Organizational structure consists of how tasks are allocated, coordinated, and supervised to achieve organizational goals. It provides the foundation for standard operating procedures. There are several types of organizational structures including functional, divisional, matrix, flat, and hierarchical. Organizational development aims to increase an organization's relevance and viability through planned change efforts using behavioral science and is focused on understanding and managing organizational change. The core values of organizational development include providing opportunities for people and organizations to develop their full potential and function as human beings.

1. Organizational Structure & Development
© Ramakrishna Kongalla,
Assistant Professor
R'tist @ Tourism

2. organizational structure
• Consists of activities such as task allocation, coordination and
supervision, which are directed towards the achievement of
organizational aims.
• It can also be considered as the viewing glass or perspective
through which individuals see their organization and its
environment.
• Organizations are clustered entities of the branch, department,
workgroup and individual.
• it provides the foundation on which standard operating
procedures and routines rest.
• it determines which individuals get to participate in which
decision-making processes, and thus to what extent their views
shape the organization’s actions
R'tist @ Tourism

3. Organisations
Informal organization
• The interlocking social structure that governs how people
work together in practice.
• It is the aggregate of , norms, personal and professional
connections through which work gets done and relationships
are built among people who share a common organizational
affiliation
• It consists of a dynamic set of personal relationships, social
networks, communities of common interest, and emotional
sources of motivation.
• The informal organization complements the more explicit
structures, plans, and processes of the formal organization: it
can accelerate and enhance responses to unanticipated
events, foster innovation, enable people to solve problems
that require collaboration across boundaries, and create
footpaths showing where the formal organization may
someday need to pave a way.
R'tist @ Tourism

4. Formal organization
• fixed set of rules of intra-organization procedures and structures. In some such
rules may be strictly followed; in others, they may be little more than an
empty formalism.
• To facilitate the accomplishment of the goals of the organization: In a formal
organization the work is delegated to each individual of the organization for
the attainment of definite goals, which are in compliance with the goals of the
organization.
• To facilitate the co-ordination of various activities: The authority, responsibility
and accountability of individuals in the organization is very well defined.
• To aid the establishment of logical authority relationship: The responsibilities
of the individuals in the organisation are well defined.
• concept of specialization and division of Labour, division of work amongst
individuals according to their capabilities
• Create more group cohesiveness
R'tist @ Tourism

5. Hierarchical organization
• Every entity in the organization, except one, is
subordinate to a single other entity. This arrangement is a
form of a hierarchy.
• consists of a singular/group of power at the top with
subsequent levels of power beneath them.
• This is the dominant mode of organization among large
organizations; most corporations, governments, and
organized religions are hierarchical organizations with
different levels of management, power or authority.
• Members of hierarchical organizational structures chiefly
communicate with their immediate superior and with
their immediate subordinates.
• Structuring organizations in this way is useful partly
because it can reduce the communication overhead by
limiting information flow; this is also its major limitation
R'tist @ Tourism

6. Flat organization
• Flat organization (also known as horizontal organization) refers to an
organizational structure with few or no levels of intervening
management between staff and managers.
• well-trained workers will be more productive when they are more
directly involved in the decision making process, rather than closely
supervised by many layers of management.
• possible only in smaller organizations or individual units within larger
organizations.
• Some theorize that flat organizations become more traditionally
hierarchical when they begin to be geared towards productivity.
• promotes employee involvement through a decentralized decision-
making process. By elevating the level of responsibility of baseline
employees and eliminating layers of middle management, comments
and feedback reach all personnel involved in decisions more quickly.
Expected response to customer feedback becomes more rapid.
• referred to as an industry-independent association or organization
such as the Manufacturers' Agents National Association or MANA
which focuses on the general principles of sales reps, not a specific
industry.
R'tist @ Tourism

7. Organizational structure types
Pre-bureaucratic structures(entrepreneurial)
• structures lack standardization of tasks.
• most common in smaller organizations and is best used to solve
simple tasks. The structure is totally centralized.
• The strategic leader makes all key decisions and most communication
is done by one on one conversations.
• It is particularly useful for new (entrepreneurial) business as it enables
the founder to control growth and development.
• They are usually based on traditional domination or charismatic
domination in the sense of Max Weber's tripartite classification of
authority
• Max Weber distinguished three ideal types of legitimate political
leadership, domination and authority:
– charismatic authority (familial and religious),
– traditional authority (patriarchs, patrimonalism, feudalism) and
– legal authority (modern law and state, bureaucracy).
R'tist @ Tourism

8. Bureaucratic structures
• Weber (1948, p. 214) gives the analogy that “the fully developed
bureaucratic mechanism compares with other organizations
exactly as does the machine compare with the non-mechanical
modes of production.
• Precision, speed, unambiguity, … strict subordination, reduction
of friction and of material and personal costs- these are raised to
the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic administration.”
• have a certain degree of standardization. They are better suited
for more complex or larger scale organizations, usually adopting
a tall structure.
• The tension between bureaucratic structures and non-
bureaucratic is echoed in Burns and Stalker's distinction between
mechanistic and organic structures.
– The Weberian characteristics of bureaucracy are:
• Clear defined roles and responsibilities
• A hierarchical structure
• Respect for merit.
R'tist @ Tourism

