7 6. Explain the difference between job simplification and job expansion. PAGE List the four steps in the delegation process.

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1 7 Photo from Oversnap/iStockphoto. Organizing and Delegating Work Learning Outcomes After studying this chapter, you should be able to: 7 1. Explain the difference between mechanistic and organic organizations and the environments in which they are more effective. PAGE Discuss the difference between formal and informal authority and centralized and decentralized authority. PAGE List and briefly explain the four levels of authority. PAGE Explain what an organization chart is and list the four aspects of a firm that it shows. PAGE Discuss the difference between internal and external departmentalization. PAGE Explain the difference between job simplification and job expansion. PAGE Explain how to set priorities by answering three priority questions and determining whether activities have high, medium, or low priority. PAGE List the four steps in the delegation process. PAGE 205

2 Chapter 7: Organizing and Delegating Work 185 IDEAS ON MANAGEMENT at Volkswagen Group Volkswagen means people s car. The German MNC Volkswagen Group is one of the world s leading automobile manufacturers and the largest carmaker in Europe. The Group comprises 12 brands from seven European countries: Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Audi, SEAT, ŠKODA, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, Ducati, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Scania, and MAN. Each brand has its own character and operates as an independent subsidiary. In Western Europe, almost one in four new cars (24.4 percent) is made by the Volkswagen Group. Volkswagen activities may focus on the automobile, but the Volkswagen Group is far more than just a carmaker, as a wide variety of mobilityrelated services round out its portfolio. Volkswagen Group has a goal of becoming the world s largest automaker. To that end, it continues to be innovative. Group Research has its headquarters in Wolfsburg and researches for all Group brands. International trend scouting and technology scouting form part of its strategic orientation, and it also operates from research bases in the U.S., Japanese, and Chinese markets. Uniting a wide variety of brands and companies with all their individual characteristics and focuses under one umbrella is a great challenge, especially as the Volkswagen Group is committed to maintaining their individual identities. But this is the only way all the brands and companies can make their own contributions to the common value stream and form cornerstones of the Group. 1. Where is Volkswagen Group on the mechanistic and organic continuum? PAGE What are the important organizational principles guiding Volkswagen in achieving its goal of becoming the world s largest automaker? PAGE Is Volkswagen more centralized or decentralized? PAGE What is Volkswagen Group s organizational design? PAGE What prioritization issues does Volkswagen face? PAGE 201 You ll find answers to these questions throughout the chapter. To learn more about the Volkswagen Group, visit its website at Sources: Information for this case was taken from Volkswagen s website at accessed June 26, Chapter Outline Organizational Considerations and Principles Organizational Considerations Principles of Organization Authority Formal and Informal Authority and Scope and Levels of Authority Centralized and Decentralized Authority Line and Staff Authority Organizational Design Organization Chart Departmentalization Multiple Departmentalization Reengineering Contemporary Organizational Designs Job Design Job Simplification Job Expansion Work Teams The Job Characteristics Model Organizing Yourself and Delegating Setting Priorities Delegating

3 186 PART III: ORGANIZING Organization Considerations and Principles Why do firms that seem equal execute at different levels of efficiency? The answer is in how their resources are organized and managed. 1 Organizing, the second function of management, is defined as the process of delegating and coordinating tasks and resources to achieve objectives. The four resources managers organize are human, physical, financial, and information (Chapter 1). So you manage resources by organizing activities. 2 When designing an entire organization, there are some things to consider and principles to follow. These are the topics of this section. LO 7-1 Explain the difference between mechanistic and organic organizations and the environments in which they are more effective. Organizational Considerations Here are some things to consider and questions to answer when organizing the entire company. Mechanistic versus Organic Organization and the Environment. Overall there are two major forms of organization that are more effective in different environments (Chapter 2). Mechanistic organizations are bureaucratic, focusing on following procedures and rules through tight controls and having specialized jobs, with decisions being made by top managers. This model tends to work well in stable environments. Conversely, organic organizations are flexible, with minimal focus on procedures and rules, broadly defined jobs, and decisions made at lower levels. This model tends to work well in dynamic environments. Although there are two forms, they are really on a continuum between being mechanistic or organic. Many companies are organized somewhere between the two extremes but can be more identified overall with one form or the other. It is also common for some parts like manufacturing to be mechanistic, whereas as research, design, and marketing are organic; this is the case at Volkswagen Group (Case Question 1). Strategy, Size, and Technology. As discussed in Chapter 5, companies develop strategies and, thus, company organizational structure must be designed to achieve the strategies. 3 As companies change strategies, they tend to change their structure. With innovative growth strategies in a dynamic environment, organic structures tend to work well, whereas with stability strategy in a stable environment, mechanistic tends to work well (Burns and Stalker, Chapter 1). Generally, the larger the firm, the more mechanistic it becomes, but highly innovative companies can be organic. Companies that use mass-production technology tend to use a more mechanistic organization, whereas firms with more custom-made products tend to be organic (Woodward, Chapter 1). Organization Questions. There are at least six questions that you need to answer when organizing. The questions are listed in Exhibit 7-1. The answers are discussed in more detail in the indicated topic sections of this chapter. mechanistic organizations Bureaucratic organizations, focusing on following procedures and rules through tight controls and specialized jobs, with top managers making decisions. organic organizations Flexible organizations with minimal focus on procedures and rules, broadly defined jobs, and decisions made at lower levels. Principles of Organization Exhibit 7-2 lists the organizational principles generally followed by companies that we discuss in this section. Note that not all companies follow all of the guidelines. You will learn that there is a difference in their use by organic and mechanistic organizations. Unity of Command and Direction. The principle of unity of command requires that each employee report to only one boss. When there are two bosses, you can often get two conflicting messages. The principle of unity of direction requires that all activities be directed toward the same objectives. Unity of command and direction

