizational effectiveness. The goals are set higher than the status quo based upon business needs, vision, and mission. While attainable, they must be stretch goals and require maximum participation. It takes strong vision, leadership and purpose to reach organizational effectiveness. Appropriate and clear communication and recognition at each step is key. If you have questions about improving your organizations effectiveness, contact us for a free assessment. We believe we can help, but if we cant, we will say so that is our promise of integrity.

Organizational effectiveness is the concept of how effective an organization is in achieving the outcomes the organization intends to produce.[1] The idea of organizational effectiveness is especially important for non-profit organizations as most people who donate money to nonprofit organizations and charities are interested in knowing whether the organization is effective in accomplishing its goals. According to Richard et al. (2009) organizational effectiveness captures organizational performance plus the plethora of internal performance outcomes normally associated with more efficient or effective operations and other external measures that relate to considerations that are broader than those simply associated with economic valuation (either by shareholders, managers, or customers), such as corporate social responsibility.[2]

An organization's effectiveness is also dependent on its communicative competence and ethics. The relationship between these three are simultaneous. Ethics is a foundation found within organizational effectiveness. An organization must exemplify respect, honesty, integrity and equity to allow communicative competence with the participating members. Along with ethics and communicative competence, members in that particular group can finally achieve their intended goals. Foundations and other sources of grants and other types of funds are interested in organizational effectiveness of those people who seek funds from the foundations. Foundations always have more requests for funds or funding proposals and treat funding as an investment using the same care as a venture capitalist would in picking a company in which to invest. Organizational effectiveness is an abstract concept and is basically impossible to measure. Instead of measuring organizational effectiveness, the organization determines proxy measures which will be used to represent effectiveness. Proxy measures used may include such things as number of people served, types and sizes of population segments served, and the demand within those segments for the services the organization supplies. For instance, a non-profit organization which supplies meals to house bound people may collect statistics such as the number of meals cooked and served, the number of volunteers delivering meals, the turnover and retention rates of volunteers, the demographics of the people served, the turnover and retention of consumers, the number of requests for meals turned down due to lack of capacity (amount of food, capacity of meal preparation facilities, and number of delivery volunteers), and amount of wastage. Since the organization has as its goal the preparation of meals and the delivery of those meals to house bound people, it measures its organizational effectiveness by trying to determine what actual activities the people in the organization do in order to generate the outcomes the organization wants to create. Activities such as fundraising or volunteer training are important because they provide the support needed for the organization to deliver its services but they are not the outcomes per se. These other activities are overhead activities which assist the organization in achieving its desired outcomes. The term Organizational Effectiveness is often used interchangeably with Organization Development, especially when used as the name of a department or a part of the Human Resources function within an organization.

An organization (or organisation see spelling differences) is a social arrangement to distribute tasks for a collective goal. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon - as we know `organ` - and it means a compartment for a particular job. .

1862 Diagram of the Federal Government and American Union. There are a variety of legal types of organizations, including: corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations, international organizations, armed forces, charities, not-forprofit corporations, partnerships, cooperatives, and universities. A hybrid organization is a body that operates in both the public sector and the private sector, simultaneously fulfilling public duties and developing commercial market activities. As a result the hybrid organization becomes a mixture of a government and a corporate organization. In the social sciences, organizations are the object of analysis for a number of disciplines, such as sociology, economics, political science, psychology, management, and organizational communication. The broader analysis of organizations is commonly referred to as organizational structure, organizational studies, organizational behavior, or organization analysis. A number of different perspectives exist, some of which are compatible:

From a process-related perspective, an organization is viewed as an entity is being (re)organized, and the focus is on the organization as a set of tasks or actions. From a functional perspective, the focus is on how entities like businesses or state authorities are used. From an institutional perspective, an organization is viewed as a purposeful structure within a social context.

