assignment of duties in organizing

What is Organizing? Definition, Features, Steps, Importance, Principles, and Tips

Table of Contents

What is Organizing?

Organizing in management is a pivotal function that produces the harmonious collaboration of human efforts and resources, aligning them purposefully to achieve set objectives. It entails structuring, grouping , and coordinating resources – be it finances, materials, machinery, or manpower – to work collectively toward a particular goal.

It’s about defining jobs, establishing relationships, and efficiently deploying resources to realize desired outcomes. Essentially, organizing is the art of architecting productive connections among tasks, people, and activities within an organization to ensure the effective implementation of plans and successful goal accomplishment.

Organizing is one of the important functions of management, others include planning , directing, starting, and controlling. It involves designing the organizational structure, including reporting relationships and communication channels, to facilitate the effective execution of tasks and the achievement of goals.

It ensures optimal utilization of resources and aligns efforts toward the desired outcomes. Effective organizing leads to increased efficiency, productivity, and overall success of the organization.

Objectives of Organizing

The six key objectives of the organizing function within management are:

• Effective Allocation of Roles and Responsibilities: Ensuring that each organizational member has a defined role and responsibility that contributes directly to the overall objectives.
• Establishing Productive Relationships: Fostering effective relationships among employees, various departments, and units to enhance collaboration and workflow.
• Efficient Implementation of Plans and Strategies: Structuring the organization in a manner that optimizes the execution of formulated plans and strategies.
• Directing Efforts Towards Common Objectives: Aligning individual and departmental efforts with the overarching organizational goals to maintain a unified direction.
• Optimal Resource Utilization: Ensuring that resources – human, financial, and material – are effectively used to achieve the set goals and objectives.
• Facilitating Goal Achievement: Creating an environment and structure that enhances the likelihood of successfully meeting organizational objectives.

Characteristics of Organizing

Let’s explore the five key features of the organizing function:

Activities Identification

Organizing involves identifying and recognizing the specific activities necessary to achieve organizational objectives. This step entails determining the tasks required for goal attainment.

Division of Labor

Work is assigned and distributed among employees based on their specialization, skills, and expertise. This division enhances efficiency, allowing individuals to focus on specific tasks they are best suited for.

Read More: Techniques For Group Decision Making Plus Pros/Cons

Grouping of Activities

Similar tasks or functions are grouped together into departments or units. This grouping allows for streamlined coordination and management of related activities.

Authority-Responsibility Relationship

A clear structure of authority and responsibility is established within the organization. This outlines who has the power to make decisions and ensures individuals are accountable for their assigned tasks.

Basis of Coordination

Organizing serves as the foundation for coordination. It establishes formal relationships between different levels of management , departments, and employees to facilitate seamless collaboration and cooperation in achieving organizational goals.

Process of Organizing

For effective organization of activities in the workplace, the completion of the following five steps is necessary. Let’s break down the steps involved in the organizing process in management:

Job design involves structuring tasks within a role to make them manageable and efficient. It’s like assembling a puzzle, figuring out how different tasks fit together to create a cohesive job.

Read More: 3 Conditions of Decision-Making

This step of organizing focuses on defining the tasks, duties, and responsibilities required for a particular position. It’s about making sure that a job is both achievable and meaningful, matching skills to tasks to ensure productivity and satisfaction.

Job Grouping

Once individual jobs are defined, the next step is grouping similar tasks or functions into departments or units. It’s similar to sorting items into categories for better organization.

By clustering similar tasks together, it becomes easier to manage and oversee them effectively. This grouping ensures that people with similar skills and expertise work together, fostering collaboration and specialization.

Establishing Reporting Relations

This step is about setting up the lines of communication and reporting within the organization. It’s like creating a roadmap for information flow.

Defining who reports to whom establishes a clear hierarchy and chain of command. This clarity ensures that communication channels are efficient, allowing for effective decision-making and problem-solving.

Distributing Authority

Authority distribution involves assigning decision-making power and responsibilities to specific roles or individuals. It’s like giving different keys to different doors in a building.

Delegating authority ensures that each person has the necessary power to fulfill their duties and make decisions within their scope. It’s about finding the right balance between giving autonomy and maintaining accountability.

Read More: 5 Functions of Management

Coordinating Activities

Coordinating activities is like conducting a music concert where different instruments harmonize to create beautiful music. This last organizing step involves ensuring that the various departments or units work together seamlessly toward the organization’s goals. It’s about aligning efforts, resources, and timelines to avoid conflicts and redundancies, and maximizing efficiency across the organization.

Importance of Organizing Function of Management

The organizing function of management is a crucial aspect of any organization. Here are the six importance of organizing to mention:

Enhanced Efficiency

Organizing streamlines workflows like a traffic controller directing vehicles. When tasks are arranged logically and people know what they’re responsible for, work gets done faster and smoother. It’s like a well-organized kitchen where ingredients are laid out, making cooking quicker. Each person knows their role, minimizing confusion and maximizing productivity.

Optimal Resource Utilization

Think of organizing as efficiently packing a suitcase for a trip. It’s about using every available space and item to its fullest potential. Similarly, organizing in management ensures that human resources, materials, time, and finances are used effectively. This prevents wastage and ensures that resources are directed toward achieving the organization’s goals.

Read More: What is Operational Decision?

Clarity in Responsibilities

Organizing provides a clear roadmap of who does what in an organization, similar to a team sport where each player knows their position. When roles and responsibilities are clearly defined, employees understand their duties and whom to turn to for guidance or decisions. This clarity reduces conflicts and enhances accountability.

Adaptability to Change

Just as a well-organized toolbox can handle various repairs, an efficiently organized organization can adapt to changes. Organizing creates a flexible structure where adjustments can be made swiftly. It’s like a company using its organized setup to embrace new technologies or market shifts without major disruptions.

Effective Decision-Making

Picture organizing as a well-arranged library where books are categorized for easy access. In an organized setting, information flows smoothly, aiding decision-making. When roles and reporting lines are clear, decisions are made faster and more accurately as the right people have the necessary information.

Read More: Policy Decision Making

Employee Development

Organizing isn’t just about structure; it’s also a pathway for individual growth. Similar to a career ladder offering different rungs to climb, organizing allows for the delegation of tasks and authority. This empowers employees, develops their skills, and prepares them for more significant responsibilities.

Principles of Organizing

Like management’s 14 principles , the organizing function also has 14 key principles. Let’s shortly look at them:

• Principle of Unity of Objective: All departments within an organization should work towards a shared goal. It’s akin to an orchestra playing in harmony, where each instrument contributes to the overall symphony of sound.
• Principle of Division of Labor: Specialization enhances efficiency. Similar to an assembly line in a factory, dividing tasks based on expertise allows individuals to focus on what they do best, increasing productivity.
• Principle of Span of Management: Effective supervision requires a limit to the number of subordinates a manager can efficiently oversee. It’s about balancing control without overwhelming the manager, much like a teacher managing a classroom.
• Principle of Coordination: Every department’s efforts must sync for seamless operations. This principle is akin to a relay race, where baton passes smoothly between runners to reach the finish line.
• Principle of Unity of Command: Each employee should receive instructions from only one superior. It’s like a military structure where soldiers follow commands from a single officer to avoid confusion or conflicting orders.
• Principle of Scalar Chain: There should be a clear line of authority from the top to the bottom of the organization. It’s similar to a chain of command, ensuring communication flows smoothly from the highest level to the lowest.
• Principle of Authority and Responsibility: With authority comes responsibility. Just as a captain on a ship has authority but is also responsible for the vessel’s safety, in organizations, the authority should match responsibility.
• Principle of Delegation: Managers should delegate authority to subordinates to empower them. It’s like a team captain passing the ball to a teammate best positioned to score.
• Principle of Functional Definition: Each position should have a defined scope of responsibilities. It’s similar to a job description outlining specific duties for a role, ensuring clarity in work expectations.
• Principle of Flexibility: Organizational structures should remain adaptable to change. This principle is like a rubber band stretching to accommodate new situations or challenges without breaking.
• Principle of Equity: Fair treatment for all employees is essential. It’s about ensuring that every team member receives fair opportunities and rewards, akin to equal slices of a pie for everyone.
• Principle of Order: Efficiency requires a structured arrangement of resources. It’s like a well-organized filing cabinet where everything has a place, making retrieval easy and quick.
• Principle of Stability: Constant changes can disrupt efficiency. Similar to a stable foundation for a building, organizational stability ensures continuity amidst external fluctuations.
• Principle of Initiative: Encouraging innovation and proactive approaches among employees. It’s like fostering a culture where individuals feel empowered to suggest improvements and take ownership of their tasks.

Read More: Initiative Principle of Management

Tips For Effective Organizing

Effective organizing is key to smooth operation and workplace productivity. Here are some strategies you can use to effectively organize your organization’s stuff:

Set Clear Objectives

Define specific goals and priorities. Clear objectives act as guiding stars for individuals and teams, helping them align their efforts and focus on what matters most. It’s like a roadmap steering everyone toward a common destination, ensuring everyone is on the same page.

Establish Efficient Systems

Develop streamlined processes and systems. Implementing efficient workflows and systems reduces redundancies, saves time, and minimizes errors. It’s akin to a well-oiled machine, where each part operates smoothly and cohesively.

Read More: Individual Decision Making

Delegate Wisely

Delegate tasks according to skill sets and capabilities. Assigning tasks to the right individuals maximizes productivity and fosters a sense of responsibility and ownership. It’s similar to a sports coach assigning positions based on players’ strengths, optimizing team performance.

Promote Communication

Encourage open and clear communication channels. Effective communication ensures that information flows seamlessly across departments, minimizing misunderstandings and enhancing collaboration. It’s like a well-connected network, ensuring everyone stays informed and connected.

Regular Evaluation and Adaptation

Continuously assess and adapt organizational strategies. Regular reviews and adaptations allow for course corrections, ensuring that the organization remains agile and responsive to changes. It’s similar to a compass that constantly adjusts to stay on the right path despite changing landscapes.

Implementing these tips fosters an environment conducive to efficient organizing in the workplace. They promote clarity, efficiency, collaboration, and adaptability, contributing to a more productive and dynamic work environment.

Read Next: Personal Decision-Making in Management

Sujan Chaudhary is a BBA  graduate. He loves to share his business knowledge with the rest of the world. While not writing, he will be found reading and exploring the world.

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People Management Basics: How to Assign Tasks to Your Subordinates

Artem Albul

Why a Manager Should Know How to Assign Tasks to Subordinates

Can competent task assignment skills help grow a unicorn.

Perhaps every startup founder wants to grow a unicorn. But how to do that? What to focus on? Should founders and managers focus on basic people management skills, for example, on competent assignment of tasks?

Seems like these days founders and top managers are focused mostly on opportunities that arise from innovative technologies, such as: digitalization, artificial intelligence, big data, blockchain, IoT, augmented reality, and so on.

Will it help their startups to become unicorns?

No doubts, new technologies bring a lot of business opportunities, competitive advantages and dramatically change our lives.

What do world-class management scientists say?

However, the research of Sloan School of Management, Stanford University and Harvard Business School professors (published in the September–October 2017 issue (pp.120–127) of Harvard Business Review) shows: « it doesn’t matter how brilliant its strategy is, if a firm can’t get the operational basics right ».

« it doesn’t matter how brilliant its strategy is, if a firm can’t get the operational basics right »

They studied 12,000 firms in 34 countries and discovered that good operational management correlates with strong performance , as follows :

• +25% faster annual growth
• +75% productivity

They also have discovered, that:

• Only 6% of firms have exceptionally good management
• Management quality is significantly higher in organizations where the CEO is more dedicated to employees, than to external stakeholders
• Achieving operational excellence is still a massive challenge for many organizations
• Competent management is not easy to replicate. Mainly due to resistance to organizational change

My experience working with managers in more than 20 countries

It’s hard to measure exact percentage of managers who assign tasks improperly. Because each manager may assign dozens of tasks every day. Some may be assigned correctly, some may not. It is difficult to collect consolidated statistics for a region or country.

However, according to my experience, the number of incorrectly assigned tasks is much greater. And the percentage of managers who do not know how (or do not want to spend time) to assign tasks to subordinates correctly also significantly exceeds the percentage of those who do this properly. In terms of figures, I witnessed how incorrectly assigned tasks led up to 6-digit losses for business.

That is why I am convinced this topic worth attention of managers of any level and experience.

Main Misbelief Among Managers’ When They Assign Tasks to Subordinates

Some managers stay under the misbelief that subordinates must follow their instructions. Just because: “I am your manager, so you must do what I said.”

I think this delusion exists because some managers do not want to take into account the simple fact that people are not robots. People tend to have free will and their own opinion, based on their experience. Thus, they are not willing to blindly follow instructions with no idea what they are doing and why. They may not admit this to their manager directly, but may quietly sabotage her/his tasks. Thereby, you as a manager and leader must sell your idea to subordinates, persuade them to follow you and your instructions, explain why and what you expect them to do, giving employees a certain freedom of creativity in choosing the way to accomplish an assigned task.

Assign or Delegate?

On various online learning platforms and in popular business media you may encounter some articles on management where “to assign” and “to delegate” are being used as interchangeable synonyms. Whereas these concepts are not indeed identical.

The main differences between “to assign” and “to delegate” concepts in management

Thereby, delegation is a broader concept, which includes:

• Granting of authority and resources
• Creating responsibility
• Assignment of tasks and duties

Thus, delegation is the distribution of authority (responsibility comes from authority) and resources to your subordinates, while they accept accountability to you for their performance.

Basic Algorithm of Assigning Tasks to Subordinates

If you would like your subordinates to accomplish your tasks in strict accordance with your instructions, you must assign the tasks by following these 5 stages.

Basic algorithm of assigning tasks to subordinates

¹ In this article, obviously, I can share only general recommendations. If you are looking for exact step-by-step action plan relevant to your unique situation, I would advise you to engage a personal mentor or coach . Thus, you will get recommendations that suit your particular case.

