INTRODUCTION Organizing is a very important managerial function.

If planning focuses on decid ing what to do, organizing focuses on how to do it. Thus, after a manager has se t goals and worked out a plan to accomplish those goals, the next managerial fun ction is to organize people and allocate resources to carry out the plan. People who know how to make effective use of their resources can make any organi zational design or pattern work efficiently. A manager has to create the right c onditions to enable the employees to effectively utilize the resources of the or ganization to achieve organizational goals. He has to make the employees underst and the necessity of cooperation for accomplishing tasks. Employees should under stand their roles and responsibilities and should work together to achieve the o rganizational objectives. This applies to any organization business, government, or a football team. For a subordinate to understand his role, a manager must pr ovide verifiable objectives and a clear picture of the major duties to be perfor med. The manager must also specify subordinates authority and responsibility. Thi s gives the subordinate an idea of what he must do to achieve the goals and obje ctives of the organization. In addition, a manager should provide the subordinat es with necessary information and tools for effectively performing their roles. Organizing is therefore designing and maintaining a formal structure of roles an d positions. DEFINITIONS OF ORGANIZING According to Stephen P. Robbins and Mary Coulter, organizing is determining what ta sks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who repo rts to whom, and where decisions are to be made. Thus, organizing refers to important dynamic aspects such as what tasks are to b e performed, who has to perform them, on what basis the tasks are to be grouped, who has to report to whom and who should have the authority to take decisions. L.A. Allen defined organizing as the process of identifying and grouping the work to be performed, defining and delegating responsibility and authority, and esta blishing relationships for the purpose of enabling people to work most effective ly together in accomplishing objectives. According to this definition, organizing is a management function involving assi gning duties, grouping tasks, delegating authority and responsibility and alloca ting resources to carry out a specific plan in an efficient manner. In a nutshell, organizing refers to the grouping of activities and resources in a logical fashion. BENEFITS OF ORGANIZING Effective organizing provides numerous organizational benefits: The process of organizing helps an individual develop a clear picture of the tas ks he or she is expected to accomplish. The process of organizing supports planning and control activities by establishi ng accountability and an appropriate line of authority. Organizing creates channels of communication and thus supports decision-making a nd control. The process of organizing helps maintain the logical flow of work activities. By so doing, it helps individuals and work groups to easily accomplish their tasks . Organizing helps an organization make efficient use of its resources and avoid c onflict and duplication of effort. Organizing coordinates activities that are diverse in nature and helps build har monious relationships among members involved in those activities. The process of organizing helps managers to focus task efforts such that they ar e logically and efficiently related to a common goal. CLOSED SYSTEM VS OPEN SYSTEM Closed System View of Organizations The classical management theorists assumed that the primary goal of organization s was economic efficiency, and that organizations were essentially closed system s. Consequently, they regarded organizations as rational and economic entities.

