The design of an organization's structure is one of the most important tasks that managers are responsible for. In order to design a structure that can achieve success in today's fast-paced and competitive global market, managers must take into consideration multiple factors, all of which have tremendous impact upon the organization. This paper will focus on four important factors. Those four factors are human resources, organizational environment, technology, and strategy. All four of these factors are critical and have exclusive aspects that lead to the good health or demise of an organization.Organizational StructureIntroduction(This is where you introduce your topic to your readers ...view middle of the document...
The science of redesigning jobs and fitting them to the individual employee is one field that is expanding rapidly (Abowd, 1990, Hawthorne, 2004, Marques, 2005). The small business bible found that companies which do not have proper human resource departments suffer greatly from official disorder, and the lack of management in concerning office activities.The organizational environment is the second factor considered when designing an organizational structure (Lysonski, Levase, & Lavenka, 1995). This link between structure and environment has been noted by both the Contingency and Systems theory (Punnoose, 2007). Increased globalization has made this factor even more important, as the expanding amount of data available has created an extremely dynamic environment (Evans & Richardson, 2007, Ogbonna & Harris, 2003, Echols & Neck, 1998). Both Englehardt & Simmons (2002) and Echols & Neck (1998) agree that flat, decentralized structures support the dynamic environment of today. The flexibility that comes with an expansive lower level decision-making process is also a tool that helps the organizational structure succeed (Kubrak, Kovall, Kavaliauskas, & Sakalas, 2007, Martinson & Martinson, 1994).The third factor considered when designing an organizational structure is technology (Sehanovic & Zugaj, 1997). With continual advances in information technology (IT), managers must be willing to rethink their managing concepts, reshape their organizations, and embrace and implement IT (Gudonavicius & Savanevicience, 2008, Knox, O'Doherty, Vurdubakis, & Westrup, 2007, and Bens, 2007). Those companies that miss technology-based opportunities struggle to catch-up (Brown, Chervany, & Reinicke, 2007). Incorrect implementation of IT changes and failure to take into the account the cost of creating real options in sequential IT investments, have left multiple companies struggling to keep up with the ever changing market (Collis & Montgomery, 2008, Esty & Rushing, 2007,Beneroch, Kauffman, & Shah, 2007).The fourth factor that must be considered when designing an organizational structure is strategy (Jackson & Roper, 2001). Strategy is the organizational factor that involves deciding what goals to pursue, and determining how, as an organization, to pursue those (Robbins & Judge, 2007, Jones & George, 2006). In the dynamic environment caused by globalization, an organization's strategy must continually be changing to increase its competitive advantage (Strumickas & Valancience, 2008). A recent strategy employed by several companies has been project management, which allows companies to integrate their corporate strategies with project initiatives (Stankevivius & Zdanyte, 2008, Law, 2006).Four FactorsFour FactorsHuman ResourcesHuman resources is are the management functions devoted to acquiring, training, appraising, and compensating employees. It is the human labor behind the goods...