Contents
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1 In management and organizational studies 2 In sociology 3 Organizational structures o 3.1 Pyramids or hierarchies o 3.2 Committees or juries o 3.3 Matrix organization o 3.4 Ecologies 4 Organization theories 5 Leadership in organizations o 5.1 Leadership in formal organizations o 5.2 Leadership in informal organizations 6 Organization target 7 See also o 7.1 Related lists 8 Notes 9 References 10 External links

[edit] In management and organizational studies

Main article: Organizational studies Management is interested in organization mainly from an instrumental point of view. For a company, organization is a means to an end to achieve its goals, which are to create value for its stakeholders (stockholders, employees, customers, suppliers, community). moreover, (Samson, p 25. 2005) describes organising as the management function concerned with assigning tasks, grouping tasks into departments, and allocating resources to departments

[edit] In sociology
Sociology can be defined as the science of the institutions of modernity; specific institutions serve a function, akin to the individual organs of a coherent body. In the social and political sciences in general, an "organization" may be more loosely understood as the planned, coordinated and purposeful action of human beings working through collective action to reach a common goal or construct a tangible product. This action is usually framed by formal membership and form (institutional rules). Sociology distinguishes the term organization into planned formal and unplanned informal (i.e. spontaneously formed) organizations. Sociology analyzes organizations in the first line from an institutional perspective. In this sense, organization is a permanent arrangement of elements. These elements and their actions are determined by rules so that a certain task can be fulfilled through a system of coordinated division of labor. An organization is defined by the elements that are part of it (who belongs to the organization and who does not?), its communication (which elements communicate and how do they communicate?), its autonomy (which changes are executed autonomously by the organization or its elements?), and its rules of action compared to outside events (what causes an organization to act as a collective actor?). By coordinated and planned cooperation of the elements, the organization is able to solve tasks that lie beyond the abilities of the single elements. The price paid by the elements is the limitation of the degrees of freedom of the elements. Advantages of organizations are enhancement (more of the same), addition (combination of different features) and extension. Disadvantages can be inertness (through co-ordination) and loss of interaction.

[edit] Organizational structures

Main article: Organizational structure The study of organizations includes a focus on optimizing organizational structure. According to management science, most human organizations fall roughly into four types:

Pyramids or hierarchies Committees or juries Matrix organizations Ecologies

[edit] Pyramids or hierarchies

A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads other individual members of the organization. This arrangement is often associated with bureaucracy. These structures are formed on the basis that there are enough people under the leader to give him support. Just as one would imagine a real pyramid, if there are not enough stone blocks to hold up the higher ones, gravity would irrevocably bring down the monumental structure. So one can imagine that if the leader does not have the support of his subordinates, the entire structure will collapse. Hierarchies were satirized in The Peter Principle (1969), a book that introduced hierarchiology and the saying that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."

[edit] Committees or juries

These consist of a group of peers who decide as a group, perhaps by voting. The difference between a jury and a committee is that the members of the committee are usually assigned to perform or lead further actions after the group comes to a decision, whereas members of a jury come to a decision. In common law countries legal juries render decisions of guilt, liability and quantify damages; juries are also used in athletic contests, book awards and similar activities. Sometimes a selection committee functions like a jury. In the Middle Ages juries in continental Europe were used to determine the law according to consensus amongst local notables. Committees are often the most reliable way to make decisions. Condorcet's jury theorem proved that if the average member votes better than a roll of dice, then adding more members increases the number of majorities that can come to a correct vote (however correctness is defined). The problem is that if the average member is subsequently worse than a roll of dice, the committee's decisions grow worse, not better: Staffing is crucial. Parliamentary procedure, such as Robert's Rules of Order, helps prevent committees from engaging in lengthy discussions without reaching decisions.

[edit] Matrix organization

See also: matrix management This organizational type assigns each worker two bosses in two different hierarchies. One hierarchy is "functional" and assures that each type of expert in the organization is welltrained, and measured by a boss who is super-expert in the same field. The other direction is "executive" and tries to get projects completed using the experts. Projects might be organized by products, regions, customer types, or some other schema. As an example,(this is not reliable) a company might have separate individuals with overall responsibility for Product X and Product Y, and different individuals with overall responsibility for Engineering, Quality Control, etc. Individuals responsible for quality control of project X with therefore have two reporting lines.

