Developed by Authenticity Consulting, LLC
Key Concepts in the Design of an Organization
© Copyright Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, Authenticity Consulting, LLC.
A house should be designed to meet the needs of the people living in it. Builders of houses must consider, e.g., the number of people in the house, how much the owners can afford to pay, etc. The ultimate design of an organization should be whatever structure best helps the organization to achieve its goals. The following are the standard concepts in the design of an organization.
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Key Concepts in Design of Organization
Span of control
- the range of employees who to report to a managerial positionAuthority
- the formally-granted influence of a position to make decisions, pursue goals and get resources to pursue the goals; authority in a managerial role may exist only to the extent that subordinates agree to grant this authority or follow the orders from that position
Responsibility
- the duty to carry out an assignment or conduct a certain activity
Delegation
- process of assigning a task to a subordinate along with the commensurate responsibility and authority to carry out the task
Chain of command
- the lines of authority in an organization, who reports to whom
Accountability
- responsibility for the outcome of the process
Line authority
- the type of authority where managers have formal authority over their subordinates' activities (the subordinates are depicted under the manager on a solid line in the organization chart); departments directly involved in producing services or products are sometimes called line departments
Staff departments
- the type of authority where managers influence line managers through staff's specialized advice; departments that support or advise line departments are called staff departments and include, e.g., human resources, legal, finance, etc.
For the Category of Organizational Development:
To round out your knowledge of this Library topic, you may want to review some related topics, available from the link below. Each of the related topics includes free, online resources.
Also, scan the Recommended Books listed below. They have been selected for their relevance and highly practical nature.
Related Library Topics
Recommended Books - Organizational Development and Change
Managing Organizational Change
Managing Organizational Change
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Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development
- by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Provides complete, step-by-step guidelines to identify complex issues in for-profit or government organizations and successfully resolve each of them. This book is also helpful to organizations that are doing fine now, but want to evolve to the next level of performance. This is one of the truly comprehensive, yet practical, books about this complex subject! Includes online forms that can be downloaded. Many materials in this Library's topic about guiding change are adapted from this comprehensive book.
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Field Guide to Consulting and Organizational Development With Nonprofits
- by Carter McNamara, published by Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Provides complete, step-by-step guidelines to identify complex issues in nonprofit organizations and successfully resolve each of them. This book is also helpful to organizations that are doing fine now, but want to evolve to the next level of performance. This is one of the truly comprehensive, yet practical, books about this complex subject! Includes online forms that can be downloaded. Many materials in this Library's topic about guiding change are adapted from this comprehensive book.
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just click on the image of the book. Also, a convenient search window is included below the rows of boxes.
Growing Your Organization
The following books are recommended because of their highly practical nature and often because they include a wide range of information about this Library topic. To get more information about each book, just click on the image of the book. Also, a convenient search window is included below the rows of boxes.
