PRM-Organizing for Success

PRINCIPLES OF MANAGEMENT/
ADMINISTRATION
Advance Information and Library Management

• Planning
• Organizing
• Leading
• Staffing
• Controlling

What is an organization?
• Organization can be defined as “an
arrangement of roles, along with associated
responsibilities and rights, in accordance with
and around a central objective.” The
development of an organization depends on a
particular cause or objective. This objective is
of such an important nature that it prompts
the need to develop an entity to achieve it in a
coordinated and determined way. (Afzal,
2012)

• Professor Floyd W. Reeves of the University of
Chicago defines the nature of administrative
organization as “the arrangement of the
personnel for the accomplishment of the
objectives for which the institution exists,” and
he adds that “it includes the division into
groups of all those activities necessary to
achieve the desired objectives and the
allocation of such activities to individuals.”
(Chauhan, 2004)
What is an organization?

IMPORTANCE OF ORGANIZING
Benefits of Specialization
Organizing leads to a systematic allocation
of jobs amongst the work force. This reduces the
workload as well as enhances productivity
because of the specific workers performing a
specific job on a regular basis. Repetitive
performance of a particular task allows a worker
to gain experience in that area and leads to
specialization.

• Clarity in Working Relationships
The establishment of working relationships
clarifies lines of communication and specifies
who is to report to whom. This removes
ambiguity in transfer of information and
instructions. It helps in creating a hierarchical
order thereby enabling the fixation of
responsibility and specification of the extent of
authority to be exercised by an individual.

• Optimum Utilization of Resources
Organizing leads to the proper usage of all
material, financial and human resources. The
proper assignment of jobs avoids overlapping of
work and also makes possible the best use of
resources. Avoidance of duplication of work
helps in preventing confusion and minimizing
the wastage of resources and efforts.

• Adaptation to Change
The process of organizing allows a business
enterprise to accommodate changes in the
business environment. It allows the organization
structure to be suitably modified and the
revision of inter-relationships amongst
managerial levels to pave the way for a smooth
transition. It also provides much needed stability
to the enterprise as it can then continue to
survive and grow inspite of changes.

• Effective Administration
Organizing provides a clear description of
jobs and related duties. This helps to avoid
confusion and duplication. Clarity in
working relationships enables proper
execution of work. Management of an
enterprise thereby becomes easy and this
brings effectiveness in administration.

• Development of Personnel
Organizing stimulates creativity amongst the
managers. Effective delegation allows the managers to
reduce their workload by assigning routine jobs to their
subordinates. The reduction in workload by delegation is
not just necessary because of limited capacity of an
individual but also allows the manager to develop new
methods and ways of performing tasks. It gives them the
time to explore areas for growth and the opportunity to
innovate thereby strengthening the company’s competitive
position. Delegation also develops in the subordinate the
idea to deal effectively with challenges and helps them to
realize their full potential.

• Expansion of Growth
Organizing helps in the growth and
diversification of an enterprise by enabling it to
deviate from existing norms and taking up new
challenges.

Life Cycle of an Organization
Today, in what stage is the
library organization?

Features of an Organization
• Goal-directed
• Boundary-maintaining
• Socially constructed systems of human
activity

5 Basic Elements of Human Organizations
(Barnard)
• Size
• Interdependence
• Input
• Throughput
• Output

FORMAL AND INFORMAL ORGANIZATIONS
• FORMAL ORGANIZATION
* Formal organizational structure clearly spells
out the job to be performed by each individual, the
authority, responsibility assigned to every individual,
the superior- subordinate relationship and the
designation of every individual in the organization.
This structure is created intentionally by the managers
for achievement of organizational goal.

• Principle of Unity of Objective
An organization is effective if it facilitates the
contribution of individuals in the attainment of
enterprise objectives
• Principle of Efficiency
An organization structure is efficient if it facilitates
accomplishment of objectives by people (that is,
effective) with the minimum unsought consequences
or costs (going beyond the usual thinking of costs in
such measurable items as dollars or labor hours).
PRINCIPLES TO GUIDE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
EFFECTIVE FORMAL ORGANIZATION

FORMAL AND INFORMAL ORGANIZATIONS
• INFORMAL ORGANIZATION
* While a formal organization is cold and
impersonal, an informal organization is intensely personal.
It's all about social interactions and relationships between
the members.
* Members of an informal organization can
certainly hold official offices and have formal duties, but
they also bring their own values, personal interests and
assumptions into the equation of how they act. Members
develop friendships, alliances, enemies, trusted sources of
information, and preferences on how tasks should be
performed.

