Organizational Theory

There are a number of relationships that are present in any organization, and all of them are

equally important. For example, there are relationships to the employees to the customers and to

the suppliers; hence there are a number of relationships, therefore for the organization, it is

essential to keep all of these relationships aligned as there will be different effects of these

relationships on organization, its environment and towards the society. In this regard,

organization theory helps to understand the organizational process as it is the set of the designs,

relationships and structure of the organization. There are different dimensions on which it will

focus

 Formation of organizational structure

 Standards

 Specialization

 Hierarchy of authority

 Complexity

 Size

 Goals and strategy

There have been a number of different theories presented by the business scholars and

researchers who said them to be effective to understand the organizational process, and two of

them which will be part of this paper are Modernist theory and Symbolic Interpretive theory.

Modern organization theory:

According to the modern organization theory, the organization can be presented as the open

social school, which only survives when it has interaction with the environment and is able to
understand how to interact with them. This is the only way of their survival. It is based on the

integration of the classical models with the social and behavioral sciences (Pugh, 1966).

According to this theory, being open social school, there is a significant relationship with the

environment. When there are changes in the environment, it will lead to the change in the

organization as well, both in internal and external terms.

The features that make it different from the other theories include the grounds on which it views

the organization. The modern theory is based on making the organization an open system which

means the organization need to interact with the environment consistently, and this is the reason

for their growth and sustainability in the market (Hatch, 2018). Being an open system, there are

several elements that are present around the organization, including input, transformation,

processes outputs, feedback and the business environment as well. This makes it different from

the classical theory, which says that the organization is a closed system and there is no

interaction between the environment and the organization.

Being an open system, the environment puts its impact on the organization and therefore, when

the changes will happen, the organization will need to change as well. Therefore the organization

will work as adaptive to the changes in the market as soon as they occur. And when there are

changes, the organization will be taken as the dynamic institute which will keep on changing.

Moreover, the modern theory is probabilistic, which means it has no determined results, and

there can be an only prediction based on the probabilities rather than given a firm prediction

about the organization.

The modern theory is also based on different infect multilevel and dimensions, and according to

this theory, the organizational micro and macro environment both as covered in theory. The

macro-environment will be the external environment of the organization, and the

microenvironment is the internal environment. Hence modern theory presents all the aspects of

the organization. According to the theory, there are a number of variables that will impact the

organization, and therefore, the cause and effects of the organization are the results of these

variables. These variables will lead to the presence of a certain action, and as a result, there will

result of these actions.

The modernist theory is not only based on the business sector, yet there are several other sectors

that have impacted it. Such as, scientists and researchers have contributed to making modern

theory effective in order to make it work for all types of organizations (Pugh, 1966). There is a

great emphasis on the communication and integration between the individual and organizational

interest, which enables the organization, and the employees to work together to bring more

results.

For the organization, it seems to be tough, yet when the organizations are able to understand

them effectively, they will be able to get better results from them. As these theories aren't only

based on the traditional organizational functions, and there will be a number of other factors

involved in making these organizations work effectively, they will focus on all of these factors as

well. In this regard, the managers have the most responsibility lies on their shoulders as the

managers are the people who will understand how these organizations will be affected by the

changes in the environment and also with their critical thinking, they will be able to predict

changes in the organization.

Managers will focus on those technologies and integration tools that will create a collaborative

system between these factors. Since the theory also focuses on the employees and unlike the

traditional theories, which says that the employees work for monetary benefits only, it presents

that there are several reasons for which these employees will work. Achieving satisfaction,
happiness and a better lifestyle makes them eager to work for the organization. As a result, a

shared value system is induced in the organization, which should be the focus of the managers.

They will decide what values should be created by the organization for their employees and how

they will work for returning these values. Hence deciding the goals and how to achieve them is

the function of the managers, and they will help the organization to have a harmonious system.

Symbol interpretative theory:

Symbol interpretative theory presents that the organization is a culture which means there are

living and breathing things in these organizations. Therefore they have emotions and feelings

which make them interpret different incidents that are happening around them (Milosevic, Bass

and Uhl-Bien, 2019). As a result, the organization is able to understand diversity as different

people are taken into consideration and how they feel. By reconstructing structure through

observation and engagement, the symbolic interpretative perspective specifies how organization

structure contributes to work that is meaningful to them. To achieve organizational goals,

symbolic interpretation determines the reason why work is created in a certain way by having

solid routines in work through knowledge and human relationships.

It sees the organization as the community, and therefore it tells that the organization should work

with the integration where the modern theory focuses on the experiments and taking out the best

results. On the other hand, the interpretative theory doesn't put a lot of hard experiments and

testing (Milosevic, Bass and Uhl-Bien, 2019). Symbol interpretative theory works very well in

an unstable environment, which means it has flexibility in the process, and the organization will

be able to work in harmony with the unstable environment. These socially constructed symbols

are focused on the organization as presented in theory, and therefore it will work according to

them. There are two relationships between the groups and the individuals according to which the
individuals learn from the groups, and the groups can have impacts on the individual. The

communication traits and the personality of the group will be based on these individuals, and

therefore, what type of communication will work better for the organization is also dependent on

the organization. As a result, there are diverse groups and organizations that can take benefit

from these diversities.

This theory also presented in the past that the organization can look up to the past to understand

how the prior knowledge of certain incidents can impact the organization, and also the symbols

and the aesthetics of the organization also have an influence on its success. The theory presents

that the organization can take benefits from cultural artefacts and integrate them into the

operation in order to bring better results from the diversity of the organization. The social aspects

will help the organization to understand how to have different behaviours integrated into its

operations.

From the interpretative theory, the managers are able to get a set of principles through which

they are able to construct different policies in the organization (d'Iribarne, 2009). The most

important of them is the organizational behaviour according to which people in the organization

will behave with each other. Such as the working policies and code of ethics, which will propose

the respect and openness to the diversity in the organization is the result of the symbol

interpretative theory. Moreover, those actions which can affect the motivation level of the

employees will also be prevented by the managers when they look at the employees through the

lenses of the interpretative theory as they are able to interpret different social and cultural

symbols which are shown by their employees in the organization. In this way, the hierarchy of

the organization will work from the bottom to the top.

Conclusion:
Organizational theories are of many types, and each type has its own characters, which can be

taken as suitable for certain situations; however, they can't be applied to all the conditions and

the situation. Therefore the role of the managers is very effective in choosing which type of

theory they will put on to the organization to get the most benefits from it. They can learn to

implement a number of actions under these theories. Such as the modern theory will help the

managers to understand how they should react when the environment is changing, while symbol

interpretative theory will tell them how the policies of the organization should be considered for

the employees.
References:

d'Iribarne, P., 2009. National Cultures and Organisations in Search of a Theory. International

Journal of Cross Cultural Management, 9(3), pp.309-321.

Hatch, M., 2018. Organization theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Milosevic, I., Bass, E. and Uhl-Bien, M., 2019. Exploring the Micro-Dynamics of Adaptability:

A Symbolic–Interpretative Perspective. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019(1),

p.10884.

Pugh, D., 1966. Modern organization theory: A psychological and sociological

study. Psychological Bulletin, 66(4), pp.235-251.