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IGNOU MS-10 Free Solved Assignment 2012


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ASSIGNMENT Course Code : MS - 10 Course Title : Organization Design, Development and Change Assignment Code : MS-10/TMA/SEM - I /2012 Coverage : All Blocks Note : Answer all the questions and submit this assignment on or before April 30, 2012, to the coordinator of your study center.

1. Briefly discuss the Meaning and Purpose of an organizational design. Describe the key factors affecting organizational design and their relevance. Solution: Organization design begins with the creation of a strategy a set of decision guidelines by which members will choose appropriate actions. The strategy is derived from clear, concise statements of purpose, and vision, and from the organizations basic philosophy. Strategy unifies the intent of the organization and focuses members toward actions designed to accomplish desired outcomes. The strategy encourages actions that support the purpose and discourages those that do not. Creating a strategy is planning, not organizing. To organize we must connect people with each other in meaningful and purposeful ways. Further, we must connect people with the information and technology necessary for them to be successful. Organization structure defines the formal relationships among people and specifies both their roles and their responsibilities. Administrative systems govern the organization through guidelines, procedures and policies. Information and technology define the process(es) through which members achieve outcomes. Each element must support each of the others and together they must support the organizations purpose Many people equate organization design with an organization's structure: The words "lean" and "flat" are used to describe organization design as well as it's structure. In fact, organizational design encompasses much more than simply the structure: Organization design is the process of aligning an organization's structure with its mission. This means looking at the complex relationship between tasks, workflow, responsibility and authority, and making sure these all support the objectives of the business. Good organizational design helps communications, productivity, and innovation. It creates an environment where people can work effectively. Many productivity and performance issues can be traced back to poor organization design. A company can have a great mission, great people, great leadership, etc. and still not perform well because of poor organizational design. Take the example of a company whose sales department and production department both work well as separate units. Yet they need to communicate about customer needs and have not been organized to do so: Company performance suffers as a result. Then take the example of a company that wants to grow by acquiring new customers. Yet its sales team is rewarded for customer retention instead: Again, company performance is compromised as a result. How work is done, business processes, information sharing and how people are incentivized; all of these directly affects how well the organization performs. All of these factors are facets of the organization's design and each facet is important to organization's success.

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Given the importance of organizational design, why is it so often to blame for inefficiency and ineffectiveness? The reason is because organizations often evolve rather than get designed. With little or no planning and intervention, the organization design that emerges is likely to be flawed with misaligned incentives, processing gaps and barriers to good communications. Without due planning, an organization's design often takes on a hierarchical structure. This structure is common because business executives and managers are often reluctant to relinquish control. However, such structures can lack flexibility, soak up resources and under-use key people and skills. When it comes to good organization design, it's a question of getting the right balance getting the right controls, the right flexibility, the right incentives; and getting the most from people and other key resources. In this article, we first look at types of organization design and their uses. We then look in more detail at the key facets of organization design and offer some tips on how to ensure your organization is aligned with your business objectives. Key factors affecting Organizational Design and their relevance: There are just some of the many things that you can consider when thinking about the design of your organization. Strategy The organization design must support your strategy. If your organization intends to be innovative then a hierarchical structure will not work. If however, your strategy is based on low cost, high volume delivery then a rigid structure with tight controls may be the best design. Size The design must take into account the size of your organization. A small organization could be paralyzed by too much specialization. In larger organizations, on the other hand, there may be economies of scale that can be gained by maintaining functionally specialist departments and teams. A large organization has more complex decision making needs and some decision making responsibilities are likely to be devolved or decentralized. Environment If the market environment you work in (customers, suppliers, regulators, etc.) is unpredictable or volatile, then the organization needs to be flexible enough to react to this. Controls What level of control is right in your business? Some activities need special controls (such as patient services in hospitals, money handling in banks and maintenance in air transport) whilst others are more efficient when there is a high degree of flexibility. Incentives Incentives and rewards must be aligned with the business's strategy and purpose. When these are misaligned, there is a danger that units within the organization become self-serving. Using the earlier example of a company that wants to grow by acquiring new customers, the sale team is incentivized on customer retention, and therefore is selfserving rather than aligned with the business purpose. ================================================================ 2. Explain the evolutionary process of organization Design. Briefly describe the universal perspectives of organization design and the relationship between strategies of organizational development and Structure with examples.