4 Chapter 7: Organizing and Delegating Work 187 EXHIBIT 7-1 ORGANIZING QUESTIONS Questions for Managers Who should departments and individuals report to? How many individuals should report to each manager? How should we subdivide the work? How do we get everyone to work together as a system? At what level should decisions be made? How do we organize to meet our mission and strategy? Chapter Topic Chain of command; organization chart Span of management Division of labor; departmentalization Coordination Centralization vs. decentralization of authority Departmentalization EXHIBIT 7-2 PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION Unity of command and direction Chain of command Span of management (flat and tall organizations) Division of labor (specialization, departmentalization, integration) Coordination Balanced responsibility and authority Delegation Flexibility is more closely enforced in mechanistic organizations than in organic ones, which are more flexible, with decisions being made at lower levels. Chain of Command. Chain of command, also known as the Scalar Principle, is the clear line of authority from the top to the bottom of an organization. The chain of command forms a hierarchy, 4 which is illustrated in the organization chart. All members of the firm should know whom they report to and who, if anyone, reports to them. The chain of command is clearer and more closely followed in mechanistic organizations. Span of Management. The span of management (or span of control) refers to the number of employees reporting to a manager. The fewer employees supervised, the smaller or narrower the span of management. The more employees supervised, the greater or wider the span. The span of management in an organization is related to the number of its organizational levels, which determines its organizational height. In a tall organization, there are many levels with narrow spans of management. In a flat organization, there are few levels with wide spans of management. In recent years, many organizations have flattened. Shell cut 20 percent of its top management. 5 Mechanistic organizations tend to be taller. Division of Labor. With division of labor, employees have specialized jobs. Related functions are grouped together under a single boss. Employees generally have specialized jobs in a functional area such as accounting, production, or sales. Mechanistic organizations have a greater division of labor. WORK APPLICATION 7-1 Follow the chain of command from your present position (or one you held in the past) to the top of the organization. Start by identifying anyone who reported to you, then list your boss s title, your boss s boss s title, and on up to the top manager s title. WORK APPLICATION 7-2 Identify your boss s span of management, or your own if you are or were a manager. How many levels of management are there in your organization? Is it a flat or a tall organization? span of management The number of employees reporting to a manager.

5 188 PART III: ORGANIZING Coordination. Coordination ensures that all departments and individuals within an organization work together to accomplish strategic and operational objectives. 6 Coordination is the process of integrating tasks and resources to meet objectives. Paul Lawrence and Jay Lorsch coined the terms differentiation and integration. 7 Differentiation refers to the need to break the organization into departments, and integration refers to the need to coordinate the departmental activities. Coordination is generally easier in mechanistic organizations. Start-up organizations often use organic structures that allow for more flexibility. Photo from Vetta Stock Photo/ istockphoto. WORK APPLICATION 7-3 Does an organization you work for or have worked for emphasize following the standing procedures or being flexible? Explain your answer. responsibility The obligation to achieve objectives by performing required activities. authority The right to make decisions, issue orders, and use resources. delegation The process of assigning responsibility and authority for accomplishing objectives. Balanced Responsibility and Authority. With balanced responsibility and authority, the responsibilities of each individual in the organization are clearly defined. Mechanistic employees have more clearly defined responsibilities. Each individual is also given the authority necessary to meet these responsibilities and is held accountable for meeting them. When you delegate, you do not give responsibility and authority away; you share them. Responsibility is the obligation to achieve objectives by performing required activities. When strategic and operational objectives are set, the people responsible for achieving them should be clearly identified. Managers are responsible for the performance of their units. Authority is the right to make decisions, issue orders, and use resources. As a manager, you will be given responsibility for achieving unit objectives. You must also have the authority to get the job done. Authority is delegated. The CEO is responsible for the results of the entire organization and delegates authority down the chain of command to the lower-level managers, who are responsible for meeting operational objectives. Accountability is the evaluation of how well individuals meet their responsibilities. All members of an organization should be evaluated periodically and held accountable for achieving their objectives, which is being done at Shell. 8 Managers are accountable for everything that happens in their departments. As a manager, you delegate responsibility and authority to perform tasks, but you should realize that you can never delegate your accountability. Delegation. Delegation is the process of assigning responsibility and authority for accomplishing objectives. Responsibility and authority are delegated down the chain of command. Delegation will be covered in detail later in this chapter. But for now, you should realize that delegation only takes place when you give an employee a new task. If a task is already part of the job and you ask them to do a task, it s not delegation. Delegating tends to be used more often in organic organizations, as jobs are not as clearly defined and employees are expected to do a wider variety of tasks. Flexibility. Employees in mechanistic organizations focus on following company rules; they fear getting into trouble for breaking or bending the rules. Organic organization employees are allowed to be more flexible and make exceptions to the procedures and rules to create customer satisfaction. Because each of the 12 brands in the Volkswagen Group (Case Question 2) is managed separately, the most important organizational principles guiding it toward the goal of being the world s largest automaker are unity of direction, coordination, delegation, and flexibility. All 12 subsidiaries need a unity of