9. Post-bureaucratic
• Two senses in the organizational literature:
– one generic and
– one much more specific.
• In the generic sense the term post bureaucratic is
often used to describe a range of ideas developed
since the 1980s that specifically contrast themselves
with Weber's ideal type bureaucracy.
– may include
• total quality management,
• culture management and
• matrix management
R'tist @ Tourism

10. • Charles Heckscher has developed, in which decisions are
based on dialogue and consensus rather than authority
and command, the organization is a network rather than
a hierarchy, open at the boundaries (in direct contrast to
culture management); there is an emphasis on meta-
decision making rules rather than decision making rules.
• This sort of horizontal decision making by consensus
model is often used in housing cooperatives, other
cooperatives and when running a non-profit or
community organization.
• It is used in order to encourage participation and help to
empower people who normally experience oppression in
groups.
R'tist @ Tourism

11. Functional structure
• Employees perform a specialized set of tasks
– for instance the engineering department would be staffed only
with software engineers. This leads to operational efficiencies
within that group.
• also lead to a lack of communication between the functional
groups within an organization, making the organization slow
and inflexible.
• best suited as a producer of standardized goods and services
at large volume and low cost.
• Coordination and specialization of tasks are centralized in a
functional structure, which makes producing a limited
amount of products or services efficient and predictable
• integrate their activities vertically so that products are sold
and distributed quickly and at low cost.
– For instance, a small business could make components used in
production of its products instead of buying them.
R'tist @ Tourism

12. Divisional structure
• "product structure", the divisional structure groups
each organizational function into a division.
• Each division within a divisional structure contains all
the necessary resources and functions within it.
• Divisions can be categorized
– geographical basis
– product/service basis
• Each division may have its own sales, engineering and
marketing departments.
R'tist @ Tourism

13. Matrix structure
• The matrix structure groups employees by both function and
product.
• This structure can combine the best of both separate structures.
• A matrix organization frequently uses teams of employees to
accomplish work, in order to take advantage of the strengths, as
well as make up for the weaknesses, of functional and
decentralized forms. An example would be a company that
produces two products, "product a" and "product b".
• Using the matrix structure, this company would organize functions
within the company as follows: "product a" sales department,
"product a" customer service department, "product a" accounting,
"product b" sales department, "product b" customer service
department, "product b" accounting department.
• Matrix structure is amongst the purest of organizational structures
R'tist @ Tourism

14. – Weak/Functional Matrix: A project manager with only
limited authority is assigned to oversee the cross-
functional aspects of the project. The functional
managers maintain control over their resources and
project areas.
– Balanced/Functional Matrix: A project manager is
assigned to oversee the project. Power is shared
equally between the project manager and the
functional managers. It brings the best aspects of
functional and projectized organizations. However, this
is the most difficult system to maintain as the sharing
power is delicate proposition.
– Strong/Project Matrix: A project manager is primarily
responsible for the project. Functional managers
provide technical expertise and assign resources as
needed.
R'tist @ Tourism

15. Organizational circle: moving back to flat
• The flat structure is common in small companies (entrepreneurial
start-ups, university spin offs). As the company grows it becomes
more complex and hierarchical, which leads to an expanded structure,
with more levels and departments.
• Shell Group used to represent the typical bureaucracy: top-heavy and
hierarchical. It featured multiple levels of command and duplicate
service companies existing in different regions. The failure of this
structure became the main reason for the company restructuring into
a matrix.
– Starbucks is one of the numerous large organizations that successfully
developed the matrix structure supporting their focused strategy. Its
design combines functional and product based divisions, with employees
reporting to two heads. Creating a team spirit, the company empowers
employees to make their own decisions and train them to develop both
hard and soft skills. That makes Starbucks one of the best at customer
service
• the multinational design, common in global companies, such as
Procter & Gamble, Toyota and Unilever. This structure can be seen as
a complex form of the matrix, as it maintains coordination among
products, functions and geographic areas.
R'tist @ Tourism

16. Team
• One of the newest organizational structures developed in the
20th century is team.
• In small businesses, the team structure can define the entire
organization. Teams can be both horizontal and vertical.
• While an organization is constituted as a set of people who
synergize individual competencies to achieve newer
dimensions, the quality of organizational structure revolves
around the competencies of teams in totality.
• For example, every one of the Whole Foods Market stores,
the largest natural-foods grocer in the US developing a
focused strategy, is an autonomous profit centre composed of
an average of 10 self-managed teams, while team leaders in
each store and each region are also a team.
• Larger bureaucratic organizations can benefit from the
flexibility of teams as well. Xerox, Motorola, and
DaimlerChrysler are all among the companies that actively
use teams to perform tasks.
R'tist @ Tourism