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Solution: Understanding of organization evolution must account for both the stability the organization requires to thrive and the novelty the organization needs to transform itself in order to avoid what would otherwise be certain destruction. systemic - traditional view -- organizational change, on its own accord, is formative change, change within a predetermined form. Novel change is only due to autonomous agents imposing change. See organization, systemic process, and causality for more regarding this perspective. systemic - neo-Darwinian view -- organizational change is due to chance occurrences. This view depends on an environment as selection criteria for selection of chance occurrences to favorable and stable locations in the environment. See causality for more on this view. responsive process view -- organizational stability and transformation are both due to the nature of complex systems, with their complex responsive processes, and their innate selforganization characteristics organizing process -- see organizing process for Weick's view on how humans organize. The systemic view is not an explanation of novel change, transformation, at all, but begs the question of where or how novelty arises by passing off change to the agents imposing change. The neo-Darwinian view (see causality) is an adaptive view of evolution, where the organization seeks stability in adapting to its environment. In other words, the organization is always behind the curve, so to speak, of environmental change, which once it reaches stability it ""sits idle"" until the next environmental change forces it to adapt. This view, of course, soon disintegrates into illogical suppositions and an inability to account for advantage. The responsive process view of organizations accounts for both stability and transformation, and is the focus of what follows.

Aspects of organization evolution (Stacey, 2001) -Organization evolution comes about from responsive processes made up of the following types of activities -Organizational change is change... ...in power relations ...in the conflicting constraints of relating ...in communicative interaction ...in communicative themes patterning the experience of being together Communicative interaction is a self-organizing process -- when unconstrained and including diverse participants -organizing stability and transformation -- at the edge of chaos, away from destructive chaos and atrophying stability organizing social structures, cultures, bureaucratic procedures, and hierarchical arrangements -- referred to as emergent patching or clustering Fundamental characteristics of human action-human action is directional -- movement of human action is toward an unknown future that is under perpetual construction, by the movement of human action itself human action has a reason -- reason for the movement of human action is to express individual and collective identity and difference, at the same time... human action is paradoxical human interaction is circular -- successive gesture-responses, reflexive (responsive), selfreferential (referring to self) causality in which it forms and is formed by the interaction itself

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the outcome of this action is two-fold -continuity -- sustaining identity (the known, difference, discontinuity) transformation -- creating novelty, variations that have never been before (the unknown, difference, discontinuity) what emerges from complex responsive processes of relating -joint action identities of individuals identities of groups, organizations, and societies Human joint action and tools complex responsive processes of relating are the basis of all forms of human joint action using tools, no matter how sophisticated those tools might be The process of human action... perpetually reproduces identity has the potential for transformation, enabling the emergence of... individual selves/minds/identities collective identities, required for human collaboration Human organizations, build up from human actions, therefore... ...have no optimal state ...have no mature state ...are perpetually under construction of the known and unknown, at the same time ...has an unknowable future, but yet recognizable Responsive processes view of organization evolution -Conversation, the dynamics of the process of communicative interaction in the living present required for the emergent unstable-stability in the perpetual construction of novel futures in the living present. (Stacey, 2001, 181-183) Conversational processes can be placed in three classifications, one of which results in organization evolution (see conversational processes for more detail). There are processes displaying the -dynamics of stability dynamics of instability dynamics of the ""edge of chaos"" - resulting in evolution Organizational change, the learning and creation of knowledge in organizations, are transformations in the thematic patterning of its communicative interaction, particularly its conversational life. Diversity essential to change -Interaction with the potential for transformation requires diverse participants, participants sufficiently different to each other in the way they think and in their identity. With this diversity, communicative interaction, essentially social complex responsive processes, results in difference, novelty, change, thus transformation. conversation among diverse participants may amplify small differences into major discontinuous changes in understanding (i.e. cross-functional or cross-discipline conversations stimulate new insights) it is in struggling to understand each other in fluid, spontaneous conversational exchanges that people create new knowledge