6 Chapter 7: Organizing and Delegating Work APPLYING THE CONCEPT Principles of Organization Identify which organizational principle or principles are represented by each statement. A. unity of command and direction B. chain of command C. span of management D. division of labor E. coordination F. balanced responsibility and authority G. delegation H. flexibility 1. Sometimes my department manager tells me to do one thing but my project manager tells me to do something else at the same time. Therefore, I often wonder which task I should do. 2. I want an employee to do a special report but, as a middle manager, I can t give anyone a direct order to do it. I have to have one of my supervisors give the order. 3. There has been an accident, and the ambulance is on the way. Juan, call Doctor Rodriguez and have her get to emergency room C in 10 minutes. Pat, get the paperwork ready. Karen, prepare emergency room C. 4. Sara told me to pick up the mail. When I got to the post office, I did not have a key to the box, so the postal worker wouldn t give me the mail. 5. Players on a football team are on either the offensive or the defensive squad. direction to achieve the objective. Coordination at headquarters between the 12 subsidiaries is critical (differentiation and integration), and because they are independent brands, authority must be delegated to them, as they are responsible for their own results and held accountable, and each subsidiary has the flexibility to operate as a separate company. Authority In this section, you will learn about formal and informal authority, levels of authority, centralized and decentralized authority, and line and staff authority. Formal and Informal Authority and Scope and Levels of Authority It is helpful to distinguish between formal and informal authority 9 and to understand the scope and level of your authority for a given task. Formal and Informal Authority. Formal authority (or structure) is based on the specified relationships among employees. It is the sanctioned way of getting the job done. The organization chart illustrates formal authority and shows the lines of authority. Informal authority (or structure) arises from the patterns of relationships and communication that evolve as employees interact and communicate. It is the unsanctioned way of getting the job done. Formal authority is common in mechanistic organizations, whereas informal authority is more accepted in organic organizations. Scope of Authority. The scope of authority is a hierarchy that narrows as it flows down the organization. 10 The president has more authority than a vice president, who has more authority than a manager. Responsibility and authority are delegated and flow down the organization, whereas accountability flows up the organization, as Exhibit 7-3 illustrates. Levels of Authority. The levels of authority are the authority to inform, the authority to recommend, the authority to report, and full authority. LO 7-2 Discuss the difference between formal and informal authority and centralized and decentralized authority. LO 7-3 List and briefly explain the four levels of authority. levels of authority The authority to inform, the authority to recommend, the authority to report, and full authority.

7 190 PART III: ORGANIZING EXHIBIT 7-3 Responsibility and Authority Accountability WORK APPLICATION 7-4 Identify and explain your level of authority for a specific task in an organization. WORK APPLICATION 7-5 Describe the type of authority (centralized or decentralized) used in an organization you work for or have worked for. centralized authority Important decisions are made by top managers. SCOPE OF AUTHORITY Top Management Middle Management First-Line Management Operative Employees 1. The authority to inform. You inform your supervisor of possible alternative actions. The supervisor has the authority to make the decision. 2. The authority to recommend. You list alternative decisions/actions, analyze them, and recommend one action. However, you may not implement the recommendation without the boss s okay. The boss may require a different alternative if he or she does not agree with the recommendation. Committees are often given authority to recommend. 3. The authority to report. You may freely select a course of action and carry it out. However, afterward you must report the action taken to the boss. 4. Full authority. You may freely make decisions and act without the boss s knowledge. However, even people with full authority may consult their bosses for advice. Centralized and Decentralized Authority The major distinction between centralized and decentralized authority lies in who makes the important decisions. With centralized authority, important decisions are made by top managers. With decentralized authority, important decisions are made by middle and first-line managers. Decentralization pushes authority and accountability further down the line. 11 Volkswagen Group (Case Question 3) lets each of its 12 brands operate as separate business units; therefore, it is decentralizing authority. Which type of authority works best? There is no simple answer, as it depends on the situation. 12 The major advantages of centralization are control and reduced duplication of work. The major advantages of decentralization are efficiency and flexibility. Mechanistic organizations tend to use centralized authority, whereas organic ones tend to use decentralized authority. General Electric and Toyota have successfully used decentralized authority, and General Dynamics and McDonald s have successfully used centralized authority. Authority is a continuum, with centralized authority at one end and decentralized authority at the other. Most organizations lie somewhere between the two extremes but can be classified overall. The key to success seems to be having the right balance between the two extremes. Micromanagement. Micromanagement is a management style generally used as a negative term for when a manager closely observes or controls the work of his or her employees. Rather than giving general instructions on tasks and then devoting time to supervising larger concerns, the micromanager monitors and assesses every step of a business process and avoids delegation of decisions. A micromanager tends to require constant and detailed performance feedback and tends to be excessively focused on procedural trivia rather than on overall performance, quality, and results. This often delays decisions, clouds overall goals and objectives, restricts the flow of information between employees, and guides the various aspects of a project in different and often opposed decisions. 13 Micromanaging is more common with centralized authority. decentralized authority Important decisions are made by middle and first-line managers. Line and Staff Authority There are differences between line and staff authority, and staff can be generalist or specialist.

