Organizational Structures and Behavior

There are three major factors that affect a company's organization structure; The Organization's Environment, Organization's Technology and Human Resources and the employment relationship. (George & Jones, 2005, Table 16.1) There are 5 different types of organization structures, Simple, functional, divisional, matrix and conglomerate. (George & Jones, 2005)

With each type of organization structure it has its advantages and disadvantages. These disadvantages can affect the company's bottom line.

Given the above information when I worked for Discover Card, they had a divisional structure by product. Although for top management it seemed as if this was ideal, this type of structure made it very difficult to communicate and develop procedures between the divisions. It was often, a customer would have questions about another product where as you would have to transfer them or put them on hold till you could find someone in that division. At times it was necessary to give them another number to call. This was very frustrating for both the customer and me.

In the above example, this is one effect that can hurt the company's bottom line. The customer was inquiring about a product, this could result in the sale, but the fact he called the main number and not the product division he was looking for caused him to have to wait and hold and then hang up and call another number. This could be a result of a loss of sale therefore affecting the company's bottom line.

Positive Reinforcement
"As a whole, positive reinforcement is better for the employee's, managers, organizations as a whole" (George & Jones). Through, positive reinforcement we can reward those employee's with good attitudes and who show up to work. Other employee's will see the rewards and benefits for showing up to work. The advantage to this type of reinforcement is that you encourage employees to strive for your approval though verbal and financial praise. The disadvantage of this type of reinforcement is employee's can become jealous, or the rewards can be of little value to some. To overcome these obstacles Managers will need to reward employee's appropriately.

Positive Reinforcement Programs to consider
A few ideas I have come up with is Bonus Vacation Day program, Deadline Program, and a Good Work Ethics Raise. The Bonus Vacation Day program would allow for 6 months consecutively in a row with no absents you would earn a bonus vacation day for the year. The Meeting Deadline Program would allow the company to purchase lunch for the day for the department or group of people working on the deadline. Good Work Ethics Raise program would allow a Department Manager to choose 1 person each year, to get a bonus raise for having good work ethics for the year. This Good Work Ethics program would take place in January of each year, and those whom would qualify must be employed with the company for at least 1 year service.

Someone's personality determines a pattern of the way a person feels, thinks or behaves (George). Nature determines by ones biological heritage, but as we develop, grow, and age, our life experiences or nurture can alter our personalities. (George). For instance a siblings growing up in the same home may have the same biological heritage and upbringing, but their own life experiences will make their personalities and choices they make different. Our personality's effect decisions we make every day. There are several different types of Abilities. Verbal, Numerical, Reasoning, Deductive, to see relationships, to remember, spatial, perceptual (George) some that can be measured though standardized tests. There has been extensive research and development to develop pen and paper tests (George).

Situational Context is the environment that surrounds the person making the decision (George). For example, your supervisor comes to you and asks you to focus on improving productively levels in your Pacific Northeast office. During your normal duties, you spend every spare minute you have looking at ways to improve the productively levels.

It is my opinion that everyone's personality may decide where and when they have lunch, however, it is the situational context can play a heavier role when it comes to performance in the workplace. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't want to please their supervisor even though your own personality may not agree with them.

REFERENCES

George, J.M & Jones G.R. (2005) Understand & Managing Organizational Behavior. Preston Publishing. Upper Saddle River, NJ.