Organization Design Models

Deming advocates the use of statistics to control quality by measuring waste and defects in manufacturing. The maintenance of formal procedures is a prerequisite to certification under various quality codes. It goes further than Taylor because computing power simplifies the gathering and processing of data to measure performance against pre-determined standards and against a worker’s peers. As systems become quicker, cleverer and cheaper the use of computing for this area of control must increase Drucker also suggests that it is only Taylorism that has consistently raised the real level of manual workers’ wages. Superior service requires all employees to be mindful of customer needs, to bring them to the attention of management and be encouraged to suggest improvements. This alters the premise that managers “think” and workers “do”. The creation of learning organizations recognizes this and Argyris cites a number of examples where bad practices were allowed to perpetuate because old barriers were difficult to break down. Peters and Waterman urge organizations to become smaller and innovate to achieve excellence and survive. Innovation requires organizations to become less risk adverse. Kotter seizes upon this point and believes that managers need to become leaders. Organizations should become nurseries for potential leaders. While both Peters and Kotter advocate this change neither deny the need to fulfill Fayol’s eight functions nor suggest how an organization may survive without them. One effect of globalization is the creation of multinational organizations, which operate through numbers of subsidiaries in different countries. This process is assisted by the use of IT, which creates a virtual supply chain stimulating innovative activity in smaller companies. However, these conglomerates still need to plan, forecast, direct, procure and allocate resources and especially master the difficulties of control, raising the perennial difficulties of centralization and decentralization. In turn, this suggests bureaucracy will not wither away. The practices of quality, organizational learning and the encouragement of leadership are based upon the empowerment of employees. Empowerment requires employees to continually develop and train themselves, with and without the help, of their employers. He should lead to the self actualized individuals envisaged by Maslow. Models of organizational design and management practice which were developed more than half a century ago still have practical application now.