Organisation Theory - Assignment Example

Organization theory Name Course Tutor Date Question 1 Southwest Airline Southwest Airline is a USA-based airline company headquartered in Dallas Texas; thus, it operates in transport and communication industry. It offers transport services for passengers and luggage to various cities of the United States; this airline operates across all the states of the US (D'Aurizio, 2008, pp1). Domestic passengers such as businesspersons prefer to use it because of its customer-oriented characteristics such as low costs, flexible schedules and safety. It is a profit-oriented public airline however; its services and operations do not actually show that it is a profit making company (Mertens & Vowles, 2012, pp5). This is because its policies are much geared towards customer satisfaction rather than profit maximization. It is known to be the world’s low-cost airline because of its low freight charges it charges for transit of its passengers and luggage (Timmerman & Shields, 2014, pp13). These characteristics have enabled this company to be the major airline in the whole of USA that serves and satisfies domestic passengers. Southwest airline has grown over the years since its birth in 1971; it has expanded its operations nearly in every state in the US. Reports reveal that currently, this airline operates over 3,600 flights every day. It operates the largest fleet of Boeing planes that have high capacity serving over 100 million passengers annually (swamedia.com, 2014, pp1). The number of aircrafts owned by this company is estimated to be 694 and serves 96 destinations or airports in the 41 states. (Mertens & Vowles, 2012, pp4). As per now, the number of employees who serve in this airline stands at around 45,000; this implies that this company is a giant corporation that has a command in the transport industry in America (Timmerman & Shields, 2014, pp8). The ownership of this airline is through the shares that are exchanged among the shareholders because it trades on the New York stock exchange market (swamedia.com., 2014, pp1). Southwest Airline Company has been in existence for more than 40 years since its inception. Herb Kelleher was the man who gave birth to this company and was the CEO and president until 2007 (Mertens & Vowles, 2012, pp5). This company was named by the fortune magazine to be among the top ten admired companies in the world. Question 2 Socio-technical theory is one of the organization theories that try to explain how the management of various organizations has to be carried out. It is a theory that advocates for adopting an approach that aims at harnessing the peoples’ aspects and the technical aspects of the organizational structure. This theory recognizes interaction between employees and technology in the workplace. This is meant to attain joint optimization having its focus directed towards achieving excellence in both the technical performance effectiveness in individuals’ tasks. This theory provides the foundation for high performance team organization through responsible autonomy, adaptability and agility, and meaningfulness of the tasks. These characteristics of this theory are exhibited in the management of Southwest airline management function. The managers of this airline have greatly shown that they adopted this theory of socio-technical to manage this organization and it has really worked. Contingency theory is another organizational theory that states that there is no best way of organizing, decision making or leading an organization. However, the best course of action is dependent upon the prevailing internal and external environment. Contingency leaders tend to apply their own style of organization and leadership in their organizations according to how they feel and think. This is revealed in Southwest Airline Company when the pioneer chief executive officer Herb Kelleher adopted simple management styles that appeared to be unique. His management styles surprised many because they worked for this company. This customer-oriented style of management propelled it to become a leading company in the airline industry in America within a short period. Question 3 Application of Socio technical theory in seminal papers Socio-technical theory manifested itself in the article entitled “The Socio-Technical Alliance: Bringing New Tools to the Design of Policies Aimed to Promote Social Inclusion” by Garrido and Lalouf. In this article, a global debate sparked concerning the increasing use of crops for bio-fuel production. Some people argued that this practice would have negative effects. One of the effects is that the activity tend to deepen the capital intensive monoculture agricultural; production (Garrido & Lalouf, 2012, pp1). Despite the debates that raged all over the world, the Argentina parliament enacted a law in 2006 known as bio-fuel Act (26093) which stated that bio-fuel production is a good solution to the energy supply, economic, and environmental social problems. This approach aimed at generating solutions that explain the processes that build sustainability of the technological policies that boosts social inclusion. Socio-technical theory again is seen in the article entitled “Adaptive socio-technical systems: a requirements-based approach” by Dalpiaz, Giorgini and Mylopoulos. This article asserts that a social technical system (STS) should comprise of the interplay of people, organizations and technical systems. The article reveals that STS are dynamic, weakly controlled, heterogeneous and quite unpredictable. This implies that their