8 Chapter 7: Organizing and Delegating Work JOIN THE DISCUSSION ETHICS & SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY Breaking the Rules Suppose you are a sales rep for a major pharmaceutical company. You get paid by commission, so the more drugs you sell to doctors, the more money you make. You know that sales reps in your company have been visiting doctors and telling them that if they prescribe your company s medication, they will receive 5 percent of the sales revenues. This arrangement can bring in thousands of dollars each year for both the sales reps and the doctors. You know the names of a few sales reps who are allegedly giving these kickbacks, but you are not sure how many sales reps are involved. You also don t know if sales managers know about the kickbacks or are receiving payments from the reps. 1. Is it unethical to be flexible and break the law against kickbacks? 2. Why are kickbacks illegal? Who benefits from kickbacks, who gets hurt by them, and how? 3. What would you do in this situation? (Would you start giving kickbacks yourself? Blow the whistle on sales reps to their managers? Blow the whistle to an outside source like the government or the media? Do nothing?) Line versus Staff Authority. Line authority is the responsibility to make decisions and issue orders down the chain of command. Staff authority is the responsibility to advise and assist other personnel. Line managers are primarily responsible for achieving the organization s objectives and directly bringing revenue into the organization, and staff people provide them with services that help them do that. Operations, marketing, and finance are usually line departments. Human resources management, public relations, and data processing are almost always staff departments. The line departments are internal customers of the staff departments. General and Specialist Staff. General staff work for only one manager and help the manager in any way needed. Specialist staff help anyone in the organization who needs it. Human resources, accounting, public relations, and maintenance offer specialized advice and assistance. Line managers and division managers use the services of staff departments such as printing and human resources. Exhibit 7-4 reviews types and levels of authority. Mechanistic organizations tend to have more specialized staff than do organic organizations. EXHIBIT 7-4 Formal: sanctioned Informal: unsanctioned Organizational Design TYPES AND LEVELS OF AUTHORITY Line: issue orders Staff: assist line Authority Inform: present alternatives Recommend: present alternatives and suggest one Full: do and don t tell Centralized: top managers Decentralized: meddle and first-line managers Organizational design is important, 14 as it refers to the internal structure of an organization, or the arrangement of positions in the organization into work units WORK APPLICATION 7-6 Identify one or more line and staff positions in an organization you work for or have worked for. Also, indicate whether the staff positions are general staff or specialist staff. micromanagement A management style generally used as a negative term for when a manager closely observes or controls the work of his or her employees. line authority The responsibility to make decisions and issue orders down the chain of command. staff authority The responsibility to advise and assist other personnel.

9 192 PART III: ORGANIZING 7-2 APPLYING THE CONCEPT Authority Identify the type of authority referred to in each statement. A. formal B. informal C. centralized D. decentralized E. line F. staff 6. Managers here have the autonomy to run their departments in the way they want to. 7. Here is a list of cars and my recommendation on which one to replace the current company car. 8. That is a great idea. I ll talk to the boss, and if he likes it, he ll let us present the idea to his boss. 9. I get frustrated when I recommend good job candidates to the production manager and he does not hire them. 10. It is great working here. I have developed great relationships with people throughout the organization and we are encouraged to share information with everyone else to get the job done. or departments and the interrelationships among these units or departments. As you ll learn in this section, organizational design is illustrated in the organization chart and is determined by the type of departmentalization. LO 7-4 Explain what an organization chart is and list the four aspects of a firm that it shows. organization chart A graphic illustration of an organization s management hierarchy and departments and their working relationships. Organization Chart The formal authority or structure within an organization defines the working relationships between the organization s members and their jobs and is illustrated by an organization chart. It helps to see your organizational structure in a chart. 15 An organization chart is a graphic illustration of the organization s management hierarchy and departments and their working relationships. Each box represents a position within the organization, and each line indicates the reporting relationships and lines of communication. (An organization chart does not show the dayto-day activities performed or the structure of the informal organization.) Exhibit 7-5, an adaptation of General Motors s organization chart, 16 illustrates four major aspects of such a chart: The level of management hierarchy. The hierarchy shows the levels of management. 17 At GM, the CEO and division presidents are top management, the vice presidents and managers are middle management, and the supervisors are first-line management. Chain of command. By following the vertical lines, you can see who reports to whom, as the GM division presidents report to the CEO. Within each division, vice presidents report to a president. The managers report to a vice president, and supervisors report to a manager. The assistant to the CEO is a general staff person, and the finance and human resources departments include specialist staff. The division and type of work. GM divides work by type of automobile: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, and GMC (trucks). Each vice president within a division is responsible for a function. Departmentalization. An organization chart shows how the firm is divided into permanent work units. GM is organized primarily by product divisional departmentalization. To better focus on the customer, some organizations, including Dana Corporation, FedEx, Nordstrom, and Walmart, have developed an upside-down organization chart with the customer at the top of the chart and management at the