17. Network
• While business giants risk becoming too clumsy to proact
(such as), act and react efficiently, the new network
organizations contract out any business function, that can be
done better or more cheaply.
• In essence, managers in network structures spend most of
their time coordinating and controlling external relations,
usually by electronic means.
• H&M is outsourcing its clothing to a network of 700 suppliers,
more than two-thirds of which are based in low-cost Asian
countries. Not owning any factories, H&M can be more
flexible than many other retailers in lowering its costs, which
aligns with its low-cost strategy.
• The potential management opportunities offered by recent
advances in complex networks theory have been
demonstrated including applications to product design and
development and innovation problem in markets and
industries.
R'tist @ Tourism

18. Virtual
• A special form of boundaryless organization is virtual.
Hedberg, Dahlgren, Hansson, and Olve (1999) consider
the virtual organization as not physically existing as such,
but enabled by software to exist.
• The virtual organization exists within a network of
alliances, using the Internet.
• This means while the core of the organization can be
small but still the company can operate globally be a
market leader in its niche.
• According to Anderson, because of the unlimited shelf
space of the Web, the cost of reaching niche goods is
falling dramatically. Although none sell in huge numbers,
there are so many niche products that collectively they
make a significant profit, and that is what made highly
innovative Amazon.com so successful.
R'tist @ Tourism

19. Hierarchy-Community Phenotype Model of Organizational
Structure
• The business firm is no longer just a place where people come
to work. For most of the employees, the firm confers on them
that sense of belonging and identity- the firm has become
their “village”, their community.
• The business firm of the 21st century is not just a hierarchy
which ensures maximum efficiency and profit; it is also the
community where people belong to and grow together- where
their affective and innovative needs are met.
• Lim, Griffiths, and Sambrook (2010) developed the Hierarchy-
Community Phenotype Model of Organizational Structure
borrowing from the concept of Phenotype from genetics. "A
phenotype refers to the observable characteristics of an
organism. It results from the expression of an organism’s
genes and the influence of the environment. The expression of
an organism’s genes is usually determined by pairs of alleles.
Alleles are different forms of a gene.
R'tist @ Tourism

20. • In our model, each employee’s formal, hierarchical
participation and informal, community participation
within the organization, as influenced by his or her
environment, contributes to the overall observable
characteristics (phenotype) of the organization.
• In other words, just as all the pair of alleles within the
genetic material of an organism determines the physical
characteristics of the organism, the combined expressions
of all the employees’ formal hierarchical and informal
community participation within an organization give rise
to the organizational structure.
• Due to the vast potentially different combination of the
employees’ formal hierarchical and informal community
participation, each organization is therefore a unique
phenotype along a spectrum between a pure hierarchy
and a pure community (flat) organizational structure
R'tist @ Tourism

21. R'tist @ Tourism

22. Organization development
• Organization development (OD) is a deliberately planned
effort to increase an organization's relevance and viability.
• Vasudevan has referred to OD as, future readiness to meet
change, thus a systemic learning and development strategy
intended to change the basics of beliefs, attitudes and
relevance of values, and structure of the current organization
to better absorb disruptive technologies, shrinking or
exploding market opportunities and ensuing challenges and
chaos.
• OD is the framework for a change process designed to lead to
desirable positive impact to all stakeholders and the
environment.
• OD can design interventions with application of several
multidisciplinary methods and research besides traditional
OD approaches.
R'tist @ Tourism

23. • Organization development is an ongoing,
systematic process of implementing effective
organizational change.
• Organization development is known as both a field
of applied behavioral science focused on
understanding and managing organizational change
and as a field of scientific study and inquiry.
• It is interdisciplinary in nature and draws on
sociology, psychology, and theories of motivation,
learning, and personality.
• Organization development is a growing field that is
responsive to many new approaches including
Positive Adult Development.
R'tist @ Tourism

24. Core Values
• Underlying Organizational Development are humanistic
values. Margulies and Raia (1972) articulated the humanistic
values of OD as follows:
– Providing opportunities for people to function as human beings
rather than as resources in the productive process.
– Providing opportunities for each organization member, as well as
for the organization itself, to develop to his full potential.
– Seeking to increase the effectiveness of the organization in terms
of all of its goals.
– Attempting to create an environment in which it is possible to find
exciting and challenging work.
– Providing opportunities for people in organizations to influence the
way in which they relate to work, the organization, and the
environment.
– Treating each human being as a person with a complex set of
needs, all of which are important in his work and in his life
R'tist @ Tourism

25. Change agent
• A change agent in the sense used here is not a technical
expert skilled in such functional areas as accounting,
production, or finance.
• The change agent is a behavioral scientist who knows how to
get people in an organization involved in solving their own
problems.
• A change agent's main strength is a comprehensive
knowledge of human behavior, supported by a number of
intervention techniques (to be discussed later). The change
agent can be either external or internal to the organization.
• An internal change agent is usually a staff person who has
expertise in the behavioral sciences and in the intervention
technology of OD.
• Beckhard reports several cases in which line people have
been trained in OD and have returned to their organizations
to engage in successful change assignments.
R'tist @ Tourism