operating environment tend to change unexpectedly. Dalpiaz, Giorgini and Mylopoulos (2011, pp1) reveals that actors join and leave these systems at any time, other fail to meet their goals. Thus, they suggest that dealing with such situations needs architecture for STS that make them self-reconfigurable (Dalpiaz, Giorgini &Mylopoulos, 2011, pp1). This means that the STS should be structured in a manner that they can switch autonomously from one configuration to another. Therefore, one important point to note with socio-technical theory is that management of different organization should be flexible in adopting and integrating of the human aspects with those of technology to reach at equilibrium (Dalpiaz, Giorgini &Mylopoulos, 2011, pp4). Application of Contingency theory in seminal papers Contingency theory as noted earlier is an organization theory that argues that there is no standard ways to lead or organize the operation of a particular organization. The management should just examine both the internal and external environment and devise policies that can be used to run the organization. This theory applies in the paper entitled “The Hidden Costs of Contingency: Employers' Use of Contingent Workers and Standard Employees' Outcomes” by Pedulla, David. This paper discusses about the rise of contingency employment relations in the United States in the recent years (Pedulla, 2013, pp1). It also shows how current scholars are examining the consequences to organizations that opt for contingency employment. One notable point about contingency employees tends to shape standard employees’ attitudes and outcomes (Pedulla, 2013, pp1). The paper discloses that the use of different contingency workers result to varied consequences that either positive or negative to the organization. In the paper entitled “Organizational Failure and the Disbanding of Local Police Agencies” by King, William Contingency theory has been used to explain why 31 police agencies of the United States failed leading to their disbandment in 1990s as the consequence of the failure (King, 2014, pp1). Reports show that agencies are disbanded because they fail to change according to the environmental changes. In summary, police agencies are always disbanded because they do not readily adjust or adapt to the changes in their contingency and organizational environment (King, 2014, pp1). Therefore, the argument of contingency theory that states that there are no particular ways of carrying out particular function in the environment prevails. The stakeholders should learn from the environment and adjust appropriately. Question 4 The two organization theories we have discussed tend to address various management issues. Socio-technical theory is there to enlighten the management of organizations that organization development requires an approach that would handle complex work design, which would consider and recognize the interrelationship of human and technology in the workplaces (Dalpiaz, Giorgini &Mylopoulos, 2011, pp7). In other terms, the theory advocates for the interaction of the society’s complex structures with peoples’ behavior. Socio-technical systems encompass the social aspects of human beings and the society technical aspects. This implies that for an organization to perform well in its operations, it must take care of the two aspects. These aspects of technology and human behavior have to be in equilibrium to create a favorable environment that would stimulate growth (Garrido & Lalouf, 2012, pp12). Therefore, socio-technical theory is all about joint optimization with an assertion on the attainment of excellence in technical functions and attainment of quality in individuals work. Socio-technical theory was formulated after some observations were made in many firms. The observation was that despite of the better payment to the workers and more social amenities, absenteeism was increasing. On the other hand, despite of the improved technology, productivity of that particular organization was going down (Dalpiaz, Giorgini &Mylopoulos, 2011, pp1). This observation left many stakeholders in dilemma. Scholars studied such situation and concluded that when any organization would like to boosts its performance; it must adopt new form of technology and at the same time design this new technology to suit the social behavior of the people. Thus, the term socio-technical was coined to form socio technical theory. On the other hand, contingency agency theory stress that leaders of an organization should not impose certain standard management structure to their workers. However, they should scrutinize the environment in which the organization is working then formulate good practices that would allow all the systems in the organization to function effectively (King, 2014, pp9). This means that no best management styles that suit every organization. Studies from the Ohio State University showed that leaders of organization fall into two categories consideration leaders’ behavior and initiating structure leaders’ behavior (Tomaskovic-Devey & Risman, 1993, pp8). Consideration leader behavior exhibits creating a rapport and healthy interpersonal relationships and showing support and consideration for junior employees (King, 2014, pp9). While initiating structure leaders tend to assign duties, plan, and schedule tasks to ensure that these tasks are accomplished in the given period. Researchers from the University of Michigan on the other hand grouped these leadership behaviors as relation-oriented and task-oriented respectively. In summary, the contingency