Case 

Application #1: A New Kind of Structure

1. Describe and evaluate what Pfizer is doing with its PfizerWorks.

What Jordan Cohen has created at Pfizer is a network organization to help employees be 
more efficient and effective.  It’s a form of the boundaryless organization structure where
Pfizer helps his managers to concentrate on knowledge work  and important aspect of the 
job because those elements that are related to the company’s core competencies, and 
other tasks are outsourced to another organization. This strategy saved valuable employee
time and for example, when he gave the Indian team a complex project researching 
strategic actions that worked when consolidating company facilities, the team put the 
report together in a month that would have taken six months to do.

2. What structural implications—good and bad—does this approach have? 
(Think in terms of the six organizational design elements.)

According to case Pfizer approach is «Magic Button/PfizerWorks» concept or originally 
called the Office of the Future (OOF)  it means that Pfizer make a new concept of future 
office where they can connect their all offices around the world and share information 
with another staff from other offices around the world. Pfizer made good decision and 
organizational structure also follows the six organizational design elements. As we know 
there are six organizational design elements. First, work specialization, refers to
dividing work activities into separate job tasks. In the new organization structure 
Pfizer also divide their work into different part and also reduces the work load of their 
employees by specialization, while one person would do all work. Second element, 
departmentalization, for different specialization Pfizer facilitated by putting 
specialists together in departments under the direction of a manager. These departments 
are typically based  on the work   function, product, customer, geographic, process. In 
new organizational structure Pfizer also departmentalize through different geographic 
area. For example: a employee of Pfizer can take any kind of information through one 
country employee to another country.  The third, centralization and
decentralization, Certralization is when upper level of organization make decision,
decentralization is when lower-level managers make decision. In new Organizational 
structure Pfizer also decentralized more rather than centralized like by using Microsoft 
outlook employee can connect with another employee of the organization of different 
geographic place. The fourth — authority, responsibility, and power—all have to
do with getting work done in an organization. Authority refers to the rights inherent
in a managerial position to give orders and expect those orders to be obeyed.
Responsibility refers to the obligation to perform when authority has been
delegated. Power is the capacity of an individual to influence decisions and is not the

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 same as authority. The fifth, span of control, refers to the number of employees a
manager can efficiently and effectively manage. The sixth, formalization, describes
how standardized an organization’s jobs are and the extent to which employees’
behavior is guided by rules and procedures. They use a project structure with
external vendors, with the advantage of empowerment and the disadvantage of no
clear chain of command.
This new organizational structure brings good prospects to the Pfizer Company and it
also maintain by the six organizational design elements which made a good implication.

3. Do you think this arrangement would work for other types of organizations? 
Why or why not? What types of oraganizations might it also work for?

I think yes, many companies can benefit from it because all firms use strategies to be 
efficient  such as support work is part of every comany, these task consume a lot of time 
and higher productivity, also can concentrate more on strategy, innovation, networking, 
collaborating and critical thinking. But this arrangement would work only for large 
organizations like banks, call centers using of specialized tools such as excel support 
whereas employees are not specialized on it. 

4. What role do you think organizational structure plays in an organization’s 
efficiency and effectiveness? Explain.

Organizational structure means the way of arranging the works and people within the 
organization to perform the organizations different activities and attain the goal of an 
organization. Organizational structure  determines the goals of an organization and show 
the purpose and function of the organization. So its shows the clear sets of goals of an 
organization which increase the effectiveness of the organizations work. Main purpose of
the organization   structure is reduce the time of different activities in an organization 
also cut different dispensable cost of organization which increase the effectiveness of a 
organization. Using organizational structure for a long term can reduce the cost of 
different activities and also increase the experience of the employee in the organization 
which make organizations work more effective and efficient. Thus, organizational 
structure plays an important role in an organization’s effectiveness and efficiency. This 
can be increase by building a good organizational structure that suits the organizations.

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