26. • In the natural evolution of change mechanisms in
organizations, this would seem to approach the ideal
arrangement.
• Qualified change agents can be found on some university
faculties, or they may be private consultants associated with
such organizations as the National Training Laboratories
Institute for Applied Behavioral Science (Washington, D.C.)
University Associates (San Diego, California), the Human
Systems Intervention graduate program in the Department of
Applied Human Sciences (Concordia University, Montreal,
Canada), Navitus (Pvt) Ltd (Pakistan), and similar
organizations.
• The change agent may be a staff or line member of the
organization who is schooled in OD theory and technique. In
such a case, the "contractual relationship" is an in-house
agreement that should probably be explicit with respect to all
of the conditions involved except the fee.
R'tist @ Tourism

27. Sponsoring organization
• The initiative for OD programs comes from an
organization that has a problem. This means
that top management or someone authorized
by top management is aware that a problem
exists and has decided to seek help in solving it.
• There is a direct analogy here to the practice of
psychotherapy:
– The client or patient must actively seek help in
finding a solution to his problems. This indicates a
willingness on the part of the client organization to
accept help and assures the organization that
management is actively concerned
R'tist @ Tourism

28. Applied behavioral science
• One of the outstanding characteristics of OD
that distinguishes it from most other
improvement programs is that it is based on a
"helping relationship."
• Some believe that the change agent is not a
physician to the organization's ills; that s/he
does not examine the "patient," make a
diagnosis, and write a prescription.
• Nor does she try to teach organizational
members a new inventory of knowledge which
they then transfer to the job situation.
R'tist @ Tourism

29. • Using theory and methods drawn from such
behavioral sciences as industrial/organizational
psychology, industrial sociology, communication,
cultural anthropology, administrative theory,
organizational behavior, economics, and political
science, the change agent's main function is to help
the organization define and solve its own
problems.
• The basic method used is known as action
research. This approach, which is described in
detail later, consists of a preliminary diagnosis,
collecting data, feedback of the data to the client,
data exploration by the client group, action
planning based on the data, and taking action
R'tist @ Tourism

30. Systems context
• OD deals with a total system — the organization as a
whole, including its relevant environment — or with a
subsystem or systems — departments or work groups —
in the context of the total system.
• Parts of systems, for example, individuals, cliques,
structures, norms, values, and products are not
considered in isolation; the principle of interdependency,
that is, that change in one part of a system affects the
other parts, is fully recognized.
• Thus, OD interventions focus on the total culture and
cultural processes of organizations. The focus is also on
groups, since the relevant behavior of individuals in
organizations and groups is generally a product of group
influences rather than personality
R'tist @ Tourism

31. Improved organizational performance
• The objective of OD is to improve the organization's capacity
to handle its internal and external functioning and
relationships.
• This would include such things as improved interpersonal
and group processes, more effective communication,
enhanced ability to cope with organizational problems of all
kinds, more effective decision processes, more appropriate
leadership style, improved skill in dealing with destructive
conflict, and higher levels of trust and cooperation among
organizational members.
• These objectives stem from a value system based on an
optimistic view of the nature of man — that man in a
supportive environment is capable of achieving higher levels
of development and accomplishment.
• Essential to organization development and effectiveness is
the scientific method — inquiry, a rigorous search for causes,
experimental testing of hypotheses, and review of results.
R'tist @ Tourism

32. Organizational self-renewal
• The ultimate aim of OD practitioners is to "work
themselves out of a job" by leaving the client
organization with a set of tools, behaviors,
attitudes, and an action plan with which to
monitor its own state of health and to take
corrective steps toward its own renewal and
development.
• This is consistent with the systems concept of
feedback as a regulatory and corrective
mechanism
R'tist @ Tourism

33. Understanding organizations
• Weisbord presents a six-box model for understanding organization:
• Purposes: The organization members are clear about the organization's
mission and purpose and goal agreements, whether people support
the organization' purpose.
• Structure: How is the organization's work divided up? The question is
whether there is an adequate fit between the purpose and the internal
structure.
• Relationship: Between individuals, between units or departments that
perform different tasks, and between the people and requirements of
their jobs.
• Rewards: The consultant should diagnose the similarities between
what the organization formally rewarded or punished members for.
• Leadership: Is to watch for blips among the other boxes and maintain
balance among them.
• Helpful mechanism: Is a helpful organization that must attend to in
order to survive which as planning, control, budgeting, and other
information systems that help organization member accomplish.
R'tist @ Tourism

34. Modern development
• In recent years, serious questioning has emerged about
the relevance of OD to managing change in modern
organizations.
• The need for "reinventing" the field has become a topic
that even some of its "founding fathers" are discussing
critically.
• With this call for reinvention and change, scholars have
begun to examine organizational development from an
emotion-based standpoint.
• For example, deKlerk (2007) writes about how emotional
trauma can negatively affect performance.
• Due to downsizing, outsourcing, mergers, restructuring,
continual changes, invasions of privacy, harassment, and
abuses of power, many employees experience the
emotions of aggression, anxiety, apprehension, cynicism,
and fear, which can lead to performance decreases.
R'tist @ Tourism

