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UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE ACADEMIC YEAR: 2010/2011 JAN 2011 TRIMESTER UBMM1013

MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES

ASSIGNMENT COVER SHEET


Course details Course : Quantity Surveying

Year and Semester of study : Year 1 Semester 3 Tutorial Group Lecturers Name Tutors Name Assignment Details Topic Company Due Date Students Detail : Organization Structure & Culture : SYABAS SDN. BHD. : Week 9, 14 March 2011 (Monday) : Tutorial Group 14 : Puan Junainah binti Mohd Som : Puan Kasmah binti Tajuddin

1. 2. 3. 4. 5

Name Lee Seng Keong Mah Hoi Yuen Ong Han Tsen Tan Chow Yang Tan Yeek Jean

Student ID No. 0904425 0903785 0903071 0908124 0903174 : ____________ Marks.

Assignment Overall Marks

UNIVERSITI TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE ACADEMIC YEAR: 2010/2011 JAN 2011 TRIMESTER UBMM1013 MANAGEMENT PRINCIPLES MARKING SCHEME FOR GROUP ASSIGNMENT Section Assessment Mark Allocation 5 marks Marks Awarded

Introduction

Contents

15 marks

Findings

10 marks

Conclusion

10 marks

Recommendations

5 marks

Quality of the written assignment

5 marks

Total marks Comments:

50 marks

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Name of marker: _______________________ Signature of marker: ___________________ Date: ______________________

TABLE OF CONTENT

NO. 1. 2.

TOPIC INTRODUCTION Introduction of SYABAS Sdn. Bhd. CONTENT Span of Control Functional Structure Geographical Departmentalization Mechanistic Structure Organizational Culture FINDINGS RECOMMENDATIONS CONCLUSION REFERENCES APPENDIX

PAGES

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Introduction All talk about organizations relies on abstract conceptions, using words and their meanings, to make sense systematically of our experience and observations of people doing things together. A great deal of organizational life can be described and, more importantly, sometimes even understood, predicted, and influenced, with abstract ideas about structure and culture. To have a company working smoothly, all organizations and companies will have an organizational structure so that individuals will have a clear view of what they are allocated to do. Organizational Structure usually acts as a viewing glass through which workers see their organization and also its environment. It can be structured in many different ways, depending on the companys objectives. The structure of an organization will determine the modes in which it operates and performs. It also allows the expressed allocation of responsibilities for different functions and processes to different entities of workers such as branch, departments and individuals. Many organizational have hierarchical structure but not all. Organizational structure can by further describe by the six key elements: work specialization, departmentalization, authority responsibility and power, span of control, centralization and decentralization and the last one formalization. If organizational structure is not structured properly, it affects the organizational action in two big ways. Firstly, it will affect the foundation on which the standard of the companys operation procedures and routines of the workers. And secondly, it determines which individuals to participate in which decision making process, which will also affect on the output of the company greatly, thus to what extant their views shape the organizations actions. On the other hand, as for organizational culture, it is an idea on the field of organizational studies and management which describes the psychology, attitudes, experiences, values and beliefs of an organization. For better understanding on the organizational structure and cultures, a review on SYABAS Company has been done. Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn. Bhd. (SYABAS) was incorporated on 8th July 1996 under the Malaysian Companies Act, 1965 to undertake the privatization of water supply services in the State of Selangor and the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya ('the Privatization). The organizational structure of SYABAS Company is under the mechanistic structure, which mean it is rigid hierarchical structure, fixed

duties, many rules begin fixed, formalized communication channels and centralized decision authority.

Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor Sdn Bhd (SYABAS) was incorporated on 8th July 1996 under the Malaysian Companies Act, 1965 to undertake the privatization of water supply services in the State of Selangor and the Federal Territories of Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya. The Selangor water works is run by Syarikat Bekalan Air Selangor (SYABAS), the water supply corporation for Selangor state and is a subsidiary of Puncak Niaga Sdn Bhd, the owner of SYABAS.

Span of Control Span of control is the term for the number of subordinate employees directly accountable to a manager. The larger the number of employees a manager controls the wider is his span of control. The manager controls six or fewer employees. There is close supervision of the employees, tight control and fast communication, which is narrow span. There is also a wide span, which the manager controls more than six employees. Managers are forced to delegate work, and tasks may be less closely supervised. The Chief Executive Officer of this company Dato Ruslan Hassan has nine spans of controls. This company generally has a wide organizational structure, because the layers of management levels are only a few. Therefore, the CEO has a very wide span of control in order to handle heavy load of tasks, being the monopoly of water supplier in Selangor.

Functional Structure Functional structures typically work well for smaller and less complex organizations dealing with only one or a few products or services. This structure also works best in relatively stable environments that allow organizations to pursue consistent strategies. Having said that, this company runs with a functional structure in which nine departments are directly under the supervision of the CEO. The region labeled functional in the organization chart indicates how the company works under functional departmentalization. People and tasks which required similar skills and specialization are group together in one department, and are structured according to functional areas. Since SYABAS is a company specializes in water supply,

functional structure can bring the best out of the company with its cost saving advantage. Overall supervision will be high and coordination can be easily achieved. Since employees performing similar tasks are grouped together therefore overall learning from each others skills can be easily achieved. However, due to the segregation of departments, communication between departments is very difficult. This lack of communication can contribute to the difficulty in dealing with complexity.

