Diploma in Organizational Theory and Structure

Running an enterprise can be exciting and inspiring. But when the survival of your enterprise is threatened and effective management and accountability are required, things could get chaotic unless you follow certain guidelines. Do you want to understand how organizational structures and strategies help to sustain businesses? Do you find it hard to manage members of an organization in such a way as to enable them to pursue organizational goals collectively and adapt to a changing organizational environments? Are you and your team in search of scientifically backed theories and case studies that you can experiment with and then, based on the results from these experiments, make thoughtful decisions that will impact your organization positively in the long run? Take this free online diploma course on organizational theory and structure to acquire the skills needed to achieve these goals. This course provides intermediate-level insights that are easy to grasp even when you’re just starting as a business owner. It begins with an overview of organizational theory and behaviour. You will examine the biological metaphor as a popular way of overviewing organizations, and also identify the two types of perspectives under it. These perspectives - the systems perspective and the life-cycle perspective - will be discussed in detail, viewing their stages, importance, and limitations.

Next, you will explore the evolution of organizational theories developing from the 1900s to the 1940s and 1970s. The historical and social context in which organizations evolved allowed not only for their development but also for their spread and growth, from individuals, families, and small-group productions to large organizations and structures. Each of the evolutionary stages that resulted in this growth will be evaluated to see how they have transformed organizations over time. Subsequently, you will examine organizational effectiveness or the degree to which an organization attains its short and long term goals. This includes a discussion on the different approaches to organizational effectiveness, describing their values, how managers can operationalize them, the key problems they have, and a comparison of all four of the approaches. You will learn about organizational strategy and identify various types of strategies, discerning their impacts on organizational structure.

Lastly, some contributions from notable organizational researchers will be considered such as Chandler's structure-follow-strategy thesis, Miles and Snow's four strategic types, and the strategy-structure theory. You examine the implications of structure from Porter's competitive strategies and Miller's strategy-structure framework. Afterwards, technology will be analyzed, studying its definition, impacts, and how it is measured in an organization. You will investigate contributions by Woodward and Perrow, and James Thompson on technology, examining influences on the technology-structure relationship. Also, you will study the effect of environmental uncertainty on complexity, formalization, and centralization, and consider some notable contributions from a few environmental researchers like Burns, Stalker, Twist, Lawrence and Lorsch, analyzing their research and conclusions from studying various organizations to achieve their goals. Are you ready to start learning about the determinants of organizational structure? Don't waste any more time: start this course today.