Key Skills for Successful Implementation of the Algorithm in Managers’ Daily Work

As you can see at 3 stages out of 5 a manager should ask the right questions and listen to the answers . However, according to my experience, some managers are confident that: “Listening is what a subordinate should do. And a manager should give instructions and orders.” This is a widespread errancy. In reality, active listening skills and ability to ask the right questions are among the most important competencies of a manager. It may take years to develop these vital skills if a manager will decide to learn the hard way. Still, there is an easier and shorter way, but it will require investment in training under the guidance of a mentor or a coach.

Important Recommendations Regarding Assigning Tasks to Subordinates

The algorithm above is a necessary base. However, in addition to this base, there are several important recommendations that may significantly affect the success of a task. So, I would recommend every manager to take the following into account when assigning a task to a subordinate:

• Availability of resources (money, time, people, technology and information) to complete the task. If the resources belong to another employee or manager in the company, then you need to coordinate with him the transfer of the required amount of these resources to the task performer.
• To discuss a problem is much better than to give an order . Modern competent leaders never order. Because it’s not effective. The main problem with orders is that an employee does not know why and who needs the result of his work. It demotivates. In addition, orders do not allow the employee to analyze the situation, show initiative and take responsibility. Therefore, the employee will not be focused on the result. Moreover, if something goes wrong, the employee will not try harder and will not take the initiative to remedy the situation. In the end, the employee does not develop, so does not the company. Thus, the manager with his own hands (orders) destroys motivation of subordinates, blocks professional growth of employees and suppresses company development.
• Leave plenty of space for initiative . Safeguard the opportunity for employees to find their own creative approach to achieve the task goal. Encourage initiative. Never ever go in for micromanagement .

“Never ever go in for micromanagement”

4. Ask employee open-ended questions . While discussing a problem or a task objective with your subordinate do not give ready-made solutions. Instead ask open-ended questions, for example:

a. How do you plan to solve the problem (achieve the objective)?

b. What approaches, in your opinion, can be applied to solve the issue (fulfil the task)?

c. Which approach do you prefer?

d. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each approach?

e. Which potential risks may arise?

f. What help do you need from me or other colleagues?

This is a great way to raise your authority among subordinates, because thereby you demonstrate trust, allowing your team to analyze the problem, as well as to assess risks and choose their own action plan to solve the issue or to achieve the objective. Moreover, in this way you as a manager develop your own coaching skills.

By the way, in some cases, when the cost of a mistake does not exceed a value of a lesson learned, you can consciously allow an employee to make the mistake. Sometimes these lessons are the most effective way to teach and learn. And sometimes it is cheaper than conducting a master class with an external coach.

A manager who allows his subordinates to learn by making mistakes in a controlled environment is a priceless diamond. If you are lucky enough to work alongside a manager like this, her/his lessons will become, perhaps, the most outstanding experience in your professional career. Do not miss the opportunity to become such a leader for your own team .

“A manager who allows his subordinates to learn by making mistakes in a controlled environment is a priceless diamond. Do not miss the opportunity to become such a leader for your own team”

5. Performance control . Inform the employee how you will control the execution of the task. Will there be an intermediate control? What report form you need? If in written, in which format?

6. Be positive and polite with subordinates. Negative or arrogant tone of speech, increase in voice or shouting, insults and threats when assigning tasks to employees are all signs of manager’s incompetence. Tasks that were assigned in such a way will not be performed well, and the team will not be highly productive. If you notice such destructive behavior in yourself, then you need to develop your self-control and people management skills. It’s too early for you to manage a team.

7. Provide feedback . Do not forget to thank your subordinate or team, if the work is done really good. Recognition of merit (even with the ordinary “thank you”) is important for strengthening your authority and influence as a leader. In case your team or subordinate failed, provide constructive feedback. Find out an 8-point checklist for a manager on how to deal with employee mistakes in my article “ People Management Basics: How to Deal with Employees’ Mistakes .”

Common Mistakes in Assigning Tasks to Subordinates

If you do not follow the algorithm and important recommendations when you assign a task to an employee, then there are very small odds that your task will be done according to your expectations. Each of the common mistakes comes from breaking the algorithm or recommendations described above.

Here are the most common mistakes that I have encountered consulting managers:

• Using orders and instructions instead of asking questions and listening to answers
• Asking closed-end questions
• Assumption that subordinates should guess what you mean
• Ignoring SMART criteria
• Assigning a task completely ignoring one or more stages from the algorithm above
• Replacing specific deadlines with indistinct terms, for example: “quickly,” “urgently,” “when you have time,” “need to be done yesterday”, etc.
• Providing no examples and clarifications
• Not discussing alternatives
• Not answering employee’s clarifying questions. As well as providing formal or aggressive answers, for example: “Because I said so!”
• Ignoring well done work
• Asking another person to fulfil the same task

Modern Mass Propaganda of Managerial Incompetence

A very good example of how managers should not assign tasks to their subordinates you may find in the movie “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006).

In this movie you can find 10 out of 11 common mistakes I mentioned above. And the consequences of assigning tasks in such a way are very much softened in the movie. In real life, you would not be able to complete a single task assigned to you in such a way.

Unfortunately, there are too many bosses who assign tasks in a way depicted in “The Devil Wears Prada” (2006).

In my opinion, this movie is a good example of modern mass propaganda of managerial incompetence (you may read more about this problem in my article “ Why Develop Your Managerial Competence, When You Can Just Throw a Chair in Subordinate’s Head? ”).

Sadly, our society underestimates the power and menace from such managerial incompetence propaganda. As a result, we may admit an increase in the number of managers who do not know how to assign tasks to subordinates competently. Or even worse: some managers know it, but nevertheless are convinced that this knowledge is useless.

Conclusions

I strongly believe that despite of all the difficulties the number of competent managers will grow thanks to the hard work of many management scientists and practitioners around the world. Therefore, in particular, more tasks will be assigned competently. And this, in turn, will lead to:

• more satisfaction from work
• healthier environment in your team or company
• growth in the quality of work
• increase in labor productivity
• decrease of losses from managerial incompetence

To my mind, all these positive changes will result in noticeably enhanced advantages and key business indicators of every company.

Besides, according to the research of leading business schools and universities I mentioned above, leaders who have focused on strengthening their managerial competencies (i.e., assigning tasks to subordinates, building a competent salary policy , dealing with employees’ mistakes ) increase chances for their companies to get +75% productivity and +25% faster annual growth.

About the author:

• achieved outstanding results with more than 13 products and services in 7 industries ;
• conducted international business development in India, China and over 20 EEMEA countries ;
• managed products of more than 30 world’s leading brands : Google Chromecast, ZTE, NVidia, AMD, Samsung, Kodak, PocketBook, Sapphire, BlackBerry, Casio, ASUS, Gainward, Palit, Leadtek, PNY, TP-Link, Netgear, Tenda and others.

Discover more on LinkedIn or on TWA Consulting .

The article originally published on TWA Consulting blog on July 30, 2019.

Written by Artem Albul

Management and BizDev Consultant | Author | Coach

Text to speech

Module 9: Management

Learning outcomes.

• Describe the organizing function of management
• Differentiate between divisional, functional, and matrix structures

The Nature of Organizing

Before a plan can be implemented, managers must organize the assets of the business to execute the plan efficiently and effectively. Understanding specialization and the division of work is key to this effort, since many of the “assets” are employees. Recall what Henri Fayol wrote about the division of work:

The specialization of the workforce according to the skills of a person, creating specific personal and professional development within the labour force and therefore increasing productivity, leads to specialization which increases the efficiency of labour. By separating a small part of work, the workers speed and accuracy in its performance increases. This principle is applicable to both technical as well as managerial work. [1]

Where workers are specialists, managers can group those employees into departments so their work is appropriately directed and coordinated. In short, work should be divided, and the right people should be given the right jobs to reduce redundancy and inefficiency.

Benefits of Organizing

While the planning function of managers is essential to reaching business goals, lots of careful planning can go to waste if managers fail to organize the company’s assets and resources adequately. Some of the benefits of organizing include the following:

• Organization harmonizes employees’ individual goals with the overall objectives of the firm. If employees are working without regard for the big picture, then the organization loses the cohesion necessary to work as a unit.
• A good organizational structure is essential for the expansion of business activities. Because organizational structure improves tracking and accountability, that structure helps businesses determine the resources it needs to grow. Similarly, organization is essential for product diversification, such as the development of a new product line.
• Organization aids business efficiency and helps reduce waste. In order to maximize efficiency, some businesses centralize operations while others arrange operations with customer or regional demands in mind.
• A strong organizational structure makes “chain of command” clear so employees know whose directions they should follow. This in turn improves accountability, which is important when outcomes are measured and analyzed.

This is a short list of the benefits that managers (and businesses) realize when they take the time to organize. When it comes to the particular organizational structure a business follows, a variety of factors, such as size, industry, and manager preference come into play.

PRactice Question

Types of organizational structure.

Organizations can be structured in various ways, with each structure determining the manner in which the organization operates and performs. An organization’s structure is typically represented by an  organization chart  (often called simply an “org chart”)—a diagram showing the interrelationships of its positions. This chart highlights the chain of command, or the authority relationships among people working at different levels. It also shows the number of layers between the top and lowest managerial levels. Organizational structure also dictates the  span of control  or the number of subordinates a supervisor has. An organization with few layers has a wide span of control, with each manager overseeing a large number of subordinates; with a narrow span of control, only a limited number of subordinates reports to each manager. The structure of an organization determines how the organization will operate and perform.

Divisional Structure

One way of structuring an organization is by division. With this structure, each organizational function has its own division.

U.S. Department of Energy organization chart: The DOE organization chart shows a divisional structure with different divisions under each of three under-secretaries for energy. Each of the three divisions is in charge of a different set of tasks: environmental responsibilities, nuclear-energy responsibilities, or research responsibilities.

Each division can correspond to products or geographies of the organization. Each division contains all the necessary resources and functions within it to support that particular product line or geography (for example, its own finance, IT, and marketing departments). Product and geographic divisional structures may be characterized as follows:

• Product departmentalization :   A divisional structure organized by product departmentalization means that the various activities related to the product or service are under the authority of one manager. If the company builds luxury sedans and SUVs, for example, the SUV division will have its own sales, engineering, and marketing departments, which are separate from the departments within the luxury sedan division.
• Geographic departmentalization : Geographic departmentalization involves grouping activities based on geography, such as an Asia/Pacific or Latin American division. Geographic departmentalization is particularly important if tastes and brand responses differ across regions, as it allows for flexibility in product offerings and marketing strategies (an approach known as localization).

Functional Structure

In a  functional structure , a common configuration, an organization is divided into smaller groups by areas of specialty (such as IT, finance, operations, and marketing). Some refer to these functional areas as “silos”—entities that are vertical and disconnected from one another. Accordingly, the company’s top management team typically consists of several functional heads (such as the chief financial officer and the chief operating officer). Communication generally occurs within each functional department and is transmitted across departments through the department heads.

Functional structure organizational chart.

Functional departments are said to offer greater operational efficiency, because employees with shared skills and knowledge are grouped together according to the work they do. Each group of specialists can therefore operate independently, with management acting as the point of cross-communication between functional areas. This arrangement allows for increased specialization.

One disadvantage of this structure is that the different functional groups may not communicate with one another, which can potentially decrease flexibility and innovation within the business. Functional structures may also be susceptible to tunnel vision, with each function seeing the organization only from within the frame of its own operation. Recent efforts to counteract these tendencies include using teams that cross traditional departmental lines and promoting cross-functional communication.

Functional structures appear in a variety of organizations across many industries. They may be most effective within large corporations that produce relatively homogeneous goods. Smaller companies that require more adaptability and innovation may feel that communication and creativity is limited by the silos that result from functional structures.

Matrix Structure

The  matrix structure  is a type of organizational structure in which individuals are grouped by two different operational perspectives at the same time; this structure has both advantages and disadvantages but is generally best employed by companies large enough to justify the increased complexity.

Matrix structure with geographic and product (SBU) structure.

In a matrix structure, the company is organized by both product and function. Product lines are managed horizontally, and functions are managed vertically. This means that each function—e.g., research, production, sales, and finance—has separate internal divisions for each product. In matrix organizations, the company is grouped by the perspectives it deems most appropriate. Common organizational perspectives include function and product, function and region, or region and product. In an organization grouped by function and product, for example, each product line will have management that corresponds to each function. If the organization has three functions and three products, the matrix structure will have nine (3×3) potential managerial interactions. This example illustrates how inherently complex matrix structures are compared to other, more linear structures.

Proponents of matrix management argue that this structure allows team members to share information more readily across task boundaries, which addresses the silo problem of functional management. Matrix structures also allow for specialization, which can increase depth of knowledge and enable individuals to be assigned according to project needs.

A disadvantage of the matrix structure is the increased complexity in the chain of command when employees are assigned to both functional and project managers. This arrangement can result in a higher manager-to-worker ratio, which, in turn, can increase costs or lead to conflicting employee loyalties. It can also create a gridlock in decision making if a manager on one end of the matrix disagrees with another manager. Blurred authority in a matrix structure can hamper decision making and conflict resolution.

Matrix structures should generally only be used when the operational complexity of the organization warrants it. A company that operates in various regions with various products may require interaction between product development teams and geographic marketing specialists—suggesting a matrix may be beneficial. Larger companies with a need for a great deal of cross-departmental communication generally benefit the most from this model.

