I've been working on macrameing a climbing ladder for the sugar snap peas I planted in the planter on my balcony. They're already 1/2 inch and growing like weeds, so it's a race against time to get it done. There are plastic shelves on the cement wall I'm going to hang them from - it's not like there's going to be a lot of weight hanging from them. So the first one is about 15" long. The shelves are 8" wide so I'm starting with that and widening it out as I go down. I don't know, but I may just need one of them judging by the width. I'm just sort of throwing it together so we'll see.
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This next text is a book chapter, as follows:
Bowditch, J. L. (1985) Chapter Eight: Macro-organizational behavior: structure, environment, organizational-environment relations. In Bowditch, J. L. A Primer on Organizational Behavior. New York, NY: John Wiley, p. 149-174.
And here is our helpful advance organizer:
"...[T]he chapter will outline some of the broad concerns of macro-organizational behavior in four areas: (1) organizational structure; (2) internal organizational dynamics; (3) organizational environments; and (4) organization-environment relations." (p. 150)
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"One of the key concepts underlying organizational structure is division of labor... Organizations may be differentiated in a number of ways:
1. Horizontal differentiation, where work is divided up on a particular level of an organizational hierarchy
2. Vertical differentiation, where work is divided up by levels of the organizational hierarchy, the distinction between tall and flat organization refers to whether it has many or few levels of heiarchy
3. Personal differentiation, where work is divided according to personal specialty (e.g., a law firm may have trial lawyers, probate lawyers, patent lawyers, admiralty or marine lawyers, and corporate lawyers)
4. Spatial differentiation, where work is divided according to geographical location (such as one company's automobile assembly plants scattered throoughout the country)" (p. 150)
So let's look at how this might have been in the Vienna mission. One example of how horizontal differentiation might have played out there would have been in the textbook writing crew, where they were each working on different textbooks - one on the evangelism textbook, another on the Old Testament survey textbook, etc. so that would have been a kind of horizontal differentiation, I think.
There weren't so many levels in the formal organizational hierarchy, but I'm not sure what the informal organizational diagram would look like. I think I've mentioned this before, but maybe just once or twice. I would say there was the board, the director, assistant director, department heads... then after that I'm not sure of the order but I expect the theologians would high up there and maybe the director's secretary. At any rate, most of the secretaries and the copy editing & art crew would have probably come in last, so that would have included me.
There wasn't really any place at the mission for personal differentiation, which was too bad for me, because that's exactly where I might have excelled. Even the theologians, I believe, had to pretty much be generalists in that they had to teach all of the courses as needed because there was a set schedule they had to keep as to what courses were taught when and where. So there wasn't much place for personal differentiation at the mission; you pretty much had to be a generalist, even if you were a specialist before coming.
There was some spatial differentiation, because there was the printing office in the USA and there were also a few missionaries actually living in Eastern Europe (remember this was still in the days of Communism). So there was some spatial differentiation with the mission.
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The next sub-section in the chapter is titled "Mechanistic and Organic Structures""Another way to view organizational structures is the extent to which the structure is rigid (routine) or flexible (nonroutine) in nature. Rigid organizational structures are referred to as mechanistic, and flexible structures are generally labeled organic. A mechanistic organizational structure is much like Weber's description of a bureacracy..., where (1) there is a clear definition of jobs, (2) senior administrators have more knowledge of problems facing an organization than those at lower levels, (3) standardized policies and procedures govern organizational decision making, and (4) rewards are determined by adherence to instructions from supervisors.
