ADMN 1000H Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Contingency Theory, Institutional Theory, Groupthink

• School: Trent University
• Department: Business Administration
• Course: ADMN 1000H
• Professor: Raymond D.Dart

Document Summary

Chapter 4- establishing the structure of a business. Four broad trends in the changing nature of organizational design: flat organizations/delayering - removing or flattening organizational hierarchy so that they have a wider span of control, elimination of hierarchical layers, often involving downsizing. This allows the organization to react much faster to the demands of the changing environment because of the increased speed of decision making (less layers of management). There is more responsibility and self management on the lower levels of the organization: fluid organization - the fluid/organic organization derives its strength from its abilities to avoid being bogged down in rules and procedures. It is reflected in notion of just-in time inventory, which emphasizes the ability to generate inventory as needed though flexible manufacturing/supplier relationships to minimize costs. Examples, using temporary workers and adjust depending on the business cycle: integrated organization- focus on teams of workers rather than on individuals.