Practice Question

• Fayol, H. (1949).  General and Industrial Management  (C. Storrs, Trans.). London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons ↵
• Revision and adaptation. Authored by : Linda Williams and Lumen Learning. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Practice Questions. Authored by : Nina Burokas. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• System. Provided by : Pixabay. Located at : https://pixabay.com/en/system-network-news-connection-954973/ . License : CC0: No Rights Reserved
• Common Organizational Structures from Boundless Business. Provided by : Boundless. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-business/chapter/common-organizational-structures/ . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Image: Matrix Structure with Geographic and Product (SBU) Structure. Authored by : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-principlesofmanagement/chapter/common-organizational-structures/. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-principlesofmanagement/chapter/common-organizational-structures/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image: Functional Structure Organizational Chart. Authored by : David J. Thompson, PhD, and Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wmopen-principlesofmanagement/chapter/common-organizational-structures/ . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Image: DOE Organization Chart. Provided by : US Department of Energy. Located at : https://www.energy.gov/leadership/organization-chart . License : Public Domain: No Known Copyright

• Process of Organizing

One of the most important functions of a manager is organizing the work of all of his employees. Organizing is one of the toughest and most important functions of management. Let us learn more about organizing and the process of organizing.

First, let us understand the concept of organizing. Organizing essentially consists of establishing a division of labor. The managers divide the work among individuals and group of individuals. And then they coordinate the activities of such individuals and groups to extract the best outcome.

Organizing also involves delegating responsibility to the employees along with the authority to successfully accomplish these tasks and responsibilities. One major aspect of organizing is delegating the correct amounts of responsibilities and authority.

Now, as one of the most important functions of management, organizing follows a meticulous process. The following are the steps in the process of organizing,

Browse more Topics under Organising

• Intro to Organisation and its Importance
• Types of Organisation
• Organisation Structure
• Decentralisation

1] Identifying the Work

The obvious first step in the process of organizing is to identify the work that has to be done by the organization. This is the ground level from which we will begin. So the manager needs to identify the work and the tasks to be done to achieve the goals of the organization.

Identification of the work helps avoid miscommunication, overlapping of responsibilities and wastage of time and effort.

2] Grouping of Work

For the sake of a smooth flow of work and smooth functioning of the organization, similar tasks and activities should be grouped together. Hence we create departments within the company and divisions within each department. Such an organization makes the functioning of the company way more systematic.

Depending on the size of the organization and the volume of work, an organization can have several department and divisions. And every department has a manager representing them at the top-level of the management.

In smaller organizations sometimes these departments are clubbed together under one manager.

3] Establish Hierarchy

The next step in the process of organizing is to establish the reporting relationships for all the individual employees of the company. So a manager establishes the vertical and horizontal relationships of the company.

This enables the evaluation and control over the performances of all the employees in a timely manner. So if rectifications need to be made, they can be made immediately.

4] Delegation of Authority

Authority is basically the right an individual has to act according to his wishes and extract obedience from the others. So when a manager is assigned certain duties and responsibilities, he must also be delegated authority to carry out such duties effectively.

If we only assign the duties, but no authority he will not be able to perform the tasks and activities that are necessary. So we must always assign authority and clearly specify the boundaries of the duties and the authority which has been delegated.

5] Coordination

Finally, the manager must ensure that all activities carried out by various employees and groups are well coordinated. Otherwise, it may lead to conflicts between employees, duplication of work and wastage of time and efforts. He must ensure all the departments are carrying out their specialized tasks and there is harmony in these activities. The ultimate aim is to ensure that the goal of the organization is fulfilled.

Question on Process of Organizing

Q: Delegation of responsibility and _____ go hand in hand

• none of the above

Ans: The correct option is C. Delegation of responsibility must be backed with the delegation of authority to help fulfill such responsibilities.

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How to Delegate Effectively: 9 Tips for Managers

• 14 Jan 2020

Delegation is a vital management skill . But for some, it’s the hardest to put into practice.

There are several reasons why managers may shy away from delegating work. They might:

• Think it would take longer to explain the task than actually completing it themselves
• Want to feel indispensable to their team by being the keeper of specific knowledge
• Enjoy completing certain projects so prefer not to reassign them
• Feel guilty about adding more work onto another employee’s to-do list
• Lack confidence or trust in who they need to transfer the project to
• Believe that they’re the only ones who can do the job right

Whatever the reason, it’s important to continue honing the skill, as refusing to delegate can have negative consequences. Not only will you overload your schedule and prioritize the wrong tasks, but your employees will miss out on valuable learning and growth opportunities.

Access your free e-book today.

What Is Delegation and Why Is It Important?

Delegation refers to the transfer of responsibility for specific tasks from one person to another.

From a management perspective, delegation occurs when a manager assigns specific tasks to their employees. By delegating those tasks to team members, managers free up time to focus on higher-value activities while also keeping employees engaged with greater autonomy.

According to a Gallup study , CEOs who excel in delegating generate 33 percent higher revenue. These executives know they can’t accomplish everything alone and position their team to tackle tasks they’re confident they’ll achieve—in turn empowering employees, boosting morale, and increasing productivity. In the process, CEOs free up their time to focus on activities that will yield the highest returns and grow the company.

Here are nine ways you can start delegating more effectively to cultivate high-performing teams.

9 Delegation Tips for Managers

1. know what to delegate.

Not every task can be delegated. For example, performance reviews or any personnel matters should be handled by you. After all, hiring the right talent and knowing each employee’s strengths and weaknesses will ultimately make you better at assigning deliverables and transferring responsibility to the appropriate team members.

Several other day-to-day activities don’t require your oversight, though. Is there a task you regularly tackle despite knowing your co-worker is better equipped to complete it? Would assigning the project to other employees help bolster their careers? If there’s someone who could do the work better, or you think this could be a teachable moment, delegate. It will show you trust and value your team, while also giving you time to focus on more strategic projects.

2. Play to Your Employees’ Strengths and Goals

Every employee should have goals they’re working toward, and within those goals are opportunities to delegate. For example, maybe you have a direct report who wants to gain management experience. Is there an intern they could start supervising, or a well-defined project they can own the execution of? The type of work you delegate could factor into their professional development plan.

For other tasks, there’s likely someone on your team with the specific skill set needed to achieve the desired result. Leverage that and play to your employees’ strengths. When someone has a higher chance of excelling, they’re more motivated and engaged , which then benefits the entire business.

Related: How to Become a Better Manager

3. Define the Desired Outcome

Simply dumping work onto someone else’s plate isn’t delegating. The projects you hand off should come with proper context and a clear tie into the organization’s goals.

“You’ve got to have real clarity of objective,” says Harvard Business School Professor Kevin Sharer in the online Management Essentials course . That includes having alignment on “what does good look like” and by what timeline, and “the technique of measuring accomplishment.”

Before anyone starts working on a project, they should know what they need to complete and by when, including the metrics you’ll use to measure the success of their work.

4. Provide the Right Resources and Level of Authority

If the person you’re delegating work to needs specific training, resources, or authority to complete the assigned project, it’s your role as a manager to provide all three. Setting someone up for an impossible task will frustrate both sides; your colleague won’t be able to achieve the desired outcome, and then you’ll likely need to put that work back on your to-do list.

This is also where you need to fight the urge to micromanage . Telling your co-worker, step-by-step, how you would accomplish the task and then controlling each part of the process won’t enable them to learn or gain new skills. Focus instead on what the desired end goal is, why the task is important, and help address any gaps between the outcome and their current skill set.

5. Establish a Clear Communication Channel

While you want to avoid micromanaging, you do want to establish a communication channel so that the person you’re delegating to feels comfortable asking questions and providing progress updates.

“You’ve got to have some way to communicate so that the person you delegated to can come back to you and report,” says Sharer in the Management Essentials course . “You’ve got to have some way along the way to see how things are going. It isn’t fire and forget. That is, ‘I just give you the task and I don’t worry about it anymore. We’ve got to have some way to monitor the progress along the way without me getting in your way.’”

Setting up regular check-ins and providing feedback throughout the project can help with this.

6. Allow for Failure

This step is particularly important for the perfectionists who avoid delegating because they think their way is the only way to get the work done. You need to allow for failure—not because your employees might fail, but because it will enable experimentation and empower the people you’re assigning tasks to, to take a new approach.

If you’re open to new ideas and approaches to the work, you’ll have an easier time delegating when able.

7. Be Patient

As a manager, you likely have more years of experience in your field. Because of this, a task you can complete in 30 minutes might take an employee a full hour the first time they complete it.

You might be tempted to refrain from delegating certain tasks knowing that you can get them done faster, but be patient with your employees. Think back to the first time you completed a specific task early on in your career. You probably weren’t as efficient as you are now; your time management skills have improved.

As you continue to delegate and your employees become more familiar with the tasks that need to be completed, you’ll notice that the work will get done faster over time.

Related: 7 Strategies for Improving Your Management Skills

8. Deliver (and Ask For) Feedback

In addition to monitoring progress, you should also deliver feedback to your employees after the tasks you’ve delegated are complete.

If a task wasn’t completed as assigned, don’t be afraid to offer constructive criticism. Your employees can take this feedback and make changes the next time a similar task is assigned. On the other hand, remember to provide positive feedback and show your appreciation when a task was done well.

To ensure you’re delegating effectively, you’ll also want to ask your team for any feedback that they can give you. Ask your employees if you provided clear instructions and determine if there’s anything you can do to better delegate in the future.

9. Give Credit Where It’s Due

After you’ve delegated tasks and they’ve been seen through to completion, credit those who achieved the work.

“Recognizing that success is because of your team is not only right, but it has the added benefit of making those around you more engaged—making you even more successful,” writes HBS Online Executive Director Patrick Mullane for Richtopia. “It’s counter-intuitive, but not claiming success for yourself will lead to more future wins.”

The more you thank and credit those you’ve delegated work to, the more likely it is they will want to help you on other projects in the future.

Honing Your Delegation Skills

Delegating isn’t easy; it’s a skill that must be practiced and honed over time. But the better you become at aligning the right people with the right tasks and responsibilities, the more effective you’ll become at your job as a manager.

Are you interested in further improving your managerial skills? Download our free leadership and management e-book to find out how. Also, explore our eight-week online Management Essentials course , which will provide you with real-world tools and strategies to excel in decision-making, implementation, organizational learning, and change management.

This post was updated on June 2, 2021. It was originally published on January 14, 2020.

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6 Organizing

Learning Objectives

The purpose of this chapter is to:

• 1) Introduce the organizing function of management
• 2) Describe the resources needed to achieve organizational goals
• 3) Provide an overview of how structure is needed to implement a gameplan

Organizing is the process of assembling and assigning the human, financial, physical, informational, and other resources needed to achieve goals (Bateman & Snell, 2013).  At this point in the management process, the planning function has been utilized.  The planning should have resulted in both an in-depth analysis of the internal and external environments, as well as a gameplan that flows from that analysis.  What’s need now is to put a structure around that gameplan, and to commit the resources necessary to achieve that gameplan.  The purpose of the organizing function is to do just that, to make the fruits of the planning process come to life.

Types of Resources

The term resource can be conceptualized as any element or asset that can be used to help the organization or an individual function effectively.  Resources are what allow an organization to function.  Imagine a firm without any money, no people, no structure, office space, ability to communicate,

or even the authority to make decisions.  This type of organization would not have any means to operate, or function in any way.  This would analogous to a car without a motor, access to gasoline, a driver, or wheels.  Organizations need human, financial, physical, and informational resources to make them go.

Human resources include the personnel that make up the organization’s membership.  For a corporation this means the paid employees.  For a football team, this is the roster and coaching staff.  Some scholars argue that the human element of the organization are the source of competitive advantage (Hagen, Udeh, & Wilkie, 2011).  The human resources carry out the gameplan.  They make the phone calls.  They travel to see clients.  They reconcile the inventory.  They make the decisions regarding day to day operations.  To successfully leverage human resources means first of hiring the right people.  Once you have the “right” resources procured, the next task is to train them, and as we will see with the leading function of management, to motivate and inspire them.  Organizational culture falls under the management of the human resources of the organization.  Culture can either be a source of immense advantage, or a hindrance to operating effectively.

Financial resources equate to the access to capital a firm has.  This resource comes from several sources.  Primarily, organizations generate income through delivery of a service or good.  Revenues from sale of goods allows an organization to grow and increase their access to financial resources.  The basic premise here is they take raw materials, put them through a process of some kind, and then deliver that product to society.  If society is willing to pay more for the finished product than the raw materials used to make it, the organization has created value.  Imagine crude oil sitting under millions of gallons of salt water and tons of earth on the sea floor.  Consumers cannot access and process this raw material on their own.  Oil companies make their money because they have the access and distribution that consumers do not.  When consumer pump the gas into their car, the value created by the organization is realized.   A secondary source of financial resources is credit.  Most organizations do not operate under a cash-only model because borrowing money from a lender allows for increased return on investment.  Organizations also receive resources through donations.  Non-profits such

as Operation Underground Railroad receive financial resources from private donations.  Their organizational mission is to save children around the world who are victims of human trafficking, and they achieve this by leveraging donations received as their primary source of financial resources.  Most non-profit organizations operate under this model since the inception of non-profits.  The Roman Catholic Church has implemented this strategy for 2,000 years.

A final method that organizations receive financial resources is through subsidies.  The U.S. government for examples, provides grants or loans to a handful of industries such as agriculture, oil, healthcare, automobile, ethanol, housing, and many more.  These organizations increase access to financial resources through tax dollars given to them.

Physical resources are the tangible assets that allow an organization to create a product or service.  This includes the office space, working space, and the materials the organization uses to create a product.  Physical resources are important in manufacturing and service industries alike.  Processing raw materials requires equipment, land, and a building in which to operate.   Service industries even at the most basic level such as consulting, require a phone, computer, printer, and probably pen and paper.

Informational resources include the knowledge that organization creates and retains regarding its operation and mission.   This information includes

copyrights, intellectual property, as well as internal processes that give an organization a competitive advantage.  Understanding how to do something is an informational resource.  This knowledge can be generated through organizational learning after making major mistakes or successes.  It can be a result of in-depth analysis.  Financial corporations spend a lot of money on salaries for market analysts so that they can create models to predict what the markets will do.  This analysis is a resource the organization can use to pursue its goals.  For example, Great Alaska Adventure Lodge, based in Sterling Alaska, provides fishing and hiking expeditions on the Kenai Peninsula.  They place value in the knowledge the guides have in delivering safe and entertaining excursions for their clients.  A fishing guide who understands water conditions, safe boating practice, and how to attract fish is leveraging informational resources.  A hiking guide who knows flora, fauna, and can share history and jokes, is using informational resources.  Great Alaska relies on this as a resource and is willing to hire guides who possess this knowledge.

