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This document provides a summary and the lecture notes of the entire course of Introduction to Organisation Design at Radboud University
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Summary Introduction to Organisation DesignLecture 1 (07-11-22)
Introduction of the course
Healthcare system:
- Long waiting times for patients
- Explosion of costs due to aging population
- High prevalence of stress, burnout, and absenteeism among staff
Such problems can be addressed through analysing and solving underlying
structural problems
Designing:
- Making choices about function, form, structure intended effect
- Intended effect desired/ unwanted, known/ unknown, in terms of values
Managing as designing (Bolan & Collopy, 2004):
Core aspects of designing:
- Multiple models of possible futures with continuous refinement
- Thrownness: not a blank slate, designer is dropped into conditions and has to
work his way out it
- Collaboration: no-one can know everything, against the heroic tale
- Liquid crystal: iterations between leaving open and fixing
- Legacy: being conscious of the effects of one’s actions
Design thinking:
Applying the way designers think to business problems
- Empathy: what is the human need behind the business need
- Ideation: using creative tools to generate many possible ideas, push past
obvious solutions
- Experimentation: testing ideas with prototyping, making ideas tangible
- Iterative approach: learning from mistakes
Organizational design as part of responsible organizing:
Societal impact of design
Organizational design as a motor of the industrial revolution
Different perspectives:
Different perspectives exist on what organization design is and to what problems and
solutions it relates within organizations.
This will be addressed in this course by providing four different perspectives on
organizational design:
1. ‘Fit’ approach (book)
2. Sociotechnical systems design
3. Lean management
4. Human centred job design
,Fit approach:
According to Burton et al., organizations design consists of a number of components
that should be considered in a coherent way
- Their critique: often aspects of organizational design are implemented /
changed independent of each other
- Such as: strategy, division of work, and people
According to Burton et al., organization design involves categories of interrelated
aspects:
- Goals and scope
- Strategy
- Structure
- Coordination and control
- Processes and people
Each category is addressed in a separate step in their book
- The categories of the model should ‘fit’ together
- Design choices on structure, cannot go without design choices on coordination
These aspects should fit environmental demands:
- Stable environments demand a different structure than turbulent environments
Socio-technical systems: Dutch approach:
Ulbo de Sitter (1930-2010) Prof. Modern sociotechnical theory in Nijmegen
- Quality of organization: ability of organization to effectively and efficiently
realize and adapt its goals
- Quality of work: meaningfulness of work and possibility to deal with stress
- Quality of work relations: effectiveness of communication in organization
What design premises can help improving these aspects?
Lean management:
Originates from Toyota car factories and US research. Very ‘hip’ nowadays and very
frequently used.
How can organizations limit the negative effects of batches and queues in
organizations?
- Delay cost time and money
- Overproduction (stocks)
Different approaches on Lean
- Those only oriented on removing waste
- Those aimed at facilitating ‘flow’
Human centred job design:
Quality of work as a goal in itself:
- Humans have a need to fulfil a meaningful part within a community
- They need clarity, variety, personal control, social contact
Content of job: what do people actually do?
- Ethical / normative approach that proposes:
- Human well-being, mental and physical health
- Potential for growth and development
,Lecture 2 (9-11-22)
Burton (book) introduction
What is organizational design?
- Organizational design in a general sense: the form of an organization
- Whether a bureaucracy, matrix organization, cellular, network organization etc.
- Classical/famous authors are: Burns & Stalker, Galbraith, Mintzberg, Morgan
- Line structure (assembly lines), machine bureaucracy (McDonalds),
autonomous working groups (Buurtzorg)
Labour service platforms as part of the gig economy:
- Mediate between supply and demand, connect both
- They do not own the means of production or service
- Digitalization lads to boost in scope and size
Organizational design involves the challenge on how to:
1. Partition a big task into more smaller tasks
2. How to coordinate these smaller tasks in such a way that they fit together to
realize the organization’s goals
‘Organizational design is deciding who does what when.’ Burton et al., 2020
How to design?
9 components in 5 steps with interrelated aspects Burton et al.
When big tasks are partitioned and coordinated, these 9 components which belong to
5 steps/ interrelated aspects relevant
1. Getting started Goals and scope
2. Assessing the strategy strategy, environment
3. Analysing the structure configuration
4. Process and people task design and agents, leadership, climate
5. Analysing coordination, control, and incentives coordination and control,
incentives
Examples:
- Strategy vs. structure
- Individual training vs. structure
- Environment vs. internal structure
Why do we need a fit approach?
- Implementing or changing single aspects, might not work
- Organizations need to adapt to their environment. They are challenged by:
globalization, competition, deregulation, environmental crisis
- According to research (Volberda et al., 2012) 30% of variation in
organizational performance can be attributed to aspects of organizational
design
Contingency theory vs. ‘one size fits all’:
Classical theories (one size fits all)
- Taylor
- Faylor
- Ford
- Weber
Contingency theories (started in the 50’s):
, - Organizations are open systems interact with the environment
- They depend on contingencies
- Need to adapt to the environment external fit
- Components need to fit together internal fit
Pillar 1: Burton’s multi-contingency model
Design involves 9 components in 5 steps with interrelated aspects
1. Getting started goals and scope
2. Assessing the strategy
3. Analysing the structure
4. Analysing the processes and people
5. Analysing the coordination, control, and incentives
All five aspects of organizational design should fit with each other internal fit
They should also fit with the contingencies of the environment external fit
Pillar 2: information processing approach
Burton et al., see organizations as information processing entities in line with
Galbraith (1974)
Logic:
- Organizations process information
- To coordinate and control activities
- By processing information, the organization sees what is happening, analyses
problems and makes choices on what to do
- The work of an organization can be seen as information processing:
observing, transmitting, analysing, understanding, deciding, storing, and taking
action for implementation
Two elements on the information process approach:
1. How capable are organization to process information? information
processing abilities
This depends on their design, for example, machine bureaucracy vs. teams
2. How much information do organizations need to process? Information
processing demand
Information processing demand depends on:
- Task uncertainty the difference between the amount of information
required to perform the task and the amount of information already possessed
by the organization (Galbraith)
- Interdependency complexity the greater the interdependency between
the tasks, the more information processing capacity is needed
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