Organizational Structure and Organizational Culture †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Organizational Structure and Organizational Culture. Answer: Introduction The following paper focuses on the various factors of the organizational structure and organizational culture. As it is a proven fact that organization and culture are very important aspects to thrive in the competitive business environment in the modern era. The selected organization for this paper is Flight Centre that is considered one of the leading organizations in the travel industry. The headquarter of this organization is situated at Brisbane in Queensland. They are considered as the largest travel outlet in the country of Australia (Flight Centre 2017). This organization was founded by graham Turner and Geoff Harris. It serves the various countries like United Kingdom, Canada, United States, United Arab Emirates, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, China and others. The company has an annual turnover of $17 billion and the organizational structure and organizational culture of this organization has given them a unique place (Flight Centre 2017). Organizational culture Organizational culture is a concept in which various concepts are included. These various concepts are the values, goals, missions and objectives of the organizations, beliefs of the individuals, the management, faith and loyalty of the customers and several other things (Alvesson 2012). The term cultural web is also associated with the organizational culture. Every organization has their own culture and they try to be unique in this aspect. This is the method that designs the ways in which the people in the organization, the internal stakeholders like the employees and the managers should be behaving (Alvesson 2012). All the organizations must follow a certain culture by which they can achieve success in this extremely competitive culture. The employees must follow the various rules and regulations by which they are bound to dress, act and behave (Nica 2013). This represents the organizations value. In other words, the organizational culture is the face of the organization. These cultures have a deep impact on the minds of the other people like the external stakeholders like the customers, suppliers and investors (Nica 2013). Organizational culture theories There are some theories and models regarding to the organizational culture. These include the power culture, role culture, task culture and person culture (Shafritz, Ott and Jang 2015). Power culture In this kind of culture, a group of persons hold the power in the organization. These few individuals make their influence scatter through the organization. In this culture, the skills of the employees are generally overlooked and the management ranks them on what they have achieved rather than how they act or how they do the things (Shafritz, Ott and Jang 2015). As a result of this culture, the individuals can do good decision-making very quickly. However, this culture does not prove effective in long-term effectiveness. The deterioration of an organization can be due to the strong power culture. Role culture In this type of culture, the organization sets up their culture simply based on the rules. These rules have to be maintained strictly and the employees and other people in the organization should be aware of their roles and responsibilities (Shafritz, Ott and Jang 2015). The power source in this of culture is determined by the certain role of a person in their organization structure. The organizations who follow the role cultures suffer from slow decision making process all over. The organizations with role cultures are generally bureaucratic (Terry 2015). Organizational Structure The organizational structure is a certain strategy that is based on the visions and objectives of the particular organization (Ashkenas et al. 2015) The perfect organizational structure has the right to determine how the different things in an organization should be done, what roles and responsibilities should be assigned to certain able persons. The control of the organization should remain in the hands of the best persons and they should be on the same page with a good coordination (Ashkenas et al. 2015) The information should flow between the different levels of management. The decision making should be swift one by the implementation of a proper organizational structure. Theories and models of organizational structure There are many theories and models about the organization structure in the business context. These theories are classical organization theory, neoclassical organization theory, contingency theory and systems theory (Daft 2012). Contingency theory This theory of the organizational structure deals with the conflicts within organization. The structure should be designed in such a way that conflicts can be avoided. However, it has been believed that conflict is unavoidable in organizations but the contingency theory says that conflicts can be managed (Daft 2012). The organizations set their targets to meet their strategic needs in many ways. The organizations should be able to adapt changes in business environment and the people sitting on the organizational structure should take the decisions based on the contingent or current decisions. Organizational culture of Flight Centre As a leading organization in the travel industry in Australia, Flight Centre maintains an absolutely unique organizational culture that makes them thrive in and progress in the modern business environment. They believe to give importance to their employees as they are one of the most important things in the organization (Daft 2012). This shared value between the employees andmanagement helps to have a good organizational culture and success. The organization has been decorated with many things and colorful layouts that have motivated them to show their creativity and originality. Many positive cultures have been initiated to inspire the employees in great many ways. This has helped to build the characters of individuals and teams. The office environment has been designed so effectively that the employees love to come to work and take new challenges to add to the better outcomes for Flight Centre. This motivation factor has worked well for achieving a better productivity for them. The employees are much satisfied as a compatible workplace environment has been managed for them. The employees learn to collaborate with each other in order to yield high productivity (Melo et al. 2013). Plans for communal spaces have been encouraged so that conversation between employees can be done on a regular basis with the sharing of ideas and thoughts. Organizational structure of Flight Centre The organizational structure is something that guides the organization towards success. The organizational structure in the travel industry must be customer oriented as customer satisfaction is the core focus for this industry (Armstrong et al. 2015). It is simple and team-oriented. There is a small group consisting of three to seven people known as the family. These are the retail stores. Next up is the village that comprises of four to five families. They tend to work closely because of the geographic closeness. The next step is the country that has five to seven stores. The country leader leads to an effective communication between the team members along with other specialist staff. The decisions are taken by the leaders by brainstorming process or information sharing. The employees are guided by these country leaders and experts to achieve the goals and objectives of the Flight Centre. Here, the team-based structure is maintained which is very effective in gaining the organizatio nal success (Kaufman and Guerra-Lopez 2013). Conclusion This paper can be concluded by saying that Flight Centre has acquired some unique organizational culture and structure that has assisted them to be on the top of the tree in their industry. Their organizational objectives and missions will be on the same line with their adaptation of these strategies will surely improve their team work and take them to glory in their business field. This is why organizational culture and structure are the best vehicles for the organizations towards success. References Alvesson, M., 2012.Understanding organizational culture. Sage. Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M. and Brennan, R., 2015.Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Education. Ashkenas, R., Ulrich, D., Jick, T. and Kerr, S., 2015.The boundaryless organization: Breaking the chains of organizational structure. John Wiley Sons. Daft, R., 2012.Organization theory and design. Nelson Education. Flight Centre. (2017). Cheap Flights by Australia's Unbeatable Travel Agents - Flight Centre. [online] Available at: https://www.flightcentre.com.au/ [Accessed 3 Sep. 2017]. Kaufman, R. and Guerra-Lopez, I., 2013.Needs assessment for organizational success. American Society for Training and Development. Melo, C.D.O., Cruzes, D.S., Kon, F. and Conradi, R., 2013. Interpretative case studies on agile team productivity and management.Information and Software Technology,55(2), pp.412-427. Nica, E., 2013. Organizational culture in the public sector.Economics, Management and Financial Markets,8(2), p.179. Shafritz, J.M., Ott, J.S. and Jang, Y.S., 2015.Classics of organization theory. Cengage Learning. Terry, L.D., 2015.Leadership of public bureaucracies: The administrator as conservator. Routledge.