10 Chapter 7: Organizing and Delegating Work 193 EXHIBIT 7-5 ORGANIZATION CHART CEO Assistant to the CEO President, Buick President, Cadillac President, Chevrolet President, GMC Vice President, Production Vice President, Marketing Vice President, Finance Vice President, Human Resources Manager, Region I Manager, Region II Manager, Region III Manager, Region IV Supervisor Supervisor Supervisor Supervisor Supervisor Supervisor bottom. The upside-down chart reminds everyone in the organization that the ultimate goal is to provide customer value and emphasizes to managers that their role is to support employees in providing customer value. Departmentalization Departmentalization is the grouping of related activities into units. Departments may have either an internal or an external focus. Departmentalization based on the internal operations or functions that the employees perform and the resources needed to accomplish that work is called functional departmentalization. External, or output, departmentalization is based on activities or factors outside the organization; it is referred to more specifically as product, customer, or territory departmentalization. LO 7-5 Discuss the difference between internal and external departmentalization. Functional Departmentalization. Functional departmentalization involves organizing departments around essential input activities, such as production, sales, and finance, which are managerial or technological functions. Functional departmentalization is illustrated in the top left portion of Exhibit 7 6. The functional approach is the form most widely used by small organizations. Large organizations that have a diversity of products or types of customers or that cover a wide territory cannot departmentalize effectively simply around functions. Instead, they focus on factors external to the company. Product (Service) Departmentalization. Product (service) departmentalization involves organizing departments around goods (or services). Companies with multiple products commonly use product departmentalization. Retail chains like Sears use product departmentalization. The organization chart at the bottom left in Exhibit 7-6 illustrates product departmentalization. departmentalization The grouping of related activities into units.

11 194 PART III: ORGANIZING EXHIBIT 7-6 TYPES OF DEPARTMENTALIZATION Functional Departmentalization President Customer Deparmentalization (Johnson & Johnson) CEO Vice President, Operations Vice President, Marketing Vice President, Finance Vice President, Human Resources President, Household President, Professional President, Pharmaceutical President, Industrial Product Departmentalization (Famous Footwear) Store Manager Territory Departmentalization President Manager, Women s Footwear Manager, Men s Footwear Manager, Children s Footwear Vice President, North Vice President, South Vice President, East Vice President, West Customer Departmentalization. Customer departmentalization involves organizing departments around the needs of different types of customers. The product or service may be the same or slightly different, but the needs of the customer warrant different marketing approaches. Motorola restructured to merge about a half dozen business units into two huge divisions one geared to retail consumers and the other to industrial customers. Haier Group in China reorganized into 4,100 self-managed units with each devoted to a customer or group of customers. 18 Some not-for-profit organizations use it, such as, a counseling center offering drug counseling, family counseling, and so on. The organization chart at the top right in Exhibit 7 6 illustrates customer departmentalization. Territory (Geographic) Departmentalization. Territory (geographic) departmentalization involves establishing separate units in each area in which the enterprise does business. The federal government uses this structure. For example, the Federal Reserve System is divided into 12 geographic areas, and each one has a similar central bank. The organization chart at the bottom right in Exhibit 7 6 illustrates departmentalization by territory. Multiple Departmentalization Many organizations, particularly large, complex ones, use several types of departmentalization to create a hybrid structure. 19 Any mixture of types can be used. For example, some organizations have functional departments within a manufacturing facility, but sales are departmentalized by territory with separate sales managers and salespeople in different areas. Matrix Departmentalization. Matrix departmentalization combines functional and product departmentalization. With matrix departmentalization, an employee works for a functional department and is also assigned to one or more products or projects. The major advantage of matrix departmentalization is flexibility. It allows the enterprise to temporarily organize for a project. The major disadvantage is that each employee has two bosses a functional boss and a project boss which violates the unity-of-command principle. Coordination can also be difficult. 20 Xerox and Boeing use matrix departmentalization. Exhibit 7-7 illustrates a matrix structure.