According to Louis E. Boone and David L Kurtz, Closed systems are sets of interac ting elements operating without any exchange with the environment in which they exist.This definition implies that closed systems require no inputs human, techni cal, etc. from the external environment in which they exist. But no organization can be a totally closed system. For instance, even a relatively closed system, like a wind-up alarm clock, requires outside intervention when it slows down or goes out of order. Thus, a totally closed system is only a theoretical concept. Different systems differ in the degree to which they depend on the external envi ronment for information, material and energy inputs. The two basic characteristics of a closed system are: It is perfectly deterministic and predictable. There is no exchange between the system and the external environment. If the initial conditions and the stimuli in a closed system are known, the fina l condition, i.e., the result can be predicted with certainty. Let us consider t he example of a pool table. Prior knowledge of the following conditions and stim uli make it possible to accurately predict where each ball will come to rest: The position of every ball on the table The elasticity of the bumpers The coefficient of friction between the balls and the table The force with which the cue ball is hit The direction of the cue ball The type of spin on the cue ball Classical management theorists borrowed certain ideas from the closed-system con cept that was popular during that period of time. As a result, these theorists e mphasized structure and attempted to eliminate environmental disruptions that co uld affect their studies of planned systems activities. Open System View of Organizations Traditional closed-system views (like scientific management, the universal proc ess approach, and bureaucracy) ignored the influence of the external environment . This sometimes led to the failure of plans and inefficient handling of resourc es. Unlike the closed-system approach, the open-system concept stressed the need for flexibility and adaptability in organizational structure, and the mutual in terdependence between the organization and its external environment. According to this concept, organizations should be adaptive and should take into considera tion the influence of the external environment. According to Andy Groove, former CEO of Intel Corp, A corporation is a living organism, and it has to continue to shed its skin. The modern open-system model of organizing allows an organization to interact wi th its environment and evolve its organizational structure gradually over time. Thus, open systems are based on a biological model rather than a physical one. Boone and Kurtz define an open system as a set of elements that interact with eac h other and the environment, and whose structure evolves over time as a result o f interaction. The open-system concept is based on the assumption that no system is totally det erministic or predictable because of the uncertainties in the external environme nt. Here again, let us consider the example of the pool table. As a player strik es the cue ball, his or her opponent may pick up a ball from the table. This dis turbs the game and it now becomes impossible to predict where the balls will ult imately come to rest. This is analogous to the influence of the environment on t he system. An organization is a system consisting of several subsystems which interact with one another. The organization, in turn, is a subsystem of a larger system socia l, political, economic or legal system. System-to-system interactions, like the movement of capital (example: corporate borrowings), the movement of goods and s ervices (example: international trade), and the movement of people in and out of the labor force, are as important as the systems themselves. SPAN OF MANAGEMENT Organizations are growing in terms of size and geographical coverage, thereby in creasing the workload of executives. To cope up with this workload, managers sho uld delegate routine activities to their subordinates. Delegation of such activi

ties would leave managers free to handle key strategic issues. The number of sub ordinates a manager has to supervise has a direct bearing on the degree to which managers can interact with and supervise subordinates. The span of control refe rs to the number of subordinates a superior can supervise efficiently and effect ively. According to Kathryn M. Bartol and David C. Martin, The span of management or spa n of control is the number of subordinates who report directly to a specific man ager. The principle of span of management states that there is a limit to the number o f subordinates a manager can effectively supervise, but the exact number will de pend on the impact of underlying factors. One important thing is to be noted in the definition cited above. It is not how many people who report to a manager that matters. What matters is how many peopl e who have to work with each other report to a manager. What counts are the numb er of relationships rather than the number of men. The span of control is a very important principle that emphasizes the need for c oordination among the subordinates working under a particular manager. The quest ion therefore arises: how many people can a manager supervise effectively? Stude nts of management have come to the conclusion that a manager can effectively man age usually four to eight subordinates at the upper levels, and eight to fifteen subordinates at the lower levels. According to the British consultant, Lyndall Urwick, the ideal number of subordinates for a higher level executive should be four while the number of subordinates for an executive at the lower level may be eight or twelve. Others are of the view that a manager can manage twenty to thirty subordinates. THE PROCESS OF ORGANIZING The process of organizing follows a logical sequence. The process of organizing consists of the following six steps: The objectives of the organization should be established The supporting objectives, policies and plans should be formulated The activities required to achieve the objectives should be identified and clas sified The best way of grouping the activities and utilizing the available human and material resources should be chosen Authority should be delegated to the head of each group so that they can perform their activities The various groups should be connected to each other, both horizontally as well as vertically, by means of authority relationships and information flows. PREREQUISITES FOR EFFECTIVE ORGANIZING The span of management and the levels of organization are clearly defined The factors determining the basic framework of departmentation, along with their strengths and weaknesses, are taken into consideration The different kinds of authority and responsibility relationships that exist in an organization are understood The way authority is delegated throughout the organization structure, along with the degree of delegation, is taken into consideration The way the manager implements organization theory is considered