Organizational Theory: Text and Cases - Hardcover

Jones, Gareth R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0201532247 ISBN 13: 9780201532241

Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1994

Synopsis

Presents text and cases, integrated progression of topics, and comprehensive and up-to-date coverage. DLC: Organizational behavior.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

* An integrated flow between chapters — allows students to clearly see how topics relate to each other from the start.
* An in-depth look at organizational culture from the origins of culture to its relationship with organizational effectiveness.
* Detailed coverage of the stakeholder approach to organizations and the implications of this approach for organizational effectiveness.
* Explanations of the most recent developments in organizational structure such as the product team structure, outsourcing, and the network organizations.
* Discussion of recent literature on inter-organizational linkage mechanisms, including the role of resource dependence theory and transaction cost theory in explaining why organizations choose different types of linkage mechanisms.
* An integrated account of the strategy-structure relationship.
* Comprehensive coverage of international strategy and structure and global organizational design.
* An analysis of new technological developments, including the Internet, integrated with traditional concepts already used in organizational theory. See how technical complexity, task non-routinism, and task interdependence affect organizational design.
* A detailed discussion of both population ecology theory and institutional theory.

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Preface

The wave of organizational change that overtook most large global organizations during the 1990s validates the approach to organizational theory that I have adopted in the last two editions of my book: managers should be responsible for creatively managing their organization's structure and culture and they need to understand the basic building blocks on which they work. Today, a contingency approach to organizational design is not always appropriate because most organizations confront the same or a very similar set of contingency factors. For example, most organizations must manage the same set of forces in the domestic and global environment; managers need to manage the same technological changes brought about by the internet, or they all need to develop low cost and differentiation strategies simultaneously.

The main issue is understanding how organizations work, then understanding how the different contingency factors can affect the choices managers make. This is how my book is organized, and the level of support I have received for my approach from users both in the United States and abroad leads me to believe that my approach is appreciated by the book's adopters. All the main elements that were in the last edition remain because they work. For example, the cases at the end of the book have great teaching value in showing students what the abstract concepts of organizational theory mean in practice. As I emphasized in the last edition, these cases should not be used for student assignments. Their value lies in stimulating class discussion and time has proven their success.

For this edition I have made two main innovations. First, I have incorporated the effects of the Internet on organizational theory and design throughout the book's chapters. For example, I discuss the theoretical implications of the Internet for firm structure and strategy. I have also developed an ongoing case study feature that profiles how Amazon.com has developed an organizational strategy and structure to take advantage of the Internet and outperform its older, more established competitors. This feature can be found in ten of the book's chapters and each part builds systematically on the former.

Second, in response to reviewer and user suggestions, I have streamlined the chapters in order to make the material easier to comprehend and absorb. I have eliminated one idea in each chapter and condensed the number of illustrative examples to provide a more focused learning experience. These ideas have not been lost. They are now to be found in the instructors manual as additional material if so desired. I have also revised and updated all the boxed insights, where relevant to keep the examples as up to date as possible.

Finally, as in the last two editions, I have tried to ensure that (1) it is comprehensive and up-to-date and makes important theories accessible and interesting to students, (2) it maintains a tight, integrated flow between chapters, and (3) it provides direct, clear managerial implications.

COMPREHENSIVE AND UP-TO-DATE COVERAGE

As noted above, each of the chapters has been reorganized both to facilitate students' understanding of organizational theory concepts and to provide expanded coverage of emerging issues such as the Internet. In particular Chapter 10, Managing the New Technological Environments, has been revised to include much greater coverage of Internet technology and its effects on organizational design, such as the flattening of organizational structure.

For new users of Organizational Theory, please note that along with other material you will find:

• Detailed coverage of the stakeholder approach to organizations and the implications of this approach for organizational effectiveness.
• Explanations of the most recent developments in organizational structure such as the product team structure, outsourcing, and the network organizations.
• An in-depth look at organizational culture that accounts for the origins of culture and its relationship to organizational effectiveness.
• Discussion of the recent literature on interorganizational linkage mechanisms, and an account of the role of resource dependence theory and transaction cost theory in explaining why organizations choose different types of linkage mechanisms.
• An integrated account of the strategy—structure relationship.
• Comprehensive coverage of international strategy and structure and global organizational design.
• An analysis of new technological developments that is integrated in the traditional concepts used in organizational theory.
• A detailed discussion of both population ecology theory and institutional theory.

INTEGRATED PROGRESSION OF TOPICS

Many textbooks lack a tight, integrated flow of topics from draper to chapter. In this book students are told from Chapter 1 on how the book's topics are related to each other. Integration has been achieved by organizing the material of earlier ones in a logical fashion.

The book begins with a focus on what an organization is, which stakeholders it serves, and how an organization is constructed to satisfy stakeholder needs—that is, the design of its organizational structure—before turning to contingency factors that effect organizations. In the first four chapters of this book I lay out the central design challenges facing an organization if it is to successfully create value for its stakeholders and achieve a competitive advantage that will allow it to survive. Using examples as diverse as the U.S. Post Office, Kinko's, General Motors, IBM, and the San Diego Zoo, I examine the challenges these organizations have faced in designing their organizational structures to improve their effectiveness. In Chapter 5, I examine the nature and origins of organizational culture and discuss how it affects the way organizations operate and how it impacts organizational effectiveness. By the end of Part 1, students are provided with a clear account of the main components of organizational structure and culture. The issues and challenges facing organizations are discussed in a contemporary context, and the experiences of organizational such as General Motors, IBM, Digital Equipment, Chrysler, and many others demonstrate the lessons of organizational design and what happens to organizations that do not get it right.

