Siti Azizah

Organizing is the function of management

which follows planning. It is a function in
which the synchronization and combination
of human, physical and financial resources
takes place.
All the three resources are important to get
results. Therefore, organizational function
helps in achievement of results which in fact
is important for the functioning of a concern.
 According to Chester Barnard, Organizing is
a function by which the concern is able to
define the role positions, the jobs related and
the co-ordination between authority and
responsibility.
Hence, a manager always has to organize in
order to get results.
 Effective organizing depends on the mastery
of several important concepts: work
specialization, chain of command, authority,
delegation, span of control, and
centralization versus decentralization.
Many of these concepts are based on the
principles developed by Henri Fayol.
 One popular organizational concept is based
on the fundamental principle that employees
can work more efficiently if they're allowed to
specialize.
Work specialization, sometimes called
division of labor, is the degree to which
organizational tasks are divided into separate
jobs.
Employees within each department perform
only the tasks related to their specialized
function.
 When specialization is extensive, employees
specialize in a single task, such as running a
particular machine in a factory assembly line.
Jobs tend to be small, but workers can
perform them efficiently.
By contrast, if a single factory employee built
an entire automobile, the results would be
inefficient.
 Despite the apparent advantages of
specialization, many organizations are
moving away from this principle.
With too much specialization, employees are
isolated and perform only small, narrow,
boring tasks. In addition, if that person leaves
the company, his specialized knowledge may
disappear as well.
Many companies are enlarging jobs to
provide greater challenges and creating
teams so that employees can rotate among
several jobs.
 The chain of command is an unbroken line of
authority that links all persons in an
organization and defines who reports to
whom.
Chain of command has two underlying
principles: unity of command and scalar
principle.
 Unity of command: This principle states that an
employee should have one and only one
supervisor to whom he or she is directly
responsible.
No employee should report to two or more
people. Otherwise, the employee may receive
conflicting demands or priorities from several
supervisors at once, placing this employee in a
nowin situation.
Sometimes, however, an organization
deliberately breaks the chain of command, such
as when a project team is created to work on a
special project. In such cases, team members
report to their immediate supervisor and also to
a team project leader.
 Nevertheless, these examples are exceptions
to the rule. They happen under special
circumstances and usually only within a
special type of employee group.
For the most part, however, when allocating
tasks to individuals or grouping assignments,
management should ensure that each has
one boss, and only one boss, to whom he or
she directly reports.
 Scalar principle: The scalar principle refers to
a clearly defined line of authority that
includes all employees in the organization.
The classical school of management suggests
that there should be a clear and unbroken
chain of command linking every person in the
organization with successively higher levels
of authority up to and including the top
manager.
 When organizations grow in size, they tend to
get taller, as more and more levels of
management are added. This increases
overhead costs, adds more communication
layers, and impacts understanding and access
between top and bottom levels. It can greatly
slow decision making and can lead to a loss
of contact with the client or customer.
 Authority is the formal and legitimate right of
a manager to make decisions, issue orders,
and allocate resources to achieve
organizationally desired outcomes.
A manager's authority is defined in his or her
job description.
 Organizational authority has three important
underlying principles:
1. Authority is based on the organizational
position, and anyone in the same position
has the same authority.
2. Authority is accepted by subordinates.
Subordinates comply because they believe
that managers have a legitimate right to
issue orders.
3. Authority flows down the vertical hierarchy.
Positions at the top of the hierarchy are
vested with more formal authority than are
positions at the bottom.
Authority comes in three types:
1. Line authority gives a manager the right to
direct the work of his or her employees and
make many decisions without consulting
others.
Line managers are always in charge of essential
activities such as sales, and they are authorized to
issue orders to subordinates down the chain of
command.
2. Staff authority supports line authority by
advising, servicing, and assisting, but this type
of authority is typically limited.
For example, the assistant to the department head has
staff authority because he or she acts as an extension of
that authority. These assistants can give advice and
suggestions, but they don't have to be obeyed. The
department head may also give the assistant the
authority to act, such as the right to sign off on expense
reports or memos.
3. Functional authority is authority delegated to
an individual or department over specific
activities undertaken by personnel in other
departments. Staff managers may have
functional authority, meaning that they can
issue orders down the chain of command within
the very narrow limits of their authority.
For example, supervisors in a manufacturing plant may
find that their immediate bosses have line authority
over them, but that someone in corporate
headquarters may also have line authority over some
of their activities or decisions.
 A concept related to authority is delegation.
Delegation is the downward transfer of
authority from a manager to a subordinate.
Most organizations today encourage
managers to delegate authority in order to
provide maximum flexibility in meeting
customer needs. In addition, delegation leads
to empowerment, in that people have the
freedom to contribute ideas and do their jobs
in the best possible ways.
 This involvement can increase job satisfaction
for the individual and frequently results in
better job performance.
Without delegation, managers do all the work
themselves and underutilize their workers.
The ability to delegate is crucial to
managerial success.
 Managers need to take four steps if they want to
successfully delegate responsibilities to their teams.
1. Specifically assign tasks to individual team members,
employees know that they are ultimately responsible
for carrying out specific assignments.
2. Give team members the correct amount of authority to
accomplish assignments. The subordinate without
authority must rely on persuasion and luck to meet
performance expectations. When an employee has
authority exceeding responsibility, he or she may
become a tyrant, using authority toward frivolous
outcomes.
3. Make sure that team members accept responsibility.
Responsibility is the flip side of the authority coin.
Responsibility is the duty to perform the task or
activity an employee has been assigned
4. Create accountability. Team members need to know
that they are accountable for their projects.
Accountability means answering for one's actions and
accepting the consequences. Team members may
need to report and justify task outcomes to their
superiors.
 Sometimes called span of management.
Refers to the number of workers who report
to one manager.
For hundreds of years, theorists have
searched for an ideal span of control. When
no perfect number of subordinates for a
manager to supervise became apparent, they
turned their attention to the more general
issue of whether the span should be wide or
narrow.
 A wide span of management exists when a
manager has a large number of subordinates.
Generally, the span of control may be wide
when
1. The manager and the subordinates are very
competent.
2. The organization has a wellestablished set
of standard operating procedures.
3. Few new problems are anticipated.
 A narrow span of management exists when
the manager has only a few subordinates.
The span should be narrow when
1. Workers are located far from one another
physically.
2. The manager has a lot of work to do in
addition to supervising workers.
3. A great deal of interaction is required
between supervisor and workers.
4. New problems arise frequently.
 The general pattern of authority throughout
an organization determines the extent to
which that organization is centralized or
decentralized.
A centralized organization systematically
works to concentrate authority at the upper
levels.
In a decentralized organization, management
consciously attempts to spread authority to
the lower organization levels.
 A variety of factors can influence the extent
to which a firm is centralized or
decentralized. The following is a list of
possible determinants:
A. The external environment in which the firm
operates.
The more complex and unpredictable this
environment, the more likely it is that top
management will let lowlevel managers make
important decisions. After all, lowlevel
managers are closer to the problems because
they are more likely to have direct contact
with customers and workers. Therefore, they
are in a better position to determine
problems and concerns.
B. The nature of the decision itself.
The riskier or the more important the
decision, the greater the tendency to
centralize decision making.
C. The abilities of lowlevel managers.
If these managers do not have strong
decisionmaking skills, top managers will be
reluctant to decentralize. Strong lowlevel
decisionmaking skills encourage
decentralization.
D. The organization's tradition of management.
An organization that has traditionally
practiced centralization or decentralization is
likely to maintain that posture in the future.