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65 Cards in this Set

  • Front
  • Back
Perrow
Technology

Normal Accident Theory
-some high risk technology is too complex for humans


INDUSTRIES
-craft
-non-routine
-routine
-engineering
McKelvey
Population characteristics

PRINCIPLES:
Taxonomy-differences between orgs

Classification:ID of orgs
Evolutionary Inquiry:how an org survives in a certain environment
Populations of orgs:
What is the definition of an NPO
They don't declare a profit to be made for its owners or shareholders
501(c)3
Registered agent that is tax exempt
How do NPOs raise money?
Membership fees

donors

grant writing
Organizational Structure
the distributions of people among social positions that influence the role relations among these people
Anthony Gidden's Structural Theory
KEY POINTS:

Structures and people are reflexive

Structural Duality-(Structures shape people, but people’s practices constitute and reproduce structures

Contingency Theory- Structural arrangements of an org depend on the size, technology and other aspects of the org
John Meyer and Brian Rowan’s Institutional Theory
Normative structures can acquire a ‘’halo’’- the ‘’right’’ way to do organization consequently

• Organizations are prone to adopt the structures independent of any specific problems or obvious need for the structures
How do Meyer and Rowan believe institutionalization occurrs?
Coercive sources: become normative because of their authority or ability to control

Mimetic sources: orgs that serve as models for others

Normative sources: groups and orgs who advocate for certain practices and considered to be legitimate
Peter Blau's definition of org culture
we talk to people with the same social status as we are. social status influences the people we socialize with.
Tall vs Squat Org Structures
Tall
-Multiple supervisors

Squat
-Very few supervisors
Horizontal and vertical org structures
Horizontal: across the same level

Vertical: the chain of command
Formalization
structural rules that guide org behavior and decision-making
Coordination
Mutual adjustment: Informal

Direct supervision: someone is responsible for the work of others

Standardization: of work processes, work outputs/products, worker skills
Size
Can be measured in:

personnel, outputs and resources
• Environment of the org
• Competitiveness of the markets
• Economic/political stability
• National character
• Macro-political considerations
• Geographic dispersion of the org
• Increasingly more globalized interdependence
• Results in reduced cost and improved quality of international transportation and communication
• What five macro-trends does Stephen Borgatti describe that affect organizations in the 21st century
• Globalization
• Diversity within orgs
• Flexible orgs
• Flat orgs
• Fewer levels of management
• Networked orgs



