• Home
• Module overview
• 1. The challenge of management
  • Introduction
  • 1.1 Defining management
    • 1.1.1 The art of getting things done through people
    • 1.1.2 Defining management by its functions
    • 1.1.3 Is management a profession?
  • 1.2 Management knowledge , skills and performance
    • 1.2.1 Types of managers
    • 1.2.2 Effectiveness and efficiency
    • 1.2.3 Managing the customer within
  • 1.3 The evolution of management thought
  • Conclusion

• 2. Understanding external environments

  • Introduction
  • 2.1 Putting the e xternal environment into focus
    • 2.1.1 Classifying external elements
    • 2.1.2 The changing environment
    • 2.1.3 The international dimension
  • 2.2 Relating the o rganisation to its environment
    • 2.2.1 So many issues: Which should you focus on?
    • 2.2.2 How do you acquire the relevant information?
    • 2.2.3 Clarifying the relationship between the internal and external environments
  • Conclusion

• 3. Social responsibility and ethics in management

  • Introduction
  • 3.1 Business is not value neutral: Social responsibility, obligation and responsiveness
  • 3.2 Focussing on ethics
    • 3.2.1 Why business ethics now?
    • 3.2.2 Ethical quandaries
    • 3.2.3 Approaches to ethical dilemmas
    • 3.2.4 Defining your ethics
  • Conclusion

• 4. Managerial decision making

  • Introduction
  • 4.1 Decision making and problem solving
  • 4.2 The nature of decision making as part of management
    • 4.2.1 Programmed and non-programmed decisions
    • 4.2.2 Certainty, risk and uncertainty
    • 4.2.3 Urgent vs important decisions
  • 4.3 Problem solving: making the most of opportunities
    • 4.3.1 Looking further at problem solving
    • 4.3.2 The effective decision making process
    • 4.3.3 Improving managerial problem solving: overcoming barriers
    • 4.3.4 Thinking 'outside the box' and creativity
  • 4.4 Interrelated problems
  • Conclusion

• 5. Managing strategically

  • Introduction
  • 5.1 Planning ahead
  • 5.2 Strategic management
    • 5.2.1 Some definitions
    • 5.2.2 The process of strategic management
  • Conclusion

• 6. Organisational design and structure

  • Introduction
  • 6.1 The terminology of organisational design
  • 6.2 Strategic organisational design and structure
    • 6.2.1 Types of organisational structure
    • 6.2.2 Strategic organisational design
  • 6.3 Teamwork
    • 6.3.1 The success of teamwork
  • Conclusion

• 7. Organisational culture and workforce diversity

  • Introduction
  • 7.1 Defining organisational or corporate culture
    • 7.1.1 Culture defined through its response to change
    • 7.1.2 Culture defined through the influence of the external environment
  • 7.2 Strong and weak cultures
  • 7.3 The functions of culture
  • 7.4 Creating and sustaining culture
  • 7.5 Types of culture
    • 7.5.1 Dominant culture
    • 7.5.2 Subculture
    • 7.5.3 Core values
  • 7.6 Changing culture
  • 7.7 Cultural diversity in the maritime industry
  • Conclusion

• 8. Change management

  • Introduction
  • 8.1 Dealing with change and the changing nature of change
    • 8.1.1 In what areas of the organisation can managers expect change?
    • 8.1.2 Reacting to change
  • 8.2 Key issues accelerating change
    • 8.2.1 External forces
    • 8.2.2 Internal forces
  • 8.3 Managing change
    • 8.3.1 Reactions to change
    • 8.3.2 Why employees resist change
    • 8.3.3 Emotions accompanying change
    • 8.3.4 Overcoming resistance
    • 8.3.5 Leadership and successful change
  • Conclusion

• 9. Motivating for performance

  • Introduction
  • 9.1 The nature of motivation
  • 9.2 Theories of motivation
    • 9.2.1 Do rewards really work? needs theories
    • 9.2.2 Are substantive rewards the only motivator? process theories
    • 9.2.3 Learning behaviour reinforcement theory
    • 9.2.4 Social learning theory
    • 9.2.5 Putting it all together systems theory
  • 9.3 The power of positive thinking
  • 9.4 Motivation: The implications for managers
  • Conclusion

• 10. Leadership

  • Introduction
  • 10.1 The nature of leadership
    • 10.1.1 Thinking about 'leaders' and 'leadership'
    • 10.1.2 Theories of leadership
    • 10.1.3 Refining our definition of leadership
  • 10.2 Perspectives on leadership
    • 10.2.1 Manager, leader, or both?
  • Conclusion

• 11. Teamwork

  • Introduction
  • 11.1 Work groups and group dynamics
    • 11.1.1 Work groups, work teams, taskforces, self-managing teams and team building
    • 11.1.2 High-performance teams
  • 11.2 Managing meetings and committees
  • 11.3 Group decision making
    • 11.3.1 Some advantages and disadvantages
    • 11.3.2 So, do groups make better decisions than individuals?
  • Conclusion

• 12. Managerial evaluation and control

  • Introduction
  • 12.1 Evaluation and control as a management process
    • 12.1.1 Why evaluate and control performance?
    • 12.1.2 Getting and using necessary information
  • 12.2 Levels of control
  • 12.3 Steps in the control process
  • 12.4 Assessing control systems
  • 12.5 Back to ethics
  • 12.6 Quality control systems
  • Conclusion

6.2.2 Strategic organisational design

As you can see from your text, you cannot easily consider organisational structure, strategy, culture or size as separate issues. They all interrelate, and new organisational structures are evolving from the traditional ones to better support these interrelationships. How well an organisation's structure supports strategy is a critical consideration. In examining an organisation, you cannot escape such questions as:

• Is the current structure the most appropriate means of organising to meet goals?
• If not, then what organisational changes are required?

