Catanduanes State University

College Of Industrial Technology

Virac, Catanduanes

REPORTER: LOUIE S. SALVADOR

COURSE: MAIE
SUBJECT: IE 402

TOPIC: ORGANIZING
 Organizing Is a Multistep Process
 Organizing And Organizational Structure
 Where Contingency Theory Comes In
 The Classic School
 Criticism of Classical Theory
 The Behavioral School

INTRODUCTION:

The word organization refers to an institution or functional group; for example, we refer to a government
agency, a hospital, a business, a school, or a basketball team as an organization. It also refers to the process of
organizing-the way work is arranged and allocated among members of the organization so that the goals of the
organization can be efficiently achieved.

ORGANIZING IS A MULTISTEP PROCESS

Organizing has been described by Ernest Dale as multi-step process:

1. Detailing all the wok that must be done to attain the organization’s goals. Every organization is created
with a set of purposes-Schools are created to render educational services, hospitals are created to care for
the sick, business are created to sell products and services.
2. Dividing the total work load into activities that can logically and comfortably be performed by one person
or by a group of individuals. Organizations are created because the work they are meant to accomplish
cannot be performed by one person alone.
3. Combining the work of the organization’s members in a logical and efficient manner. As an organization
expands in size and hires more people to perform various activities, it becomes necessary to group
individuals whose assigned task are related into departments. In a given department are workers with a
number of different skills and levels of expertise, whose interactions with one another are governed by
established procedures.
4. Setting up mechanism to coordinate the work of organization members into a unified, harmonious whole.
As individuals and departments carry out their specialized activities, the overall goals of the organization
may become submerged or conflicts between organization members may develop, in a university various
schools or departments may compete aggressively for limited funds. Coordinating mechanisms enable
members of the organization to keep sight of the organization’s goals and reduce inefficiency and harmful
conflicts.
5. Monitoring the effectiveness of the organization and making adjustments to maintain or increase
effectiveness. Because organizing is an ongoing process, periodic reassessment of the four preceding steps
is necessary.

ORGANIZING AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

In its broadest sense, organizing can be defined as the process of making the organization’s
structure fit with its objectives, its resources, and its environment.

Elements of Organizational Structure

1. Specialization of activities
2. Standardization of activities
3. Coordination of activities
4. Centralization and decentralization of decision making
5. Size of the work unit
WHERE THE CONTINGENCY COMES IN
The job of organizing becomes more complicated as the organization grows and the more
activities it undertakes. Such questions as the following must be answered: What job should be place3d
together under a single manager? How many people can one manager supervise and still give adequate
attention to each one? What If one manager does will affect the way in which another manager can
function, what should be the relationship between the two jobs?
Answers to the above questions must be based on theory about the logical way to divide work
and coordinate it—theory that will provide some guidelines. Those 2who have studied 0organizations
have been attempting to provide theories that, hopefully, would be applicable to all organizations at all
times, and the result was that observations of different situations produced a number of schools of
thought on the subject at odds, to some extent, with one another. In fact, Harold Koontsz once referred
to the theory situation as a “jungle.”
Here is where the contingency theory helps to resolve the difficulty. The emergence of
contingency theory has brought the various schools of thought—the classical school, the behaviourist
school, the system school, and etc. — closer one to another. Contingency theory is not really a theory of
organization. Rather, it is the theory that there is no one best way of organizing, or of handling phases of
management, and that the organizer should use the theory, or perhaps parts of several theories, as the
situation dictates. But this requires great insight of the manager. Contingency theory does not attempt to
prescribe any one best way of organizing; if merely points out that any of the theories may be used if they
fit the circumstance (Dale, 1978).

THE CLASSICAL SCHOOL

There are several principles subsumed under the classical school—“classical” largely because they
are of long standing—and these “classical principles” are derived partly from Fayol’s analysis of
management and are sometimes cited as principles of management, since organization is such a large
part of management.
The most commonly mentioned of the classical principles are: objectives, specialization,
coordination, authority, and responsibility.

CRITCISM OF CLASSICAL THEORY

A major criticism is that the classical principles to broad to provide much help in the actual work
of organizing. For example, the principle of specialization does not tell the organizer how finely the task
should be divided, and it is merely stating the obvious to say that an organization needs coordination. The
principle on span of control is often attack as demonstrably untrue since a number of surveys have shown
that spans in many successful companies are considerably wider than classical theory would permit.
Critics also claims that some of the classical principles contradicts others and, therefore, it is
impossible to observe them all; for example, the impossibility, in many instances, of providing both a short
chain of command and a short span of control.
The most insistent criticism of classical theory has come from the exponents of the behavioural
sciences—the science that deal with human behaviour, such as psychology, sociology, and social
anthropology.

THE BEHAVIORAL SCHOOL

There are three well-established schools of management thought—classical, behavioural, and
quantitative. All three have contributed to managers’ understanding of organizations and their ability to
manage them. Each offers a different perspective for defining management problems and opportunities
and for developing ways to deal with them. Each offers a different perspective for defining management
problems and opportunities and for developing ways to deal with them. Stoner and Wanker (1987) believe
that in their current state of evolution, each of the three aforementioned approaches overlooks or deals
inadequately with important aspects of organizational life. They state that the newer systems approach,
based on general system theory, and the contingency approach have already been developed to the point
where they offer valuable insights for the practicing manager, and that eventually they may lead to the
integration of the classical, behavioural, and quantitative schools; or, some new approach not yet perceive
on the horizon may accomplish this end.