• Kinship-friendship groups
- most often confined to persons between whom
compatibility is of prime importance.
TYPES OF INFORMAL ORGANIZATION

• Cliques
-composed of
persons commonly in
close working
association: selected
members of the payroll,
personnel, engineering,
or machine-shop “crowd”
or persons representing
different functional
activities who feel the
need for cooperation.

• Subcliques
-include one or few persons identified with a
clique. Other members of the subclique may be
employed by another firm

Formal Organization
Advantages Disadvantages
“Work” orientated
 Systematic
 No-overlapping
 More emphasis
Ignores social needs
 More emphasis on work, less
expression of other related
skills
Coordination Delay in action
Creation of Chain of command
Achievement of Organizational
objectives through clear defined
organizational structure

Informal Organization
Advantages Disadvantages
Fast Communication Spread Rumors
Fulfills Social Needs More emphasis on Individual
Interest
Correct Feedback Resistance to change
No systematic working methods
Role Conflict
Conformity

PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION IN A BUREAUCRACY
1. Hierarchy of Authority

2. Unity of Command

3. Task Specialization

4. Responsibilities and Job Description

5. Definition of Managerial Responsibility

6. Line and Staff Functions
President and Dean
Seminary Librarian
Faculty Librarian
Library Assistant

• Organization structure refers to the
formal system of work roles and
authority relationships that govern how
associates and managers interact with
one another.
ORGANIZATION POLICIES AND STRUCTURE

• Functions of Policy
Identification of goals
Identification of means to achieve
these goals
Prioritization of goals
Prioritization of means to achieve
goals
Developing criteria to evaluate
performance
Breaking the planning horizon into
short, medium, and long term chunks

Development of Organizational Structure

Progression of an organization from objective creation to
objective achievement

• Structure shows various stations present in an
organization through which resources have to
pass in order to reach their final destination.
• Policy determines the kind of departments
that are needed in an organization, their roles,
and the nature of management that is
required to oversee these departments and to
achieve the organizational objectives.

• Structure does not solely represent the departments and
their roles, but it also shows the nature of
communication within an organization.
• By including communication, structure implicitly includes
the flow of information—a flow that takes place during
communication processes. According to Chandler (1962),
structure has two aspects;
(1) lines of authority and communication between
different administrative offices and;
(2) the information and data that flow through these
lines of communication and authority.

• Employees within a department may be
required by the formal structure to
communicate on a daily basis in order to
facilitate everyday operations. However, due
to personal differences, these employees may
find themselves at odds with each other – as
strife that would lead to the development of
an informal structure.

Question!
What is the present organizational
structure of your library?

DEPARTMENTALIZATION
• The process of subdividing work into
departments.
• The approach used in grouping resources
within an organization.

COMMON FORMS OF DEPARTMENTALIZATION
• Functional Departmentalization

• Territorial/Geographical Departmentalization

• Product-Service Departmentalization

• Customer Departmentalization

• Tall/ Vertical Structure
Tall Structure is an organization that has many levels with
small spans of management. In this case, power is
centralized on the top levels and there is more employee
control.
• Flat/ Horizontal Structure
Flat Structure is an organization that has a small number of
levels and a broad span of management at each level. This
calls for a good deal of delegation on the part of the
manager. Employees have more power within the company.
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

LIBRARIES AS ORGANIZATION
• Libraries are one type of formal organization;
most libraries are not-for-profit, service
organizations with special organizational
characteristics.

• As Lowell Martin has pointed out, libraries:
are service agencies, not profit-making firms;
purvey information, not more tangible services or
products;
perform functions both of supply and guidance, a
combination that in the medical field is shared among
the doctor’s office, the hospital, and the pharmacy;
provide professional service without, in most cases,
having a personal and continuous client relationship;

for all their general acceptance, currently
marked by ambiguous goals rather than clear-
cut objectives;
have, during their long history, accumulated set
conceptions of function and method that make
for rigid structure and resistance to change;
respond both to resources and to clientele in a
dual and sometimes conflicting orientation, with
some staff characterized as resource minded and
others as people-minded;

function as auxiliaries to larger enterprises, such
as universities, schools, and municipalities, and
not as independent entities;
are, because of their auxiliary role, subject to
external pressures from political bodies,
faculties, and users;
are staffed in the higher echelons by personnel
with graduate training, making for a highly-
educated core staff;

 are administered by professionals who are
promoted from the service ranks, not by
career managers;
seek identity and domain within a host of
communication and information sources in
the community at large and in their parent
organization.

ORGANIZATION CHARTS
• An organizational chart is a useful visual aid
for including the horizontal and vertical
structure of an organization.
• It is a graphic representation of organizational
structure showing different positions, span of
control, relationships between line and staff
positions, flow of authority and responsibility,
relationship with Advisory Committees and
such others.

