Organisation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Alternative meaning: Organisation (band).
An organisation or organization (see usage note) is a formal group of people with one or more shared goals. The word itself is derived from the Greek word "organon" meaning tool. The term is used in both daily and scientific English in multiple ways. Depending on where it is used different meanings are associated with it.
In the social sciences organisations are studied by researchers from several disciplines. Most commonly in sociology, economics, political science, psychology, and management. The broad area is commonly referred to as organizational studies, organisational behaviour or organisation analysis. Therefore, a number of different theories and perspectives exist , some of which are compatible, and others that are competing.
Usage and Organisation Terms
Both organisation and organization are accepted spellings in Commonwealth English, but in North American English, only organization is considered correct. Meanwhile, Commonwealth English tends to use organisation more frequently than organization, with one major exception being the Oxford English Dictionary. Etymologicaly speaking, organization is the correct spelling, with organisation having come into use as a result of French influence in the United Kingdom during the 19th century; consequently, Oxford insists on the use of organization (as well as other words such as recognize) for the primary spelling. In general, one is safer using this spelling, as again organisation is incorrect in North American English whereas organization is perfectly acceptable (though at times considered odd) in Commonwealth English
- organisation - process-related: an entity is being (re-) organised (organisation as task or action).
- organisation - functional: organisation as a function of how entities like businesses or state authorities are used (organisation as a permanent structure).
- organisation - institutional: an entity is an organisation (organisation as an actual purposeful structure within a social context)
Organisation in Sociology
In sociology "organisation" is understood as planned, coordinated and purposeful action of human beings in order to construct or compile a common tangible or intangible product or service. This action is usually framed by formal membership and form (institutional rules). Sociology distinguishes the term organisation into planned formal and unplanned informal (i.e. spontaneously formed) organisations. Sociology analyses organisations in the first line from an institutional perspective. In this sense organisation is a permanent arrangement of elements. These elements and their actions are determined by rules so that a certain task can be fulfilled through a system of co-ordinated division of labor.
An organisation is defined by its elements that are part of it (who belongs to the organisation and who not?), its communication (which elements communicate and how do they communicate?), its autonomy (Max Weber termed autonomy in this context: Autokephalie)(which changes are executed autonomously by the organisation or its elements?) and its rules of action compared to outside events (what causes an organisation to act as a collective actor?).
By coordinated and planned cooperation of the elements the organisation is able to solve tasks that lie beyond the abilities of the single elements. The price paid by the elements is the limitation of the degrees of freedom of the elements. Advantages of organisations are enhancement (more of the same), addition (combination of different features), and extension. Disadvantages can be inertness (through co-ordination) and loss of interaction.
Organisation in Management and Organisational Studies
- Main article: Organizational studies
Management is interested in organisation mainly from an instrumental point of view. For a company organisation is a means to an end in order to achieve its goals.
In this sense organisations can be distinguished into two fundamentally different sets of objectives:
- Organisations whose goal is to generate certain services and/or to produce goods (factories, service enterprises, etc.) or to bring about certain effects in its surrounding world (e.g. authorities, police, political parties, interest groups, trade unions, etc.).
- Organisations whose goal is to change individuals (e.g. schools, universities, hospitals, prisons). This type of organisation is also know as non-profit-organisation.
With regard to the inner structure of organisations two terms have to be distinguished:
- Structural organisation: the hierarchical structure of the company (who is performing which task and who has which decision-making power?)
- Process organisation: the processes and routines of the manufacturing phases that take place within the company (in which order is something done and how?)
Organizational studies also includes research efforts to inform the effective management of organisations, and addresses organisational culture, organisational learning and managing change as major factors affecting organisational effectiveness, beyond the basics of organisational structure.
The IT revolution at the of the 1990s also had an effect on organisational theory. Through the partial removal of barriers such as distance and information costs that defined the structure of organisation virtual organisations have become reality. For example it became more difficult to say who belongs to an organisation and who not. New business models came into existence that have been at the centre of organisational research.