Other organizational resources that warrant mention in a focus on the organizing function of management include the goodwill an organization creates through philanthropy, reputation in how they conduct their business, and the external relationships they have with outside stakeholders that they can leverage to pursue their goals.  This includes the rapport they have with customers to complete a sale, a government agent to help navigate a compliance question, or even a supplier who can provide favorable trading terms.

Finally, the concept of authority has been conceptualized as an organizational resource.  Authority is defined as the ability to make decisions.   This entails all of the decisions to make decisions from the top level of the organization regarding direction to the choices that individuals make regarding how they spend their time throughout the day.  A study conducted by Liberman (2014) found that the manner in which an organization manages authority has a meaningful impact on job satisfaction and commitment.   Managers are given the rights to make decisions about the operation of the organization.  These decisions include who to hire, whether to give someone a raise, how to spend money, which strategy to pursue, which vendor to use, the choice between ethical alternatives, and the hundreds of small decisions throughout the day.  Managers can make a choice to given some of that authority to other members of the organization.  Empowerment is the act of giving authority to other members of the organization.  Empowerment gives employees autonomy over their work, and the freedom to execute the gameplan in the way they think is the most efficient.  Delegation , on the other hand, simply refers to giving members of the organization an additional task to complete.  It is possible to give someone empowerment without delegation, which means they have more freedom over what they are currently doing.  It is possible to give someone delegated tasks without the freedom to make choices around that task.  And it is possible to give someone a new task and the freedom to make decisions around that task.   For example, a manager needs to throw a reception for an employee who is retiring.  She walks over to the administrative assistant who is in charge of receptions and events for the department.  She tells the admin, “You have $1,000 to throw a reception.  I don’t care where we go, or what we serve.  I will leave all of that up to you.”  This would be a case of empowerment.   Consider another case whereby the manager receives a request from a state agency to file a report on emissions.  The manager walks over to his direct report and says, “I need this filed by Wednesday.  Go to their website and fill out the form, then submit it.”  In this scenario, the manager has delegated the task, but did not provide the empowerment for the employee to do it their own way.

Support your Plan

Organizing flows naturally from the planning process.  As we have reviewed, the planning process begins with an internal and external analysis.  The purpose of organizing is to put resources towards that plan.  It will be the case that some organizational areas need more resources, and others need fewer resources.   Let’s put together a scenario to illustrate this.  An airplane engine manufacturer decides on a gameplan to increase market share by 10% in the following year.  How to allocate organizational resources would be based on internal needs first.  In this scenario the salesmen are well trained, have good rapport with clients the major airplane construction firms, and do not need much in terms of their selling abilities.  Almost no resources need to be provided here.  The lone exception is Frank, the newest team member who needs to be sent to a conference to improve his negotiation skills.  The internal analysis conducted during the planning phase identified that the sales process however is slowed by poor delivery in logistics.  If an order is placed, customer expect delivery within a week, but a limited distribution staff slows this process.  Organizational resources should be committed to hiring an additional distribution scheduler.   The external analysis shows that sales are best conducted in person, so the well trained salesman don’t need more training, but they need more budget to get out on the road.    In this scenario, the analysis lead to the gameplan as well as identifying where the resources need to be allocated.

The organizing and planning phase of the managerial process can change over time.  A weakness in a previous year (lack of training) could be a non-factor in future years.  A strength in one year (research and development), could be surpassed by changing market conditions such as competitors catching up.  This means that organizational resources need to be reallocated as the gameplan progresses, or the conditions change.  Think about the decisions that an trauma surgeon has to make.  A patient is brought into the ER with a collapsed lung and a broken ankle.  The situation calls for an immediate treatment of the lung because the need is more immediate (asphyxiation).   The ankle can wait.  Once the patient is stabilized, the ankle can be operated on.  Once these two procedures are complete, the trauma surgeon will move on to a more immediate need throughout the hospital to treat trauma.  The nurses and resident doctors will tend to the recovery of our patient.  As the needs of the situation dictate, so do the organizational resources.  Resources include the use of the surgeon, anesthesiologist, and nurses (human resources), his knowledge of how to operate (informational resource), the hospital bed, ward rooms (physical resources), and in the case that the surgeon allows the resident to perform the ankle surgery because its less serious, empowerment (authority resource).

Organizations often have the privilege of long-term planning and matching of organizational resources.  The calculated allocation of resources comes as a result of the internal analysis and how the allocation will advance the mission of the organization.  The organizing function of management always subordinates itself to the planning function of management.  Consider the analogy to a survival situation.  A couple goes hiking in the Utah desert and gets lost.  They know that the human body has immediate needs that need to be addressed.  A human body can last 3 minutes without oxygen, 3 days without sleep, five days without water, 30 days without food, and depending on the conditions, a variable amount of time exposed to the external conditions.  Knowing this order of importance will help them make decisions about how to spend their resources.  If no one is injured, they do not have to worry about oxygen supply.  They find a river and have access to water, but without boiling it expose themselves to external threats of parasites.  They choose to spend some of their resources trying to tackle this problem.   Once they have water figured out, they focus on finding shelter for the night.  Exposure to rain could lead to hypothermia, and exposure to the heat will lead to exhaustion.  After constructing a shelter, they begin their gameplan of self-rescue.  They have a choice to follow the river to civilization, or wait for rescue.  The conditions change as they make progress towards their goal of getting the heck out of there.  Organizational resources (energy levels, supplies they had in their backpack, time, survival knowledge) are spent accordingly.

Providing Structure

            A final component of the organizing function is to provide structure for the gameplan.  This means that managers need to put in place lines of reporting, assign tasks, and to put team members in place to execute the gameplan.  Each person has a comparative advantage within the organization which is the value they bring to their job, relative to whatever else they could be doing.  Comparative advantage simply means that members of the organization have an opportunity cost for whatever role they are in.  If someone is good at accounting, and the organization already has a sufficient number of accountants, that person could best be served to work with the logistics team.  If someone is the best sales person on the team, but is the only person who knows how to write computer code, their comparative advantage lies with the programming, and the organization should put them in a role that best serves the organization.

To make sure the team is constructed in a way to increase effectiveness, a manager has to know the strengths of the members of the team, and to put them in the correct position on the team to maximize the comparative advantage of that team member.  The law of comparative advantage is the basis for providing the structure to the team.  Assigning roles and tasks is a result of understanding the team, and a core component of the organizing function.

This same concept applies to the overall structure of the organization.   An organization can provide structure for its operations in a few different ways.   A functional structure of the organization groups people together who perform similar tasks.  This results in a department style structure whereby all human resource personal work together and report to a manager, all operations personnel work together and report to a manager, the different roles within marketing all work together and report to a manager, and so forth.

Figure 5.1  Functional Organizational Structure

The functional structure comes with a few advantages.  Lines of communication are clear to understand and they are simple.  If there is an HR problem, you go to the HR manager.  If there is a question about the financial statements, you go to accounting.  Performance standards are better maintained and easier to identify.  If all of the salesmen are working together, there is a relatively quick basis for comparison between them.  Additionally, any mistakes and successes can be learned from and benefit all of the members of that functional area of the business.   The downside to a functional structure is that it often leads to compartmentalization of decisions.  Functional managers fight for the resources their department would garner from a particular course of action.  This often means they do not act in the best interest of the overall organization, but rather how it will advance their department.

The divisional structure of the organization is one that groups units within the organization around geographic location, products, or customer types.  An organization with a divisional structure will have many units that contain within them all of the functional areas of the business.  For example, an organization might have a divisional structure that has a Northwest Division, a West Division, and a Midwest Division.  Each of these divisions would have within their groups an HR group, a sales group, an accounting team, and so forth.

Figure 5.2 Divisional Organizational Structure

The divisional structure might choose geography to be the dividing factor, but it might also choose product type.  An automobile manufacturer might have divisions for SUV’s, trucks, and passenger vans.   In this scenario, each of those divisions would have all of the functional areas of business contained within them.  Finally, the choice might be to base the divisions on customer types.  Many retailers have wholesale customers and end-use customers that consume their products.  They might choose to create divisions based on these two types of customers.

The advantage of this structure is that it allows for each division to better understand the products they are creating as it relates to the consumer preferences.  In the geographic breakdown, the manager of the Northwest Division would have an in-depth understanding of the logistics, challenges, and market conditions of his region.  This allows for efficiency in delivery of goods, and customization of the products brought to that market.   What works in one region might not work for another, and this flexibility allows for better focus on the market.  The downside to this structure is that there could be duplication of resources.  An accounting team in one region might be sufficient to meet the needs of that group, but could have excess capacity that would better be used in another region.  The divisional structure does not easily allow for that capacity to be shared with other divisions.   In the same manner that a functional structure leads to managers fighting for their own groups, division structure can lead to that same isolation of groups.   Managers will make decisions often times in the best interest of their division, which may sacrifice the best interests of the overall organization. We will see later in the leading function how this might be overcome.

Finally, organizations might choose to utilize a matrix structure , which creates a dual structure utilizing both a divisional and functional setup.  The matrix structure uses a cross functional design to leverage the economies of scale that the functional structure offers, as well as the customization that a divisional structure affords.   A matrix structure is often used in organizations where projects require the expertise of various employees.  Each project team will have experts from the relevant parts of the organization.   Once the project is complete, the team is disbanded and reformed around a new project.  Consider its use in an engineering firm where they contract for construction of a bridge, a road, or a building. Consider its use in firms conducting due diligence on an acquisition or merger.

Figure 5.3  Matrix Organizational Structure

The advantage of the matrix structure is that it allows for better informed decisions and more creative solutions because the wide array of expertise each team has access to.   Decision making for each project is often pushed down to the cross-functional team level, which allows upper management to focus on organizational direction and strategy.   The downside to this structure is that employees can have a dual reporting relationship to the project leader, as well as their functional manager.  This can create conflict between the two managers, and confusing for the employee.

Critical Thinking Questions

Time was not listed as a resource in this chapter.  Should it be, or is this simply a constraint that managers operate under?  Make your case. 

  What role does the organizing function play in supporting the planning function?

  Empowerment means letting others make decisions.  Why are many managers hesitant to empower their subordinates?

How to Answer the Critical Thinking Questions

For each of these answers you should provide three elements.

• General Answer.  Give a general response to what the question is asking, or make your argument to what the question is asking.
• Outside Resource.  Provide a quotation from a source outside of this textbook.  This can be an academic article, news story, or popular press.  This should be something that supports your argument.  Use the sandwich technique explained below and cite your source in APA in text and then a list of full text citations at the end of the homework assignment of all three sources used.
• Personal Story.  Provide a personal story that illustrates the point as well.  This should be a personal experience you had, and not a hypothetical.  Talk about a time from your personal, professional, family, or school life.   Use the sandwich technique for this as well, which is explained below.

Use the sandwich technique:

For the outside resource and the personal story you should use the sandwich technique.  Good writing is not just about how to include these materials, but about how to make them flow into what you are saying and really support your argument.  The sandwich technique allows us to do that.  It goes like this:

Step 1:  Provide a sentence that sets up your outside resource by answering who, what, when, or where this source is referring to.

Step 2:  Provide the quoted material or story.

Step 3:  Tell the reader why this is relevant to the argument you are making.

Chapter References

Bateman, T., & Snell, S. (2013).  M: Management (3rd ed) .  McGraw Hill / Irwin: New York,

Hagen, A., Udeh, I., & Wilkie, M. (2011). The Way That Companies Should Manage Their Human Resources As Their Most Important Asset: Empirical Investigation. Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER), 1(1), Journal of Business & Economics Research (JBER), 02/11/2011, Vol.1(1).

Liberman, L. (2014). The impact of a Paternalistic Style of Management and Delegation of Authority on Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment in Chile and the US. Innovar, 24(53), 187-196.

The Four Functions of Management Copyright © 2020 by Dr. Robert Lloyd and Dr. Wayne Aho is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Steps Involved in the Process of Organizing an Organisation

Main steps involved in the process of organizing an Organisation are: 1. Identification and Division of Work 2. Departmentalisation 3. Assignment of Duties 4. Establishing Reporting Relationships!

1. Identification and Division of Work :

The process of organising starts with the identification and division of work. The whole work is to be divided into manageable activities so that duplication is avoided and work can be completed as per predetermined goals.

Division of work facilitates specialization in work and skills which are essential, as no individual can perform the entire work efficiently and effectively.

For example, the work in a bank may be divided into four simple activities Mr. Rahim looks after receiving cash, Mr. Jecob takes care of disbursing cash, Mr. Parminder gets involved in processing of loan applications and Mr. Ram ensures sanctioning of loans.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Here, work of Mr. Rahim and Mr. Jecob being similar in nature can be grouped under job of Cash Clerk while work of Mr. Parminder and Mr. Ram can be grouped under job of Loan Officer. This is how division of work in an organization can be accomplished.

2. Departmentalisation:

Departmentalisation refers to the process of grouping the activities of similar nature under same departments. This facilitates specialisation and coordination in the organisation.

Following are the various ways of departmentalisation:

(i) On the basis of functions:

Numerous activities are grouped into different departments on the basis of various functions. For example, Purchase Department for purchase functions, Finance Department for financing activities etc.

(ii) On the basis of type of products manufactured:

In this case, activities are grouped into different departments on the basis of products manufactured or produced by organisation. For example, textile division, food division etc.

(iii) On the basis of territory:

Here, activities are grouped into offices/branches on the basis of four directions (or locations) North, East, West, South (NEWS) e.g., Southern Zone, Eastern Branch etc.

3. Assignment of Duties:

Once the departments have been formed; the next step is to assign the work to the employees according to their skills and competencies. In order to ensure effective performance in an organization, it is essential that a balance is created between the nature of a job and ability of the employee responsible for that job.

