Implications for organisations
The material you have studied this week begins to expand on the foundational theories of organisational design and strategic change management, and to examine the ways that those theories can be implemented in the workplace.
The key concept that emerges from this material can be usefully summarised in the following statement:
Organisations can best prepare themselves for sustainable growth and development by managing according to a cycle of environmental change-adjusted strategy-revised structure-amended decision processes-enhanced organisational culture-environmental change.
An organisation that embraces this model will focus its managerial strategies on its core business model, the distribution of its resources in support of that business model and the ways in which it engages with its workforce in pursuit of its ambitions.
This assignment requires you to reflect on the degree to which your own organisation, or an alternative organisation with which you are familiar, has adopted a structure that meets the requirements of the philosophy expressed in the above proposition. To what extent does the organisation’s current structure support a future in which continuous and iterative change is a dominant feature?
• Read the Required Learning Resources.
• Reflect on the ideas presented in the assigned journal articles, in the light of your own practical experiences in the workplace.
In an approximately 500-word response, address the following issues/questions:
In the introduction to this assignment, you have considered the need for organisations to continuously manage a sustainable growth and development cycle. This assignment requires you to critically analyse the extent to which your own employing organisation (aircraft chartering company), or another organisation with which you are familiar, is successfully meeting the management challenges this growth and development cycle implies. Your analysis should be based on answers to these questions:
• What organisational structure has been adopted in order to assign levels of authority and to establish reporting lines? What are the advantages and disadvantages of this structure compared with alternative structures that might have been chosen?
• How is this organisational structure reflected in the decision-making processes that apply to the design and implementation of significant organisational change?
• What impacts do the decision-making processes in this organisation have on the way that the key functional activities of the organisation are performed?
• What impacts do the decision-making processes in this organisation have on the organisation’s relationships with its external stakeholders?