theory describes good management that advocates for open systems that requires cautious management to satisfy and balance internal requirements to suit the environmental circumstances (King, 2014, pp9). Secondly, contingency theory base on the fact that there is no standard way of leading; nevertheless, the appropriate way depends on the kind of the task or environment the organization is thriving in. Thirdly, the management function should be geared towards attaining goals of the organization (Tomaskovic-Devey & Risman, 1993, pp3). Lastly, the theory asserts that different types of organizations are required in different kinds of environment. Question 5 One of the limitations of socio-technical theory is that technology is growing very fast in that new devices are innovated. The task of integrating the functions of these technical devices with the social behaviors of people is quite challenging. People tend to adapt to the new technology slower than how these technologies are being injected in the systems. Secondly, the social aspects of people tend to in relation to region and community. Therefore, all over the world, there are numerous social aspects some of whom do not match with new technology. This makes some regions to lurk behind in adjusting to the new technologies. Contingency theory has also its own limitations. First, some managers may take the advantage of the facts of this theory and mislead the entire organization comforting themselves that there is no best way to manage an organization. This may make organizations not to attain its set objectives. Secondly, it becomes hard for managers in many organizations to define accurately the prevailing environment and predicting the future environment, which the organization would thrive (Tomaskovic-Devey & Risman, 1993, pp3). This brings the aspects of uncertainties. Lastly, the contingencies or dependant factors may vary in short period hence, putting the management to the expensive task of reevaluating the environment regularly. Question 6 Looking at the assumptions and assertion of contingency theory, other stakeholders may think that they have the freedom to apply their own principles to run organizations. Some will base their management style on the fact that there are no standard ways of managing and they can just apply their own mediocre management styles that may suffocate the organization. Moreover, from the contingency theory perspective, other stakeholders may mismanage the resources of the organization (Tomaskovic-Devey & Risman, 1993, pp3). By buying expensive equipments with an excuse of adjusting the systems to the prevailing environment. While from the socio-technical approach, other stakeholders would struggle to force the socio aspects of the people in the organization to suit the available technical systems. The alignment of these systems takes considerable lengths of time but some managers may want to force things to work instantly thus, killing the morale of the workers. In additions, other stakeholders may want to integrate the technical systems that do not agree with the socio aspects. The integration of these two aspects also needs some expertise otherwise; the situation may backfire when some socio aspects are just forced onto the particular technical systems. Question 7 As managers, I need to have interpersonal skills to be able to know the feelings of individuals towards the introduced technical systems in an organization. Interpersonal skills would enable me to choose the best technical systems that would suit the socio aspects of my workers. Secondly, I need to have judgment skills; this would enable me to make future predictions of the environment in which the organization would be operating. When I am in a position of judging the future prospects, I would be able to choose the best technical systems that can boost the performance of the organization. Thirdly, I also need coordination skills, which would enable me to coordinate the functions of the organization to steer them towards attainment of the organization’s goals. Moreover, I would also need to have good communication skills that would enable me to relay information to the staff members appropriately to avoid delays of some particular functions. References Dalpiaz, F., Giorgini, P. & Mylopoulos, J. (2013). “Adaptive socio-technical systems: a requirements-based approach”. Requirements Engineering, 18, 1, pp. 1-24 D'Aurizio, P. (2008). “Southwest Airlines: Lessons in Loyalty” Nursing Economic$, November Garrido, S, & Lalouf, A. (2012). “The Socio-Technical Alliance:Review of Policy Research, 29, 6, pp. 733-751 King, W. (2014). “Organizational Failure and the Disbanding of Local Police Agencies”, Crime & Delinquency, 60, 5, pp. 667-692, Mertens, D, & Vowles, T (2012). "Southwest Effect" - Decisions and Effects of Low Cost Carriers”. Journal of Behavioral & Applied Management, 14, 1, pp. 53-69 Pedulla, DS (2013). “The Hidden Costs of Contingency: Employers' Use of Contingent Workers and Standard Employees' Outcomes”. Social Forces, 92, 2, pp. 691-722. swamedia (2014). Southwest Corporate fact sheet. Retrieved from http://www.swamedia.com/channels/Corporate-Fact-Sheet/pages/corporate-fact-sheet. Accessed on 29th Aug 2014. Timmerman, J, & Shields, S. (2014). “Your Brand Is Your Company's Engine”. Journal For Quality & Participation, 37, 1, pp. 35-38. Tomaskovic-Devey, D, & Risman, B. (1993). “Telecommuting Innovation and Organization: A Contingency Theory of Labor Process Change”. Social Science Quarterly (University Of Texas Press), 74, 2, pp. 367-385. Read More