COMN 4115 Lecture Notes - Adhocracy, Organizational Communication, Absenteeism

• School: York University
• Department: Communication Studies
• Course: COMN 4115
• Professor: Dalton Kehoe

Document Summary

Context: complex and dynamic environment box 4, large number of components, different, changing relationship to elements. Issues: more democracy, less bureaucracy, effective at innovation, but, inefficiency, coordination problems. Small strategic apex and support staff coordinating project teams. The teams cross functional, multi-disciplinary formed to deliver an output to external client. Organization is a shifting collection of project teams that administer and do the work. Time-limited, task forces/committees: used in machine/divisionalized and professional bureaucracies. Are created within older, larger organizations to manage the worst effects of the fundamental paradox of communicating and organizing. Machine bureaucracies divide work: first by function then by job type. They take work apart to get control over it and over the workers: many simplified, specialized jobs, each easy to learn to do quickly. All tied together by vertical coordination: by management decision-making, rules and direct supervision. Why: get more efficiency out of this, increased efficiency. Fundamental paradox of organizing at unit level.