ORGANIZATION:Formal Organizations, Departmentalization

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Introduction To Public AdministrationMGT111

LESSON 14

ORGANIZATION

At the end of the lecture the students will be able to understand:

1. The concept of organization roles;

2. The concept of organizing;

3. What are the types of organization?

4. The concept of organization

Organizational Roles

Organizational roles are the part or position that a person is assigned in the organization, for

example the role of manager sales or your role as a student. People will cooperate effectively in

organizations if they know the part they have to play in the organizations i.e. if they know their roles in the

organization

Following are the requirement of organizational goals:

1. Clear objectives; People must know the objectives that they have to achieve clearly, student must

know their objectives.

2. Clear idea of duties or activities: People must know their duties and activities that they must

perform. E.g., student duties are to study, be disciplined

3. Clear area of authority: In organization people must know the extent of authority that they have.

What is Organizing

Organizing means that there should be clear line of authority and all should know who reports to

whom. Following are the main steps in organizing:

1) Classification of activities: First all activities in organization must be classified i.e. activities similar

in nature should be identified separately.

2) Grouping of activities to achieve objectives: Similar activities should be grouped.

3) Assigning a manager to each group of activities: A manager should be assigned

4) Coordination of group of activities both horizontally and vertically:

Coordination means the interrelationship among activities.

Organization

Now we have talked about concepts of `roles' and `organizing', we will connect these two concepts

with the concept of organization. Organization means a formalized intentional structure of roles and

positions. Here we refer to organization as a structure in which people work. E.g., school is organization.

Types of Organization

Organizations can be categorized into following types:

1. Formal Organizations

2. Informal Organizations

Formal Organizations

Formal organizations mean the intentional structure of roles in a formally organized enterprise. The

structures are created by people to achieve certain defined goals. The formal organizations could be

hospitals, schools, Water and Power Development authority (WAPDA).

Informal Organizations

A network of personal and social relations not established or required by the formal organization

but arising spontaneously as people associate with each other is called informal organization. The example

of informal organization is friendship within the organization amongst people working at various levels.

Introduction To Public AdministrationMGT111

The figure below illustrates the concept of formal and informal organization. While the formal organization

is the people working who are assigned roles and given a position in a box. There are four levels in an

organization and the straight lines show formal structure. However the irregular lines show informal

relationship or informal structure.

Figure-1

Formal Org.

Informal Org.

Title

Name

Title

Name

Organizational Levels and Span of Management

Organizational levels exist because there is a limit to the number of persons a manager can

supervise effectively, even though this limit varies depending on situations. Organizational span, therefore,

means the number of people a manager can supervise. It is generally believed that a number of people that a

manager can effectively supervise are between 7 and 10. But this is a not a principle.

While span refers to number of people a person can supervise organizational level refers to "ties"

or level. In the figure-2 horizontal arrow indicate span and vertical arrow shows the organizational level. In

figure-1 the organizational level are shown by numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Figure-2

Organizational Span

Principle of Span of Control

There is a limit to the number of subordinates a manager can effectively supervise, but the exact

number will depend on the impact of the following:

Introduction To Public AdministrationMGT111

Factors Determining an Effective Span

Training of subordinates: The more trained and experience the employees, the less supervision they

require, and therefore, the manager can supervise more employees.

Clear delegation of authority: Delegation of authority means to give part of authority to

subordinate. Thus, if managers can delegate authority clear to each subordinate being supervised;

more employees can be brought under supervision.

Clarity of plans: When the plans are clearly understood by the employees, the manager can

supervise more people.

Use of objective standards to determine whether employees are following plans

Rate of change

Communication techniques

Amount of personal contact Needed

Variation by organization level

Personal abilities of managers

Need for balance

Department

One way of grouping activities is establishing `department'. A department is a distinct area, division,

or branch of organization over which manager has authority for performance of specified activities.

Departmentalization

Grouping activities and people into departments makes it possible to expand organizations to an

indefinite degree.

Types of Departmentalization

By Number

By Time

By Function

By Geography

By Production

By Customer

Concepts:

Organization:

a formalized institutional structure that shows

relationship amongst "organization role"

Organizational roles:

the position that each person is assigned in the

organization, for example a peon, manager sales, deputy

secretary training etc. Each role has specific task to

perform.

Formal organization:

the structure of the organization as is indicated in figure

1. But the formal structure is the relationship between

straight lines.

Informal organization:

it can be organization of informal relationship that

people in organization have beyond the formal

relationship. This is shown in figure1 in irregular line.

Span of organization:

is the number of people a manager can supervise.

Organizational level:

it refers to levels in the organization and relates to

hierarchy.

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