4. Establishing Reporting Relationships:

Establishing responsibility relationships in an organisation structure implies the allocation of authority and responsibility among employees of the enterprise in such a way that each person should know who is responsible to whom and for what.

It is essential that there should be no disparity between authority granted and responsibility imposed. It further creates hierarchy management in which top management enjoys maximum authority and as one moves downward, the authority decreases.

This step involves providing information to the workers regarding who they will be receiving orders from and who they will be reporting to. This helps in creating hierarchy structure among various departments. Further, establishing reporting relationships facilitates coordination also amongst various departments.

For example, Sales Manager will inform about sales forecast to the General Manager who will, on the basis of that forecast, direct Production Manager to arrange production of a certain quantity within a specified period etc.

Related Articles:

• 5 Main Steps Involved in Organizing Process | Management
• 8 Main Steps Involved in Staffing Process | Organisation
• 8 Main Steps Involved in Planning Process
• Organisation Structure: Meaning, Elements and Forms

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Managers Must Delegate Effectively to Develop Employees

Planning can minimize poor performance

Managers have some tasks that they need to do, but their primary job is to make sure that others are doing what they have been assigned to accomplish the mission and goals of the organization. Effective managers know what responsibilities to delegate to allow themselves time to plan, to collaborate with others in the organization, and to monitor the performance of their employees, making sure to give them adequate feedback and development opportunities.

• The belief that employees cannot do the job as well as the manager can.
• The belief that it takes less time to do the work than it takes to delegate the responsibility.
• Lack of trust in employees’ motivation and commitment to quality.
• The need to make one’s self indispensable.
• The enjoyment of doing the work one’s self.
• Guilt associated with giving more work to an overworked staff.

Delegator’s Dozen: A Preparation Checklist

• Keep a delegation attitude. Ask yourself frequently: "Who else could do this?" Question every task, particularly those you have done for years.
• Define the desired outcome. Ask: "What is the result I want accomplished?" Learn to assign responsibility for achieving results rather than unloading tasks.
• Select the person. Consider more than one criterion when choosing to whom to delegate something. Some things to consider: Who has experience and skills? (Be careful not to overload this person.) Who needs to learn how to handle this responsibility? Who has the time to accept this responsibility? Who would like to have this opportunity?
• Get input from others. Ask for ideas about what to change, who to involve and how to define the results. Consult one’s own team, other managers who interact with the team, one’s boss and customers.
• Assign the responsibility and define the time factors. What is the deadline? When will you want progress reports?
• Provide training and guidance. Does the person need training before assuming this responsibility? What guidance will they need to succeed? Remember to allow them freedom for independent thinking.
• Define the authority level. How much power will they need? What kinds of power? Who else needs to know that this person has the authority to act? Be sure to inform them to assure cooperation with the employee.
• Agree about the control process. What kinds of controls are needed? How can one feel in control and still empower employees to act independently?
• Monitor progress. Pay attention and maintain control of the situation. Managers are still responsible for the success or failure of this person and for achieving the desired results.
• Provide feedback. Stay in touch, giving plenty of positive reinforcement and coaching when needed.
• Identify the lessons learned. What did the employee learn? What did you learn? Often, the person with the new responsibility will figure out better ways to get things done and such improvements need to be identified, documented and shared.
• Evaluate performance. Give the person helpful feedback. What did they do well? Where can they improve? How can the results be improved? How can the manager do a better job of helping them succeed?

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Management Notes

Organizing – Meaning, Importance, Process, Principles and Approaches | Principles of Management (POM)

Table of Contents

Meaning of Organizing

Organizing refers to grouping elements of an organization in the most effective way. To accomplish an organization’s goals efficiently and effectively, all its resources must be integrated and coordinated to define the essential relationships between people, tasks, and activities.

Importance of Organizing

The following are the importance of organizing.

a) Enhances organizational efficiency: As part of organizing, a structure is built which defines the activities involved and their relationships. By doing so, confusion and delays in the completion of the work can be avoided. As a result, duplication of effort and overlap of efforts are further reduced. It is established that coordination will take place. As a result, organizational efficiency increases.

b) Specialization is facilitated : There is a clear definition of the duties and responsibilities of the employees in the structure. Employees are knowledgeable about their jobs. The result is that they are able to perform their duties more efficiently, resulting in a specialization of their jobs.

c) Optimal use of human and other resources: It is important to organize so that the right person is hired for the right position. In addition to motivating employees toward their individual goals, it also motivates them toward the team goals. A reduction in costs is also achieved through specialization. Besides allocating organizational resources effectively, it also ensures the effectiveness of other processes

d) Communication effectiveness : Communication between departments or units of an organization is facilitated by organizing. There are structural relationships between different jobs and positions. Communication channels and modes are specified between departments or units.

e) Diversification and growth : Organizational activities can be carried out smoothly when resources are optimally utilized and work is divided among departments. By facing environmental challenges, organizations can expand and grow.

f) Employee development : It is easier for employees to develop their skills and knowledge when the roles and activities are clearly defined. By building shared goals between employees and the organization, a sustainable organization can be created.

g) Relationships of authority and responsibility are established: Relationships among members of an organization are determined by the organizational structure. As a result, job performance is more efficient. It becomes apparent to all members what their responsibilities are. As a result, they also become more cooperative. Ultimately, it contributes to a congenial work environment.

h) Enhances productivity and job satisfaction : Clarifying job positions is part of organizing. Each level has clearly defined roles. As a result, employees feel more secure and satisfied. Job satisfaction depends heavily on this.

Process of Organizing

The process of organizing is complex. It requires a thorough understanding of organizational policies, plans, and strategies. Following are the steps involved in organizing.

a) Defining the objectives: Organizations are established to accomplish certain goals. As a result, an organization’s long- and short-term objectives are essential. Long-term objectives should be supported by short-term objectives. It is important to set measurable, realistic, achievable, and attainable objectives.

b) Identifying and grouping activities Identification of activities: Identifying all organizational activities is the first step in organizing. Depending on the size and nature of the organization, organizational activities may vary. Among them are finance and accounting, production and operation, marketing and sales, human resources, and research and development. It is called departmentalization when related activities are combined and grouped into units or departments. Departments and units are divided into sub-departments or groups when related activities are grouped together. Specialization can be achieved by grouping activities. An organization’s needs should be considered along with the human factor, the nature of its activities, and the nature of its activities.

c) Responsibilities and duties are assigned: Different individuals are assigned responsibilities and duties according to their skill, knowledge, abilities, and aptitudes in this step. Everyone has a clear understanding of their responsibilities. The goal is to avoid duplication of effort and overlapping of work. Individuals are assigned specific jobs based on their qualifications and made responsible for their accomplishments.

d) Authority delegation: Each individual is delegated authority to perform the assigned duties effectively after duties have been assigned. You should delegate authority in proportion to the responsibilities you have been assigned. From the top of the structure down, delegation of authority establishes a clear hierarchy of authority.

e) Coordination of activities: Coordinating activities is part of organizing. In order to achieve a common goal, activities are arranged in an orderly manner. This ensures harmony and synchronization between different departments and groups. It is necessary to coordinate activities in order to prevent conflicts between employees and departments, duplication of work, and time and effort waste. Besides ensuring that all departments are doing their jobs, it also facilitates harmony between them.

f) Identifying positions and distinguishing them: It is also important to differentiate between line and staff positions when organizing. Line positions are those in the direct chain of command. Achieving organizational goals is its responsibility. Alternatively, staff positions provide line managers with expertise, advice, and support.

g) Reorganizing and reviewing:  As internal and external factors change, the organizing process must be continuously reviewed and appraised in order to adjust or modify the organization structure.

Principles of Organizing

There are certain principles that govern organizing. The building blocks of organization are these elements.

a) Specialization: It is the principle of specialization that all work in an organization should be divided among employees according to their qualifications, abilities, and skills. It is possible to achieve specialization through the division of work.

b) Functional Definition: It is important to clearly define all the functions of an organization based on the principle of functional definition. A person’s duties, responsibilities, authority, and relationships within the organization must be defined. Organizational efficiency can be achieved through the clarification of authority-responsibility relationships.

c) Span of Control/Supervision: An area under supervision is referred to as a span of control. A single manager can effectively manage and control a given number of employees. An employee’s number under a manager should be determined according to this principle. Depending on the span, a wide or narrow decision can be taken.

•  Wide span of control: The manager is able to supervise and control a large number of subordinates at the same time.
• Narrow span of control: Managers in this situation supervise and control few subordinates under them.

d) Chain of Command and Unity: In an organization, the chain of command defines who reports to whom and links all individuals. Two principles underlie this: the unity of command and the scalar principle.

• Unity of command: According to this principle, each employee should have only one direct supervisor. There should be no more than one person reporting to an employee.
• Scalar chain: In an organization, the principle of scalar chain describes a clearly defined hierarchy. Each person in the organization should be linked by a clear and unbroken chain of command.

e) Unity of Goals/Objectives: Every organizational activity is geared toward achieving organizational goals that have been formulated for each level of the organization (top, middle and low) and each functional area. Everyone must understand and communicate the goals clearly. To achieve the goals effectively, all levels, areas, and units should support one another.

f) Responsibilities and authority are delegated: There must be a balance between authority and responsibility. It is the responsibility of the individual to fulfill the assigned task, which requires a certain level of authority. It is important that the tasks assigned are completed within the scope of authority. Performance will be poor if responsibility is not accompanied by authority.

g) Flexibility: There is a competitive, complex, and volatile environment in which modern organizations operate. It is crucial that they address the environmental impacts in order to succeed. Therefore, they should be flexible or situational. As environmental factors change, organizations must adjust their plans, policies, and structures.

h) Exception: Various activities should be performed by managers according to policies, procedures and rules of the organization. When dealing with complex situations or unusual circumstances, they may be exceptional. In this way, they are able to respond to situations promptly and enhance their ability to make creative decisions.

i) Personal Ability: The organization should always strive to improve the efficiency of workers at all levels according to this principle. Training and development programs can help achieve this goal. As a result, employee commitment and productivity are further enhanced.

j) Coordination and balance: An organization should have a good balance between its parts. It is important for an organization to develop its structure in a balanced way in order to maximize coordination. The centralization and decentralization of power must be balanced.

k) Efficiency: Efficiency is the basis of an organization’s operation. In order to achieve this, the organization must be operated in a cost-effective and efficient manner. In order to keep costs low, the quality of the product is not compromised. Through an effective organizational structure, human and other resources can be utilized effectively.

l) Simplicity : An organization’s structure should be simple in accordance with this principle. The simplicity of a structure makes it easy for all employees to understand. The duties and responsibilities of each person became clear to them. There should be less hierarchy and a clear line of communication in the structure.

Approaches to Organizing

Organizing can be divided into three major approaches. There are three types of approaches: classical, behavioral, and contingency.

a) Classical Approach

According to the classical approach to organizing, there is one best way to manage an organization. The universal approach is also known as the universal approach. The scientific management, administrative management, and bureaucratic theories can highlight this approach to organizing. To minimize production costs and increase profits, scientific management theory advocates effective planning and controlling, modern machines and tools, and optimum utilization of resources. By utilizing modern tools and machines and paying workers properly, this theory aims to maximize workers’ efficiency. Employee development is achieved through training and development that maximizes the degree of cooperation between employers and employees.

Organizations are designed rationally according to administrative management theory. Power and authority are delegated to administrators through a formalized administrative structure. Providing a comprehensive framework for the study and development of management, this theory defines management as a series of functions including planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. Organizations that follow the bureaucratic theory must be structured into hierarchies and follow clearly defined rules and procedures. In bureaucracies, there are several aspects that promote decision-making, resource control, worker protection, and organizational success. The theory suggests that the organization should have a high degree of specialization, a clearly defined chain of command, and the principle of rationality, objectively and consistently. Each member of the organization should have a formal relationship based on their positions and governed by well-defined rules and regulations.

b) Behavioral Approach

The behavioral approach emphasizes the importance of behavioral and human factors in organizing. Maslow’s needs hierarchy theory, McGregor’s Theory X and Y, and Herzberg’s two-factor theory fall under this category. Using a five-step model depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid, Maslow’s need priority theory is based on human needs. It is necessary to address the needs lower down in the hierarchy before attending to those higher up. When organizing, he stressed the importance of these human needs. Theory X and theory Y were developed by Douglas McGregor. Management philosophy is based on Theory X. People want to avoid work as much as possible, which means they don’t want to take responsibility. Through financial incentives, people are motivated.

In order to keep them under control, rewards and punishments are the best method. The theory Y presumes that people are intrinsically happy at work, as opposed to theory X. The objectives motivate them to pursue them. Reward and punishment systems are unnecessary. People want to use their creativity to solve problems and are prepared to take responsibility for everything they do.

According to Herzberg’s two-factor theory, certain job factors lead to satisfaction while others lead to dissatisfaction. In order to describe job satisfaction, Herzberg used the term ‘hygiene and motivators’. In terms of hygiene factors, they include compensatory elements, job security, career development, the organization’s politics, working conditions, leadership quality, and relationships between supervisors and subordinates. A person’s intrinsic motivation includes a sense of responsibility, job satisfaction, recognition, achievement, and the opportunity to grow and advance.

c) Contingency Approach

Organizational contingencies state that management is situational. According to this theory, there is no perfect management style as management principles are not universal. By focusing on the multivariate nature of organizations, it enables them to cope with a variety of environmental conditions. According to the environmental conditions, it provides a framework for solving problems. Organizations must adapt to both internal and external environments, as well as fit between the two.

• Size of the organization: It is likely that larger organizations will have more hierarchies and units due to their size.
• Task and technology: It is also important to consider how much technology is used in organizing. Communicating patterns, job functions, employee relationships, and authority-responsibility relationships are governed by it.
• Environmental uncertainty: It is also important to consider how much uncertainty there is in the environment when organizing. A flexible structure is preferred when the organizational environment is volatile. Organizations that operate in relatively stable environments may be organized in a formalized manner.
• Individual differences: Organizational structure is also determined by individual differences in leadership. The authority of an authoritative leader tends to be centralized at the top.

