Review Chapter 9 : Organizational Agility

REVIEW CHAPTER 9

~ORGANIZATIONAL AGILITY~

A. The Responsive Organization
Mechanistic organization  A form of organization that seeks to maximize internal efficiency.
Organic Structure An organizational form that emphasize flexibility.

B. Strategy and Organizational Agility

• Strategic Alliances is a formal relationship created with the purpose of joint pursuit of mutual goals. In a strategic alliance, individual organization share administrative authority, form social links, and accept joint ownership. Such alliance are blurring firms boundaries.

• The Learning Organization is an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.

• The High-Involvement Organization In high-involvement organization, top management ensures that there is a consensus about the direction in which the business is heading. The leader seeks input from his or her top management team and from lower levels of the company.

C. Organizational Size and Agility

• The Case for Big Bigger was better after World War II, when foreign competition was limited and growth seemed limitless.

• The Case for Small Smaller companies can move fast, provide quality goods and services to targeted market niches, and inspire greater involvement from their people.

• Being Big and Small Small is beautiful for unleashing energy and speed. But in buying and selling, size offers market power. The challenge, then, is to be both big and small to capitalize on the advantages of each. As large companies attempt to regain the responsiveness of small companies, they often face the dilemma of downsizing.

D. Customers and The Responsive Organization

• Customer Relationship Management is a multifaceted process, typically mediated by a set of information technologies, that focuses on creating two-way exchanges with customers so that firms have an intimate knowledge of their needs, wants, and buying patterns.

• Total Quality and Six Sigma Total quality management (TQM) is a way of managing in which everyone is committed to continuous improvement of his or her part of the operation. Six sigma quality is a method of systematically analyzing work processes to identify and eliminate virtually all causes of defects, standardizing the processes to reach the lowest practicable level of any cause of customer dissatisfaction.

• ISO 9001 A series of quality standards developed by a committee working under the international organization for standardization to improve total quality in all business for the benefit of producers and consumers.

• Reengineering Processes such as product development, order fulfillment, customer service, inventory management, billing, and production are redesigned from scratch as if the organization were brand new and just starting out.

E. Technology and Organizational Agility
Types of Technology Configurations :

• Small Batch technology Technologies that produce goods and service in low volume.

• Large Batch technology Technologies that produce goods and service in high volume.

• Continuous Process Technology A process that is highly automated and has a continuous production flow.

Organizing for Flexible Manufacturing

• Computer-Integrated Manufacturing The use of computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing to sequence and optimize a number of production processes

• Flexible factories Manufacturing plants that have short production runs, are organized around products, and use decentralized scheduling.

• Lean Manufacturing An operation that strives to achieve the highest possible productivity and total quality, cost-effectively, by eliminating unnecessary steps in the production process and continually striving for improvement.

F. Organizing for Speed: Time-Based Competition (TBC)

• Logistics The movement of the right goods in the right amount to the right place at the right time.

• Just-in-time A system that calls for subassemblies and components to be manufactured in very small lots and delivered to the next stage of the production process just as they are needed.

• Current Engineering A design approach in which all relevant functions cooperate jointly and producing high-quality products customers needs.

 

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REVIEW CHAPTER 8 :

~ ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE ~

A. FUNDAMENTALS OF ORGANIZING

• Differentiation : An aspect of the organization's interal environment ereated by job specialization and the devision of labor. Division of labor means the work of the organizations subdivided into smaller tasks. Specialization refers to the fact that different people or group often perform specific parts of the larger task.
• Integration : Achieved through structural mechanism that enchance collaboration and coordination. The degree to which differentiated work units work together and coordinate their efforts.

B. THE VERTICAL STRUCTURE

• Authority in Organization : Is the legitimate  right to make decisions and tell other people what to do.
• Hierarchical levels : The authority levels of the organizational pyramid.
• Span of Control : The number of subordinates who report directly to an excutive or supervisor
• Delegation : The assignment of new or  additional resposibilities  to a subordinates.
• Decentralization : An Organization in which lower level managers make important decicions.

C. THE HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE

• The Functional Organization : Departmentalization around speacialized activities such as production, marketing, human resouces.
• The Divisional Organization : Departmentalization that groups  unit around product, customer, or geographic regions.
• The Matrix Organization : An organization composed of duel reporting relationship in which some employees report to wo supervisor a functional manager and a divisional manager.
• The Network Organization : A collectionof independent, mostly single function firms that  collaborate on a good or service.

D. ORGANIZATIONAL INTEGRATION

• Coordination by Standardization : Establishing common routines and procedures that apply niformly to everyone.
• Coordination by Plan : Interdependent units are required to meet deadlines and objectives that contribute to a coomon goal.
• Coordination by Mutual Adjustment: Unit interact with one another  to make a accomodations to achieve flexible coordination.
• Coordination and Communication : Huge amounts of organizations flow  from the external environment to the organization and back to the environment.

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