Paper2

Through my reading of Chapter Two and Three, I got a lot of useful knowledge about classical management theory and modern management theory as well as the information about organizations as machines and organizations as organisms. The part that I am most interested in is the strengths and limitations of mechanistic structure and organismic structure. I am curious which structure is better for my company, a Chinese local advertising agency.

From classical management theories, mechanistic organizations have clear, well-defined, centralized, vertical hierarchies of command, authority, and control. Efficiency and predictability are emphasized through specialization, standardization, and formalization. This results in rigidly defined jobs, technologies, and processes. The term mechanistic suggests that organizational structures, processes, and roles are like a machine in which each part of the organization does what it is designed to do. (Morgan, 2007) One of the most important strengths of mechanistic structure is efficiency. The most crippling weakness of this structure is poor adaptability of environmental changes and can result in mindless and unquestioning bureaucracy.

While organismic organization is more flexible, as opposed to the mechanistic organization, it has the least hierarchy and specialization of functions. For an organization to be organic, the participants or workers should have equal levels, with no job descriptions or classifications, and communication should have a hub-network-like form, Organismic organization can react quickly and easily to changes in the environment (Morgan, 2007). The organic organizations provide incentive to employees to cooperate and perform to the best of their abilities. Tasks are continuously redefined in an organic structure and there is usually a common effort to solve problems. A commitment to advancing the organizational objectives is more highly valued than loyalty and obedience. The weakness of the model is that...