12 Chapter 7: Organizing and Delegating Work 195 EXHIBIT 7-7 MATRIX DEPARTMENTALIZATION President Vice President, Operations Vice President, Marketing Vice President, Finance Others Project Manager 1 Project Manager 2 Project Manager 3 represents teams of functional employes working on a project Divisional Departmentalization. As part of the corporate grand strategy (Chapter 5), a divisional structure is based on semiautonomous strategic business units. In essence, this structure creates coordinated companies within a company. Divisional structure is common for large, complex global businesses that offer related goods and services. PepsiCo uses divisional departmentalization for its Pepsi soda, Gatorade sport drinks, Frito-Lay snacks, and Quaker Oats cereal and granola bars. 21 Within the divisional structure, any mixture of the other forms of departmentalization may also be used. Volkswagen Group (Case Question 4) is one company with 12 separate independent brands, so it overall uses a divisional departmentalization. However, selling vehicles in 153 countries, it is also departmentalized by territory. Each of the 12 brand subsidiaries also has a variety of product models that can be organized into product departmentalization, and they each have to perform their own functions that can be departments. The brands also use matrix departmentalization when designing new car models. The conglomerate (holding company) structure is based on autonomous profit centers. 22 Companies with unrelated diversified business units use the conglomerate structure. Top management focuses on business portfolio management to buy and sell lines of business without great concern for coordinating divisions. The Walt Disney Company and Time Warner use the conglomerate structure. Reengineering Contemporary Organizational Designs Companies are reengineering their business processes. Some of the new approaches to organizational design are horizontal team, network, modular, virtual, and learning organizations. Reengineering and new organizational designs are more common in organic than in mechanistic organizations. WORK APPLICATION 7-7 Draw a simple organization chart for an organization you work for or have worked for. Identify the type of departmentalization and staff positions, if any. divisional structure Departmentalization based on semiautonomous strategic business units.

13 196 PART III: ORGANIZING 7-3 APPLYING THE CONCEPT Departmentalization Identify the type of departmentalization illustrated by each organization chart. a. functional d. territory (geographic) b. product (service) e. matrix c. customer f. divisional 11. Dallas Consulting Company President Manager, Strategic Planning Manager, Training and Development Manager, Marketing Research 12. Wood Publishing Company President Editor, E1-Hi Books Editor, College Books Editor, Retail Books 13. Worldwide Marriage Encounter USA Executive Team Coordinators, Zone 1 Coordinators, Zone 2 Coordinators, Zone 3 Coordinators, Zone Best Company International CEO President, West Service Stations President, Long Sports Equipment President, Jones Consultants President, Timer Rentals 15. Production department of metal toys company Manager Supervisor, Painting Supervisor, Plating and Molding Supervisor, Assembly

14 Chapter 7: Organizing and Delegating Work 197 Reengineering. Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical, contemporary measures of performance, such as cost, quality, service, and speed. 23 As defined, it s about radical big improvement, not incremental change. You start by throwing out the old methods and reengineer new, radically better ways of getting the work done. Michael Porter says we need to reengineer health-care organizations, including how doctors and nurses work together. 24 An entire company, department, or job can be reengineered. Here we focus on the company and department levels; we focus on reengineering the job in the next major section Job Design. Horizontal Team Organization. Many companies are moving away from a vertical, hierarchical, top-down focus to a horizontal, team-based structure. 25 Teams increase speed of response, individual accountability, flexibility, knowledge sharing, and coordination throughout the organization. Teams often create innovative routines that benefit other groups in the company. 26 You will learn about work teams later in the chapter. Cummins, General Foods, Procter & Gamble, and Sherwin-Williams have all developed team structures. Network, Modular, and Virtual Organizations. Networks are boundaryless interrelationships among different organizations. 27 Networks have a positive impact on performance, 28 and modular and virtual organizations are types of networks. A network firm may be viewed as a central hub surrounded by a network of outside specialists that change as needed. Network modular firms focus on what they do best, outsource the rest to other companies, and coordinate their activities. Nike and Reebok design and market their footwear and outsource manufacturing to contractors that change over time. Some companies, including Dell and RCA, either purchase products ready made or buy all the parts and only assemble the product. A virtual organization is a continually evolving network of companies that unite temporarily to exploit specific opportunities or to attain strategic advantages and then disband when objectives are met. The virtual organization has no central hub; it s more like a potluck dinner, as each independent company selects which companies it wants to network with to meet a specific objective. E-commerce is increasing the use of virtual organizations. The Learning Organization. As discussed in Chapter 2, in a learning organization, everyone in the firm is engaged in identifying and solving problems to continuously improve and achieve the firm s objectives. There is no agreement about how the learning organization looks or operates. However, it does use the horizontal team structure with open information and knowledge sharing. 29 Learning organizations are also characterized by decentralized decision making, participative strategy, empowered employees who share responsibility, and a strong adaptive nature. 30 As discussed in this section, firms are changing the way they organize. Complete the Self-Assessment to determine your organizational preference. Knowing your preference can help in job searching. Job Design Tasks or activities to be performed by organizations are grouped into functional departments, 31 and the tasks are further grouped into jobs for each employee. Job design is the process of identifying tasks that each employee is responsible for completing. Job design is crucial because it affects job satisfaction and productivity. 32 So companies are redesigning and reengineering work process and jobs. 33 Many organizations, including GE and Pizza Hut, are asking employees to suggest ways to redesign their work. Empowering employees to be involved in designing their own jobs motivates them to increase productivity. job design The process of identifying tasks that each employee is responsible for completing.

