Elements of Effective Organizations

Elements of Effective Organizations
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Elements of Effective Organizations
Introduction
The effectiveness of an organization in terms of growth and survival depends on its ability to meet the needs and demands of its owners, employees, and other stakeholders, including the community in which it serves, the government, customers, suppliers, and financiers. Furthermore, the success of modern organizations depends on their culture, structure, communication, and leadership styles, as well as corporate social responsibility. With the impacts of globalization, organizations need to put in place strong ethical standards and core values to remain effective. This paper explores the components for effective organizational structure and how such structure may differ in domestic and global settings. As one of the elements of an effective organization, the paper will discuss communication strategies, problem-solving, and decision-making approaches required for an organization to be efficient. Finally, since leadership is critical for an organization to achieve its objectives, the paper recommends a leadership style that contributes to organizational effectiveness and justifies reasons that make the approaching sound.
Components for effective organization structure
Organizational structure refers to how a company communicates, how roles and responsibilities are shared, and its ability to remain flexible in times of change. Organizational structure entails issues related to accountability and authority and the kind of behavior/culture that is expected from the employees. More importantly, a company’s organizational structure defines how it communicates with the external environment. Different companies assume different organizational cultures but all these share some common elements.
One component of a good organizational structure is specialization. This refers to how tasks and responsibilities are disseminated within the company. Tasks are distributed among few dedicated parts with each of these being designed to attain the overall goal of the task in question (Gurkan & Tukelturk, 2017) More specifically, jobs are broken down into several tasks which are assigned to different people. Tasks can be executed in parallel or sequence with specific departments or individuals specializing in certain tasks as opposed to all. Specialization is more evident among global organizations but can also be found within domestic organizations.
Another component of organizational structure is departmentalization where jobs are grouped. Functional departmentalization entails grouping tasks in line with the function they play in an organization. For example, the accounts department handles tasks related to accounts whereas the manufacturing department is charged with manufacturing activities. Product departmentalization on the other hand entails grouping jobs to represents specific product lines while geographical departmentalization is related to the geographical location of each unit. This type of specialization is popular among global organizations, which have an operation in different countries. Process departmentalization is based on product or customer flow and is found in both domestic and global organizations Gurkan & Tukelturk 2021). Customer departmentalization on the other hand entails grouping tasks based on the type of customers that an organization is dealing with. For example, an organization that can have retail or corporate customers may determine the design of its organizational structure.
The third component of organizational structure is the chain of command. This helps in eliminating inefficiencies by eliminating multiple reporting. This implies that employees report to a single manager as opposed to several bosses. The chain of command determines job descriptions and office hierarchies. Managers are in this case responsible for assigning tasks and communicating goals to employees as well as providing motivation through effective communication channels. According to Yang, Yang, and Yao (2018), obstacles encountered by employees are communicated and solved together with help from appropriate managers. Any problem or issue that requires more consultation is taken up the chain of command by the manager allowing an organization to streamline its operations for improved efficiency and productivity.
Another component of organizational structure is the span of control, which is represented by the number of employees assigned to a specific manager. There is no specific type of span that is idyllic for organizations or companies in a given industry. Optimality, in this case, is dependent on several factors including the number of departments within the organization, workforce size, and specific strategies and goals of the organization (Wang & Zhou, 2019). Other factors include the individual style of a manager and employees’ job descriptions. Notably, higher-ranking managers tend to have a tighter span of control as they are also responsible for team leaders and middle-level managers.
Organizational structures can also be centralized or decentralized. Conservative organizations tend to adopt a centralized structure with senior managers making all the decisions. In this context, the plan is designed by senior managers and those in middle-level management have or little input towards setting organizational goals. This type of structure is common among large organizations such as those operating on a global scale as well as those operating in conservative industries (Hasanpour, Imani & Oladian, 2021). A decentralized organization structure on the other hand allows input from all levels of management. While those in top-level management are still responsible for making company-wide decisions, those in middle-level management have increased say regarding the operations of their teams.
Work specialization forms another important component of organizational structure. In any organization, employees are hired based on established job descriptions and performance expectations. In large companies, job descriptions are provided in writing. This ensures that the needs of a specific workforce are met without duplication (Kumar & Sharma, 2020) Specialization ensures that employees are aware of their specific duties based on their education, skills, and experience. In this regard, employees are not assigned tasks that they have no prior experience with or tasks that will undermine their performance capacity.
Formalization defines inter-organizational relationships and determines organizational procedures and guidelines as established by the management (Gurkan & Tukelturk, 2021). It also determines aspects of organizational culture including but not limited to the company’s dress code. It is worth noting that a company can combine one or more elements in its organizational structure depending on its operational model.
Communication strategies for effective organizations
Communication is a fundamental part of the organizational process and has profound effects on efficiency, productivity, and decision-making processes. According to Gurkan and Tukelturk (2021), communication strategy outlines explains, and supports the vision and goals of the organization by appealing to stakeholders. Different organizations apply different communication strategies during the planning and execution of duties. A single company may apply different communication strategies depending on how it wants to communicate with different stakeholders. According to Novosakova, Novosak, and Janícek (2020), the end goal of communication is to promote a change in behavior in a bid to achieve certain objectives. An effective communication strategy helps to build morale among employees, increase engagement as well as job satisfaction. In addition, such a strategy increases efficiencies while reducing costs incurred by the organization.
An effective communication strategy is linked to the strategic plan of the organization. This includes linking communication to the vision and values of the organization, its brand as well as strategic goals. Such a strategy helps in safeguarding credibility thus increasing loyalty and trust, maintaining consistency, and incorporate input from all stakeholders (Skyers, 2020) In addition, a good communication strategy ensures that feedback is provided and that all employees’ concerns are addressed promptly.
There are several aspects of an effective communication strategy. While top-level mana...