35. • deKlerk (2007) suggests that in order to heal the trauma and increase
performance, O.D. practitioners must acknowledge the existence of
the trauma, provide a safe place for employees to discuss their
feelings, symbolize the trauma and put it into perspective, and then
allow for and deal with the emotional responses.
• One method of achieving this is by having employees draw pictures of
what they feel about the situation, and then having them explain their
drawings with each other.
• Drawing pictures is beneficial because it allows employees to express
emotions they normally would not be able to put into words. Also,
drawings often prompt active participation in the activity, as everyone
is required to draw a picture and then discuss its meaning.
• The use of new technologies combined with globalization has also
shifted the field of organization development.
• Roland Sullivan (2005) defined Organization Development with
participants at the 1st Organization Development Conference for Asia
in Dubai-2005 as "Organization Development is a transformative leap
to a desired vision where strategies and systems align, in the light of
local culture with an innovative and authentic leadership style using
the support of high tech tools.
R'tist @ Tourism

36. Improved organizational performance
• The objective of OD is to improve the organization's capacity
to handle its internal and external functioning and
relationships.
• This would include such things as improved interpersonal and
group processes, more effective communication, enhanced
ability to cope with organizational problems of all kinds, more
effective decision processes, more appropriate leadership
style, improved skill in dealing with destructive conflict, and
higher levels of trust and cooperation among organizational
members.
• These objectives stem from a value system based on an
optimistic view of the nature of man — that man in a
supportive environment is capable of achieving higher levels
of development and accomplishment. Essential to
organization development and effectiveness is the scientific
method — inquiry, a rigorous search for causes, experimental
testing of hypotheses, and review of results.
R'tist @ Tourism

37. Organizational self-renewal
• The ultimate aim of OD practitioners is to "work
themselves out of a job" by leaving the client
organization with a set of tools, behaviors,
attitudes, and an action plan with which to
monitor its own state of health and to take
corrective steps toward its own renewal and
development.
• This is consistent with the systems concept of
feedback as a regulatory and corrective
mechanism
R'tist @ Tourism

38. Action research
• Wendell L French and Cecil Bell defined organization
development (OD) at one point as "organization
improvement through action research".
• If one idea can be said to summarize OD's underlying
philosophy, it would be action research as it was
conceptualized by Kurt Lewin and later elaborated and
expanded on by other behavioral scientists.
• Concerned with social change and, more particularly,
with effective, permanent social change, Lewin believed
that the motivation to change was strongly related to
action:
– If people are active in decisions affecting them, they are
more likely to adopt new ways. "Rational social
management", he said, "proceeds in a spiral of steps, each of
which is composed of a circle of planning, action, and fact-
finding about the result of action".
R'tist @ Tourism

39. R'tist @ Tourism

40. • Lewin's description of the process of change
involves three steps:
– "Unfreezing": Faced with a dilemma or
disconfirmation, the individual or group becomes
aware of a need to change.
– "Changing": The situation is diagnosed and new
models of behavior are explored and tested.
– "Refreezing": Application of new behavior is
evaluated, and if reinforcing, adopted.
R'tist @ Tourism

41. Perspectives, Assumptions & Values
• A set of values, assumptions, and beliefs constitutes an integral part
of OD, shaping the goals and methods of the field and distinguishing
OD from other improvement strategies.
• Most of these beliefs were formulated early in the development of
the field, and they continue to evolve as the field itself evolves.
• A belief is
- a proposition about how the world works that the individual accepts
as true;
- a cognitive fact for the person.
• Values are also beliefs, and are defined as “Beliefs about what is a
desirable or a good (e.g., free speech) and what is an undesirable or a
bad (e.g., dishonesty) values”.
• Assumptions are beliefs that are regarded as
- so valuable and obviously correct,
- that they are taken for granted, and
- rarely examined or questioned.
R'tist @ Tourism

42. • Thus, values, assumptions, and beliefs are all:
- cognitive facts or propositions, with
- values being beliefs about being good and bad, and
- assumptions being strongly held, relatively unexamined
beliefs accepted as the truth.
• Values, assumptions, and beliefs provide structure and
stability for people as they attempt to understand the world
around them.
– OD values and assumptions developed from:
• research and theory by behavioral scientists, and
• from the experiences and observations of practicing managers.
• OD values tend to be humanistic, optimistic, and democratic.
R'tist @ Tourism

43. • Humanistic values proclaim the importance of the individual:
– respect the whole person,
– treat people with respect and dignity,
– assume that everyone has intrinsic worth,
– view all people as having the potential for growth and
development,
- these beliefs flow from humanistic values.
• Optimistic values post that:
– people are basically good,
– that progress is possible and desirable in human affairs, and
– that rationality, reason, and goodwill are the tools for making
progress. R'tist @ Tourism