ORGANIZATION CHARTS
• Its function is to show how lines of authority
link departments.
• Lines of authority are usually represented on
organization charts by solid lines. Lines that
show staff organizational units are often
represented by broken lines. Formal
communication follows the lines of
organizational units and authority. Informal
lines of communication are not shown on the
traditional organization chart.

ORGANIZATION CHARTS
• Understanding that authority flows out and
stops is very important in interpreting
organization charts.
• Organization charts can be used to define and
describe channels of authority,
communication, and information flow. They
can be used to show the status or rank of
members of the organization, and the span of
control of each supervisor can be readily
detected on them.

ORGANIZATION CULTURE
• Organizational culture involves shared values
and norms that influence behavior. It is a
powerful force in organization.
• Sarah Rutherford (2001) noted:
“An organization’s culture is also heavily
influenced by its past and its
environment.”

• Organizational culture can lead to institutional
racism where the beliefs and values are so
embedded within the organization that when
someone different shows up, they don’t fit in.
Managers should watch for and guard against
this happening.

ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
• Most libraries have their own culture. The
ways in which workers dress, socialize, and
interact with one another are just a few
examples of organizational culture.
• Organizational culture is defined as the
“assumptions that a group discovers it has as
it learns to cope with problems of external
adaption and internal integration.”

• External adaption refers to how the
organization finds a niche in and copes with
the external environment.
• Internal integration is concerned with
establishing and maintaining effective working
relations among members of the organization.

• According to Geoffrey Bloor and Patrick Dawson
(1994), organizational culture arises from
interactions among these elements:
 Operating and cultural systems (dynamic/ongoing
interaction)
 Historical factors (founders’ vision, example)
 Societal context (external to organization)
 Professional external environment (association
values, practices)

• Avan Jassawalla and Hemet Sashittal (2002) took a
different tack and suggested that people learn
organizational culture through these:
 Heroes (people past and present who made significant
contributions to the organization)
 Stories (tales told about the good and bad of the past)
 Slogans (“the virtual library,” “24/7 service”)
 Symbols (name tags, pins, signs)
 Ceremonies (birthday parties, years of service)

• Organizational Culture are composed of many
elements such as the following;
 Symbols
 Language
 Group Norms
 Slogans
 Heroes
 Myths/Stories
 Ceremonies

Levels of Organizational Culture by Edgar Schein
Artifacts
Personal enactment
Ceremonies and Rites
Stories
Rituals
Symbols
Values
Testable in the physical environment
Testable only by social consensus
Basic Assumptions
Relationship to environment
Nature of reality, time and space
Nature of human nature
Nature of human activity
Nature of human relationships
Visible but often not decipherable
Greater level of awareness
Taken for granted, Invisible preconcious

• Thomas Kell and Gregory Carrott
(2005) noted: “Corporate culture, like
personal character, is an amorphous
quality that exerts a powerful
influence.”

• Organizational culture is thus often the cause
of inflexibility in organizations. Employees are
resistant to change because they have
“always done it that way.”
• Research has shown that the most successful
organizations not only have strong cultures,
but they also have adaptive ones.

THE STRUCTURE OF ORGANIZATION–
TODAY AND IN THE FUTURE
• Organizations can be of many types and
structures. It is widely recognized that no
structure is suitable to all organizations,
and factors such as growth, competition,
technology and environmental
uncertainty have to be considered when
choosing a structure.

BUREAUCRACIES
(Max Weber, early 20th century)
• Bureaucracies were initially viewed in a very
positive manner because they were much more
effective and rational types of organizations than
their predecessors.
• Weber attempted to construct a model of a
perfectly rational organization, one that would
perform its job with maximum efficiency. He
based his model on reasoning rather than on
empirical evidence.

• Weber’s concept of bureaucracy has been the basis
for much influential thought and investigation into
organizations. His work brings together many the
concepts: division of labor, horizontal specialization,
hierarchy of authority, and standardization of work
processes.
• Almost all libraries are marked by a hierarchical
structure, a large number of rules (ranging from
cataloging to circulation rules), the demands of
technical competence, and the systematic
specialization of labor.
BUREAUCRACIES
(Max Weber, early 20th century)

CHARACTERISTICS OF A BUREAUCRACY
Characteristic Reason
Impersonal and
formal conduct.
Because personality and emotional based relationships
interfere with rationality; nepotism and favoritism not
related to performance should be eliminated.
Employment and
promotion based on
technical
competence and
performance.
Using these criteria ensures that the best-qualified people
will pursue a career in the organization and remain loyal to it.
Systematic
specialization of
labor and
specification of
responsibilities.
All the work necessary to accomplish the tasks of the
organization should be divided into specific areas of
competence, with each employee and supervisor
having authority over his or her functions and not interfering
with the conduct of others’ jobs.

