Evolution of Formal Organizations

Over the course of the last 100 years, the overall trend in thinking about organizational form and structure has been toward greater recognition, system complexity, and diversity. While the overall trend in thinking about organizational and management effectiveness has been away from the generic toward the more unique and tailored. Today there are two basic model types that are used for the structure of an organization and the models are: the conventional bureaucracy and the open-flexible organization model. The conventional bureaucracy consists of many levels in its chain of command and all individuals must follow the rules and regulations that govern in this model type. The open-flexible organization has fewer levels of command, and emphasizes that all employees share ideas, apply their creative thoughts, and places the responsibility of failures and success on teams instead of individuals. In my research I will provide simple ideas to help Micah’s organization with changes to a brighter evolution and efficient working environment.

For centuries most formal organizations operated under what we call conventional bureaucracy. Conventional bureaucracy is known for its many levels in what we see as the pyramid (Lounsbury & Carberry, 2004). Formal organizations that practice conventional bureaucracy have a clear chain of commands with each level having a title that certain expectations have to be upheld for the organization (Lounsbury & Carberry, 2004). Each employee has a specific job that they are to perform and a manager or supervisor they have to report to (Lounsbury & Carberry, 2004). These organizations have their own set of rules, regulations, and policies that they have to follow (Lounsbury & Carberry, 2004). Relationships within these organizations are very minimal to basically none (Lounsbury & Carberry, 2004).

For centuries one would usually see white males in management or positions with more authority. In this day of age one will find equal amounts of managers being both male and female. There is a law that stops employers and organizations from discriminating on one’s gender or age. The organizations have made major changes that allow creativity and strengths. Many of the organizations today are about their employees and the company, not just the company. Today’s organizations want to hire workers for the long run of employment and not to just fill a responsibility. Not only is organization a top priority so are the employees.

Formal organizations are intended for “special purpose and structured for maximum efficiency” (Schaefer, 2006). These organizations have tremendous power over our economy and in management terms, “of large-scale operations” (Schaefer, 2006). Formal organizations fill the gap in society enabling them to satisfy our needs. There are several components to the formal organization such as Max Weber’s theory on bureaucracy, “Bureaucracy that rules and hierarchical ranking” (Schaefer, 2006). This is indicative to “government, education, and business” (Schaefer, 2006). Characteristics of bureaucracy consist of “Division of Labor, Hierarchy of authority, written rules and regulations, impersonality, employment based on technical Qualifications” (Schaefer, 2006). Whether one deals with bureaucracies or organizations they both play an essential part in our lives.

With the change of times many things has evolved in the organizational system (Borghesi & Houston, 2007). Years ago organizations were having many issues with job performance and the quality of work (Borghesi & Houston, 2007). This caused the managers’ of the organization to have very little input in the way things were being run. The individuals who worked for these organizations were given positions depending on what the key parts of a job were in the organization (Borghesi & Houston, 2007). Now a day’s organizations have developed a new team based foundation where the managers are in charge of monitoring the teams’ progress (Borghesi & Houston, 2007) . The best manager’s are the ones who take time to listen to their employee’s and consider their input and idea’s. The input and ideas of employee’s is vital to an organization’s productivity. Most organization’s today give their employee’s individual tasks that utilize their talents (Borghesi & Houston, 2007). Many formal organizations have worked to make their work environment more flexible because of the changes in time and workers.

Modern organizations have strong desires for their employees to share and apply personal thoughts to work assignments. The modern organizations have developed a strategy that involves members of the company to be placed in their competitive work groups. The objective of these work groups is to establish an atmosphere where each team strives to create the best solutions to any company problems. There are sometime incentives given to the team for evaluating and using their critical thinking to come to solutions to solve any obstacles that have overcome in the company.

Advancement of today’s technology, formal organizations are increasing the new way to be more efficient and get the job done. For the formal organization that Micah works for to evolve it has several things that should be changed, so the environment and flexibility will change. For starters all employees’ activities should be more of a team based and also equal between all the employees of the team. Their needs to major change in the structure of authority and organize smaller groups to achieve a common goal. Micah’s organization, like any organization that is striving for perfection and increased revenue, will strategically investigate and use methods or trends that are designed to assist with a company’s demands. Most large corporations are always looking to produce more products, and save money by cutting unnecessary spending without affecting the company. As a result of Micah’s organization following the conventional bureaucracy style since day one, it is going to be extremely difficult to change, and any change made is going to need to be done in small increments. Most companies will only make changes structurally if the company has been going through a financial hardship for quite some time.

The formal organizations are seeing that the increase productivity of team work, thanks to team work and the diminishment of the one employee per job are gone. Today formal organizations are now becoming less bureaucratic and more flexible. Newer workers enter and take over and as technology, which means that more jobs are becoming less dependent on manual labor and more dependent on technology. Formal organizations have CEO instead of numerous managers and few senior managers and other employees are put into teams and work towards one specific goal. Life is about changes no matter where things have to start or end.