Application: Systems Theory Assignment: Application: Systems Theory As noted in the Learning Resources, systems theory provides a meaningful and beneficial

Application: Systems Theory Assignment: Application: Systems Theory
As noted in the Learning Resources, systems theory provides a meaningful and beneficial means of examining challenges in health care organizations. To do this effectively, however, it is essential to assess all system components, as some may be relatively healthy while others are problematic.

For this Assignment, you apply systems theory to the examination of a problem in a department or a unit within a health care organization. (Note: You may use the same problem you identified for the Discussion as long as it meets the criteria for this assignment.)

To prepare:

Review the Meyer article, “Nursing Services Delivery Theory: An Open System Approach,” in this week’s Learning Resources. Focus especially on the information presented in Table 1 (p. 2831) and Figure 2 (p. 2833).
Reflect on your organization or one with which you are familiar. Within a particular department or unit in this organization, identify a problem the staff is encountering.
Using Table 1 in the Meyer article as a guide, analyze the department or unit, identifying inputs, throughput, output, cycles of events, and negative feedback. Consider whether the problem you have selected relates to input, throughput, output, cycles of events, and/or negative feedback.
Think about how you could address the problem: Consider what a desired outcome would be, then formulate related goals and objectives, and translate those goals into policies and procedures.
Research professional standards that are pertinent to your identified problem.
Reflect on the organization’s mission statement and values. In addition, consider how addressing this problem would uphold the mission and values, while improving the organizational culture and climate. (Depending on the organization you have selected, you may have explored these in the Week 1 Discussion.)

To complete:

BY DAY 7

Write a 3- to 5-page paper (page count does not include title and reference page) that addresses the following:

Describe a department or unit within a health care organization using systems theory terminology. Include a description of inputs, throughput, output, cycles of events, and negative feedback.
Describe the problem you identified within the department or unit using an open- systems approach, and state where the problem exists using the systems theory model (input, throughput, output, cycles of events, or negative feedback).
Based on this information, explain how you would address the problem as follows:
Formulate a desired outcome.
Identify goals and objectives that would facilitate that outcome.
Translate those goals and objectives into policies and procedures for the department or unit.
Describe relevant professional standards.
Explain how your proposed resolution to the problem would uphold the organization’s mission and values and improve the culture and climate.

The Assignment, Systems Theory, is due by Day 7 of Week 2.

Reminder: The School of Nursing requires that all papers submitted include a title page, introduction, summary, and references. The Sample Paper provided at the Walden Writing Center provides an example of those required elements. All papers submitted must use this formatting.

This Assignment is due by Day 7 of Week 2 (this week) and must be submitted through the Week 2 Assignment Link.

QUALITY OF WORK SUBMITTED:
THE EXTENT OF WHICH WORK MEETS THE ASSIGNED CRITERIA AND WORK REFLECTS GRADUATE LEVEL CRITICAL AND ANALYTIC THINKING.–
Excellent 27 (27%) – 30 (30%)

Good 24 (24%) – 26 (26%)

Fair 21 (21%) – 23 (23%)

Poor 0 (0%) – 20 (20%)

QUALITY OF WORK SUBMITTED:
THE PURPOSE OF THE PAPER IS CLEAR.–
Excellent 5 (5%) – 5 (5%)

Good 4 (4%) – 4 (4%)

Fair 3.5 (3.5%) – 3.5 (3.5%)

Poor 0 (0%) – 3 (3%)

ASSIMILATION AND SYNTHESIS OF IDEAS:
THE EXTEND TO WHICH THE WORK REFLECTS THE STUDENT’S ABILITY TO:

UNDERSTAND AND INTERPRET THE ASSIGNMENT’S KEY CONCEPTS.–
Excellent 9 (9%) – 10 (10%)

Good 8 (8%) – 8 (8%)

Fair 7 (7%) – 7 (7%)

Poor 0 (0%) – 6 (6%)

ASSIMILATION AND SYNTHESIS OF IDEAS:
THE EXTEND TO WHICH THE WORK REFLECTS THE STUDENT’S ABILITY TO:

APPLY AND INTEGRATE MATERIAL IN COURSE RESOURCES (I.E. VIDEO, REQUIRED READINGS, AND TEXTBOOK) AND CREDIBLE OUTSIDE RESOURCES.–
Excellent 18 (18%) – 20 (20%)

Good 16 (16%) – 17 (17%)

Fair 14 (14%) – 15 (15%)

Poor 0 (0%) – 13 (13%)