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• Management Functions
• Organizing Function

Organizing Function of Management

Organizing is the function of management which follows planning.

It is a function in which the synchronization and combination of human, physical and financial resources takes place. All the three resources are important to get results. Therefore, organizational function helps in achievement of results which in fact is important for the functioning of a concern.

According to Chester Barnard , “Organizing is a function by which the concern is able to define the role positions, the jobs related and the co-ordination between authority and responsibility”. Hence, a manager always has to organize in order to get results.

A manager performs organizing function with the help of following steps:-

The top management is into formulation of policies, the middle level management into departmental supervision and lower level management into supervision of foremen.

The clarification of authority help in bringing efficiency in the running of a concern. This helps in achieving efficiency in the running of a concern. This helps in avoiding wastage of time, money, effort, in avoidance of duplication or overlapping of efforts and this helps in bringing smoothness in a concern’s working.

Each individual is made aware of his authority and he/she knows whom they have to take orders from and to whom they are accountable and to whom they have to report. A clear organizational structure is drawn and all the employees are made aware of it.

  Related Articles

• Importance of Organizing
• Principles of Organizing
• Classification of Organizations
• Line Organization
• Line and Staff Organization

View All Articles

Authorship/Referencing - About the Author(s)

The article is Written and Reviewed by Management Study Guide Content Team . MSG Content Team comprises experienced Faculty Member, Professionals and Subject Matter Experts. We are a ISO 2001:2015 Certified Education Provider . To Know more, click on About Us . The use of this material is free for learning and education purpose. Please reference authorship of content used, including link(s) to ManagementStudyGuide.com and the content page url.

• Organizing - Introduction
• Functional Organization
• Delegation of Authority
• Importance of Delegation
• Principles of Delegation
• Centralization and Decentralization
• Delegation and Decentralization

What is Organizing in Management?

Organising can be defined as a process that initiates implementation of plans by clarifying jobs, working relationships and effectively deploying resources for attainment of identified and desired results (goals).

Therefore, it is a process which coordinates human efforts, assembles resources and integrates both into a unified whole to be utilized for achieving specified objectives. Organizing is the managerial function and this function of organizing is known as process of organization.

To organize is to harmonize, co-ordinate or arrange in a logical and orderly manner.

Making the rational division of work into groups of activities and tying together the positions representing grouping of activities for accomplishment of desired objectives is the function of management and this function is known as organizing.   

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Koontz O’Donnel, “Organising involves the establishment of an international structure of roles through determination and enumeration of the activities required to achieve the goals of an enterprise and each part of it; the grouping of these activities, the assignment of such groups of activities to the manager, the delegation of authority to carry them out and provision for co-ordination of authority and informational relationship, horizontally and vertically, in the organisation structure.”

Learn about: 1. Introduction to Organizing 2. Meaning and Definitions of Organizing 3. Concepts 4. Nature 5. Features 6. Elements 7. Steps 8. Principles 9. Basics 10. Trends.

What is Organizing in Management? – Meaning, Definitions, Concept, Nature, Features, Elements, Steps, Principles and Trends

• Introduction to Organizing
• Meaning and Definitions of Organizing
• Concepts of Organizing
• Nature of Organizing
• Features of Organizing
• Elements of Organizing
• Steps of Organizing
• Principles of Organizing
• Basics of Organizing
• Trends in Organising

What is Organizing in Management – Introduction

Once the general and specific objectives determined and to achieve them a plan is prescribed, the next step is to organize the activities of the enterprise with a view to work the plan and to fulfill the organizational objectives. The management has to identify the activities necessary to reach the objectives and group these activities and assigned to the group of people, known as departments.

A manager, with required qualification, intelligence and capability is given authority and made incharge of each department, so as enable him to work his subordinates to reach the organizational objectives. Proper organization will assist the most effective use of all the resources of the business. The need for adequate organization grows with the increase in size of the business unit. More delegation and a large number of managers are required as his business grows from that of a small company, with its nucleus of a few key people.

The word Organization is given a variety of interpretations.

We can stress here on two terms namely:

(a) Organization is understood as a dynamic process and a managerial activity, which is necessary for bringing people together and tying them together in the pursuit of common objectives. This may well be the process of organizing,

(b) Secondly, it can be used in the sense, which refers to the structure of relationship among positions jobs, which is built-up for the attainment of common objectives or goals.

In this sense, organization can be considered as a vehicle through which goals are supposed to be achieved. Organization structure is considered in different views. Some consider it as a network of relationships, a blueprint of how the management will like the various functions and activities to be assigned and connected together.

Some others look upon it as a social system, consisting of the human relationships existing among people performing different types of activities. For some people, organizations are a system with inputs (such as men, materials, money and machines), and processes through which product or service is produced. Hence, the common features, we can identify are (characteristics of organization).

(i) Division of Labour:

When total work involved in achievement of goals and objectives are divided into activities and functions and allocated to an individual or a group of people, as whole work may be too heavy for and individual or a group of people, the organization structure comes into existence. Say for example, marketing, financial, personnel and production, etc.

(ii) Co-Ordination:

Once the functions are decided and allocated to group of people or an individual next is to see that all the activities of the groups or individuals must be directed towards the organizational goals. That is activities are unified and harmonized.

(iii) Accomplishment of Goals or Objectives:

The organization structure has no meaning, if it doesn’t serve in its mission of achieving the objectives, it is because the structure is framed in such a way that the works are allocated to different goals in such a way that they are unified and harmonized towards the achievement of a common goal or objective.

(iv) Authority-Responsibility Structure:

An organization structure consists of various positions arranged in a hierarchy with a clear definition of the authority and responsibility associated with each of these. An organization cannot serve certain specific purposes or goals unless some positions are placed above others and given authority to bind them by their decisions. In fact, an organization structure is quite often defined as a structure of authority-responsibility relationships.

All the above discussion confirms that organization structure is a structure of positions arranged in a hierarchy for the pursuit of common objectives through specialization and division of work.

What is Organizing in Management – Meaning and Definitions : Given by Stephen P. Robbins and Mary Coulter, Louis A. Allen, G.R. Terry, Koontz O’Donnel, Henry Fayol

The word “organizing” refers to a process of a managerial function. Studying organization structure helps one to clarify the principle features of the organization’s anatomy and study the similarities as well as the distinctions among different organizations. The term “Organization” may be dealt in two contexts.

1. To a particular company or group of persons working together to fulfill certain objectives or goals. It is referred in the name of the organization such as- Royal Industries, Tata Consultancy Services etc.

2. To the organization as a structure or a network of specific relationships among individuals.

Koontz and O’Donnell defines organizing as- “The establishment of authority relationships with provision for coordination between them, both vertically and horizontally in the enterprise structure.”

Louis A. Allen defines organizing as- “The process of identifying and grouping the work to be performed, defining and delegating responsibility and authority and establishing relationships for the purpose of enabling people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives”.

Hence, we can say that organizing involves the following four steps:

(i) Identification and grouping of the work,

(ii) Defining the responsibility,

(iii) Delegation of appropriate authority and

(iv) Establishment of structural relationships.

All the above are necessary to achieve the organizational goals.

“Organizing is determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom and where decisions are to be made.” – Stephen P. Robbins and Mary Coulter

“Organizing is the process of identifying and grouping the work to be performed, defining and delegating the responsibility and authority, and establishing relationships for the purpose of enabling people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives.” – Louis A. Allen

G.R. Terry, “Organising is the establishing of effective behavioural relationships among persons so that they may work together effectively and gain personal satisfaction in doing selected tasks under given environmental conditions for the purpose of achieving some goal or objective.”

Organising can be defined as a process that initiates implementation of plans by clarifying jobs, working relationships and effectively deploying resources for attainment of identified and desired results (goals). Therefore, it is a process which coordinates human efforts, assembles resources and integrates both into a unified whole to be utilized for achieving specified objectives.

Organisation as a function of management leads to:

1. Creation of organisational structure with suitable personnel

2. Designing specific roles to eliminate ambiguity

3. Defining inter-relationship among personnel for productive cooperation

4. Clarifying authority and responsibility for results and logical grouping of activities.

Some definitions of ‘organising’ as a function of management:

“Organising is the process of defining and grouping the activities of the enterprise and establishing authority relationships among them” – Theo Haimman

“Organising is the process of identifying and grouping the work to be performed, defining and delegating responsibility and authority, and establishing relationships for the purpose of enabling people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives”. – Louis Allen

“To organise a business is to provide it with everything useful to its functioning: raw materials, machines and tools, capital and personnel”. – Henry Fayol

“In its broadest sense organising refers to relationship between various factors present in a giving endeavor or enterprise”. – William Spriegel

“Organising is the establishing of effective authority relationships among selected work, persons and work places in order for a group to work together efficiently”. – G. R. Terry

What is Organizing in Management – Concepts

Two concepts are prevalent about organisation.

In other words, there are two meanings of organisation:

(1) Organising as a process, and

(2) Organising as a structure of relationship.

Concept # 1. Organising as a Process:

According to the first concept of organising, it has been considered as a process. In other words, organising is not a function that can be performed at a single stroke, but it is a chain of various functions. It includes getting information about objectives, deciding various activities and grouping them, determining important activities, allowing authority and responsibility, etc.

Organising is related to human beings and human conduct is deeply affected by the conditions of work, their competency and capability, changes in the internal and external environment of the organisation. The process of organising has also to be changed according these changes. Hence, organising as a process can also be described as dynamic element.

Concept # 2. Organising as a Structure of Relationship:

According to this concept, organising is treated as a structure of relationship. Under this various posts are created or established and the mutual relationship of employees working on various posts, their authorities and responsibilities are defined. Relationship lays down as to who is the superior and who is the subordinate. Various posts in different departments of the organisation are mostly permanent. Therefore, organisation as a structure of relationship is called static element.

As a structure of relationship organisation can be of two types – firstly formal organisation, and secondly, informal organisation.

Comparison between both the concepts :

So far as the similarity between both the concepts is concerned, business organisation is looked upon as a group of different parts under both the concepts. These parts are both tangible (like human, material, machine and money) and intangible (like authority, responsibility, function and objective). Both the concepts lay stress upon the establishment of relationship between these two parts.

On the contrary, there are certain differences between both the concepts. According to the concept of ‘organising as a process’ organising is that function which continues throughout the existence of the enterprise and changes go on taking place in it. Herein man is the central point. In other words, many factors affect them and changes have to be introduced accordingly.

On the other hand, according to the concept of ‘organising as a structure of relationship’, posts are established in the organisation and authorities and responsibilities of each post are determined. Therefore, here under this concept more attention is paid to posts which are stable than to men.

What is Organizing in Management – Nature

The nature of organising is discussed below:

1. Division of Labour:

According to Fayol, work of all kinds must be sub-divided and assigned to a number of persons. This helps to make the work being carried out in a simpler and efficient manner. It, thus, leads to specialization and increasing employees’ efficiency. By repeating a small part of work the individual acquires speed and accuracy in its performance. This principle holds true for technical as well as managerial tasks.

2. Coordination:

Different persons are assigned for different functions and yet all these functions have only one aim i.e. accomplishment of the enterprise’s objectives.

To this end, an organisation has to adopt adequate methods to ensure that there is proper coordination of the different activities performed at various work points. This means establishment of correct and adequate relationships between an employee and his work; one employee with another; and one department or sub-department with another.

3. Social System:

All parts of the organisational system are inter-dependent. Each part affects and is influenced by any other part and also in turn by the system as a whole. An organisation is a social system. Its activities are governed by social and psychological laws. People working in an organisation are influenced in their actions and behaviour by their social and psychological needs.

Two aspects of an organisational social system are the formal or official and the informal or unofficial. The organisation social system is dynamic, in the sense that inter-personal and group relationships within it, keep on changing and are not dormant.

4. Objectives:

Any organisation structure is bound together by the pursuit of specific and well-defined objectives. In fact, as objectives cannot be accomplished without an organisation, an organisation cannot exist for long without objectives and goals.

5. Cooperative Relationship:

An organisation ensures co-operative relationship among the members of the group. It cannot be constituted by one person. It requires at least two or more persons. Organisation is a system which helps in creating meaningful relationship among persons both vertical and horizontal.

6. Well-Defined Hierarchy:

Hierarchy acts as a line of communication, as well as command, and shows the pattern of relationships among people. Hierarchy of organisation refers to the positioning of people from the highest level to the lowest rank in the organisation. It also helps to define authority and responsibility attached to each position/person.

7. Communication:

Although every organisation has its own channels and methods of communication. For success in management, effective communication is vital. This is because management is concerned with working with others and unless there is proper understanding between people, it cannot be effective. The channels of communication may be formal, informal, downward, upward or horizontal.

What is Organizing in Management – 8 Main Features

The features of organizing are stated as here under:

1. Division of work – The total work should be divided into many parts for effective performance of the work. Each part of work is to be performed by one person or a group of persons. In this way, the division of work results in the creation of specialized persons.

2. Achieving organizational objective – There is a need of coordination among the employees in the organ­ization. The division of work is done keeping in view the overall objectives of the organization. The organiz­ing process is framed in such a way so as to achieve organizational objectives smoothly.

3. Authority-responsibility structure – The position of each of the executives is defined with regard to the extent of authority and responsibility vested in him to discharge his duties. Organizing arranges for the dele­gation of authority and responsibility. It tries to bring harmony, authority, and responsibility.

4. Grouping of activities – Activities are needed to be grouped on certain well-defined basis such as function, product, customer, process, territory, etc. This grouping process is called departmentation. It helps in achiev­ing the benefits of specialization and administrative control.

5. Scalar (step-by-step) principle – Authority is delegated from the upper level to the lower level and the respon­sibility flows from the lower level to the upper level of organizational hierarchy. Provision is to be made for the accountability of the assigned duties. Each employee of an organization must know where his accountability lies.

6. Installing sound communication system – The success of management depends upon effective system of communication. It helps the management by providing information about the duties, responsibilities, authority, positions, and jobs. Coordination can be maintained among various related departments by making exchange of information on a regular basis.