Organic organizational structures, sometimes referred to as adhocracies, are flexibly designed to cope with rapidly changing environments. Adhocracies are characterized by: 1) a deemphasis on formal job descriptions and specializations (individuals are involved in problem solving when they hae the knowledge to solve a particular problem); 2) there is no assumption that people in higher positions are better informed than those lower in the organization (many times the reverse is true); 3) horizontal relationships (across departments) are equal or more important than vertical, chain of command, relationships (departmental boundaries are flexible); 4) organizational atmosphere is more collegial (strict superior-subordinate relationships are de-emphasized); and 5) the form structure of the organization is fluid and changeable." (p. 152)
That's a longer piece of text to cite than I usually like to use, but I didn't see how I could use less. As I look this over I'm sort of torn about it. I think that people inside the system, especially the professional theologians might say they think the organization is more organic. I'm not sure about that, but I suspect that they'd at least say that there's a fair amount of organic qualities in it. I think they'd say they have professional freedom and are able to use their professional judgment to make certain kinds of decisions apart from management involvement and that their knowledge in certain areas might even be better or at least rival management's.
However, that being said, that wasn't my experience of the mission. My experience was that everyone had a defined position and specific work they were expected to accomplish and generally the work was given to them by someone(s) with more knowledge and/or power. I never saw where there was particular flexibility in the organizational structure, so I would have to say it was rigid. I also only witnessed and experienced a top-down approach to management, so there was never any appreciation for participatory management, for example. So to me organizational structure was something imposed upon me (mechanistic) rather than something I might participate in (organic).
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The next sub-heading is "General Structural Dimensions.""Centralization refers to the location of decision-making authority in an organization. A centralized organization is one in which decisions are concentrated at one or a few points; a decentralized structure disperses authority (low centralization) for making decisions throughout a number of positions in the organization." (p. 153)
In the Vienna mission decisions of any consequence were centralized. Certain others were given the authority, explicitly or otherwise, to make certain kinds of decisions under certain circumstances. For example, department heads could make some kinds of decisions, and perhaps different department heads could make different decisions depending on their department. Also, teams that went into Eastern Europe were vested with the authority to make certain impromtu decisions that had to be made while they were on their ministry trip.
Since the informal organization was so well developed in the mission, I think that some people not otherwise in leadership positions in the formal organization might have been in positions in the informal organization that also gave them some decision making rights, such as for security measures, for example.
I think on one hand decision-making was somewhat decentralized in the mission, but on the other thand the security controls tightly guarded things like decision making and so that maybe made it a sort of guarded decentralization. I'm not sure. It's not as if the leadership would have just given the staff a blank check - "Here, go make a decision and come back and let me know what you did." And it's not as if they'd start setting up worker councils to start looking into options as to how to keep the cost of textbook production down. I don't think so. So to say the mission's decision making process was decentralized is giving them more credit than they deserve for being democratic, which they most emphatically weren't.
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"Formalization is the extent to which expectations concerning job activities are standardized and explicit. The clearer and more detailed these specifications are for a particular role or task, the greater the degree of formalization. This dimension of organizaitonal structure, thus, reflects the amount of discretion that is built into particular roles and positions." (p. 153)The Vienna mission wanted me there for a 24/7 position and that's how it acted the whole time I was there. It wanted my undivided attention. Period. So in this case, if they wanted me for 24/7, then we have to really account for what they might want me to do for 24/7, right? Otherwise, why would they want my attention 24/7, right? They want my attention 24/7 for a reason, right? To do something, right? To do what? Hopefully not to do more of what I was doing 8 hours 5 days a week, because that was precious little all too often.
So were they going to formalize these 24/7 job activities? Were they going to make them explicit? I mean, I think I'm pretty good at dealing with ambiguity, but I do have my limits.
The point of the matter is that they were going to make all kinds of informal demands on me. I was moved around so much at work that to say I had formalized expectations at work was almost meaningless because why was I moved around so much? Then there's the issue of the extracurricular demands which were not all that clear but I did have discretion in them and I think they really should be included in my job description because they were expected of me - especially the things related to my boss' family.
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"Complexity refers to the different number of components or extent of differentiation there is in a particular organization." (p. 153)
The formal organization of the mission was not complex. But I think the informal organization was. Also, the environment and the mission's relationship to the environment was very complex. If you took away the mission (the work itself), the environment, the informal organization, then the barebones organizational diagram you'd be left with would not be complex.
