Organizational Structure and Culture

Management-445:  Homework Assignments

Winter 2020

Overview:  The assignments are related to selected chapters in the textbook and give you the opportunity to use selected concepts, themes, and arguments from Jones in an analysis of a situation that you know about based on your experience working in a particular organization (either as an employee or as a volunteer).  This means that someone else’s account of the situation for example, in a magazine, article, blog, or other media source – is not an acceptable source for the assignment.  To receive full credit on the assignments, use appropriate frameworks/themes/vocabulary from the textbook.

Written Reflections:  You must work individually and independently of the other students in preparing the individual reflection.  The reflection should be typed, written in essay form, approximately 1000 words. Submit your typed work to the d2l assignment dropbox by the specified due date and time. Provide a word count on each document you turn in.

Cite Jones for ideas taken directly from the text, providing page-number citations in your text in the following form: (Jones, p. xx).  You may quote Jones, if appropriate, but keep such quotations brief – and provide page-number citation in the same fashion.

Evaluation:  Your written reflections will be scored based on compliance with the instructions; organization and clarity in your writing; the use of concepts, themes, vocabulary, and arguments from Jones, and your ability to link course content to real-world events. 

Refer to the syllabus and/or the calendar on d2l for due dates.

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Assignment 2:  Organizational Structure and Culture (Chapters 4-7)

If you have sufficient work experience to answer these questions, one again, analyze the organization you work for.  If not, analyze Portland State University.

Answer the following:

• Provide the name and location of the organization, a brief description of how the organization creates value, and a brief explanation (couple of sentences) of the goods and/or services it provides. If you chose the same organization as you did for homework 1, you may cut and paste this, but do not include it in the word count. 
• Before you begin to analyze the organization’s structure, answer these basic questions
  • Approximately how many people does the organization employ? 
  • How many locations are there, located where? 
  • Approximately how many levels are in the organization’s hierarchy?
• Would the organizational structure be considered tall or flat?  Does the organization experience any of the problems associated with tall or flat hierarchies?  Explain your answer.  
• What is the span of control of your supervisor?  Is this span appropriate, or is it too wide or too narrow?
• How do centralization, standardization, integrating mechanisms, and horizontal differentiation affect the behavior of the employees throughout the organization?
• Is the organizational structure mechanistic or organic?  Is this consistent with the company’s mission and goals?  Explain how you came to these conclusions.
• Describe the organization’s culture using the vocabulary/concepts from chapter 7.
• Provide a word count.