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Organization Design Assessment

Organization Design Assessment

Organization Design AssessmentThe quadrant that can fit the organization’s fit in quadrant D. The reason being is just like Magna America, the quadrant focuses on both effectiveness and efficiency. According to Burton, DeSanctis, & Obel (2015), “this quadrant confront competitive, complex, and volatile environments that require both product innovations and low cost in order to compete successfully” (p. 18). More so, Magna’s organizational goals pursue the goals of effectiveness and efficiency with equal drive, as relatable to the details in quadrant D. Although fitting into this quadrant requires a complexing organization design to grow and maintain, Magna America’s goal of increased innovation within the automotive world requires a constant effective and efficient aim. Not to mention its other current and manageable goals such as decreased waste and raising workplace safety and satisfaction within its customer and supplier base. Organizations can move toward quadrant D if other design factors fall into the same quadrant (Burton et al., 2015).Design Aspects that fitGoalsThe design aspects Magna America fits are goals, strategy, environment, task design, people, leadership style, climate, coordination, information systems, incentives. Within the goals aspects, Magna focus on effectiveness and being efficient within the automotive sector require the organization to have a definite set of goals. With each dimension of effectiveness and efficiency, there can be a specific number of goals in areas regarding where “costs should be cut, operative activities should be improved and new innovation and new products should be introduced” (Burton et al., 2015, p. 16).StrategyIn the strategy aspect, a firm’s strategy is the contingency for determining the organizational design (Burton et al., 2015). In other words, strategy is the equivalence of operationalization of a firm’s goal of efficiency and the means to achieve this is structure (Burton et al., 2015). Magna’s strategy to increase or implement goals can lead to change in the environment. This includes the innovative products to produce in keeping up with competition, the advertisement associated with innovation and distribution methods, along with its pricing on headlamps and the strategy on how to be reasonably priced on production but effective enough to maintain their contract with suppliers and customers. More so, their strategic approach has to include “concern for quality, price level compared to competitors, preference for product innovation, and preference for process innovation” (Burton et al., 2015, p. 31). As this is an automobile facility, Magna has to keep in mind all of these strategic aspects with each organization design or change in order to not be outbid by competition and stay relevant with acquiring more business. The deciding factor of the firm is always a question of what to do in situations to meet the goals of effective and efficiency (Burton et al., 2015).EnvironmentThe environment is all outside the boundaries of an organization’s unit of analysis (Burton et al., 2015). This design aspect fits because the environment has an effect on the way an organization performs including in financial market, suppliers, competitors, and customers. Duality is present in strategy and the environment as the environment is important in setting strategy. At the same time, the organization’s strategy decides the appropriate environment (Burton et al., 2015) as strategy focuses on what’s environmentally important. Magna’s performance depends on how they fit with the environment. Even though the environment if often given, Magna has to adjust their design to fit it, furthermore, the most important dimension in Magna’s department would be its competition, and the environment is usually a competitive marketplace.Task DesignTask design is breaking down work in subtasks while seeing coordination in sub-tasks to meet organizational goals (Burton et al., 2015). The task design decides the coordination requirements for the organization and therefore makes it vital for a fit within task design and other organizational design components. In classic organizational studies, tasks were categorized as unit, mass, and process production in which each sector has different task designs (Woodward, 1965; Burton et al., 2015). Inside Magna, the unit would be more craft like while the process becomes automated and the mass is the assembly line. The process production and unit would include their high skilled workers, with low formalization and complexity. More so, task design is relatable to business re-engineering along with process management philosophies and methods (Burton et al., 2015). This includes the supply chain management and just-in-time production assembly at Magna America. This aspect of task design is also influenced highly by modern information technology. Most of Magna’s routine tasks are done electronically with assisting machines or help from computers so with new information technology, various tasks can disappear while new tasks can arise. Part of their new task design is related to the choice of information system. Careful workflow analysis, decision making, and flow of information is additionally an important part of the design (Burton et al., 2015).PeopleIn the people aspect, Magna deals with this dimension in two ways. This includes the volume of the labor pool and degree of professional capabilities (Burton et al., 2015). With the size of Magna’s workforce and capabilities, various managerial methods are appropriate. With majority of the processing of information done within the organization by individuals, their role as processor are sometimes neglected. The individuals makeup the intellectual ability of the company. In looking at the size of the labor pool, larger companies have to be designed in a different way than a smaller one (Burton et al., 2015). People create information as work is done and require inputs of information to their work. However, as the amount of people rises, communication becomes intricate and a growing need for the exchange of information rises. In other words, as each individual speaks to someone else, the communication link grows exponentially with the amount of people (Burton & Obel, 2004; Burton et al., 2015). Electronic communication inside Magna makes the transmittal of information cheap and easy but each individuals attention is costly and limited. Therefore, ways are needed to limit processing needs and keep focusing on the tasks and goals at hand. Hence, an