MGT 500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 89: Decision-Making

• School: Ball State University
• Department: Management
• Course: MGT 500
• Professor: Ronda Smith

Document Summary

Formalization is the degree that jobs in an organization are standardized. If there is a highly formalized job, employees have minimal discretion over what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. This results in output that is consistent and uniform. There are explicit descriptions of jobs, many rules for an organization, and clearly defined organizational procedures covering processes for work. Formalization gets rid of the potential of employees engaging in different behaviors, and it gets rid of the need for them to think of or question using any alternatives. On the other end, if there is low formalization, behaviors of a job are unprogrammed and employees have a lot of freedom to use discretion for their work. The degree of formalization varies between and within organizations. Organizational designs are known by a lot of different names and continuously evolving in response to changes that people do work. Standardization is the key concept underlying all bureaucracies.