44. • Democratic values - the sanctity of the individual,
– the right of people to be free from arbitrary misuse of power,
– fair and equitable treatment for all, and
– justice through the rule of law and due process.
• Evidence for the validity of these values and their
supporting assumptions came from many sources:
– the Hawthorne studies,
– the human relations movement,
– the laboratory training movement,
– the clash between fascism and democracy in World War II,
– increasing awareness of the dysfunctions of bureaucracies,
– research on the effects of different leadership styles, and
– greater understanding of individual motivation and group
dynamics.
R'tist @ Tourism

45. Chronology of Events in Management and Organisation
Thought:
• Values and assumptions do not spring full grown form
individuals or societies.
• They are formed from the collective beliefs of an era –
the zeitgist or spirit of time. Major ingredients of the
zeigist are:
Taylor’s Scientific Management:
• emphasis on time and motion studies and breaking jobs into small,
repetitive tasks in an attempt to find “the one best way”.
• expert engineers and supervisors designed each task and ensured it
was done correctly.
• piece-rate pay systems were designed to increase motivation and to
prevent “soldiering”or slacking off.
• simple, repetitive tasks minimised the skills required to do the job.
• Taylor’s movement quickly swept the country and the world as the
way to organise work in early 1900s.
R'tist @ Tourism

46. • “Bureaucracy” of German Sociologist Max Weber:
– Introduced bureaucracy as the best, most efficient way
to organise people
– To create a well-oiled human machine called the
organisation would require:
• a strong hierarchy of authority,
• extensive division of labor,
• impersonal rules, and
• rigid procedures.
– Scientific Management as the way to organise work and
bureaucracy as the way to organise people were the
prevailing paradigms for organisations in 1900s.
– These approaches possessed many desirable features,
but also contained serious flaws that led to unintended
consequences.
R'tist @ Tourism

47. • Mary Parker Follett’s – “The Giving Orders”:
– a management theorist and an astute observer of labor-
management relations, she advocated participative leadership
and joint problem solving by labor and management.
– much of her career was devoted to finding ways to reduce
adversarial relationship between workers and management.
• Hawthorne Studies:
– conducted at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric
Company.
– the research demonstrated the primacy of social factors on
productivity and morale.
– people came to work as whole people; their feelings and
attitudes about the work, the work environment and the
supervisor determined their performance.
– their simple, repetitive jobs left them feeling alienated and
dispirited and group norms had more powerful effect on
productivity than economic incentives – people were not cogs;
organisations were not machine.
•
R'tist @ Tourism

48. • Chester I. Bernard – The Functions of the Executive:
• Bernard views organisations as social systems that must be
effective (achieve goals) and efficient (satisfy the needs of the
employees).
• his acceptance theory of authority proposed that authority
derives from the willingness of subordinates to comply with
directions rather than from position power.
• Affiliative Culture – Lewin, Lippitt, and White:
• Demonstrated the superiority of democratic leadership
compared to authoritarian leadership and laissez-faire
leadership in terms of effects on group climate and group
performance.
• Democratic leadership seemed to bring out the best in the
groups; while authoritarian leadership caused dependency,
apathy, aggressiveness, and poor performance.
R'tist @ Tourism

49. • Group Dynamics – Kurt Lewin:
• the scientific study of groups using experimental research methods
was launched by Kurt Lewin and his students in the late 1930s.
• Human Relation Movement:
• the Hawthorne studies spawned the human relation movement that
was in full flower from the 1930s to the 1960s.
• the human relations movement advocated
- participative management,
- greater attention to workers’ social needs,
- training in interpersonal skills for supervisors,
and
- a general “humanising”of the workplace.
R'tist @ Tourism

50. • Laboratory Training Movement:
• 1946 and 1947 witnessed the beginning of the laboratory
training movement, a direct precursor of OD.
• Lessons learned from the laboratory training are:
- improved interpersonal relations,
- increased self understanding, and
- awareness of group dynamics.
• Humanistic and democratic values suffused the movement.
• Leadership functions of a group should be shared between the
leader and group members, emphasises the laboratory training,
and showed how that could be done.
R'tist @ Tourism

51. • Carl Roger’s Client-Central Therapy –
• demonstrated the efficacy of nondirective psychotherapy
• which holds that individuals have within themselves the
capacity to assume responsibility for their behavior and
mental health when provided with,
• a supportive, caring social climate.
• Roger’s focus on effective interpersonal communications
was applicable to superior – subordinate relations.
• Tavistock School introduced the concept of:
• organisations as social systems, which postulates that
– organisations are comprised of a social system and a
technological system and
– change in one system will produce changes in the other system.
R'tist @ Tourism

52. • Motivation and Personality By Abraham Maslow (1954)
• presented a new view of human motivation.
• human motivation is arranged in a hierarchy of needs from
• a lower-level needs such as physiological and survival needs to
• higher-level needs such as esteem and self actualisation.
• theory postulated that when lower-level needs are satisfied,
higher-level needs become dominant.
• Personality and Organisation by Chris Argyris (1957)
• states that there is an inherent conflict between the needs of
the organisations and the needs of mature, healthy adults.
R'tist @ Tourism