15 198 PART III: ORGANIZING 7-1 SELF ASSESSMENT Organizational Preference Individuals differ in the type of organizations in which they prefer to work. To determine your organizational preference, evaluate each of the following 12 statements, using the scale below. Place a number from 1 to 5 that represents your level of agreement with the statement. I agree I disagree I prefer having just one boss telling me what to do rather than multiple people. 2. I prefer to just perform my job rather than being concerned about organizational objectives and being involved in setting them. 3. I prefer knowing the reporting relationship, who is whose boss, and working through proper channels rather than just working directly with a variety of people based on the situation. 4. I prefer to get information from my boss rather than multiple sources. 5. I prefer having a clear job description so I know just what I need to do at work rather than the ambiguity of not being sure and doing whatever needs to be done. 6. I prefer being a specialist rather than a generalist. 7. I prefer doing my own thing that contributes to the organization rather than coordinating the work I do with that of others in teams. 8. I prefer to make excuses and blame others rather than accept responsibility for my shortcomings. 9. I prefer having my boss make decisions for me at work rather than making my own decisions. 10. I prefer routine at work rather than being delegated new tasks to perform. 11. I prefer having job security rather than knowing I could be let go. 12. I prefer that people get promoted based primarily on seniority rather than based on performance. Total Scoring: To determine your preference, add up the numbers you assigned to the statements; the total will be between 12 and 60. The higher your score, the more you prefer to work in a traditional organizational structure, often referred to as mechanistic. The lower your score, the more you prefer to work in a contemporary organizational structure, often called organic. Review your answers knowing that the opening statement applies to traditional organizations and the opposite statement (after rather than ) applies to contemporary organizations. Most firms tend to be organized somewhere between the two extremes. LO 7-6 Explain the difference between job simplification and job expansion. As we will discuss in this section, jobs may be simplified or they may be expanded. You can use work teams and a job characteristics model to design jobs. Job Simplification Job simplification is the process of eliminating or combining tasks and/or changing the work sequence to improve performance. Job simplification makes jobs more specialized. It is based on the organizing principle of division of labor and Taylor s scientific management (Chapter 1). The idea behind job simplification is to work smarter, not harder. A job is broken down into steps (flowchart), and employees analyze the steps to see if they can eliminate, combine, or change the sequence of activities. Eliminate. Does the task, or parts of it, have to be done at all? If not, don t waste time doing it. Combine. Doing similar things together often saves time. However, save multitasking for nonurgent, noncomplex tasks. Change sequence. Often, a change in the order of doing things results in a lower total time.

16 Chapter 7: Organizing and Delegating Work 199 Intel managers decided that it was not necessary to fill out a voucher for expenses amounting to less than $100. Thus, fewer vouchers were filled out, saving time and paperwork. At IBM Credit, for loans given to companies buying its computers, approval took six days as it went through five people in five different departments. IBM reengineered the job so that only one person approved the credit and cut the approval time down to four hours. 34 Job Expansion Job expansion is the process of making jobs less specialized. Jobs can be expanded through rotation, enlargement, and enrichment. Job Rotation. Job rotation involves performing different jobs in some sequence, each one for a set period. For example, employees making cars on a GM assembly line might rotate so that they get to work on different parts of the production process for a set period. Many organizations develop conceptual skills in management trainees by rotating them through various departments. Target, Ford, Motorola, and Prudential Financial use job rotation. Related to job rotation is cross-training. With cross-training, employees learn to perform different jobs so they can fill in for those who are not on the job. As skills increase, employees become more valuable to the organization. Job Enlargement. Job enlargement involves adding tasks to broaden variety. For example, rather than rotate jobs, the car workers could combine tasks into one job. AT&T, Chrysler, GM, and IBM have used job enlargement. Unfortunately, adding more tasks to an employee s job is often not a great motivator. Job Enrichment. Job enrichment is the process of building motivators into the job itself to make it more interesting and challenging. Job enrichment works for jobs of low motivation potential and employees who are ready to be empowered to do meaningful work. 35 A simple way to enrich jobs is for the manager to delegate more responsibility to employees to make a job satisfying. Monsanto, Motorola, and the Travelers Companies have successfully used job enrichment. Work Teams The traditional approach to job design has been to focus on individual jobs. Recently, there has been a trend toward designing jobs for work teams or, to be more accurate, teams are redesigning members jobs. 36 The development of work teams is a form of job enrichment. Teams develop innovative routines that get passed on to other teams. 37 Two common types of work teams are integrated teams and self-managed teams. Integrated Work Teams. Integrated work teams are assigned a number of tasks by a manager, and the team in turn gives specific assignments to members and is responsible for rotating jobs. Unlike members of self-managed work teams, most members have no input in each other s work. Integrated work teams are frequently used in areas such as building maintenance and construction. WORK APPLICATION 7-8 Describe how a job at an organization you work for or have worked for could be simplified. Be sure to specify if you are eliminating, combining, or changing the sequence of the job. Target uses job rotation to help management trainees broaden their skills. The more jobs an employee can perform, the more valuable he or she is to the organization. Photo from Dawn Villella/ AP Photo. WORK APPLICATION 7-9 Describe how a job at an organization you work for or have worked for could be expanded. Be sure to specify if you are using job rotation, job enlargement, or job enrichment and to be explicit about how the job is changed. job enrichment The process of building motivators into a job to make it more interesting and challenging.