• They all result from:
• Changing demographics
• Saturated Markets
officially stated goals
• Instrumental: the org is instrumental in producing an effect, product, or service for someone outside of the org
• Expressive: the org provides activities of intrinsic value to its own members
operative goals
• Transitive: These result in production, output, or service to those external to the org
• Reflexive: These meet the org’s internal maintenance needs
• How can you discover an organization’s operative goals?
By observing their actions
• What are four characteristics of operative goals?
• Multiple and sometimes conflicting
• Emergent, changeable, and adaptive
• Negotiable
• Rationalizations of past actions
• Compare and contrast goal displacement and goal succession
• Displacement: inside of the org decision
• Succession: outside of the org decision
competition, bargaining, co-optation, and coalition
• Competition: rivalry between two or more factions that is mediated by the public
• Bargaining: negotiation of an agreement for the exchange of goods and services between two or more orgs
• Co-optation: Changing an org by threatening its existence, stability or power
• Coalition: Combining orgs’ power for a common purpose
• Core values
• Mission statement
• Vision statement
• Strategic priorities
• Core values: Org’s highest priorities and deeply held driving forces
• Mission statement: Reason to be
• Vision statement: What your org wants to become
• Strategic priorities: items on which you will focus so you won’t get sidetracked
• What is “corporate culture?”
• a way of looking at behavior in organizations, a perspective for understanding orgs
• a social energy that moves people to act; a hidden, yet unifying theme that provides meaning, direction and mobilization
• How does organizational culture perpetuate itself?
• Orgs hire new members
• New members are socialized by org
• Members who don’t comply with the org’s culture are removed
the four components of culture
• Symbols:
• Artifacts:
• Behaviors:
• Beliefs
language artifact concepts
• Jargon: concentrates meaning into a few words that do not mean the same thing in the language of the organization that they do in English
• Metaphors: communicate symbolic meaning beyond the obvious content of the words
• Myths: extended metaphors about events alleged to have taken place long ago and thereby serve to link the past, present, and future.
• Stories: anecdotes about sequences of events in an org’s history
• Heroes: leading actors in organizational stories that personify the values and epitomize the strengths of an organization and its culture
• Organizational scripts: the stripped-down skeleton of an organizational story
• Sagas and legends: collections of stories about an org’s histories that provide useful info about the organizational culture
• Ceremonies and celebrations: based on an org’s values and basic assumptions. They recognize accomplishments of heroes and defeat of threats to org culture. They are extraordinary experiences that are usually remembered vividly
• What research methods are used in the study of organizational culture?
• Participant-observation method
• Look around
• Look through records
• Listen to language
• Ask questions
• What are the key points in Michel Foucault’s understanding of how discourse and power relate?
• Discourse creates knowledge. The ability to exercise that knowledge creates power.
discursive formations
the way we structure society is based on how we talk about things.
Jürgen Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action
• Lifeworld: creates mutual understanding through spread of cultural traditions, integration, and socialization
• Communicative Action: people’s mutual understanding of phrases and language allows them to exchange knowledge and create new forms of language and social structures. Social change occurs through people communicating their thoughts and knowledge
• Different from Foucault!
• What is “glossing?” “indexical expressions
• Glossing: the way people can slip words and phrases that are inherent to group understanding. Jargon only works on a collective lingual level.
• Indexical Expressions: Phrases of context-relevant speech, they have different meanings based on who is saying them and in what context.
• What is a “gatekeeper?”
• They allow access to other people, knowledge, materials, resources, and thus power
• How can power be measured in an organization?
• By the number of relationships in the org
Richard Emerson’s Social Exchange Theory, what are balanced and imbalanced power-dependence relationships?
• The amount of dependence is related to the amount of power someone has over another
• What are some ways power can be balanced in an organization?
• Withdrawl (quitting)
• Weaker member cultivates alternative resources
• Increase the dependence of the one currently in power on the one not in power
• Formation of coalitions
• Compare and contrast vertical and horizontal communication
• Vertical
• Formal
• Up and down lines of authority
• Lower levels don’t believe they get listened to
• Horizontal
• Informal
• Relies on mutual understanding
• Problems usually handled without notifying supervisors
• Typically helpful, rather than harmful to the org
• Describe communication problems (including queuing) and their solutions
• Omission: deletion of aspects of messages
• Distortion: the meaning of the message is altered
• Overload: too much info
• Queuing: lining up messages by time of receipt
• What is organizational complexity
• Several dimensions. Due to the amount of job titles, offices and division
• Horizontal differentiation
• The ways tasks are divided into different jobs
• Vertical differentiation
• Division of decision making tasks and supervision responsibilities
• Geographic dispersion or spatial complexity? (27-33)
• The extent to which an organization has offices at different sites.
• What is formalization? (33-37)
• The extent to which tasks, assignments and procedures are permanently recorded within the org. (codify)
• What is centralization?
• Emphasizes the distribution of power within an org. The level and variety of participation in strategic decisions relative to the number of groups in an org. Centralized-decision making power is held by a few people. Employees have little to say about their work.
• Decentralization
• the process of dispersing decision-making governance closer to the people
• How do the following affect organizational structure:

size
technology
internal culture
environment
• size (46-49),
• As an org grows, it becomes more specialized and complex, may become centralized.
• technology (50-53),
• Small-batch (few, small goods) large-batch (mass production) continuous (large production of nondiscrete goods such as chemicals).
• internal culture (57-58),
• leaders must set the tone for the org. The tone set early on by founding executives will have a lasting legacy on the org.
• environment (58-64)
• A lot of org behaviors are directly from pressure from outside sources. Org environment is an important part of an org’s survival or death
• Describe five elements of downward vertical communication
• Simple & common job instruction-employee is told what to do through direct orders, training and job description.


