Organizational Culture Quarter

Organizational Structure Quarter (hereinafter, the Quarter) is the first of four lectures of Operations Quadrivium (hereinafter, the Quadrivium):

• The Quarter is designed to introduce its learners to enterprise discovery, or, in other words, to concepts related to obtaining data needed to administer the enterprise effort; and
• The Quadrivium examines concepts of administering various types of enterprises known as enterprise administration as a whole.

The Quadrivium is the first of seven modules of Septem Artes Administrativi, which is a course designed to introduce its learners to general concepts in business administration, management, and organizational behavior.

Outline

The predecessor lecture is Business Intelligence Quarter.

Concepts

1. Organization. A consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more legal entities, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.
   • Organization. An autonomous unit within an enterprise under the management of a single individual or board, with a clearly defined boundary that works towards common goals and objectives. Organizations operate on a continuous basis, as opposed to an organizational unit or project team, which may be disbanded once its objectives are achieved.
   • Manufacturing organization. An organization that produces physical goods.
   • Service organization. An organization that produces nonphysical products in the form of services.
2. Organizational structure. The formal arrangement of jobs within an organization.
   • Organizational structure. The way in which job tasks are formally divided, grouped, and coordinated.
   • Open innovation. Opening up the search for new ideas beyond the organization's boundaries and allowing innovations to easily transfer inward and outward.
   • Organization modeling. The analysis technique used to describe roles, responsibilities and reporting structures that exist within an organization.
3. Organic model. A structure that is flat, uses cross-hierarchical and cross-functional teams, has low formalization, possesses a comprehensive information network, and relies on participative decision making.
   • Organic organization. An organization with organizational structure that's highly adaptive and flexible.
   • Boundaryless organization. An organization whose organizational structure is not defined by, or limited to, the horizontal, vertical, or external boundaries imposed by a predefined structure.
   • Lean organization. An organization that understands what customers want, identifies customer value by analyzing all activities required to produce products, and then optimizes the entire process from the customer's perspective.
   • Learning organization. An organization that has developed the continuous capacity to adapt and change.
   • Skunkworks. A small group within a large organization, given a high degree of autonomy and unhampered by corporate bureaucracy, whose mission is to develop a project primarily for the sake of radical innovation.
4. Mechanistic model. A structure characterized by extensive departmentalization, high formalization, a limited information network, and centralization.
   • Mechanistic organization. An organization with organizational structure that's rigid and tightly controlled.
   • Simple structure. An organizational structure characterized by a low degree of departmentalization, wide spans of control, authority centralized in a single person, and little formalization.
   • Simple structure. An organizational structure with little departmentalization, wide spans of control, centralized authority, and little formalization.
   • Bureaucracy. A form of organization characterized by division of labor, a clearly defined hierarchy, detailed rules and regulations, and impersonal relationships.
   • Bureaucracy. An organizational structure with highly routine operating tasks achieved through specialization, very formalized rules and regulations, tasks that are grouped into functional departments, centralized authority, narrow spans of control, and decision making that follows the chain of command.
   • Circular structure. An organizational structure in which executives are at the center, spreading their vision outward in rings grouped by function (managers, then specialists, then workers).
   • Matrix structure. An organizational structure that assigns specialists from different functional departments to work on one or more projects.
   • Matrix structure. An organizational structure that creates dual lines of authority and combines functional and product departmentalization.
5. Organizational unit. Any recognized association of people in the context of an organization or enterprise.
   • Virtual organization. An organization that consists of a small core of full-time employees and outside specialists temporarily hired as needed to work on projects.
   • Virtual structure. A small, core organization that outsources major business functions.
   • Divisional structure. An organizational structure made up of separate, semi-autonomous units or divisions.
   • Divisional structure. An organizational structure that groups employees into units by product, service, customer, or geographical market area.
   • Functional structure. An organizational structure that groups employees by their similar specialties, roles, and tasks.
   • Functional structure. An organizational structure that groups together similar or related occupational specialties.
   • Team structure. An organizational structure in which the entire organization is made up of work teams.
   • Team structure. An organizational structure that replaces departments with empowered teams, and which eliminates horizontal boundaries and external barriers between customers and suppliers.
   • Project structure. An organizational structure in which employees continuously work on projects.
6. Organizational design. Creating or changing an organization's structure including identifying, documenting, and assigning project roles, responsibilities, and reporting relationships.
   • Organizational chart. The visual representation of an organization's structure.
   • Organizational plan. A document that outline how organizational goals are going to be met.
7. Performing organization. The enterprise whose employees are most directly involved in doing the work of the project.
   • Functional organization. An organization structure in which staff are grouped hierarchically by specialty (e.g., production, marketing, engineering, and accounting at the top level; with engineering, further divided into mechanical, electrical, and others).
   • Projectized organization. Any organizational structure in which the project manager has full authority to assign priorities and to direct the work of individuals assigned to the project.
   • Matrix organization. Any organizational structure in which the project manager shares responsibility with the functional managers for assigning priorities and for directing the work of individuals assigned to the project.

Practices

The successor lecture is Information Systems Quarter.