CHARACTERISTICS OF A BUREAUCRACY
A well-ordered system of
rules and procedures that
regulates the conduct of
work.
These rules serve (a) to standardize operations and
decisions, (b) as receptacles of past learning, and (c) to
protect incumbents and ensure equality of treatment. The
learning of rules represents much of the technical
competence of incumbents because the rules tell them
what decisions to make and when to make them.
Hierarchy of positions
such that each position is
controlled by a higher
one.
The hierarchy of authority is impersonal, based on rules,
and the superior position is held by the individual having
greater expertise. In this way, compliance with rules and
coordination is systematically ensured.
Complete separation of
the property and affairs
of the organization from
the personal property
and affairs of the
incumbents.
This serves to prevent the demands and interests of
personal affairs from interfering with the rational,
impersonal conduct of the business of the organization.

MECHANISTIC ORGANIZATIONS
(Tom Burns and G.M. Stalker)
• Mechanistic organizations are shaped in the
traditional, pyramidal pattern of organization.
• This kind of organization is designed to be like
a machine hence the name.
• “People are conceived as parts performing
specific tasks. As employees leave, other parts
can be slipped into their places. Someone at
the top is the designer, designing what parts
will be, and how will they fit together.”

• Burns and Stalker found that a mechanistic, or
bureaucratic structure worked best for
organizations that perform many routine tasks
and operate in a stable environment but was
not successful in organizations that were
required to adjust to environment changes.
MECHANISTIC ORGANIZATIONS

• This structure is based on a biological
metaphor, and the objective in designing such
a system is to leave it open to the
environment so it can respond to new
opportunities.
• The organic form is appropriate to changing
conditions that constantly give rise to fresh
problems and unforeseen requirements for
action.
ORGANIC SYSTEMS

• The Organic system is characterized by:
 an emphasis on lateral and horizontal flows of
communication within the organization;
 organizational influence based largely on the
authority of knowledge, rather than an individual’s
position in the structure;
 members of the organization tending to have a
system wide orientation rather than narrow,
departmental views;
ORGANIC SYSTEMS

• The Organic system is characterized by:
 job definitions that are less precise and more flexible
and duties that change as new problems and
challenges are confronted;
 a commitment by many members to professional
standards developed by groups outside the formal
organization. For instance, many librarians identify as
much with their profession as with the institutions
that employ them
ORGANIC SYSTEMS

MECHANISTIC VS. ORGANIC
Mechanistic Structure Organic Structure

• Libraries “have been criticized for their
inability to keep up with social and individual
expectations and their failure to change
quickly enough to meet competitive
challenges,” they have begun to search for
new forms of organizational structure.
MODIFYING LIBRARY BUREAUCRACY

Common Forms of Modifications
1. Committees
Committees are especially useful when a process
does not fall within the domain of any one chain of
command, and so a committee consisting of
representatives from the units involved needs to be
established.

2. Task Force
A task force has a specific, temporary task to
perform, and when the task is completed, the
members of the group return to their primary jobs.

3. Matrix Organizational Structure
Matrix management represents an attempt to retain
the advantages of functional specialization, while
adding project management’s advantage of improved
coordination.

4. Teams
The team approach provides a basic redesign of how
work is accomplished: Instead of groups being
managed, there is a shift to groups that manage
themselves.
Participative management

References:
• Dubrin, A.J. (2006). Essentials of Management. (7th ed.). Mason, OH.: South-Western
Thomson Learning.
• Evans, G.E. (2013). Management Basics for Information Professionals. Chicago: Neal
Schuman.
• Ivancevich, J.M. (2002). Organizational Behavior and Management. (6th ed). New York:
McGraw-Hill.
• Koontz, H. Management. (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Nelson, D.L. (2005). Understanding Organizational Behavior. (2nd ed.). Australia:
Thomsom.
• Stueart, R.D. & Moran, B.B. (2007). Library and Information Center Management.(7th ed.).
Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.
• Waseem, A. (2012). Management of Information Organizations. Oxford: Chandos
Publishing.
• Weingand, D.E. (1994). Managing Today’s Public Library: Blueprint for Change. Colorado:
Libraries Unlimited.
• http://ncert.nic.in/ncerts/l/lebs105.pdf
• http://pvkketcho.pbworks.com/f/Chapter13_Org_Structure.pdf

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