Rationale for a task & its relationship to the org-depends on org philosophy (Apple likes to keep employees in the dark, so they reveal little information).

Info regarding procedures and practices within the org-similar to first element, if it is not linked to the second element determines if it is problematic to the org.

Feedback to individuals regarding their performance-can be bad if feedback is always negative

attempts to indoctrinate subordinates into accepting and believing in the org’s goals-must get members emotionally involved in their work
• What are the characteristics of upward communication, and how do they compare with downward communication?
• Hierarchy is a huge problem, whistleblowers worry about getting fired, people don’t want to pass info up if they feel it is unimportant.
• both upward and downward provide for error correction in information being transferred
• Describe the three communication networks
• Wheel
-All people send their info to the hub, the spokes cannot send info to one another, the hub is the hierarchy of the network.
.
• All channel system
• Everyone can communicate with everyone else.

Circle
Each member can talk to those on the other side with no priorities
• Describe the problems that can occur in organizational communications
• Omission-someone leaves out valuable information (receiver may not grasp the entire message)
• Distortion-people perceive good and bad differently
• Overload-too much info, important info gets overlooked
How can communication problems in organizations be solved?
• Duplication helps verify info.
• Use a matrix (grab 5 people from different dept’s and have them work on a team).
• Have a face-to-face meeting
• What are “official goals?” “Operative goals?” Why is it difficult to define organizational goals?
• Official goals are usually stated in very abstract, broad and hard to measure terms (promote safety, demonstrate sound corporate governance)
• Operative goals designate the ends sought through the actual operating policies of the organization. They tell us what the org is actually doing


• It is hard to define these goals because the official and operative goals may be linked and it is difficult to decide whether which set would be the “real” goals. It is also hard to determine who decides what the goals are in an org and if you ask the org members, more issues can arise
• What is the “system-resource approach” to understanding organizational effectiveness?
• ability to exploit the orgs environment in the acquisition of scare and value resources to sustain its functioning. Basically, it assumes an org’s key goal is to survive
• What is the “participant-satisfaction approach” to understanding organizational effectiveness?
• The ability to attract contributions from members to survive. To be effective, members must have an incentive to contribute
• What is the “stakeholder approach” to understanding organizational effectiveness?
approach recognizes that different sets of people that contribute to an org will have different opinions on what is most important and these differences must be quickly recognized.
• List and describe four key issues to consider when evaluating organizational performance.
• Orgs face multiple, conflicting environmental constraints
• They may be imposed on an org, discovered or self-imposed
• What is the “adaptive learning approach” to understanding organizational change?
• The adaptive is predicted on the view of the org as a series of programs, or sets of rules, for making decisions that lead to accomplishing tasks. Use of these programs economize on individual’s decision making & contributes to efficiency and reliability.
• What is the “knowledge development approach” to understanding organizational change?
• The understanding, sharing and accepting of info and ideas that lead to a better way of running the org. (Fostering creative thinking, make a safe environment to share ideas)
Goffman’s organizational typology
• the impact of the org on the individual
• “Total Institution” an organizational type that has all-encompassing control over the individual
• Bootcamps/prisons
Etzioni’s organizational typology
• Power and compliance
• Power-the ability to influence
• Compliance-relationship between those with and those without power
Westrum and Samaha’s organizational typology
• Full time/part time members
• for profit/not for profit motivation


• What three types of organizations result?
• Bureaucracy: Carries out specific mission
• Enterprise: Makes money
• Voluntary Organizations
Blau and Scott’s organizational typology
• Who benefits from the organization?
• Rank and file participants
• Owners and managers
• public-in-contact
• public-at-large
What four types of organizations result from Blau and Scott's org typology
• Mutual benefit associations (political parties, unions)

Commonwealth orgs (military, police)

Business concerns (corporations)

Service organizations (social work agencies, hospitals, universities)