Geographic Departmentalization Besides functional structure, the company has also incorporated geographical structure to complement its functional departmentalization. Geographical departmentalization is a process grouping activities on the basis of territory. If an organization's customers are geographically dispersed, it can group jobs based on geography. From the chart, the region labeled geographical indicates the existence of this structure. The district department is divided into three areas, namely the northern zone, central zone and southern zone. The reason why this department is divided in different zones is that, the management can focus on the needs and demand of the different zones. This segmentation helps management to manage their day-to-day operations in a more orderly and efficient manner. The authority is retained in the Head Department, which is the District Department. All activities in different territorial zones will be reported to the head department.

Mechanistic Structure Mechanistic structure is often appropriate in stable environments and for routine tasks and technologies. In some ways similar to bureaucratic structures, mechanistic organizations have clear, well-defined, centralized, vertical hierarchies of command, authority, and control. Communication tends to follow formal channels and employees are given specific job descriptions delineating their roles and responsibilities. Efficiency and predictability are emphasized through specialization, standardization, and formalization. This results in rigidly defined jobs, technologies, and processes. As the distance between the top and the bottom of the organization expanded, top management would increasingly impose rules and regulations. The term mechanistic suggests that organizational structures, processes, and roles are like a machine in which each part of the organization does what it is designed to do. According to SYABAS SDN. BHD. organization chart, the organization is using the mechanistic structure. The organization chart shows the hierarchy of authority are well-defined is being used. The organization is centralized, the decision-making kept as high as possible and most communication is vertical. All the important decision and actions at the lower level are subject to the approval of top management.

The implication of centralization can be:1. Reservation of decision making power at top level. 2. Reservation of operating authority with the middle level managers. 3. Reservation of operation at lower level at the directions of the top level. Because of the organization are using functional structure, distance between the top and the bottom are wide, Code of Business Ethic is being introduces as their rules & Standard. Lastly, in this organization, employees work separately and specialize in one task, which is individual specialization.

Organizational Culture There are seven dimensions that can describe an organizations culture, which are attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, team orientation, aggressiveness, stability and the last one is innovation and risk taking. Function of Organizational Culture is to conveys the sense of identity for organizations member and create distinction between one organization and other. From the code of business ethic of SYABAS, the aim of the company is to conduct the business to the highest ethical standards possible, to enhance goods and services. Besides that, this company wants to create organizational culture of honesty, fairness and concern for others which focus on the outcome orientation dimension and stability dimension. SYABAS want the employees to provide a better quality of life for the customers and ensure the preservation of our environment. Finally, it can be well said that organizational culture serves as a control mechanism that control, guide, and shapes the attitude and behavior of the employees.

Recommendations After discussion of our group on 32th 2020, we conclude that functional structure using by SYABAS SDN. BHD had the only weakness, which is lack of communications. Communications is one of the basic functions of an organization and is a very important thing in a structure. Communications able us to send and receive information and helps in the process of decision making. Lack of communications will influence the decision making, information, relations of employee, output and income of company. In functional structure, people and tasks which required similar skills and specialization are group together in one department and employee work in individual specialization. Which mean that, employee only focus on their own task and dont know what others employee or department doing in the organization which is lack of communications. In an organization, some task is had to done or process based on other department information to complete the work. Lacking of communication will lead employee receiving or sending wrong information and this will affect the flow of process and the goals of company. So the organization should create an intranet that able every employee to communicate, send or receive information, having discussion and know more about information of company in company work place. The intranet should have limited for use, like only can access for interact with employee in company and information that related company. Besides that, company cans also having meeting frequently for employees to communicate, discuss and share information. Pursuit of functional goals can also cause managers to lose sight of whats best for the overall organization. Top manager should require a performance appraisal to manage and know more the performance of employee. Next is our group suggest that SYABAS SDN. BHD not only can adopt centralization system, they also can adopt decentralization system to run certain task. Decentralization is the degree to which lower-level managers provide input or actually make decisions. Example the structured problem and programmed decisions can make by lower-level. This can save time of top manager to make others more important decision like unstructured problem and nonprogrammer decisions. Decision making for a company is usually reserved for the executives of the company. Middle managers should take on more of a support role to the decisions made

by the company, rather than trying to dictate anything to employees. When managers are handed a task, they should pool the resources necessary to assist their employees to get the job done. An effective manager should be the go-between for employees and executives, and a facilitator that is assigned a task to complete.

Conclusion

REFERENCE 1. About SYABAS Retrieved 8 MARCH 2011 From SYABAS: http://www.syabas.com.my/maincorp.php?pg_post=2&pg_id=1&menu_id=1 2. Code of Business Ethics Retrieved 8 MARCH 2011 From SYABAS: http://www.syabas.com.my/corporate/Inside.pdf 3. Corporate Philosophy

Retrieved 10 MARCH 2011

From SYABAS:

http://www.syabas.com.my/maincorp.php?pg_post=2&pg_id=1&menu_id=3

4. Organization Chart Retrieved 10 MARCH 2011 From SYABAS: http://www.syabas.com.my/mainpeople.php?pg_post=2&pg_id=2&menu_id=5

APPENDIX

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