ASSIMILATION AND SYNTHESIS OF IDEAS:
THE EXTEND TO WHICH THE WORK REFLECTS THE STUDENT’S ABILITY TO:

SYNTHESIZE (COMBINES VARIOUS COMPONENTS OR DIFFERENT IDEAS INTO A NEW WHOLE) MATERIAL IN COURSE RESOURCES (I.E. VIDEO, REQUIRED READINGS, TEXTBOOK) AND OUTSIDE, CREDIBLE RESOURCES BY COMPARING DIFFERENT POINTS OF VIEW AND HIGHLIGHTING SIMILARITIES, DIFFERENCES, AND CONNECTIONS.–
Excellent 18 (18%) – 20 (20%)

Good 16 (16%) – 17 (17%)

Fair 14 (14%) – 15 (15%)

Poor 0 (0%) – 13 (13%)

WRITTEN EXPRESSION AND FORMATTING

PARAGRAPH AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE: PARAGRAPHS MAKE CLEAR POINTS THAT SUPPORT WELL DEVELOPED IDEAS, FLOW LOGICALLY, AND DEMONSTRATE CONTINUITY OF IDEAS. SENTENCES ARE CLEARLY STRUCTURED AND CAREFULLY FOCUSED–NEITHER LONG AND RAMBLING NOR SHORT AND LACKING SUBSTANCE.–
Excellent 5 (5%) – 5 (5%)

Good 4 (4%) – 4 (4%)

Fair 3.5 (3.5%) – 3.5 (3.5%)

Poor 0 (0%) – 3 (3%)

WRITTEN EXPRESSION AND FORMATTING

ENGLISH WRITING STANDARDS: CORRECT GRAMMAR, MECHANICS, AND PROPER PUNCTUATION–
Excellent 5 (5%) – 5 (5%)

Good 4 (4%) – 4 (4%)

Fair 3.5 (3.5%) – 3.5 (3.5%)

Poor 0 (0%) – 3 (3%)

WRITTEN EXPRESSION AND FORMATTING

THE PAPER FOLLOWS CORRECT APA FORMAT FOR TITLE PAGE, HEADINGS, FONT, SPACING, MARGINS, INDENTATIONS, PAGE NUMBERS, RUNNING HEAD, PARENTHETICAL/IN-TEXT CITATIONS, AND REFERENCE LIST.–

Excellent 5 (5%) – 5 (5%)

Good 4 (4%) – 4 (4%)

Fair 3.5 (3.5%) – 3.5 (3.5%)