In the following text reading take note of the section of which comes first, structure or strategy.

In your text

Bartol, K M; Martin, D C; Tein, M H and Matthews, G W (2001),
Chapter 10, pages 297-301.

These sorts of structural changes are some of the most complex challenges that face organisations today. New forms of organisations, quite different from their predecessors, are emerging and many will take us into the 21st century with strategies and structures quite different from those of the last 20 or so years.

These structural changes will offer new opportunities and new problems for management as managers design their organisations.

Consider these opinions of organisational design

Think small.

We have little tolerance for the politics, the pettiness, the fixation on rank and status, or the insensitivity to employees' needs that people in most big companies endure as a matter of course.

Ken Iverson, Chairman Nucor Corporation

Permission to contribute: a clear signal to contribute unique insights and talents...breaking down 'mental' fences.

Blohowiak, marketing executive, Times Mirror Company

The decade of the 1980s was a period of remarkable transformation for organisations in the Western industrialised nations as businesses 'thought small'. During that decade and then the 1990s, much of the conventional management wisdom was altered. There has been a general movement from larger to smaller organisations and entire levels of management have been removed as organisations downsized, restructured and re-engineered.

Consider this

Stop for a moment and think of some of these organisations and about the changes they have made.

Changes in the structure of management were accompanied by a move to more 'fluid' structures, pulled together by information technology. The resultant structures are 'lighter on their feet' than hierarchal structures and can respond more rapidly to change. Many writers claim that organisations are moving from 'mechanistic' to 'organic' types of designs. Large, centralised, bureaucratic, hierarchical, pyramid-designed structures have been replaced by those which are focused on service and often involve workteams.

Rosabeth Kanter, the author of When Giants Learn to Dance , encouraged these changes when she argued that 'giant' bureaucratic organisations would be required to 'learn to dance' and that organisations had to become 'leaner and meaner'. Kanter saw a new form of organisation that was lean and athletic, with fewer management levels, greater responsiveness to change and openness to strategic alliances with other companies.

John Kotter ( Harvard Business School ) stated that 'lumbering dinosaurs' were sinking into the mud and disappearing.

Although all of this sounds very positive and the writers are often very upbeat, there is much debate about the long and short-term benefits of these changes, particularly the long-term impact on people. To round off our discussions read the following in your text.

In your text

Bartol, K M; Martin, D C; Tein, M H and Matthews, G W (2001), Chapter 10, pages 320-324.

Following are articles that outline the changing approaches to organisational design and the implications, as well as the pros and cons of downsizing.

Reading 6.1

The first reading looks at conventional structures and the future economy.

Maira, Arun (1998, September). 'Stretch away from today'. Management Today , page 40.

Jones, Chris (1998, 27 July). 'Managing post-merger consolidation'. The Ottawa Citizen Online . URL: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/business/980727/1886708.html (accessed 2001, 3 April). [3 pages]

Stafford , Diane (1998, 7 July). 'In Changing U.S. workplace, company loyalty diminishes'. Detroit Free Press . URL: http://www.freep.com/business/qloyal7.htm (accessed 2001, 3 April). [2 pages]

Clay, Rebecca A (1998, January). 'Downsizing backfires on corporate America '. American Psychological Association , volume 29, number 1. Online. [3 pages]

Jenkins, Carri P (1997, spring). 'Downsizing or dumbsizing: the restructuring of corporate America '. Brigham Young Magazine . Online. [8 pages]

An Aside: Matching strategy and structure in ports

Matching structure and strategy is a complex process requiring consideration of a number of different issues. Each port has a unique combination of natural features, such as exposure to wind, waves and currents and other factors such as water depth, breadth of the manoeuvring areas. Ports can either be developed as an extension of existing facilities and thus deal with the problems in the current situation, or ports may be developed in a new location that incorporates features mitigating current problems such as providing natural protected harbours and deep water.

Matching structure and strategy requires an interdisciplinary team approach.

Consider this

Consider your country's public sector.

1. Do you consider that there have been changes in the structures of public sector organisations in recent times? Provide some examples and describe the changes.

2. What have been the gains from these restructurings? Have their been any trade-offs?

Examples: Strategy and structure

1. A company that operates five terminals in three different countries has decided to follow a cost leadership strategy. Using this strategy, the company needs a structure that seeks to find ways of ensuring a cost efficient operation. This type of structure would most likely have tighter lines of authority and control, clear job responsibilities and more frequent and detailed reporting on organisational efficiency and clear delineation of responsibility for budgetary control. Under these circumstances a divisional structure seems to be appropriate.

2. If a small entrepreneurial freight forwarding company was pursuing a differentiation strategy, it would need a structure that supports a high degree of creativity and innovation, and most probably one that is able to respond quickly to a changing environment. Its structure would need much looser controls on people and activities and greater encouragement of informality and innovation. It should be more decentralised but with a high degree of coordination among its various functions. The emphasis is more likely to be on groups than on functional areas. A matrix type structure would be appropriate.

Successful organisational design and organisational structures depend on the skills, attitudes and qualities of the people who must work within the structure. The design of jobs in an organisation is linked with motivation and performance in a complex and interactive way.

The fundamental changes that are occurring in the workplace are wide reaching. We see from recent employment trends that there is an increasing incidence of part-time employment in Australia . This trend raises the issue of how managers can motivate staff who may work for them only occasionally and may indeed work for more than one employer at one time.

Key management concept

Attempting to carry out a new strategy with an old structure is senseless.

Consider this

Stop for a moment and think of some of these organisations and about the changes they have made. The example that comes most readily to my mind is that of Telecom (now Telstra).

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