individual’s attention span matter (Burton et al., 2015).Leadership Style/ Organization ClimateLeadership and organizational climate are issues taken into account when designing an organization and two of the most used, researched, and debated concepts in managements (Burton et al., 2015).Coordinator/ControlCoordination systems help adaptiveness and flexibility within divisional/department boundaries. Some of these systems in Magna include project managers, cross-function committee and teams and “today control and coordination systems are inextricably intertwined” (Burton et al., 2015, p. 189). With the systems used inside Magna such as PeopleSoft and SAP, they help to give support for inventory management as well as people and project. These systems are also examples of control systems and coordination on a larger scale. Additionally, small scale control and coordination systems include committee, job descriptions, ethics code, liaison roles, systems and acceptable ways of doing thing in the company (Burton et al., 2015). As one can see, control and coordination incorporate a number of possible methods for monitoring, directing, and assuring flexibility and adaptiveness of the firm. Thus far, Magna is able to use feedback and monitoring systems to reinforce their formulization process.Information SystemsIn addition to control systems and coordination, information systems are key in the organizational fit. Where coordination and control are factors for governing how work is finished, information systems are factors for giving meaningful data to decision makers (Burton et al., 2015). In organizations, this type of information systems can be telecommunicated or computer based but passing information person to person can be just as vital. This aspect fits into Magna’s design from their supplier of these systems being outside, such as the customers, However, the actual systems are running under Magna’s control. The goal when they are using this aspect is designing an information system to optimize the company’s information capacity.IncentivesIncentives are means to encourage behavior or actions on part of the employee (Burton et al., 2015). They aren’t solely a set of rewards given but the ways that an individual interprets the reward and acts on it. Magna incentives includes wags, benefits, and salaries along with praise, recognition, sense of belonging, and acceptance. Incentives fit into the design because it has to be internalized so people accept them, consider them fair, and then motivate to do better (Burton et al., 2015). This also works at the production level where Magna can reward by measure not achievement. This lets management plan for group work but still be able to reward performance individually. For example, the increase in workplace safety, and possible rewards for zero safety issues over a given time period or their supplier satisfaction increase can result in company business on long term contracts leading to job security.Design Aspects that don’t fitIn looking at design aspects, complexity, geographic distribution and knowledge exchange are the aspects that do not fit. Imbalances in the design components can be crucial for the organization’s performance (Burton et al., 2015). This effect can be improved if several of the design components are misfit. Complexity does not fit because it may possibly bring about problems in the automotive sector. It can also trickle down to the employees and being about sudden change. Geographic distribution will require a lot of pre-planning in order for the design to run effectively and anyone issue can put a damper in this designs succession. It also entails that many department come together and are knowledgeable about worldly allocation. Anyone of the designs can require more information processing or unpredictable environmental challenges that can make for any misfit situation.MisfitsAddressing quicklySome areas of fit that management can address quickly is configuration and knowledge exchange. Any of these can overload management and create reduced performance in the company. According to Burton et al., (2015), “the telltale signs are: decision backlogs where adjustments are not timely; individuals are either not told what to do or not given activities that are coordinated one with the other; or the executive works excessively long hours, but it’s not enough’ (p. 88). Each of these misfits come with issues that may be hard to collect information. Knowledge exchange can be addressed timely by looking at the overall amount of data the company has to collect, handle, and store regular. Groups can be created to meet a certain information and share it. Members can adjust ways they organize work and knowledge exchange by reporting to each other depending on the particular task (Burton et al., 2015).Longer to changeThe area of misfit that may take longer to change is geographic distribution. Geographic distribution comes with a set of challenges such as language, laws, tariff, and taxes. How it can be fixed is by using a global approach. The headquarters can call the shots (Burton et al., 2015) and oversee on the run to meet the business demands. Management located in the home country have to be skillful at information processing for the firm. More so, establishing centers of excellence for enabling cost control and improving business processes can fix the geographic distribution.ConclusionIn conclusion, the design aspects Magna America fits are goals, strategy, environment, task design, people, leadership style, climate, coordination, information systems, incentives. Within the goals aspects, Magna focus on effectiveness and being efficient within the automotive sector require the organization to have a definite set of goals. Magna’s organizational goals pursue the goals of effectiveness and efficiency with equal drive, as relatable to the details in quadrant D which focuses on both effectiveness and efficiency. In looking at design aspects, complexity, geographic distribution and knowledge exchange are the aspects that do not fit. Anyone of the designs can require more information processing or unpredictable environmental challenges that can make for any misfit situation. Configuration and knowledge exchange can overload management and create reduced performance in the company whereas geographic distribution comes with a set of challenges such as language, laws, and taxes.ReferenceBurton, R. M., DeSanctis, G., & Obel, B. (2015). Organizational design: A step by step approach (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University. ISBN-13: 978-1107483613

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