Organizing

Lecture 6

Main terms in organizing

The next function in management is organizing. It means how to group organizational activities and resources.

Organizing is performed by the organizational structure, The main blocks in organizing are:- Design of jobs;- Grouping of jobs;- Establishing reporting relationships between jobs;- Distributing authority among jobs;- Coordinating activities between jobs;- Differentiating among jobs.

Job design

Job design includes determining the individual’s work-related responsibilities.

What machines are to be operated, how they are to be operated, what decisions the worker can make, what performance standards are expected.

Job design starts with determining the level of job specialization.

Job specialization

Specialization of jobs means breaking it into small components. The aim of it is to increase the productivity of the labour force.

Benefits of the specialization include:- Increasing individual proficiency;- Transfer time between tasks is expected to

decrease;- Training costs are reduced;

Alternatives of specialization

Job rotation involves systematically moving employees from one job to another.

Job enlargement includes more tasks given to a worker; It means higher training costs,the pay should increase.

Job enrichment. It is based on Herzberg’s theory of two factors for motivations. Enrichment of job means giving the worker more tasks to perform and control over how are they done

Job characteristics approach

Jobs should be diagnosed in 5 dimensions:- Skill variety; number of things a person does;- Task identity; the extent to which the worker

does a complete portion of the job;- Autonomy; the degree of control the worker

has over the job;- Feedback;

Grouping jobs

Process of grouping jobs is departmentalization. There are several types:

- Product departmentalization- grouping jobs around products.

- Functional departmentalization- grouping together those jobs involving the same activities;

- Customer departmentalization- grouping activities to respond to the customers;

- Location departmentazlization- grouping jobs on the basis of defined geografic sites or areas;

Establishing relationships between positions

Relationships depend on the:- Chain of command. It means that distinct line

of authority need to be established among all positions in the organization. It depends on scalar principle and the unity of command.

- Span of management. It means the number of people who report to certain manager.

Span of management

Factors affecting span of management are:

- competence of supervisor and subordinates;

- physical dispersion of subordinates;

- degree of required interaction;- Extent of standardized products;- Similarity of tasks being supervised;- Frequency of new problems- Preferences of supervisors and subordinates.

Delegation process

Delegation is a process when a manager assigns a portion of his or her work to others.

Delegation process has 3 steps:- Assigning responsibility;- Granting authority;- Creating accountability.