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such conversations are characterized by ambiguity and equivocality (Weick, 1979) tension between inquiry and advocacy, positivity and negativity, focus on self and focus on other (Losada, 1998) this communicative process with diversity entails misunderstanding which causes frustration, distress, stimulation, and excitement avoidance of frustration and distress can shut down knowledge creation insight -- knowledge creation originates from misunderstanding has transformative potential and by its very nature threatens the continuity of identity conversations with the potential for transformation threaten identity conversations with transformative potential inevitably arouse anxiety at s deep existential level anxiety triggers defenses of denial, repression, splitting, etc., which can trigger themes that counter themes with transformational potential, shutting down further exploratory conversation conversation with transformative potential inevitably threatens current power relations, which are an important aspect of organizational identity as issues emerge in an evolving organization, people find themselves clustering around particular issues some will cluster in ways patterned by themes forming unofficial ideologies, which may threaten the official ideology conversations patterned by informal-conscious/unconscious-shadow themes are interspersed within and around conversations patterned by institutional themes conversations that threaten current power relations raise the fear of exclusion, amplified inclusion, undermining of existing power relations -- all of which tend to provoke moves to shut down these types of conversations Knowledge emergence -Outcome of the communicative interaction process is meaning, thus knowledge emerges from the process knowledge cannot be stored reified symbols can be stored as artifacts , ""abstracted"" themes describing past interactions and the qualities that emerged in those interactions such knowledge artifacts, symbolizing past identities, may be used as tools in local communicative interaction in the living present Tools -Human joint action and tools work together in the process, but tools do not change the formula, however sophisticated they may be. complex responsive processes of relating are the basis of all forms of human joint action using tools, no matter how sophisticated those tools might be. what emerges from complex responsive processes of relating -joint action identities of individuals identities of groups, organizations, and societies Synopsis -the conversational life of an organization is a potentially transformative, knowledge creating process, when through the diversity of participation it has the dynamics of fluid spontaneity, liveliness and excitement, inevitably accompanied by misunderstanding, anxiety-provoking threats to identity and challenges to official ideology and current power relations.

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Strategic management implications -Contrary to the traditional view of command and control, coupled with strategy by design, the most powerful force to be unleashed to spur the evolution of an organization is the force of self-organization, communicative interaction with conversational processes at the ""edge of chaos."" This is the only force that makes an organization self-evolving. The potential exists in all organizations as a natural process of complex organization. The ""process"" is the complex responsive process -- agents and networks of agents, organization members, interacting with each other in order to express their identities and in doing so, delineating their differences, creating variation, producing novelty, resulting in transformation. What the organization becomes emerges from the relationships of its members rather than being determined by the choices of the organizational leaders. ================================================================

3. Describe different approaches to organizing and analyzing work and their merits and demerits. Solution: Different Approaches to Organizing and Analyzing work I. The Ancient Approach The concept of organizing work was there even in ancient times. For instance, the ancient Egyptians built their pyramids, the ancient Chinese built the Great Wall of Chine, the Mesopotamians used to irrigate their land and wall their cities, and the Romans built their roads, aqueducts and Hadrians Wall. All these man-made construction required large amounts of human effort and therefore organizing i.e. planning, control and coordination. The Chinese philosopher Mencius (372-289BC) wrote about the concept and the advantages of the division of labor. Records reveal that the ancient Greeks understood the advantages of, and practiced uniform work methods. They also employed work songs to develop a rhythm in order to achieve a smooth, less fatiguing tempo and to improve productivity. II. The Approach during the Industrial Revolution Period The momentum for industrial revolution was initiated in the seventeenth century. Agricultural methods had improved in Europe. Technical advances were also being made, most notably in textile manufacturing, in the eighteenth century with the invention of Hargreavess spinning jenny, Arkwrights water frame and Comptons mule. The steam engine first developed in 1698 by Thomas savory, was harnessed by James Watt. These factors, technological developments, expanding trade/markets, growing populations created opportunities for merchants and entrepreneurs to invest in new factories. This was the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. All these necessitated the improvement in work methods, quality, and productivity of workers.III. The Scientific Management Approach Frederick W. Taylor known as the father of scientific management and modern industrial engineering. By experimenting with different designs of shovel for use with different material (from rice coal to ore) he was able to design shovels

