organization theory structure design and applications stephen robbins

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All rights reserved.
PowerPoint Presentation by Rajeesh Viswanathan
Jansons school of Business
Organization Theory
Structure, Design, and Applications
Third Revised Edition
Stephen P. Robbins and Mary Mathew
C H A P T E R
8
PART II THE DETERMINANTS: WHAT CAUSES STRUCTURE?
An Overview

2. After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
• Defi ne environment.
• Differentiate the specifi c from the general environment.
• Explain the key dimensions of environmental uncertainty.
• Describe the contributions of Burns and Stalker, Emery and Trist, and
Lawrence and Lorsch.
• Review the three-stage process of change in the population-ecology
model.
• Contrast mechanistic and organic structures.
• Describe the effect of environmental uncertainty on complexity,
formalization, and centralization.

3. ENVIRONMENT
• The environment is everything outside an
organization’s boundaries.

4. General Verses Specific Environment
• The general environment encompasses conditions that may
have an impact on the organization, but their relevance is not
overtly clear
• The specific environment is that part of the environment that
is directly relevant to the organization in achieving its goals.
At any given moment, it is the part of the environment with
which management will be concerned because it is made up
of those critical constituencies that can positively or
negatively influence the organization’s effectiveness.

5. Environmental Uncertainty
The environment is important because not all environments
are the same. They differ by what we call environmental
uncertainty
Some organizations face relatively static environments: few
forces in their specific environment are changing. There are
no new competitors, no new technological break through by
current competitors, little activity by public pressure groups
to influence the organizations, or such.

6. • Mechanistic structures were characterized by high
complexity, formalization, and centralization. They performed
routine tasks, relied heavily on programmed behaviors, and
were relatively slow in responding to the unfamiliar.
• Organic structures were relatively flexible and adaptive, with
emphasis on lateral rather than on vertical communication,
influence based on expertise and knowledge rather than on
authority of position, loosely defined responsibilities rather
than rigid job definitions, and emphasis on exchanging
information rather than on giving directions

7. • Fred Emery and Eric Trist proposed a more sophisticated view by offering
a model that identified four kinds of environment that an organization
might confront
1. Placid-randomized environment is relatively unchanging, therefore
posing the east threat to an organization
2. The placid-clustered environment also changes slowly, but threats to the
organization are clustered rather than random.
3. The disturbed-reactive environment is much more complex than the
previous two. There are many competitors seeking similar ends. One or
more organizations in the environment may be large enough to exert
influence over their own environment and over other organizations.
4. The turbulent-field environment is the most dynamic and has the highest
uncertainty. Change is ever present, and elements in the environment are
increasingly interrelated

8. Organizational Change Process.
Organizational Change process can be a three-stage process of change
that recognizes variations within and between organizations, the selection
of those variations that are best suited to their environments, and a
retention mechanism that sustains and reproduces those variations that
are positively selected

9. • THE ENVIRONMENT-STRUCTURE RELATIONSHIP
• Every organization depends on its environment to some degree, but we
cannot ignore the obvious, namely, that some organizations are much
more dependent on the environment and on certain sub-environments
than others are.
• The environment’s effect on an organization, therefore, is a function of its
vulnerability, which in turn is a function of dependence
Environment and Complexity
• Environmental uncertainty and complexity are directly related. That is,
high environmental uncertainty tends to lead to greater complexity. In
order to respond to a dynamic and more complex environment,
organizations become more diff erentiated

10. Environment and Formalization
• We predict that stable environments should lead to high formal zation
because stable environments create a minimal need for rapid response,
and economies exist for organizations that standardize their activities
Environment and Centralization
• The more complex the environment, the more decentralized the
structure. Regardless of the stable-dynamic dimension, if a large number
of dissimilar factors and components exist in the environment, the
organization can best meet the uncertainties that this causes through
decentralization