Making Organizational Theory and Design Effective - Assignment Example

Making Organizational Theory and Design Effective Making Organizational Theory and Design Effective Primary organizational designs have both advantages and disadvantages; hence, managers have to choose the approach that can improve their current organizations. Organizational design approaches such as matrix, team, and functional structures are characterized by effective supervision. This is because employees are required to report to specified authority, and each authority has a manageable number of employees to supervise.

The functional structure is effective for a retail business because it has self-contained departments that have several employees who require an overseeing executive (Jones, 2013). Additionally, each section can adopt best standards, approaches, and procedures for quality management. Primary organizational design approaches, however, may create conflicts between competing managers. The retail business is organized into functions and executives who could be having diverse interests head these sections; this may spur conflicts of interest in managing the retail business (Jones, 2013).

The best organizational structure for the retail business is the team structure. Employees are divided into groups and each group work on assigned projects or develop solutions; the team leader reports the outcomes of the team to the management. Team structure encourages accountability, both within the team and to the management of the retail business. There are several organizational trends associated with the retail business; the trends that I fear most include flattening hierarchies and decentralizing responsibility.

I think these trends may increase the number of people participating in decision-making, leading to complex processes of making management decisions. The trend that I could welcome is increasing adaptation. Increasing adaptation is the best trend for retail business of the 21st century because it has encouraged Wal-mart Inc., for example, to form focus groups, react to stakeholders’ concerns timely, and provides trainings crucial for continuous improvement.ReferenceJones, G. R. (2013). Organizational theory, design, and change (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.