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that would permit the worker to shovel for the whole day. In so doing, he reduced the number of people shoveling at the Bethlehem Steel Works from 500 to 140. This work, and his studies on the handling of pig iron, greatly contributed to the analysis of work design and gave rise to method study. In 1909, he published the book for which he is best known, Principles of Scientific Management. Taylors impact has been so great because he developed a concept of work design, work-measurement, production control and other functions, that completely changed the nature of industry. III. The Scientific Management Approach Frederick W. Taylor known as the father of scientific management and modern industrial engineering. By experimenting with different designs of shovel for use with different material (from rice coal to ore) he was able to design shovels that would permit the worker to shovel for the whole day. In so doing, he reduced the number of people shoveling at the Bethlehem Steel Works from 500 to 140. This work, and his studies on the handling of pig iron, greatly contributed to the analysis of work design and gave rise to method study. In 1909, he published the book for which he is best known, Principles of Scientific Management. Taylors impact has been so great because he developed a concept of work design, work-measurement, production control and other functions, that completely changed the nature of industry. IV. Fordism In the early 20th Century , Henry Ford dramatically established the concept of relative surplus value by doing what at the time was considered impossible. He paid workers 4 or 5 times the going rate (actually the bare minimum that could be screwed from the bosses), yet still made a huge profit. By vastly increasing the production of relative surplus value through the use of the assembly line, coupled with FW Taylors Scientific Management of the work process, he was able to vastly improve the productivity of his plants. Ford brought into existence the concept of mass worker. Whereas before the capitalist had relied largely on skilled workers to manage the production process, the mass worker was a new type. V. The Human Relations Approach The human relations approach arose almost as a direct result of the harshness imposed by supervisors who excessively used scientific management principles. An outgrowth of the famous Hawthorne Studies conducted during 1924-33, the human relations approach de-emphasized the technical components of a job and concerned itself with the impact of employee social and psychological needs on productivity. Originally, the goals of the Hawthorne investigators were to identify elements of the work environment which fostered productivity. Surprisingly, the investigators discovered that the greatest impact on productivity was that of the social interaction patterns of the workers rather than environmental conditions like lighting. The significance of the findings to management are that: ================================================================

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4. What is the purpose of organizational analysis and the elements which need to be reviewed for analyzing any organization? Explain in detail the Process of workshop and observation methods for organizational diagnosis. Solution: Analysis of organisations objectives provides a clear understanding of both short and long-term objectives as well as the priorities that are accorded to various objectives. Specific goals and strategies should be stated for various divisions, departments and sections of the organization as a means of achieving the long-term priority objectives. Through continuous review of the objectives and their subsequent modification it is positive to translate general objectives into action plans. Having analyzed the objectives, the second step involves evaluating the process of allocation of various human and physical resources in the organization. Various efficiency indices can be derived to determine the adequacy of specific work flows, so that detailed examination of the inputs and outputs of the total system is possible. The focus should be on the contribution that human resources make towards these indices. In analysing any organisation these are the following elements that need to be reviewed: 1) Mission & Vision: It is important to know whether there is a proper Mission / Vision, if not, it has to be developed. For developing Corporate Vision & Mission, improvement of all employees is a must and a joint sharing and unanimity of understanding is a must. 2) Organisation structure: This describes how accountabilities, tasks and roles are allocated, within the organisation. It is important because of the impact it can have on the way people perform their jobs and on the effectiveness of the organisations processes. 3) Processes: These are the mechanisms by which the organisations activities are carried out and they will usually determine how the organisation is structured, although they may be tailored to suit the structure. They will also influence the kind of people employed. 4) Culture: Culture comprises of set of values, guiding beliefs understanding and ways of thinking shared by members of an organisation. It is important to analyze the culture of an Organisation at regular intervals to get a feel of the Organisations health and to take corrective measures of things which are going wrong. 5) Work Ethos: Ethos can be defined on the underlying spirit or character of an Organisation and is made up of its beliefs, customs and practices. At the base of ethos are core values. The relevant core values, which contribute directly towards building a healthy organization. Process of workshop and observation methods for organizational diagnosis. The Workshop Methodology participants (employees) of an organisation are assembled in groups (usually ranging between 20 to 30) for purposes of diagnosis. They are divided further into small groups (usually with a size of 6 to 8) and are requested to discuss a particular issue and diagnose the situation. SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) or Force Field Analysis (Symptoms - Sources - Solutions - Action Plans) are conducted by the small groups with respect to a given issue/problem/dimension needing the study. The following procedure is normally followed in the workshop methodology.