Poor 0 (0%) – 3 (3%) Chapter Introduction
Learning Outcomes
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Identify the basic elements of organizations.
2. Describe the bureaucratic perspective on organization design.
3. Identify and explain key situational influences on organization
design.
4. Describe the basic forms of organization design that characterize
many organizations.
5. Identify and describe emerging issues in organization design.
Management in Action
Authority & Function at A&F
“Paying $90 for torn jeans isn’t that cool anymore.”
—Analyst on declining sales at Abercrombie & Fitch
Abercrombie & Fitch has been a fashion mainstay for younger consumers for
years. Although the firm has grown to be a huge retailer, it still uses a form of
organization design more commonly found in much smaller businesses.
Nano Calvo/Alamy
Along with American Eagle and Aéropostale,
Abercrombie & Fitch (A&F) is one of the “Three
A’s” of retailing for younger consumers, the three
largest specialty retailers catering to young adults
ages 18 to 22 (and up). Look around your college
classroom and you’ll probably spy at least one
A&F item—a cap, a shirt, a pair of jeans.
Abercrombie & Fitch, a line of “casual luxury”
apparel and other products, is actually one of five
brands owned by Ohio-based A&F Corporation.
The company’s other brands include abercrombie
(“classic cool” for preteens), Hollister (“SoCal”
for teenagers), RUEHL 925 (a higher-priced
brand for post-collegiates that recently closed),
and Gilly Hicks (Australian-themed lounge and
underwear for women).
Obviously, A&F’s businesses are related, and its
overall corporate strategy is best characterized as
one of related diversification. Based on this
strategy, one would assume that A&F’s
organizational design reflects
a divisional structure, a form favored by
companies that operate multiple related
businesses. It is interesting, however, that A&F
relies instead on a functional design based on
functional departments (groups responsible for
specific company functions).
In general, some form of divisional structure is
preferred by most firms that pursue strategies of
related diversification. Limited Brands, for
example, a close competitor (and one-time parent)
of A&F, uses a divisional structure to
coordinate brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Bath
& Body Works, Pink, and the White Barn Candle
Company. Each unit is empowered to make
autonomous decisions but can also access
companywide staff support in areas such as
logistics, information technology, real estate, and
store design. At A&F, on the other hand, every
employee is assigned to one of eight basic
business functions, such as planning, purchasing,
distribution, or stores, each of which is headed by
a president. Why this design? Basically, A&F
wants every employee to develop highly
specialized skills within a functional area. This
design is also more effective in coordinating
activities within a function.
The company’s history also accounts in part for
its choice of a functional structure. From its
founding in 1892 until a bankruptcy in 1977,
Abercrombie & Fitch was a high-end sportinggoods retailer. In 1978, Oshman’s, a Houstonbasedsporting-goods chain, purchased the
company brand and trademark and, for 11 years,
operated a combination retail chain and catalog
company, selling an eclectic line of products
ranging from tweed jackets to exercise machines.
Limited Brands purchased the brand in 1988,
putting it on preppy, upscale clothing for young
adults. Nine years later, Limited sold 16 percent
of the company through a public stock sale, and
when the remaining shares were sold to the public
in 1998, A&F became an independent company.
In its current incarnation, then, A&F started out as
a division of a larger firm, so it makes sense that
its structure would be much like that of one
division in a multidivisional corporation.
It’s also interesting to note that, even before the
spinoff from Limited, A&F had begun to establish
its own culture and its own pattern of growth.
Michael Jeffries, a retail-industry veteran, became
president in 1992 and undertook to transform the
company into the retailer of choice for younger
consumers. Jeffries quickly managed to attach the
brand to an idealized lifestyle, emphasizing
apparel that complemented youth, good looks, and
good times. The transformation turned out to be
highly profitable, with sales increasing from $85
million in 1992 to $165 million in just two years.
During the same period, the number of stores in
the chain grew from 36 to 67, and in 1999, with
212 stores nationwide, A&F topped $1 billion in
sales. In the same year, A&F started its
abercrombie division for children and preteens,
and a year later, it launched Hollister, the first of
its “lifestyle” chains. By the end of 2002, the
multidivision company was running 485 A&F
stores, 144 abercrombie shops, and 32 Hollister
outlets. Sales for the year were just under $1.4
billion. RUEHL opened in 2004 and Gilly Hicks
in 2008. Today, A&F Corporation operates
around 1,100 stores.
And yet A&F is still organized as if it were one
big company with one big brand and a single
division. The main advantage of this choice can
be explained as a desire to exercise top-down
control over each brand by separating and
controlling all the functions on which every
brand—that is, every store type—depends.
Regardless of how A&F is organized and
otherwise managed, one thing is clear: It’s the
way it is because that’s the way CEO Jeffries
wants it. Jeffries took over a firm that was losing
$25 million a year, declared that survival
depended on becoming a “young, hip, spirited
company,” and engineered a reversal of fortunes
by turning it into something completely new, a
retailer that celebrates what one observer calls
“the vain, highly constructed male.” (A&F has
had much less influence on women’s fashion.)
Like many other retailers, A&F struggled during
2009 and 2010. The firm had always refused to
discount, so some customers began to look
elsewhere. To help combat the downturn, A&F
closed RUEHL and started offering some limited
discounting. These measures, along with the
rebounding economy, helped A&F start to turn
things around recently. In 2013, the firm reported
sales of $3.5 billion and a modest profit. Jeffries
is under contract through 2014 but will likely
retire when the contract expires.
All managers need the assistance of others to
succeed and so must trust the members of their
team to do their jobs and carry out their
responsibilities. And the team members
themselves need the support of their boss and a
clear understanding of their role in the
