[Solution] Organization Design
Created at:
Author: Emily Carter
Today's rapidly changing business environment is leading many organizations to create designs that maximize their ability to adapt. The goal is to move away from bureaucratic designs and toward designs with few rules, little job specialization, and decentralized decision making.
New Forms of Organization Design
In an effort to gain an advantage, organizations are trying a variety of new approaches to organization design.
- Team organization uses project-based teams with little functional hierarchy. Employees move from team to team as their skills are needed for different projects.
- A virtual organization has few permanent employees, a small headquarters, and little formal structure. The organization hires temporary workers, leases physical space, and contracts with vendors to provide products and services it needs.
- In a learning organization, the focus is on continuous improvement of the organization driven by continuous development of employees. Goals tend to include improved quality, increased efficiency, and enhanced measurement of performance.
Select the correct response to each of the following questions.
A company has little permanent infrastructure, instead hiring temporary employees, renting space, and contracting with outside suppliers as needed. What type of organization design is the company using?
- Virtual organization
- Learning organization
- Team organization
View Explanation
A virtual organization often exists almost entirely online, with little fixed infrastructure. Additional resources are contracted for as they are needed. The lack of a permanent footprint lets the organization deploy its resources very flexibly.
Which statement correctly describes how the organization represented above has incorporated international business operations into its organization design?
- International business is managed separately for each product, where it is further broken out by geographic area.
- International operations are conducted by units that operate almost as independent businesses in their respective countries.
- International business is departmentalized by geographic area first.
- Work specific to international business is concentrated in one department.
View Explanation
In this organization, businesses in different countries, including the United States, are organized as separate subsidiaries. There is coordination of these businesses only at the top of the organization.