Organisation Theories
Among the theories that are or have been most influential are:
- Weberian organisation theory (refer to Max Weber's chapter on Bureaucracy in his book 'Economy and Society')
- Marxist organisation analysis
- Scientific Management (mainly following Frederick W Taylor)
- Human Relations Studies (going back to the Hawthorne studies, Maslow and Hertzberg)
- Administrative theories (with work by e.g. Henri Fayol and Chester Barnard)
- Contingency theory
- New institutionalism and new institutional economics
- Network analysis
- Economic Sociology
- Organisation ecology (or demography of organisations)
- Transaction cost economics
- Agency theory (sometimes called principal - agent theory)
- Studies of organisation culture
- Postmodern organisation studies
- Labour Process Theory
- Critical Management Studies
- Unicist Natural Organisation
- Transaction cost theory
- Garbage can model
Organisational Structures
- Main article: Organisational structure
The study of organisations includes a focus on optimising organisational structure. According to management science, most human organisations fall roughly into four types:
- Pyramids or hierarchies
- Committees or juries
- Matrix organisations
- Ecologies
Pyramids or hierarchies
A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads leaders. This arrangement is often associated with bureaucracy. Hierarchies were satirised in The Peter Principle (1969), a book that introduced the term hierarchiology and the saying that "in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence".
An extremely rigid, in terms of responsibilities, type of organisation is exemplified by Führerprinzip.
Committees or juries
These consist of a group of peers who decide as a group, perhaps by voting. The difference between a jury and a committee is that the members of the committee are usually assigned to perform or lead further actions after the group comes to a decision, whereas members of a jury come to a decision. In common law countries legal juries render decisions of guilt, liability and quantify damages; juries are also used in athletic contests, book awards and similar activities. Sometimes a selection committee functions like a jury. In the middle ages juries in continental Europe were used to determine the law according to consensus amongst local notables.
Committees are often the most reliable way to make decisions. Condorcet's jury theorem proved that if the average member votes better than a roll of dice, then adding more members increases the number of majorities that can come to a correct vote (however correctness is defined). The problem is that if the average member is worse than a roll of dice, the committee's decisions grow worse, not better! Staffing is crucial.
Parliamentary procedure, such as Robert's Rules of Order, helps prevent committees from engaging in lengthy discussions without reaching decisions.
Staff organisation or cross-functional team
A staff helps an expert get all his work done. To this end, a "chief of staff" decides whether an assignment is routine or not. If it's routine, he assigns it to a staff member, who is a sort of junior expert. The chief of staff schedules the routine problems, and checks that they are completed.
If a problem is not routine, the chief of staff notices. He passes it to the expert, who solves the problem, and educates the staff -- converting the problem into a routine problem.
In a "cross functional team," like an executive committee, the boss has to be a non-expert, because so many kinds of expertise are required.
Matrix organisation
- See also: matrix management
This organisational type assigns each worker to two bosses in two different hierarchies. One hierarchy is "functional" and assures that each type of expert in the organisation is well-trained, and measured by a boss who is super-expert in the same field. The other direction is "executive" and tries to get projects completed using the experts. Projects might be organised by regions, customer types, or some other schema.
Ecologies
This organisation has intense competition. Bad parts of the organisation starve. Good ones get more work. Everybody is paid for what they actually do, and runs a tiny business that has to show a profit, or they are fired.
Companies who utilise this organisation type reflect a rather one-sided view of what goes on in ecology. It is also the case that a natural ecosystem has a natural border - ecoregions do not in general compete with one another in any way, but are very autonomous.
The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline talks about functioning as this type of organisation in this external article from The Guardian.
"Chaordic" organisations
The chaordic model of organising human endeavours emerged in the [1990]s, based on a blending of chaos and order (hence "chaordic"), comes out of the work of Dee Hock and the creation of the VISA financial network. Blending democracy, complex system, consensus decision making, co-operation and competition, the chaordic approach attempts to encourage organisations to evolve from the increasingly nonviable hierarchical, command-and-control models.
Similarly, see Emergent organisations, and the principle of self-organisation. See also group entity for an anarchist perspective on human organisations.
Organisations that are legal entities: government, international organisation, non-governmental organisation, armed forces, corporation, partnership, charity, not-for-profit corporation, cooperative, university.
See also
Note: Spelling is as at the article.
- Affinity group
- Bureaucracy
- Business organization
- Charitable trust
- Collective
- Conversation organisation
- International organization
- Mutual organization
- Non-governmental organization
- Organisational development
- Pacifist organization
- Requisite organisation
- Service organization
- Terrorist organisations
- Virtual organisation
- Voluntary association
Related lists
- List of environmental organizations
- List of trade unions
- List of civic, fraternal, service, and professional organizations
- List of organisations
References
- Organisations by Richard Scott: ISBN 0132663546
- Organisations and Institutions by Richard Scott
- Understanding organisations by Charles Handy.
- The Peter Principle, Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, Pan Books 1970 ISBN 0-330-02519-8
- The Nature of the Firm by Ronald Coase.
- Organizing from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern, Owl Books 1998 ISBN 0805056491
- Organization Design: Fashion or Fit by Henry Mintzberg, Harvard Business Review (January February, l98l).
