Organizational Design: Power Control and Bureaucracy

Part of setting up or revamping a business or organization is choosing a structural design that works for its goals and staff. You have to be aware of many determining factors, different design variations and, more importantly, various setbacks to be avoided. This free course on organizational design tackles these problems and will broaden your knowledge to ensure your organization’s long-term success. The course has two main parts - Power Control, and Design Options. The section on power control theory begins with an evaluation of John Child's strategic choice argument and featuring his suggestions and conclusions. You will study the case against the strategic choice and learn about the challenges against the contingency perspective. The power-control assumptions about organizational decision-making will also be discussed.  

Next, learn in detail the various power-control assumptions about decision making in an organization. See how to distinguish between power and authority, and describe several ways individuals or groups gain power in an organization. Study the ways organizational members exert power and learn about some behaviours they use to sustain it. Also, examine power-control models that describe how structures emerge, the interpretation of technology, and the environment's roles on organizational structure.

In the second part, the common elements of organizations will be discussed. You will learn about the five basic structural configurations, as well as the reasons why there should be a limited set of configurations in an organization. You will start with Simple Structure, Machine and Professional Bureaucracy, and Divisional Structure. Learn about their strengths, weaknesses while analyazing each of their characteristics. After that, you will be introduced to the last two structural configurations - Divisional Structure and Adhocracy. Their strengths and characteristics will likewise be examined, after which the five configurations will be compared. Next, study Max Weber's theory of bureaucracy, examining both its advantages and disadvantages, as well as the reasons why bureaucracy is still in use today. Then some arguments for and against bureaucracy by social psychologists Warren Bennis and Robert Miewald will be reviewed. You will understand why Warren Bennis concluded that bureaucracy is dying, and why Robert Miewald believes bureaucracy is still widely adopted. By the end of this course, you will be well-versed in choosing the type of organizational design structure that will fit your organization to ensure its smooth running, stability and longevity.