Once students understand what an organization is and the organizational design challenges it confronts in its quest to survive and create value, I then turn to the issues of which contingencies the organization faces in the environment and how it must manage these contingencies—through its structure and its strategy—to gain access to scarce resources. Chapter 6 discusses various organization-environment theories such as contingency theory, resource dependence theory, and transaction cost theory and examines the implications of these theories for the design of organizational structure and the kinds if interorganizational linkage mechanisms organizations must develop to manage the environment. Chapter 7 discusses how organizations develop and use strategies to gain access to resources and to create value for their stakeholders. In this chapter I also examine how different kinds of strategies require different kinks of structures and interorganizational linkage mechanisms if the strategies are to be pursued successfully. Chapter 8 focuses on the international environment and the special set of problems that organizations encounter in designing their strategies and structures to successfully manage the global environment. By the end of Part 2, the way in which environment affects organizations and the organizations can manage the environment through their strategies and structures are clearly outlined.

In Part 3, I move on to technology and innovation. In Chapter 9, I discuss how three dimensions of technology—technical complexity, task nonroutineness, and task interdependence—affect organizational design. I then examine more recent developments in technology in Chapter 10 and discuss how advanced manufacturing technologies, total quality management, and advanced information technologies affect organizational design. Chapter 10 brings the technological concept up to date and demonstrates the continuing importance of this topic in organizational theory and design.

Finally, in Part 4, I discuss the organizational processes that influence the way organizations grow, adapt, and change over time. In Chapter 11, I use population ecology theory to examine the process of organizational birth, I use institutional theory to examine factors affecting organizational growth, and I examine several models of organizational growth and decline. As noted earlier, Chapter 12 then examines the way in which organizations make decisions, how organizational learning can improve the quality of decision making, and the way in which factors such as cognitive biases cause organizational inertia and lower the quality of decision making. Chapter 13 examines the related issues of innovation and change, and Chapter 14 completes this analysis of organizational processes by examining the interrelated issues of conflict, power, and politics. The way in which these processes affect organizational change and development is a major focus of this final chapter.

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

The lessons of organizational theory are clearly articulated for the needs of students who will soon be practicing managers. Each chapter has one or more managerial summaries where the implications of organizational theories and concepts are clearly outlined. In addition, each chapter has several "Organizational Insight" boxes in which the experiences of a real company are tied to the chapter material to highlight the implications of the material, and each chapter begins with a lengthy "Case in Point" that requires a hands-on analysis from students. Other learning features and support material that accompany this book also contribute to the student's learning experience.

LEARNING FEATURES AND SUPPORT MATERIAL

Each chapter ends with a set of experiential exercises designed to facilitate the student's understanding of the text material. The section entitled "Organizational Theory in Action" includes the following hands-on learning exercises/assignments:

• "Practicing Organizational Theory," an experiential exercise designed to give students hands-on experience doing organizational theory. Each exercise takes about 20 minutes of class time. The exercises have been class tested and work very well. Further details on how to use them are found in the instructors manual.
• A "Making the Connection" feature, where students collect examples of companies to illustrate organizational theory concepts.
• A short "Closing Case" with questions, which provides an opportunity for a short class discussion of a chapter-related theme.
• An ongoing "Analyzing the Organization" feature, where students select an organization to study and then complete chapter assignments that lead to an organizational theory analysis and a written case study of their organization. This case study is then presented to the class at the end of the semester. Complete details concerning the use of this and other learning features are in the instructors manual.

In addition to these hands-on learning exercises, I have kept or refined the other learning features that I developed for the first edition:

• Cases. At the end of the book are eighteen cases to be used in conjunction with the book's chapters to enrich students' understanding of organizational theory concepts. I have written detailed instructor notes for these cases to show how I use these cases in my course in organizational theory. These notes are to be found in the instructor's manual.
• Up-to-date "Organizational Insight" boxes directly related to core chapter concepts. "Managerial Implications" sections providing students with lessons from organizational theory.
• Detailed end-of-chapter summaries to facilitate learning.
• Discussion questions with detailed answers in the instructors manual.
• Videotapes. Accompanying the book is a package of videos that illustrate, among other things, the way in which different kinds of technologies—for example, small batch and mass production technologies—operate; problems that organizations encounter managing in the global environment; the nature of interorganizational linkage mechanisms such as keiratsu; and issues in designing the organizational hierarchy. Once again, instructions for using these videos are found in the instructors manual.
• Detailed and comprehensive sets of at least thirty-five multiple-choice questions and ten true/false questions together with short answer and essay questions for each chapter.
• A package of Powerpoint electronic transparencies for all major figures and tables found in the text, and additional and evolving transparencies are provided to adopters.

About this edition

• Publisher: Addison-Wesley
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0201532247
• ISBN 13: 9780201532241
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 706