53. • Human Side of Enterprise – Douglas McGregor (1960)
describes the famous Theory X and Theory Y.
• theory X assumes that:
- people are lazy, - lack ambition,
- dislike responsibility, - are self-centered,
- indifferent to organisation’s needs,
- resist change, and - need to be led.
• theory Y assumes that:
- people have potential to develop,
- to assume responsibility, and
- and to pursue organisational goals if given the
chance and the social environment to do so.
the task of the management is to change organisational
structures, management practices, and human resource
practices to allow individual potential to be released.
R'tist @ Tourism

54. Mechanic and Organic Organisations by Burns and Stalker (1961):
described two different organisation structures – mechanic and organic.
in an environment of slow change, a mechanistic organisation structure
may be appropriate;
in an environment of high change, an organic structure is preferred.
organic structures encourage decentralised decision making authority,
open communications, and greater individual autonomy.
New Patterns of Management – Rensis Likert (1961):
presented data and theory showing the overwhelming superiority of a
democratic leadership style in which the leader is:
- group oriented - goal oriented, and
- shares decision making with the work group.
this leadership style is compared to an authoritarian, one-on-one
leadership style.
R'tist @ Tourism

55. • Most of the significant influences from research, theory, and
observations utilised by OD practitioners are captured in the
above chronology.
• To summarise the intellectual of this period,
• The initial enthusiasm for scientific management,
bureaucracy, and authoritarian leadership giving way to,
• Increasing doubts about these organisational practices as
theory and research pointed up their limitations,
dysfunctions, and negative consequences.
• Out of this zeitgist, organisation development practitioners
formulated a set of values and assumptions regarding;
- people,
- groups, and
- organisations that was humanistic, optimistic, and
democratic.
R'tist @ Tourism

56. OD Values and Assumptions – Early Statements:
• OD practitioners share a set of normative goals based based
on their humanitarian/democratic philosophy:
– Improvement in interpersonal competence.
– A shift in values so that human factors and feelings come to be
considered legitimate.
– Development of increased understanding between and within
groups in order to reduce tensions.
– Development of more effective “team management”,that is, the
capacity for functional groups to work more competently.
– Development of better methods of conflict resolution. Rather
than the usual bureaucratic methods which rely mainly on
suppression, compromise, and unprincipled power, and more
rational and open methods of conflict resolution are sought.
– Development of organic rather than mechanical systems. This is
a strong reaction against the idea of organisations as
mechanisms in which managers “work on”, like push buttons.
R'tist @ Tourism

57. Some of the salient differences between mechanical and
organic systems:
Mechanical Systems Organic Systems
Rely on “authority-obedience Rely on “mutual confidence and trust.
relationships”.
Insist on “strict division of labor and Foster “multi-group membership and
hierarchical supervision”. responsibility”.
Encourage “centralised decision Encourage “wide sharing of
making”. responsibility and control”.
R'tist @ Tourism

58. Richard Bechard in his book described “several assumptions
about the nature and functioning of organisations”held by
OD practitioners:
– The basic building blocks of an organisation are groups (teams).
Therefore, the basic unit of change is are groups, not individuals.
– An always relevant change goal is the reduction of inappropriate
competition between parts of the organisation and the
development of a more collaborative condition.
– Decision making in a healthy organisation is located where the
information sources are, rather than in a particular role or level.
– Organisations, subunits of organisations, and individuals
continuously manage their affairs against goals. Control are
interim measurements, not the base of managerial strategy.
– One goal of healthy organisation is to develop generally open
communication, mutual trust, and confidence between and
across levels.
– “People support what they help to create”. People affected by a
change must be allowed active participation and a sense of
ownership in the planning and conduct of the change.
R'tist @ Tourism

59. Robert Tannenbaum listed these values in transition:
• Away from a view of people as essentially bad toward a view of
people as basically good.
• Away from avoidance of negative evaluation of individuals
toward confirming them as human beings.
• Away from a view of individuals as fixed, toward seeing them
as being in process.
• Away from resisting and fearing individual differences toward
accepting and utilising them.
• Away from utilising an individual primarily with reference to
his or her job description toward viewing an individual as a
whole person.
• Away from walling off the expression of feelings toward
making possible both appropriate expression and effective use.
• Away from maskmanship and game playing toward authentic
behavior.
R'tist @ Tourism

60. • Away from use of status for maintaining power and personal prestige
toward use of status for organisationally relevant purposes.
• Away from distrusting people toward trusting them.
• Away from avoiding facing others with relevant data toward making
appropriate confrontation.
• Away from avoidance of risk taking toward willingness to risk.
• Away from a view of process work as being unproductive effort
towards seeing it as essential to effective task accomplishment.
• Away from a primary emphasis on competition toward a much greater
emphasis on collaboration.
These values and assumptions may not seem profound today, but in
1950s and 1960s they presented a radical departure from the
accepted beliefs and assumptions at that time.
R'tist @ Tourism

