Custom «Organization Design» Essay Paper Sample

Autry (1996), states that organization design is the formal approach that organizations take to integrate people, resources and information in order to achieve the set or desired goals. This is a process which the modern managers have embraced to harness the efforts of their employees through the laid down structures so that efficiency and effectiveness is realized. As the world changes so does the operations of firms and organizations. This poses a challenge to all managers to creatively think and come up with the effective mechanisms to make better use of the available human and other operational resources. Internal and external factors that affect the organization's structure, processes of operations and its size exist. The external ones include demographics, general cultures, work ethics and personal values while the internal ones include available financial, technological and human resources.

The external resources are those which exist in the context outside the firm whereby the management is unable to play a part in their acquisition development and eventual usage. Demography is one such factor that affects the organization's size, structure and process of operations. It's basically the way employees are characterized in terms of, age, population, sex and even income brackets. The size of the human resource in all organizations depends directly from these factors. In an organization that deals with manual labor and more physique, there will be more men required than women as they are accustomed to handle weighty bulk. Our business that deals with technology and computer applications does not take into account the gender issue but skills and information that the employees posses. This means that the organization has a smaller size of workers because a limited number of people can do a large amount of work within a given time. This shows the demography affects the size or the number of the human resource (IDRC, 2010).

On the other hand the demographics affect the organization structures. There are responsibilities that are available in the organization that certain people can do better than others. For example the managerial posts, in as much as many will try to differ, greatly depend on age. Higher ranks go better with people with an advanced age. They can be able to command respect from the people that they lead in addition to the experience they gain throughout their career. They are likely to manage the resource better than their younger counterparts as they no longer are on trial basis. For a technologically oriented companies its better for younger and creative employees to be on the technical level as they can be able to come up with immediate solutions to instant any challenge that they face (Autry, 1996). They also posses the latest information on the technological advancement but can be a bit inexperienced on strategic management. It may chance that a few ambitious young people may gun for the top seats but they more often than not have to work harder to prove that point.

General cultures, ethics and personal values are the ways of life of the people that work for the company. The management may not be in apposition to control what already exist in the mindset of the society around it. It may be necessary at times to look out for the negative cultures that may have an effect on the company's principles and base of operations but its important to try and integrate into the cultures in order to take up the given market share. For instance certain people who the company depends on may observe some cultural practices that are derived from their religions or social settings. This means the organizations are forced compromise and retain such people as an opportunity cost for their skills. These are those factors that the firm is unable to control and the only way to operate is to accommodate them (Organizational Processes, 2007).

Internal factors are those that exist within the organization whereby the management has a direct hand and control. The financial resources are a good example because it's the base that the organization makes its budgets and also operates on. It determines the size of the organization's other resources like the machinery, staff, and other physical assets. It also determines the level of skills and information that the firm can bring on board through professional management and operations (IDRC, 2010). The organizational processes that include continuous improvement of the products and services that the company offers also greatly depend on the financial muscle. The monetary resources also affect the organizational as it facilitates the planning of activities that are strategic to the business that include the acquisitions of certain business units such as shares and other securities.

Technology is another factor that the company can be able to control and use properly in order to increase the productivity and maximize profits. Organizations can adopt the latest technology in the production stages of their goods as they are efficient and reduce the cost and minimize wastage. This also applies to the stage of marketing and distribution of the said products. Here the management can create websites and other service selling sites in order to create an awareness of the goods to a wide range of audiences of their target market. In addition to that, technology is handy while monitoring sales as it creates an effective way to track all the activities that take place (Autry, 1996). Lastly it's important as it assists in book keeping and maintenance of accounting documents. The systems that a financially sound organization adopts place it in a better position to follow and account for all the business deals that occur either on a daily basis weekly or even throughout the financial year. Technology therefore is evidently a factor that affects the organization in a big way.

All these internal and external factors are not automatically controllable or uncontrollable respectively. They are variables and can change from time to time depending on what they are subjected to. For instance one internal factor like the financial can be uncontrollable especially if the source is from credit or borrowed sources as it has attached conditions. On the other hand factors like culture can be controlled when the managers are able train their employees to adopt practices or attitudes that normally aren't practiced culturally.

Accountability being a virtue that is demanded by the society as well as the internal settings of all organization affects the way the way individual behaves. This also has also affected our organization as it's a principle that is upheld and respected in all the activities that are undertaken. The company has in place mechanisms that seek to reward those who observe it as well as 'punish' to those who seem to flaunt hence the employees have taken a keen step in observing that (IDRC, 2010).

In conclusion managers who have a visionary approach of their firms must be able to understand the external factors that affect their operations and the resultant implications, as they try to adopt them. Also by appreciating the fact that those internal resources are rare it is important that steps are taken in order to maintain and minimize their wastage. However, all these activities must also be accompanied by an accountable and professional approach as it is the key to success for any given firm.