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Running head: MY VIEW: WHAT’S AN ORGANIZATION?

“My view: What is an organization? Why study organization theory?

Elaine Olsen Shelburne

Emporia State University

LI805 Assignment #2
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My View: What is an organization: Why study organization theory?

I would define an organization as a structure or arrangement of a group of people whose

individual tasks are to be part of the specific purpose of the whole and whose tasks are to work

towards this common purpose. A theory is “a set of concepts to explain a phenomenon of

interest” (Hatch). It follows that organizational theory then is a set of concepts to explain a

phenomenon of interest within or about a structural arrangement of a group of people who have

specific tasks to reach a common goal.

Scholarly definition

Examples of organizations in my life include the structure in which I work, i.e. school

district, the school board, the high school, and lastly, my library media center/learning commons.

Another organization in my life my classes in my Salt Lake City cohort that is part of Emporia

State University’s SLIM program. I also go to a health club or gym several times a week, and

that organization is arranged by departments such as swimming, tennis, racquetball, aerobic

exercise and fitness classes. They are led by a teaching staff, who are supervised by

administration. I am also a member of a Lutheran congregation in Ogden, Utah, and there is a

Church Council, an office staff that includes a secretary, pastoral staff and a music director and

keyboardist, along with janitorial staff and a large volunteer group for classes. I live in the state

of Utah, which has a governor, and a legislature, plus county and city governments, all of which

are viewed by many people as being heavily influenced by the organization that is the majority

church in Utah.

Why study organization theory? Hatch, according to our class notes, gives three main

reasons. First, we study organization theory to analyze complicated situations and discover

effective means of dealing with them. I really like this purpose, because I can use this approach
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at my job. Hatch also states that “knowing organization theory will help to understand how the

organization works and to diagnose its problems.” The third reason is “knowing how to theorize

helps to develop, maintain, and change understandings of organizations and what we are doing

with and within them (Hatch).”

Objective reasons

My personal reasons for appreciating this topic is that if and when I am in a larger

managerial position, in a library most likely, I will understand better than I did before, how

organizations work. I hopefully will be able to analyze the system, ascertain whether or not I

could improve it or whether or not I could make changes ranging from few to many.

However, I realize that I can analyze and make changes for the better right where I am. I

am the library media teacher in a high school. I have been at the same school for eight years, and

the district has changed my library assistant staffing several times. When I began I had one full-

time person who had been there about 20 years. For the past two years, I had two part-time

assistants, who once each managed their own elementary library as a classified staff person. Due

to district changes, they were moved to be high school assistants—one is ¼ time at my school

and the other is about ½ time, when she is not running an Ednet program. They were moved to

my school reluctantly on their part, and one was never been supervised when she was in charge

of her former library. The other has a very strong personality and wants to run the library.

Neither one has the scope or teaching experience to work professionally as a 21st Century library

media teacher. It is not ideal, and I have made mistakes; hopefully, I can learn some things to

enhance my management of the library media center.

Closing
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Ideas from Oxford Quiz:

The primary focus of a theory is phenomena of interest.

Symbolic-Interpretive: Subjective

Ideas associated with: social construction

Post Modern:

The epistemological assumption that meaning is fluid and cannot be fixed and therefore

knowledge is indeterminate.

Post Modernist most likely to see an organization as a text.

Environment of Organizations Perceptions of environmental uncertainty are a function of which

two dimensions of environment of organizations: complexity and change. Paradox: …”As

decision makers experience uncertainty, they search for and find more information, and as the

dataset grows, the environment appears more complex and uncertain. In this formulation, people

interpret their uncertainty as lack of information and then attribute their experience to

environmental complexity and change.” (!?))

Enacted environment (88)

Ambiguity theory (89)

Three phasis of industrialization (90)

Social-cultural section of Environment: i.e. Family Leave Act

Environment Contingency Theory: Conditions with a high rate of change and a low degree of

complexity mean there’s a constant need for new information.

The general environment has these sectors: physical,

Population Ecology Theory: When competencies and resources fit the environmental demands,

then the organization is selected and retained.

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Resource Dependency Theory: focuses on power relationships between organizations in an

environment.

Criticality (McDonald’s and cattle raising)-i.e. strategy

Institutional Theory: Credited with bringing social legitimacy concerns to organizational

theory.

A mechanism of institutionalism is competition. (what’s mimesis?)

The Enacted Environment presupposes that environmental conditions cannot be separated from

perceptions of those conditions.

Chap. 3

Bureaucracy: Dual authority is NOT characteristic of a bureaucracy.

According to Weber, selection and promotion based on seniority is NOT a characteristic of a

bureaucracy.

Organizational social structure dimensions that most clearly relates to division of labor is

differentiation.

Formalization and collaboration Greiner's organizational lifecycle model, the red tape crisis ends

the ____________ phase and initiates the ____________ phase.

Toward the end of the collectivity phase in Greiner's organizational lifecycle model, an

organization is likely to face a crisis because: their founders are more interested in making and

selling product than in managing the organization.

According to the Katz and Kahn model, a company that is beginning to find ways to buffer its

technical core is developing which function of its social structure? Support

Vocab:
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To call attention to (surface) and then overturn (contradict or deny) the assumptions of an

argument constitutes the postmodern method of: deconstruction.

An interorganizational network consists of organizations and actors with which the focal

organization interacts with on a regular basis.

Organizational Culture:

A list of corporate values posted on the wall in the reception area of an organization"s

headquarters offices would be classified by a culture researcher as an example of cultural:

artifacts. A list of corporate values presented to employees on a laminated wallet-sized card

would be classified by an ethnographer as an example of cultural: artifacts. According to

Hofstede, national cultures such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Denmark, in which people are

more accepting of innovative ideas and eccentric or deviant behavior, are which of the

following? Low in uncertainty avoidance

Which of the dimensions Hofstede used to define differences between national cultures refers to

the degree to which members of a culture are expected to act independently of other members?

Individualism

cultural analysis of a company produces the list shown below. This list exemplifies which of
Schein's levels of culture?

• Treat employees well and they will treat customers well.

• People want to have fun at work.
• Conformity detracts from our performance, diversity enhances it.

Values

According to Siehl and Martin, a subculture that supports the larger or dominant culture in an

organization is referred to as: enhancing.

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Narrative approaches to organizational culture: study the stories told in organizations and how

they are told.

Postmodern studies of organizational culture invoke: intertextuality. What’s thick description???

Hatch (p. 16) states that her reason for studying organization theory is to
“broaden my perspective on organizations and the world in general and open my
mind to new ideas and possibilities for change and transformation.” What do
you say?

I admire Hatch for her reasons for studying organization theory, because she seems to be

motivated by noble or lofty reasons, while I want to learn more about organization theory

because of personal reasons—to improve my performance and understanding of the organization

I work in. It might be true, however, that as I understand organization theory more completely,

my mind will be open to new perspectives, or ideas and possibilities, as she states she desires.

As I become more knowledgeable about organizational theory, hopefully I will have a broader

perspective, with a “mind open to new ideas and possibilities for change and transformation.”

(p.16)