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Observational Methods This method is most useful when an outside consultant is used for diagnosis. Insiders are most often blind to the events and data that are a part of the organisation. An outsider could observe a number of things. For example, the behaviour of people when the work hours begin in the morning, at the time of the close of working hours, the notices displayed, the work organisation, the behaviour of people in meetings, the kind of memos written to each other, tea and lunch breaks, canteen and the way it is organised, behaviour of employees in the organisation etc. could be observed and inferences made. ================================================================

Q5. What are the factors which are drivers of change in Business? Briefly discuss the phases of planned change and their importance and how to overcome resistance to change. Solution: The Corporate Executive Board's Corporate Strategy Board has identified 10 major factors that will likely have significant impact across industries and how businesses can best position themselves to prepare. 1. Consumer preferences will remain "reset" based on values, not price While consumers will buy less, their buying behavior will be dictated by how well products "align to their values," rather than price. Companies should learn to anticipate unarticulated market needs and translate consumer preferences into product offerings. 2. Energy costs will continue to increase in the medium term In the long term, new energy regulations could fundamentally affect the basic profit structure of many companies, especially those in energy-intensive businesses. Companies that invest in energy efficiency and prepare for supply chain ripples will be better positioned for future. 3. U.S. tax policy could erode the competitive positioning of U.S. companies The United States' tax handicap increases, relative to emerging markets, may render U.S. multinationals noncompetitive from a margin perspective. As a result, companies should keep repatriation top of mind and play in higher-margin markets. 4. Innovation happens for emerging market consumers, not in emerging markets To spark new growth streams, companies will increasingly conduct "reverse" innovation developing products in emerging economies and versioning these products for sale in home markets. The best-positioned companies will push innovation practices to be truly global and facilitate seamless idea flow across their organization and network. 5. A new return to vertical integration gains traction Recent volatility has created urgency for firms to re-internalize sensitive and strategically activities that were once trusted to third parties. To integrate vertically, companies should scour their "extended enterprise" value network for important assets that could be at risk and internalize them. 6. Industry shifts create competitive shifts

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As competitive playing fields change, companies must be prepared to compete with new players in new ways. To evolve with the market, companies must reassess their core competencies and markets and use scenario planning to identify nontraditional competitors. 7. Increases in information requires more judgment from decision makers Executives have been buried under a flood of information for years, but the exponential growth in data systems continues to exacerbate this trend. As a result, companies should look to cultivate and exploit asymmetries in high-quality information and build robust information filters based on unbiased judgment and experience. 8. Markets reward long-term strategic focus Investors (and boards) will grow skeptical over the long term of companies that rely on share buybacks to boost stock price, rather than demonstrate a strong long-term growth strategy. To avoid this, align senior executive performance objectives to longer-term corporate strategy objectives. 9. Economic recovery won't mean recovery for everyone Some companies will have experienced such damage from the economic downturn that they will not be able to successfully recover as the economy does. Companies that closely monitor the health and performance of their suppliers, partners, and customers will be able to guard against business disruptions. 10. A new war for talent commences Corporate Executive Board data shows that 25% of high-potential talent have expressed interest in leaving their companiesup 13% from non-recessionary periods. Companies must develop high-potential employee engagement plans and maintain robust pipelines of quality talent in in order to win the coming talent war.

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