Business Organization And Structural Analysis - Acme Widgets Inc

Assignment 2 is much like Assignment 1 except that, this time, you will not have a sample answer or the marking key to guide you. Nevertheless, you can still get a good idea of what is expected of you by analyzing how Assignment 1 was evaluated. Your assignment this time is as follows. Please ensure that you answer each part of the assignment.

• Evaluate the structure of an organization of your choosing. Provide an organization chart for the top three or four levels of the organization.
• As part of your evaluation, assess the appropriateness of the method of departmentalization.
• What is the implication for authority?
• What are the implications of the current organizational structure for job design?
• Conclude your evaluation with your recommendation for how this organization should be organized. What improvements can be made?
• In preparing your evaluation, keep in mind that you are expected to express yourself in a well-written, error-free essay.

Acme Widgets Inc's Organizational Structure and Departments

In order to run the entire process of business successfully the organization has to follow a proper structure so that the entire business operation can be run systematically. (The proper organizational structure is attached in separate document.)

Ashkenas et al. (2015) opined that an organization is primarily constituted with several departments. Marketing department generally handles customers by their products and services. In case of Acme Widgets Inc, the organization deal with three major types of customers. They deal with government and their products deliver to retail as well as wholesalers. Accounting department is handled by several managerial functions. Manufacturing department primarily concentrates on product size and the human resource management is departmentalized by geographic regions. In order to meet the organizational goals and objectives the business experts have to follow a proper hierarchy of business so that goals can be met.

While making the organizational structure of Acme, it is observed that departmentalization is divided intro four major categories, which imply departmentalization by function, by product, by customers and by geographic locations. Marketing, accounting, manufacturing and human resources are four major departments, which control the entire process of business. In the department of marketing, the executives always intend to introduce their brand in market so that they can grab the attention of customers. The department of accounting controls the entire financial database of the company based on which the business experts can evaluate their own performance in the market. The role of accounting department is to analyze the overall loss and profit margin of the organization by evaluating the current market performances. On the other hand, it is observed that accounting department calculates the annual report of the organization along with its scopes of market improvement. Manufacturing department of Acme primarily handles product design, manufacturing and product packaging. Lastly, the role of human resource department is to evaluate the performance level of the employees. Maintaining employee retention plan along with selection and recruitment procedure is the primary responsibility of human resource department.

As per Acme structure, Departmentalization by customers is implied in three categories including retail, wholesale and government. East, waste, north and south are the four major geographic regions based on which the customers are targeted. Products are departmentalized into four major ways that include big widgets, medium, small and tiny. However, these four categories of departmentalization is highly important in order to target the audience properly (Lin, 2014). If the organization is not structured intro different divisions the business experts would not be able to control the entire operations. In addition, the employees who are hired within organization are from various expertises. Appropriate experts are appointed for specific department so that they can handle the entire business operation with full competency.

Implications of the Current Organizational Structure and Suggested Recommendations

The authority that has already been established for Acme Widgets Inc has major implication in rendering the overall business success. President controls the entire business operations. There are four vice presidents who control every single department of marketing, manufacturing, human resource and accounting (Ilin et al., 2016). The business managers have to give a constant update to the vice presidents about the flow of business as well as performance of the employees. If the business authority do not keep an update about the business performances the employees would not like to perform well to reach the target of its business.

While evaluating the major implications of business authority some of the major suggestions can also be provided to the current organizational structure. The business authority of Acme is suggested to increase their management hierarchy so that business experts can identify every single loophole at their workplace. On the other hand, it can also be suggested that the implementation of assistant management and team leader would help the organization in enhancing the entire performance level of the organization. On the other hand, the team leaders can easily measure the performances of team members based on which the business organization can perform well on the overall market. Therefore, management hierarchy should be structured in more detailed.

In order to follow different methods of job design the implication of current organization like Acme structure leaves major significant impact. In order to deal with the customers the current organization structure is not sufficient enough for handling entire business operations. The four categories of departmentalization is highly important in order to target the audience properly. If the organization is not structured intro different divisions the business experts would not be able to control the entire operations (Creech et al., 2014). However, apart from different departmentalisations, the business organization can follow several methods of new job designs. Job design methods are primarily constituted in several ways including job rotation, Simplification, Enlargement and Enrichment of Jobs.

In job rotation of Acme structure, one employee has to shift from one particular position to another. In this very specific phase of experiment the organization decides in which particular sphere the employee is more comfortable. Job implication involves the employees in being specified towards a particular job.  Job enlargement implies on how the business experts assign more additional tasks to the employees for enlarging their job role. Job enrichment enables the employees in showing their performances based on autonomy. In this very specific study, the business experts and authority have preferred to select job enlargement as their specified job design method.

Effective Job Design Method - Job Enlargement

With the help of this specific job design method, the organizational authority gets the power to assignment additional responsibility to the existing employees (Johnson, Leenders & McCue, 2017). The number of workforces in this organization is very limited due to which the business experts have preferred to impose several more responsibilities to the existing employees.

After evaluating the entire study, it can be concluded that Acme Widgets Inc deal with three major types of customers. They deal with government and their products deliver to retail as well as wholesalers. In the department of marketing, the executives always intend to introduce their brand in market so that they can grab the attention of customers. Manufacturing department primarily handles product design, manufacturing and product packaging. Lastly, the role of human resource department is to evaluate the performance level of the employees. Maintaining employee retention plan along with selection and recruitment procedure is the primary responsibility of human resource department. Appropriate experts are appointed for specific department so that they can handle the entire business operation with full competency. There are four vice presidents who control every single department of marketing, manufacturing, human resource and accounting. The business managers have to give a constant update to the vice presidents about the flow of business as well as performance of the employees.

On the other hand, it can also be suggested that the implementation of assistant management and team leader would help the organization in enhancing the entire performance level of the organization. However, apart from different departmentalisations, the business organization such Acme can follow several methods of new job designs. Job design methods are primarily constituted in several ways including job rotation, Simplification, Enlargement and Enrichment of Jobs. Job enrichment enables the employees in showing their performances based on autonomy. In this very specific study, the business experts and authority have preferred to select job enlargement as their specified job design method. Based on the overall evaluation effective recommendations to Acme can be suggested which are as follows:

• The organization needs to enhance their organizational structure for controlling the overall database more efficiently
• The company needs to adopt different job design method so that the employees do not have to take additional responsibility

Reference List:

Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., Jick, T., & Kerr, S. (2015). The boundaryless organization: Breaking the chains of organizational structure. John Wiley & Sons.

Ater, I., Givati, Y., & Rigbi, O. (2014). Organizational structure, police activity and crime. Journal of Public Economics, 115, 62-71.

Creech, A., Varvarigou, M., Hallam, S., McQueen, H., & Gaunt, H. (2014). Scaffolding, organizational structure and interpersonal interaction in musical activities with older people. Psychology of Music, 42(3), 430-447.

Ilin, I. V., Kalinina, O. V., Levina, A. I., & Iliashenko, O. Y. (2016). Approach to Organizational Structure Modelling in Construction Companies. In MATEC Web of Conferences(Vol. 86, p. 05028). EDP Sciences.

Johnson, P. F., Leenders, M. R., & McCue, C. (2017). A comparison of purchasing’s organizational roles and responsibilities in the public and private sector. Journal of Public Procurement, 3(1), 57-74.

Lin, L. H. (2014). Organizational structure and acculturation in acquisitions: Perspectives of congruence theory and task interdependence. Journal of Management, 40(7), 1831-1856.