organization. Indeed, the working relationship
between managers and their subordinates is one of
the most critical elements comprising an
organization. As you will see in this chapter,
managing the basic frameworks that organizations
use to get their work done—structure and
design—is a fundamental part of the management
process.
This chapter, the first of three devoted to
organizing, discusses many of the critical
elements of organization structure and design that
managers can control. We first identify and
describe the various elements of organizing. Next,
we explore how those elements can be combined
to create an overall design for the organization.
Next, we introduce situational factors and how
they impact organization design. We conclude by
presenting emerging issues in organization design.
6-1The
Basic Elements of
Organizing
The term organization structure and design refers to the overall set
of elements that can be used to configure an organization. This
section introduces and describes these elements: job specialization,
departmentalization, reporting relationships, distribution of
authority, and coordination.
6-1aJob
Specialization
The first building block of organization structure is job
specialization. Job specialization is the degree to which the overall
task of the organization is broken down and divided into smaller
component parts. For example, when Walt Disney started his
company, he did everything himself—wrote cartoons, drew them,
added character voices, and then marketed them to theaters. As the
business grew, though, he eventually hired others to perform many
of these same functions. As growth continued, so, too, did
specialization. For example, as animation artists work on Disney
movies today, they may specialize in generating computer images of
a single character or doing only background scenery. Others provide
voices, and marketing specialists develop promotional campaigns.
Today, the Walt Disney Company has literally thousands of
different specialized jobs. Clearly, no one person could perform
them all.
Benefits and Limitations of Specialization
Job specialization provides four benefits to organizations. First,
workers performing small, simple tasks will become very proficient
at each task. Second, transfer time between tasks decreases. If
employees perform several different tasks, some time is lost as they
stop doing the first task and start doing the next. Third, the more
narrowly defined a job is, the easier it is to develop specialized
equipment to assist with that job. Fourth, when an employee who
performs a highly specialized job is absent or resigns, the manager
is able to train someone new at relatively low cost. Although
specialization is generally thought of in terms of operating jobs,
many organizations have extended the basic elements of
specialization to managerial and professional levels.
On the other hand, job specialization can have negative
consequences. The foremost criticism is that workers who perform
highly specialized jobs may become bored and dissatisfied. The job
may be so specialized that it offers no challenge or stimulation.
Boredom and monotony set in, absenteeism rises, and the quality of
the work may suffer. Furthermore, the anticipated benefits of
specialization do not always occur. For example, a classic study
conducted at Maytag found that the time spent moving work in
process from one worker to another was greater than the time
needed for the same individual to change from job to job. Thus,
although some degree of specialization is necessary, it should not be
carried to extremes because of the possible negative consequences.
Managers must be sensitive to situations in which extreme
specialization should be avoided. And indeed, several alternative
approaches to designing jobs have been developed in recent years.
Alternatives to Specialization
To counter the problems associated with specialization, managers
have sought other approaches to job design that achieve a better
balance between organizational demands for efficiency and
productivity and individual needs for creativity and autonomy. Five
alternative approaches are job rotation, job enlargement, job
enrichment, job characteristics approach, and work teams.
Job rotation involves systematically moving employees from one
job to another. A worker in a warehouse might unload trucks on
Monday, carry incoming inventory tostorage on Tuesday, verify
invoices on Wednesday, pull outgoing inventory from storage on
Thursday, and load trucks on Friday. Thus, the jobs do not change,
but instead workers move from job to job. Unfortunately, for this
very reason, job rotation has not been very successful in enhancing
employee motivation or satisfaction. Jobs that are amenable to
rotation tend to be relatively standard and routine. Workers who are
rotated to a “new” job may be more satisfied at first, but satisfaction
soon wanes. Although many companies (among them Raytheon,
Ford, and Prudential Insurance) have tried job rotation, it is most
often used today as a training device to improve worker skills and
flexibility. Similarly, the TSA rotates security screeners at airports
several times a day to offset problems of boredom that might set in
if the same task were being performed all the time. The Walt Disney
World resort swimming pool lifeguards rotate stations every half
hour to help them maintain focus on their task.
Job enlargement was developed to increase the total number of
tasks workers perform. As a result, all workers perform a wide
variety of tasks, which presumably reduces the level of job
dissatisfaction. Many organizations have used job enlargement,
including IBM, Detroit Edison, AT&T, the U.S. Civil Service, and
Maytag. At Maytag, for example, the assembly line for producing
washing-machine water pumps was systematically changed so that
work that had originally been performed by six workers, who
passed the work sequentially from one person to another, was
performed by four workers, each of whom assembled a complete
pump. Unfortunately, although job enlargement does have some
positive consequences, those are often offset by some
disadvantages:
1. training costs usually increase,
2. unions have argued that pay should increase because the worker is
doing more tasks, and
3. in many cases the work remains boring and routine even after job
enlargement.
Many products like Maytag washers and dryers are manufactured using job
specialization and assembly line technology. While this approach promotes
efficiency, it can also lead to monotony and worker boredom. To help counter
these negative effects, Maytag has experimented with job enlargement and other