7. Flexibility – The organizing process should be flexible so that any change can be incorporated as and when required. It ensures the ability to adapt and adjust the activities in response to the change taking place in the external environment. The programs, policies, and strategies can be changed as and when required if the provision for flexibility is made in the organizing process.

8. Coordination – Coordination ensures the unity of action in the realization of a common objective. It is an arrangement of group effort to achieve organizational goals. Coordination of different personnel and depart­ments are needed for ensuring higher efficiency and effectiveness.

What is Organizing in Management – 4 Basic Elements: Division of Work, Grouping of Activities, Distribution of Authority and Coordination      

The basic elements of organising are as follows:

Element # 1. Division of Work:

It means dividing the work into specific tasks with deadlines to their completion. Once the work is divided, the tasks are distributed to different functional areas of the organisation as production, marketing, finance and personnel.

Element # 2. Grouping of Activities:

The tasks are grouped into different departments on the basis of similarity of their features. This is called departmentation.

The common forms of departmentation are as follows:

i. Functional Departmentation (Grouping Activities by Functions Performed):

Activities can be grouped according to functions (work being done) to pursue economies of scale by placing employees with shared skills and knowledge into departments, for example, human resources, IT, accounting, manufacturing, logistics, and engineering. Functional departmentalization can be used in all types of organisations.

ii. Product Departmentation (Grouping Activities by Product Line):

Tasks are grouped according to a specific product or service. All activities related to the product or the service are placed under one manager. Each major product area in the company is under the authority of a senior manager who is specialist in, and is responsible for everything related to the product line. For a shoe company, the structure could be based on product lines like women’s footwear, children’s footwear and men’s footwear.

iii. Customer Departmentation (Grouping Activities on the Basis of Common Customers or Types of Customers):

Jobs are grouped according to the type of customers served by the organisation assuming that customers in each department have a common set of problems and needs that can best be met by specialists. For example, the sales activities in the organisation can be broken down into three departments that serve retail, wholesale and government accounts.

iv. Geographic Departmentation (Grouping Activities on the Basis of Territory):

If the customers are geographically dispersed, jobs can be grouped on the basis of geographical locations. For example, the organisation structure of a company can reflect its operations in two broad geographic areas – the national sector and the international sector. The national sector could further be divided into north zone, south zone, east zone and west zone.

v. Process Departmentation (Grouping Activities on the Basis of Product or Service or Customer Flow):

Process departmentalisation allows homogenous activities to be categorised in one department because each process requires different skills. For example, the applicants might need to go through several departments namely validation, licensing and treasury, before receiving the driver’s license. Each department looks after specific sequence of the process which increases the speed and efficiency of that process.

Element # 3. Distribution of Authority:

Once the departments are created, members are given authority to perform the tasks assigned. Authority specifies the discretion of employee over his work. In a formally designed organisation structure, employees’ behaviour is bound by rules, regulations and policies but in a comparatively less formal organisation structure, they have a great deal of freedom in deciding how they perform their work. “Authority is the legitimate power of the supervisor to direct subordinates to take action within the scope of the supervisor’s positions.”

Element # 4. Coordination:

When people perform tasks assigned to them at different levels in different departments, it has to be ensured that the tasks are related to each other and aim at unified goals. This requires coordination amongst the tasks of all the organisational members. Coordination is the act of organising, making different people or things work together for a goal or effort to fulfil desired goals in the organisations. It is a managerial function that aims to adjust and interlink activities of the business.

What is Organizing in Management – 5 Important Steps: Determination of Objectives, Enumeration of Activities, Classification of Activities and a Few Others

First the goals and objectives are understood and then divide the work into functional groups into practical units of similar activities. Then each group/department is kept under a manager, who has related functional knowledge and capability. This manager will look after the work of that particular department, by maintaining organizational relationships with other department managers to work toward the goal or objective of the enterprise.

Top management must clearly specify the duties of all departmental managers, by providing them necessary resources. In the words of Terry “Organizing is the establishing of effective behavioural relationships among selected work persons, and work place in order for the group to work together effectively.”

Organizing is the managerial function and this function of organizing is known as process of organization. To organize is to harmonize, co-ordinate or arrange in a logical and orderly manner. Making the rational division of work into groups of activities and tying together the positions representing grouping of activities for accomplishment of desired objectives is the function of management and this function is known as organizing.

Various steps involved in this process are:

Step # 1. Determination of Objectives:

Any business is established or started by entrepreneurs to achieve some objectives. These objectives must be clearly stated so as to understand the very purpose and existence of the business. Depending on the objectives the work to be done is decided and it is divided into groups and they are organized in an orderly way. It is to say that organizations are built around objectives; hence deciding the objectives is the first step in building up an organization.

Step # 2. Enumeration of Activities:

The work of an industrial concern is divided into essential activities. For example, it is divided as production, financing, purchasing, marketing, personnel, like wise.

Step # 3. Classification of Activities:

The next step is to classify activities according to similarities and common purposes and function by taking the available human and material resources into account. For each class of activities, there will be a department and for each sub-class there will be section of the department and so on. For example, marketing may be one department, in which packing, dispatching, sales, consumer service etc. may be sections.

Step # 3. Fitting Individuals into Functions:

Once the departmentalization and formation of sections is over, each section should be allocated to a subordinate and each department should be allocated to one executive. Hence, next duty is to fix a suitable and well-qualified and capable person to fit into these activities. The rule is right peg in a right hole. Each person in the group is given a specific work and made responsible correctly and effectively. This step consists of appointment of workers and defining their responsibility of each one of them.

Step # 4. Assignment of Authority for Action:

Now suitable persons are fitted in their respective jobs and made responsible to accomplish the job. He can only proceed to do the work, when he is given adequate authority to proceed to do the work. The delegation authority to take steps to complete the assigned part of the job is next step in organization. Once the authority is given the concerned manager will have power to command his subordinates and get the work done by them.

All the above supports the definition of organization i.e. Organization embraces the duties of designating the departments and the personnel that are to carry on the work, defining their functions and specifying the relations that are to be exist between departments and individuals.

What is Organizing in Management – Top 26 Principles

Organising is a management process by which people, functions and physical factors are brought together to form a controllable unit. Good organisation is based upon a careful planning of – what is to be done? Who is to do it? Who is to supervise it? and how it is to be done most efficiently? Efficiency means speed, accuracy and low cost. Good organisation results in the creation of well balanced, low-cost, teamwork that performs the necessary work.

The organisation of business activities is a continuing process. It should not be static, rigid or fixed. It should be flexible and adaptable to the changing objectives of enterprise. Because of existence of great varieties of organisations, there can be no standard principles which could be followed in all individual circumstances.

However, there are certain principles which have more or less universal application and which may be used as guidelines for organising business concern.

1. Principle of Consideration of Unity of Objectives:

The objective of the undertaking influences the organisation structure. The organisation is a mechanism to achieve the goals. The objective of an enterprise should be clearly laid down. Not only the objectives be stated in clear terms, the method of achieving them too, should be indicated in detail and in precise terms so that the organisers may know the type of organisation that is needed.

There must be unity of objectives so that all efforts can be concentrated on the set-goals. Organisational structure and generated operations must be measured against the effectiveness in achieving set objectives.

2. Principle of Specialisation:

Effective organisation must include specialisation. Optimum output can be obtained when each person concentrates on doing the thing for which he/she is best qualified. Precise division of work facilitates specialisation. Organisation should emphasise on the law of specialisation. However each area of specialisation must be interrelated to the total integrated system by means of co-ordination in all departments and activities.

3. Principle of Co-Ordination:

Co-ordination express the principles of organisation in toto; nothing less. Co-ordination is the orderly arrangement of group effort to provide unity of action in the pursuit of common purpose. It is the beginning and end of all organised efforts. A manager is mainly a coordinator. Co-ordination is a facilitative function helping the integration of the basic managerial functions – Planning, Organisation, Motivation and Control.

Organisation involves division of work among people whose efforts must be co­ordinated to achieve common goals, Co-ordination of aims at higher efficiency and effectiveness.

4. Principles of Scaler Chain:

It points out clear and unbroken line of authority. The chain of authority must be clearly defined for sound organisational purposes. It is also called a chain of command. The line of authority flows from the highest executive to the lowest managerial level and the chain of command should not be broken. It should be short i.e. it should have few levels of management. Every subordinate must know as to who is his supervisor and to whom policy matters beyond his own authority must be referred to, for decision.

5. Principle of Commensurate Authority and Responsibility:

According to this principle when an individual is responsible for a certain task, he should be given the authority to carry out that task. Without commensurate authority and responsibility, he cannot be held accountable for the unsuccessful completion of the task as he has very little control over the situation. Authority should be equal to responsibility i.e., each manager should have enough authority to accomplish the task.

6. Principle of Ultimate Responsibility:

The responsibility of higher authority for the acts of his subordinates is absolute. Responsibility to perform a task, is given to a subordinate by the supervisor and the subordinate commits mistake, in such situation the supervisor is answerable to his superiors. He cannot escape responsibility by saying that mistake was committed by a particular worker.

7. Principle of Efficiency:

The organisation structure should enable the enterprise to attain objectives with the lowest possible cost. An efficient organisation structure operates without wasting its scarce resources. It permits maximum use of its human resources and their talents.

8. Principle of Delegation:

The chief executive, for obvious limitations, cannot do the whole work of the organisation himself and hence he takes assistance from others to accomplish the objectives. He divides the whole work into a number of activities and groups then on the basis of their similarity and thus he creates a number of departments. The delegation is the process through which they are tied together by establishing relationship between them for co-operative and integrated action. Delegations may be vertical or horizontal.

This process ties together the whole organisational structure for integrated and co-operative action. If delegation of authority is not carefully done, the very existence of the organisation is in danger and chaos and confusion may be raised.

Authority and responsibility should be delegated as far down in the organisation as possible i.e. to the lowest level of the organisation at which the particular responsibility can be efficiently discharged. Delegation of authority and decentralisation of authority mean the same process.

9. Principle of Unity of Command:

The core of this principle is that a man can serve only one boss. It means that instructions and directions to a subordinate must come from one person only. Each subordinates must have one superior, to whom he should be answerable. This helps in avoiding conflict in command and in fixing responsibility. According to this principle each person should be accountable to a single superior.

Thus, no one in the organisation should have more than one boss. It clarifies authority – responsibility and relationship. If an individual has to report to only one supervisor there is a sense of personal responsibility to one person for results. Let a person receive orders from and be responsible to only one superior.

10. Principle of Span of Control:

The maximum number of employees or subordinates that can be supervised effectively by a person is known as the span of control. The span of control should be limited to a reasonable number according to circumstances. A span of control of six subordinates has been considered to be the most desirable. There is a limit to the number of subordinates which a manager can manage effectively. Grouping must ensure that each supervisor and manager is not over burdened with subordinates.

11. Principle of Balance:

There should be reasonable balance in the size of various departments, between standardisation of procedures and flexibility between centralisation and decentralisation. Similarly, there should be balance between the principle of span of control and the short chain of command.

12. Principle of Communication:

A good communication network is essential for smooth flow of information and understanding and for effective business performance. The line of authority offers a standing channel for downward and upward communication.

13. Principle of Personal Ability:

People constitute an organisation. Proper selection, placement and training need not be over emphasized. Organisation structure must encourage management development programmes and ensure optimum use of human resources.

14. Principle of Exception:

Under the exception principle recurring decisions should be handled in a routine manner by the lower level manager, whereas problems involving unusual matters should be referred to the higher level. The executives at the higher level of an organisation have limited time and capacity. They should not be bothered by routine problems which can as well be managed by subordinates.

15. Principle of Flexibility:

The structure of an organisation must be flexible so that adjustments necessitated by changed circumstances may be planned and incorporated in it. The organisation is expected to provide build-in devices to facilitate growth and expansion without dislocation. It should be adaptable to changing circumstances. It should not be rigid or inelastic.

16. Principle of Departmentation:

It enables the division of activities into specialised groups to attain organisational objectives. A good organisation involves precise and systematic distribution of work and responsibilities between managerial group and administrative group. Departmentation maintains balance and harmony in the working of the organisation.

17. Principle of Division of Work:

Specialisation in organisational functions is necessary for the most effective attainment of objectives. Specialisation depends on division of work. Total activities of an enterprise should be divided and grouped into departmental, sectional and individual activities to facilitate division of work.

18. Principle of Definiteness:

Each activity must contribute to the primary or basic goals of an enterprise with minimum of effort and maximum efficiency on the part of the employees. This contribution should be well defined and definite.

19. Principle of Discipline:

Discipline is vitally important in all types of organisations. In its absence, it is difficult to achieve success.

20. Principle of Simplicity:

The organisation should be kept as simple as possible so that there should not be any confusion and misunderstanding among the superiors and subordinates.

21. Principle of Separation of Line and Staff Function:

Line function should be separated from the staff functions.

22. Principle of Continuity of Operations:

The form of an organisation should be such that it facilitates the continuous performance of all the activities necessary for the continuance and growth of the enterprise.

23. Principle of Leadership:

Organisation structure should create a favourable environment or situation in which the manager can most effectively lead and motivate his subordinates.

24. Principle of Definition:

The duties responsibilities, authority and relations of everyone in the organisational structure should be clearly and completely defined preferably in writing.

An individual will accomplish a task in a given period only when the responsibility for that task is fixed upon him.

25. Principle of Work Assignment:

The work assignment for each individual in the organisation should take into consideration the special strength and talents of the individual. This means that an individual should be given an assignment commensurate with his or her ability and interest.

26. Principle of Employee Participation:

Employees should be encouraged to participate, as much as possible, in the decision making process. Employees are given recognition and are motivated to work harder by encouraging their participation. But, in spite of participation by employees in the decision making process, the ultimate responsibility for the decision must rest with the manager or supervisor.