61. Beliefs such as:
- trust and respect for individuals, - the legitimacy of feelings,
- open communication, - decentralised decision making,
- participation and contribution by all organisational members,
- collaboration and cooperation, - appropriate use of power,
- authentic interpersonal relations
• were seldom espoused and rarely implemented in many organisations.
• Many OD practitioners held these humanistic and democratic values
with their implications for different and better way to run organisations
and deal with people.
• The democratic values prompted a critique of authoritarian, autocratic,
and arbitrary management practices as well as the dysfunctions of
bureaucracies.
• The humanistic values prompted a search for better ways to run
organisations and develop people in them.
R'tist @ Tourism

62. OD Values and Assumptions – Implications:
Implications for dealing with Individuals –
Two basic assumptions:
- most individual have drive toward personal growth and development if
provided an environment that is both supportive and challenging.
- most people desire to make, and are capable of making, a higher level of
contribution to the attainment of organisation goals than most organisational
environment permit.
A tremendous amount of constructive energy can be tapped if organisations
realise and act on these assumptions.
The people doing the work are generally experts on how to do it – and how to do
it better.
The implications of these two assumptions are straightforward:
- ask,- listen, - support, - challenge,
- encourage risk taking, - permit failure,
- remove obstacles and barriers, - give autonomy,
- give responsibility, - set high standards, - reward success.
R'tist @ Tourism

63. Implications for Dealing with Groups –
Several assumptions relate to the importance of work
teams and the collaborative management of team
culture.
• One of the most psychologically relevant reference groups for
most people is the work group, including peers and boss.
What occurs in the work group, at both formal and informal
levels, greatly influences feelings of satisfaction and
competence.
• Most people wish to be accepted and to interact
cooperatively with at least one small reference group, and
usually with more than one group.
• Most people are capable of making greater contributions to a
group’s effectiveness and development.
R'tist @ Tourism

64. The implications of these assumptions are several:
Let the teams flourish because they are often the best way to get work
done and, in addition, are the best way satisfy social and emotional
needs at work.
Leaders should invest in groups –
- invest the time required for group development,
- invest in training time and money to increase group members skills,
- invest energy and intelligence in creating positive climate.
Adopt team leadership style – not one-on-one leadership style. To do this
leaders need to give important work to teams, and not individuals.
R'tist @ Tourism

65. • Another assumption is that formal leaders cannot perform all the leadership
and maintenance functions required for a group to optimise its effectiveness.
• Hence the group members should assist the leader in performing multiple
roles required for group’s effectiveness.
• One implication is to train group members in team effectiveness skills such as
group problem solving and decision making, conflict management, facilitation
and interpersonal communication.
• Since suppressed feelings and attitudes adversely affect problem solving,
personal growth, and job satisfaction, group members should be encouraged
to learn to deal effectively with positive (functional) and negative
(dysfunctional) feelings.
• Dealing appropriately with feelings and attitudes increases the level of
interpersonal trust, support, and cooperation within the group.
• Finally it is assumed that many attitudinal and motivational problems in
organisations require interactive and transactional solutions.
R'tist @ Tourism

66. Implications for Designing and Running Organisations:
• It is becoming increasingly clear that traditional hierarchical forms of
organisation –
- fairly steep pyramid,
- emphasis on top-down directives,
- grouping by specialised function,
- adherence to the chain of command,
- formalised cross-functional communication, and so on
are obsolete in terms of meeting the demands of the market place.
• Implication is that experimenting with new organisation structures with and
new forms of authority is imperative.
• There is growing awareness that “win-lose” organisational situations are
dysfunctional in the long run and need to be replaced by “win-win”
situations.
• Creating cooperative organisational dynamics rather than competitive ones is
a primary task of the leaders.
R'tist @ Tourism

67. • Key assumptions in OD is that the needs and aspirations of human beings are
the reasons for organised efforts in society.
• Suggests that it is good to have a developmental outlook and seek
opportunities in which people can experience personal and professional
growth.
• An optimistic, developmental set of assumptions about people is likely to
reap rewards beneficial to both organisation and its members.
• It is possible to create organisations that:
- on the one hand are humane, developmental, and empowering, and
- on the other hand are high performing in terms of productivity, quality of
outputs, and profitability.
• The implication is that the people are an organisation’s most important
resource; they are the source of productivity and profits and should be
treated with care.
• Much of the practice of OD is concerned with designing organisational
practices to incorporate the implications of these assumptions and values.
R'tist @ Tourism

68. Concluding Comments:
• The field of OD rests on foundation of values and
assumptions about people and organisations.
• These beliefs help to define what OD is and guide its
implementation.
• These OD values are considered revolutionary in the 1950s
but are widely accepted today.
• Values are never static; they change over time.
• The rapid technological, societal, and organisational changes
taking place virtually assure that
- tomorrow will bring new definitions of what is “true”and
new beliefs about what is “good”,
- as behavioral scientists and managers continue to develop
better understanding of authority structures, organising
structures, and ways to optimise human potential.
R'tist @ Tourism

69. Thank You…!!!
©Ramakrishna Kongalla
e-mail: artist.ramakrishna@gmail.com
R'tist @ Tourism