alternatives to job specialization.
Paulo Fridman/Corbis
A more comprehensive approach, job enrichment, assumes that
increasing the range and variety of tasks is not sufficient by itself to
improve employee motivation. Thus, job enrichment attempts to
increase both the number of tasks a worker does and the control the
worker has over the job. To implement job enrichment, managers
remove some controls from the job, delegate more authority to
employees, and structure the work in complete, natural units. These
changes increase subordinates’ sense of responsibility. Another part
of job enrichment is to continually assign new and challenging
tasks, thereby increasing employees’ opportunity for growth and
advancement. AT&T, Texas Instruments, IBM, and General Foods
are among the firms that have used job enrichment. This approach,
however, also has disadvantages. For example, work systems need
to be analyzed before enrichment, but this seldom happens, and
managers rarely ask for employee preferences when enriching jobs.
The job characteristics approach is an alternative to job
specialization that does take into account the work system and
employee preferences. As illustrated in Figure 6.1, the job
characteristics approach suggests that jobs should be diagnosed and
improved along five core dimensions:
1. Skill variety, the number of things a person does in a job
2. Task identity, the extent to which the worker does a complete or
identifiable portion of the total job
3. Task significance, the perceived importance of the task
4. Autonomy, the degree of control the worker has over how the work
is performed
5. Feedback, the extent to which the worker knows how well the job is
being performed
Figure 6.1The Job Characteristics Approach
The job characteristics approach to job design provides a viable alternative to
job specialization. Five core job dimensions may lead to critical psychological
states that, in turn, may enhance motivation, performance, and satisfaction while
also reducing absenteeism and turnover.
Source: J. R. Hackman and G. R. Oldham, “Motivation through the Design of Work: Test of a
Theory,” Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 1976, Vol. 16, pp. 250–279. © Academic
Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Academic Press and the authors.
Increasing the presence of these dimensions in a job presumably
leads to higher motivation, higher-quality performance, higher
satisfaction, and lower absenteeism and turnover. A large number of
studies have been conducted to test the usefulness of the job
characteristics approach. The Southwestern Division of Prudential
Insurance, for example, used this approach in its claims division.
Results included moderate declines in turnover and a small but
measurable improvement in work quality. Other research findings
have not supported this approach as strongly. Thus, although the job
characteristics approach is one of the most promising alternatives to
job specialization, it is probably not the final answer.
Another alternative to job specialization is work teams. Under this
arrangement, a group is given responsibility for designing the work
system to be used in performing an interrelated set of tasks. In the
typical assembly-line system, the work flows from one worker to
the next, and each worker has a specified job to perform. In a work
team, however, the group itself decides how jobs will be allocated.
For example, the work team assigns specific tasks to members,
monitors and controls its own performance, and has autonomy over
work scheduling.
6-1bGrouping
Jobs: Departmentalization
The second element of organization structure is the grouping of jobs
according to some logical arrangement. The process of grouping jobs is
called departmentalization. When organizations are small, the ownermanager can personally oversee everyone who works there. As an
organization grows, however, personally supervising all the employees
becomes more and more difficult for the owner-manager. Consequently, new
managerial positions are created to supervise the work of others. Employees
are not assigned to particular managers randomly. Rather, jobs are grouped
according to some plan. The logic embodied in such a plan is the basis for
all departmentalization.
Functional Departmentalization
The most common base for departmentalization, especially among smaller
organizations, is by function. Functional departmentalization groups
together those jobs involving the same or similar activities. (The
word function is used here to mean organizational functions such as finance
and production, rather than the basic managerial functions, such as planning
or controlling.) This approach, which is most common in smaller
organizations, has three primary advantages. First, each department can be
staffed by experts in that functional area. Marketing experts can be hired to
run the marketing function, for example. Second, supervision is facilitated
because an individual manager needs to be familiar with only a relatively
narrow set of skills. And, third, coordinating activities inside each
department is easier.
On the other hand, as an organization begins to grow in size, several
disadvantages of this approach may emerge. For one, decision making tends
to become slower and morebureaucratic. Employees may also begin to
concentrate too narrowly on their own unit and lose sight of the total
organizational system. Finally, accountability and performance become
increasingly difficult to monitor. For example, determining whether a new
product fails because of production deficiencies or a poor marketing
campaign may not be possible.
Product Departmentalization
Product departmentalization, a second common approach, involves
grouping and arranging activities around products or product groups. Most
larger businesses adopt this form of departmentalization for grouping
activities at the business or corporate level. Product departmentalization has
three major advantages. First, all activities associated with one product or
product group can be easily integrated and coordinated. Second, the speed
and effectiveness of decision making are enhanced. Third, the performance
of individual products or product groups can be assessed more easily and
objectively, thereby improving the accountability of departments for the
results of their activities.
Product departmentalization also has two major disadvantages. For one,
managers in each department may focus on their own product or product
group to the exclusion of the rest of the organization. For example, a
marketing…
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