[edit] Ecologies

This organization has intense competition. Bad parts of the organization starve. Good ones get more work. Everybody is paid for what they actually do, and runs a tiny business that has to show a profit, or they are fired. Companies who utilize this organization type reflect a rather one-sided view of what goes on in ecology. It is also the case that a natural ecosystem has a natural border - ecoregions do not in general compete with one another in any way, but are very autonomous. The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline talks about functioning as this type of organization in this external article from The Guardian.

[edit] Organization theories

Among the theories that are or have been most influential are:

Enterprise architecture, is the conceptual model that defines the coalescence of organizational structure and organizational behavior. Actor-Network Theory Agency theory (sometimes called principal - agent theory) Contingency theory Complexity theory and organizations Critical management studies Economic sociology Garbage Can Model Human Relations Studies (going back to the Hawthorne studies, Maslow and Herzberg) Labour Process Theory Marxist organization analysis Network analysis New institutionalism and new institutional economics Organizational culture Organization ecology (or demography of organizations) Scientific management (mainly following Frederick W. Taylor) social entrepreneurship Transaction cost economics Weberian organization theory (refer to Max Weber's chapter on Bureaucracy in his book 'Economy and Society')

[edit] Leadership in organizations

The photo shows a training meeting with factory workers in a stainless steel ecodesign company from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The leaders of this organization wear dark blue shirts. Main article: Leadership A leader in a formal, hierarchical organization, who is appointed to a managerial position, has the right to command and enforce obedience by virtue of the authority of his position. However, he must possess adequate personal attributes to match his authority, because authority is only potentially available to him. In the absence of sufficient personal competence, a manager may be confronted by an emergent leader who can challenge his role in the organization and reduce it to that of a figurehead. However, only authority of position has the backing of formal sanctions. It follows that whoever wields personal influence and power can legitimize this only by gaining a formal position in the hierarchy, with commensurate authority.[1]

[edit] Leadership in formal organizations

An organization that is established as a means for achieving defined objectives has been referred to as a formal organization. Its design specifies how goals are subdivided and reflected in subdivisions of the organization. Divisions, departments, sections, positions, jobs, and tasks make up this work structure. Thus, the formal organization is expected to behave impersonally in regard to relationships with clients or with its members. According to Weber's definition, entry and subsequent advancement is by merit or seniority. Each employee receives a salary and enjoys a degree of tenure that safeguards him from the arbitrary influence of superiors or of powerful clients. The higher his position in the hierarchy, the greater his presumed expertise in adjudicating problems that may arise in the course of the work carried out at lower levels of the organization. It is this bureaucratic structure that forms the basis for the appointment of heads or chiefs of administrative subdivisions in the organization and endows them with the authority attached to their position.[2]

[edit] Leadership in informal organizations

In contrast to the appointed head or chief of an administrative unit, a leader emerges within the context of the informal organization that underlies the formal structure. The informal organization expresses the personal objectives and goals of the individual membership. Their objectives and goals may or may not coincide with those of the formal organization. The informal organization represents an extension of the social structures that generally

characterize human life the spontaneous emergence of groups and organizations as ends in themselves.[2] In prehistoric times, man was preoccupied with his personal security, maintenance, protection, and survival. Now man spends a major portion of his waking hours working for organizations. His need to identify with a community that provides security, protection, maintenance, and a feeling of belonging continues unchanged from prehistoric times. This need is met by the informal organization and its emergent, or unofficial, leaders.[1] Leaders emerge from within the structure of the informal organization. Their personal qualities, the demands of the situation, or a combination of these and other factors attract followers who accept their leadership within one or several overlay structures. Instead of the authority of position held by an appointed head or chief, the emergent leader wields influence or power. Influence is the ability of a person to gain cooperation from others by means of persuasion or control over rewards. Power is a stronger form of influence because it reflects a person's ability to enforce action through the control of a means of punishment.[1]

[edit] Organization target

How can we organize the different people have became a hot topic. Each people have their own personality and peculiarities but people are all intelligent. The positive idea is that everyone can be useful and productive somewhere or somehow, that the differences are useful. The negative opinion is that differences make difficulties and that the more we can flatten down the bumps, smooth the edges, and get people conforming, the easier life will be. Getting organized used to mean getting rid of differences; however, today, people focus on how to use them to organize their employees.[3]