17 200 PART III: ORGANIZING WORK APPLICATION 7-10 Describe how an organization you work for or have worked for uses or could use teams. Be sure to specify if the teams are integrated or self-managed. Self-Managed Work Teams. Self-managed work teams are assigned a goal, and the team plans, organizes, leads, and controls to achieve the goal. Usually, self-managed teams operate without a designated manager; the team is both manager and worker. Teams commonly elect their own members and evaluate each other s performance. General Mills, Aetna, W. L. Gore and Associates, and 3M have successfully used self-managed work teams. Exhibit 7-8 reviews the job design options we have discussed so far. In designing jobs, managers can use the job characteristics model, to be discussed next. EXHIBIT 7-8 Job Simplification JOB DESIGN OPTIONS Eliminate tasks Combine tasks Change task sequence Job Expansion Rotate jobs Add tasks Job enrichment (increase task variety and employee responsibility) Work Teams Integrated Self-managed job characteristics model A conceptual framework for designing or enriching jobs that focuses on core job dimensions, psychological states of employees, and the strength of employees need for growth. The Job Characteristics Model The job characteristics model, developed by Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham, provides a conceptual framework for designing or enriching jobs. 38 The model can be used by individual managers or by members of a team. Exhibit 7-9 illustrates the job characteristics model. Use of job characteristics improves employees motivation and job satisfaction 39 and can increase performance. 40 Five core dimensions can be fine-tuned to improve the outcomes of a job in terms of employees productivity and their quality of working life: 1. Skill variety is the number of diverse tasks that make up a job and the number of skills used to perform the job. 2. Task identity is the degree to which an employee performs a whole identifiable task. For example, does the employee put together an entire television or just place the screen in the set? 3. Task significance is an employee s perception of the importance of the task to others the organization, the department, coworkers, and/or customers. 4. Autonomy is the degree to which the employee has discretion to make decisions in planning, organizing, and controlling the task performed. 5. Feedback is the extent to which employees find out how well they perform their tasks. 6. Note that if employees are not interested in enriching their jobs, the job characteristics model will fail. You will learn more about needs and motivation in Chapter 11.

18 Chapter 7: Organizing and Delegating Work 201 EXHIBIT 7-9 THE JOB CHARACTERISTICS MODEL Core Job Dimensions 1. Skill variety 2. Task identity 3. Task significance 4. Autonomy Critical Psychological States A. Experienced meaningfulness of work B. Experienced responsibility for work Personal and Work Outcomes 1. High internal work motivation 2. High-quality work performance 3. High satisfaction with the work 4. Low absenteeism and turnover 5. Feedback C. Knowledge of the results of work Employee Growth-Need Strength The greater the employee s growth need, the better the results. Organizing Yourself And Delegating Successful managers are effective at setting priorities and delegating work. 41 Recall that planning entails setting objectives and that organizing is the process of delegating and coordinating resources to achieve objectives. Thus, prioritizing objectives is important, because some objectives are more important than others; 42 as a manager, you get the work done by delegating it to employees. 43 Now that you understand how organizations and jobs are designed, it s time to learn how to organize yourself by setting priorities and delegating work. Start by completing the Self- Assessment 7 2 on prioritizing to determine what is important to you personally (your values). The higher the total in any area, the higher the value you place on that particular area. The closer the totals are in all eight areas, the more well rounded you are. Think about the time and effort you put into your top three values. Are you putting in enough time and effort to achieve the level of success you want in each area? If not, what can you do to change? Today s employees want to know how they are doing. Giving feedback is an important part of the manager s job because it helps employees continually improve their performance. Photo from Stocknroll/iStockphoto. Setting Priorities Let s begin by briefly discussing setting priorities for the entire organization, followed by a more detailed discussion focusing on teaching you how to set your own day-to-day priorities. Many of today s companies are spotlighting fewer high priorities to make sure the most important ones are accomplished. 44 ebay made going mobile its top priority, and it was an early mover. 45 Volkswagen Group (Case Question 5) has a grand strategy goal to become the world s largest automaker. At the corporate LO 7-7 Explain how to set priorities by answering three priority questions and determining whether activities have high, medium, or low priority.