What is Organizing in Management – 7 Important Trends and Practices

Organisations are not static but are dynamic. Many business organisations have lived for long crossing century mark. GE, The Hindu and many such organisations who are still functioning with force and recognition bear testimony to this. The concepts like “change management” and “learning organisation” pervade all organisations and organisations established long back live today with totally a different structure. Organisational activities expand and restructuring the design and configuring authority relationships as per changed requirement will take place. This is a continuous activity in every organisation.

Effective and efficient management of the organisations are expected throughout their life. Practices such as decentralisation, considering the span of management, chain of command, unity of command, delegation and empowerment, designing the structure and configuring it, establishing departments as per directions, formulating committees, preparing manuals have been the order in every enterprise.

These trends and practices are briefly analysed in the following paragraphs:

1. Chain of Command :

This concept exhibits flow of authority. It is a system whereby authority flows down from the top through a series of executive positions in which each functional manager is accountable to the immediate superior. This is a structure concerning decision-making which shows. The flow of responsibilities from the higher levels of authority to the lower levels. This concept was originated from defence operations. In military hierarchy, the succession of commanding officers from a superior to a subordinate, commands are exercised.

It is a continuous chain of authority that links the most junior worker to the top brass. The concept of the chain of command was first introduced to management theory by Henry Fayol under one of the fourteen principles, he propounded, viz., “Scalar Chain”. According to this principle, people at the top of the organisation have all authority and other individual’s authority scales down as per their relative position in the hierarchy.

Thus, chain of command, which is practiced in military structure is extended to organisations. In the organisational context, it means that the commands or orders flow from the top down the line to last worker of the organisation. Persons or line managers who receive the command from their immediate superior are accountable to them only and they do not normally have direct link with the top management.

Supposing, two or more units are functioning and the command is to be given to both units from one unit officer. The authority flow from the executive of one unit cannot directly take place. It should pass through the unit head of another unit except under permitted circumstances.

The flow of command takes place only in the concerned line and not in lines which are adopted for special purposes such as health cares, sports, etc., activities of the organisation. If any order is to be executed in these units, it should be sent to the unit head in the form of request to implement it or it has to be transmitted through top class.

Thus, chain of command is the flow of authority from top to bottom in written form. The concept which was originated in military operations, is extended to organisations. This indicates the set of relationships as to who gives direction to whom and who reports to whom.

2. Unity of Command :

This concept focuses on “one command” to one issue and not multi-commands. In hierarchical organisation, which is pyramidical in feature. Person in charge of a function (production, finance, etc.) receives command from the top and has to follow it implicitly. The central point in unity of command is that “no subordinate should report to more than one boss”. Receiving two commands from two bosses for one activity will hamper the implementation of that activity. This is one of the principles propounded by Henry Fayol.

If many bosses give order to one individual, the situation leads to confusion and chaos. Because the orders may be conflicting and may contradict each other. Therefore, a subordinate should report to only one boss. Two bosses are not better than one.

3. Span of Control :

The term ‘span of management’ is also referred to as span of control, span of supervision, span of authority or span of responsibility. It indicates the number of persons that a manager can manage effectively. A manager’s ability to manage a large number of subordinates is limited by his time and energy. In order to enable him to give personal attention to work performance, he should have a manageable number of subordinates.

If the manager is made to supervise a large number of subordinates, not only will he have mental and physical strain; but also his supervision may become ineffective. This means, he will not be able to produce satisfactory results, the concept of span of management has a significant influence on the overall performance of an enterprise and hence its importance has been recognised by modern management experts.

4. Delegation and Empowerment:

(i) Delegation

This is a concept concerned with the division of labour and organisational effectiveness. When the organisational grows, irrespective of size, the activities cannot be managed by one boss. Particularly in medium and large-sized business houses many levels of management prevail. The leaders or managers of these levels should have authority responsibility and accountability to carry out the tasks assigned to them. “Delegation” refers to this.

Delegation is a process of giving power or assigning task to someone or to the immediate lower authority so that persons who receive the authority are responsible for part of what they normally do.

When the authority is delegated to any person to do certain tasks, that person has to strictly follow the set of rules or protocol to perform the tasks. Those persons cannot take any independent decision, except that such decisions are well within the approved and delegated framework of authority. Personal innovations which deviate from the set rules, cannot be implemented without the approval of higher ups.

Delegation comprises of the following aspects:

a. Assignment of rights and duties to the right people.

b. Give authority to perform the tasks.

c. Time should be set to complete the task.

d. Critical tasks should be discussed and should not be delegated to do in a routine way.

(ii) Empowerment :

Today, revolution is taking place regarding organisational effectiveness. Organisations are realising that tighter controls, greater pressures more clearly defined jobs and tighter supervisions as found in delegation may not work fully to achieve goals. Attention is shifting to the need for employees to take personal responsibilities for the success of business and hence the empowerment.

Empowerment may be defined as “according official authority or legal power to a person to perform a task independently with strength and confidence on his/her own initiative”. Empowerment instills a sense of power in performer as he/she gets decision-making authority. It creates opportunities to those who have competencies to take independent decisions. This is more concerned with giving someone more control over their own life or situation. Empowerment makes employees full partners in decision-making process and gives them the necessary tools and rewards.

Employment requires shared values, analysing identical or typical situation, identifying commonsense solutions and defining common sense as value. Empowering is a “Mentor-Mentee” process. As a mentor, leader assigns task to competent worker to work independently and monitor the progress. However, certain critical activities cannot be empowered and can only be delegated.

Empowerment allows the performer to assume leadership position but he works under the mentor. Through Empowerment, individual’s potential is converted into productivity. Empowerment is a building block of progressive management. In this process, “Power” is an unlimited resource which authoritarian managers do not give.

A leader who empowers his people not building a great work, but builds great is people. When people are empowered, they will be able to take ownership of the task that they have to perform. The leader need not be present during the course of performing the task as in case of delegation.

Decision to empower the employee depends upon the nature of the task to be assigned. If the competent people are not available, the task has to be delegated.

Empowerment realises and reconceptualises the relationship among tasks, achievements and connectedness. It can serve to re-energise recollective spirit and focuses on out performing our competitors while looking for better to live together. Empowerment has become a building block of progressive management. In this process “power” is identified as an unlimited resource. “The more power you give, the more power you have” has become the dictum.

Authoritarian managers do not like to give more power to their employees. Because of this, empowerment has become slow. But empowered employees who get power in a previously powerless situation have the feeling of control and self-efficacy.

As empowerment is emerging as the order of the day, managements should provide more tools and techniques to their employees to make them empowered.

5. Decentralisation :

As organisations grow, many problems crop up regarding administration. Authority cannot be centralised when the organisation is expanding authority should disperse to the lower levels for smooth functioning of the organisational activities. Decision-making becomes easy at all levels, if authority flows downwards. The process of dispersing the authority to the lower levels of administration is called “Decentralisation”.

“Decentralisation” means the transfer of authority and responsibility for smooth functioning of organisational activities. It may be applied to any type of organisation including the government. It is a complex multifaceted concept. Different types of decentralisation should be distinguished. Because each type has its own features, policy implications and conditions for success. The types, include, political, administrative, fiscal and organisational. Our analyses is made in the context of organisations.

In decentralisation, decision-making process is dispersed or deregularised. But it is a matter of degree. In an organisational structure, if the managerial levels are more, decentralisation of authority will also be more. If the levels or subunits are more autonomous, then the decentralisation will be most effective. In such situations, cost-benefit analysis can be independently made.

Cost is governed by – (i) manager’s perceptions to look at their division and relegating back the overall objectives of the organisation, (ii) costly duplication of services and (iii) increase in cost to obtain information required by the submits.

6. Organisational Design and Configuration  

To design various types of structures, certain influencing factors have to be considered. It is really challenging to design an effective and workable organisation structure. The designer has to bear in mind the attributes such as – (i) cultural alignment, (ii) transparency and (iii) communication to have well laid structure.

Besides these three basic attributes, (i) talent retention and (ii) well-defined goals of the organisation and vision have to be considered in designing. Challenges and constraints are also identified in drafting the structure. These aspects are widely discussed with stakeholders to understand the intensity of each attribute across the proposed set-up. This will facilitate the designer to come up with best structure.

7. Designing Other Aspects :

Although fundamental and traditional structures act as base for exhibiting roles, responsibilities and authority relationships to develop an organisation structure today, many softwares have emerged to design a customised structure. Varieties of templates showing different structures have been designed. Any structure shown in the templates can be adopted suiting to be the adopted suiting to the organisational needs. One such template is shown here to understand the possible structures that can be drawn.

Configuration :

The term “configuration” is normally used in computer operations showing the programmes incorporated in it. The programme includes the capacity, volume of things that can be stored etc. This concept is also extended to designing an organisational structure keeping any one of the types of structure shown in the template. Customised structures are designed. Thus, preparing a chart altering the basic structure as per the need may be called “configuration” of organisation structure.

The basic structures, viz., line staff and matrix can be configured according to the purpose, goals and objectives of the organisation. Any number of configured charts can be prepared for any activity of an enterprise.

The examples of configured charts are – (i) Business organisation chart, (ii) Photo organisation charts fixing photos of every individual working at different levels of organisational hierarchy, (iii) company organisation chart, (iv) city organisation chart showing different parts of a city with different hierarchical structure in each branch, (v) city organisation chart showing different branches of an enterprise functioning in different parts of a city with different hierarchical structure in each branch, (vi) Marketing organisation chart showing different sub-functions of marketing plan of a firm, (vii) Human Resources Development Chart, (viii) Financial operations chart, (ix) Team organisational chart, (x) Organisation charts for different activities with hierarchy like, police, school, Hospital, Hotel, IT company, consumer marts, etc.

These are customized charts and are configured as per the needs of the organisation. While designing the structure, certain other issues are considered. These aspects are operational ones and have greater impact one organisational flow and cost of operations. They have to be considered for organisational effectiveness.

Related Articles:

• Management of an Organisation
• Difference between Management and Leadership
• Delegation of Authority | Functions | Management
• Difference between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management

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• Class 12th /

Organising Class 12 Notes

• Updated on  
• Jan 18, 2024

Organising is indeed one of the most important functions of management. In the language of business and management, it is a relationship built between people, work and resources in an organisation that is hence used to achieve the common objectives or goals of the organisation as a whole. In this blog on Organising class 12 notes, we will be giving you important study notes on one of the chapters of Business Studies Organising Class 12. It is an important part of commerce subjects, so read this blog till the end if you want to know more about organising class 12 notes. 

Must Read: Business Studies Class 12 Project

This Blog Includes:

What is organising, organising process, importance of organising , organisational structure, types of organisation structure, formal vs informal organisation, delegation , elements of delegation , importance of delegation, centralisation, decentralisation .

Before taking this blog on organising class 12 notes any further, let us first understand what organising actually means. Organising is that function of business management that deals with identifying and grouping different activities in the organisation. Simultaneously, it also deals with bringing together the physical, financial, and human resources required and established to achieve organisational goals. As per Fayol, “To organise a business is to provide it with everything useful to its functioning; raw materials, machines and tools, capital and personnel.”

After understanding what organising actually is, it is now time to reveal the organising process in this blog on organising class 12 notes. According to NCERT, the organising process has 4 vital and important steps:

• Identification and division of work 
• Departmentalisation 
• Assignment of duties
• Establishing reporting relationships

Any theory topic and our organising class 12 notes in incomplete without mentioning the importance of the topic. Here is the importance of organising:

• Benefits of specialization : Since a portion of the total work is allocated to each worker and not the entire job or assignment, the division of work into smaller units and repetitive output contributes to specialization , which therefore encourages specialization. In turn, specialization leads to productive & rapid task efficiency.
• The clarity in working relationships : Organizing is essential because it helps to build well-defined roles and also to explain the boundaries of each job’s authority and obligation.
• Optimum utilisation of resources : Proper job allocation prevents job overlap/duplication, which helps prevent confusion and minimise waste of resources and efforts.
• Adaptation to change : Organising indeed enables a well-designed organizational structure that is flexible and facilitates adjustment to changes in workload caused by technology, products, resources and markets-related changes in the external environment.
• Effective administration : Organizing provides a clear description of jobs and related tasks that helps to avoid confusion and duplication, and this clarity in working relationships allows work to be properly executed, resulting in effective management.
• Development of personnel : On the part of the staff, the sound organization encourages initiative and relative thinking. It reduces their workload when managers delegate their authority to concentrate on more important growth & innovation issues. 
• Expansion and growth: good organising also contributes to an enterprise’s growth & diversification by adding more jobs, departments, line managers, product lines, new geographical territories, etc.

Also Read: Top Business Studies Courses You Can’t Afford to Miss

Moving ahead with our blog on Organising class 12 notes, let us now look upon what is an organisational structure? In simple words, the organisational structure is a structure that clearly depicts and tells us the relationship among all the persons/departments working in the organisation. This structure hence provides a basis of the framework for the top management and line managers and also for the other employees to perform their required and needful functions. It can also be defined as the framework within which managerial and operating tasks are performed. While farming the organisational structure, the considerations to be kept in mind are as follows:

• Span of management
• Delegation of authority
• Departmentation

According to the chapter of Organising class 12 notes, there are 2 types of organisational structure namely: 

• Functional Structure: in this structure, the activities or jobs or tasks are grouped keeping in mind the functions of that particular task or job. 

• Divisional structure: According to this structure of an organisation in our organising class 12 notes, when the organisation is a big or large organisation and is producing more than one product, then the activities related to product A are grouped together or clubbed under one department and a similar thing is done for the rest of the products. 

Do Read: Creative Courses After 12th Commerce

Let us take our blog on Organisation class 12 notes a step further by discussing formal and informal types of organisation.

• A formal organisation is a type of organisation where an organisational structure is created while the managers are carrying the organising process to achieve systematic working condition and efficient utilisation of resources.

• On the contrary, an informal organisation is a type of organisation where the organisational structure is basically a network of personal and social relations which is not established by the formal organisation. 

Must Read: Syllabus for Business Studies Class 12th

According to the chapter of Organising class 12, delegation or delegation of authority is a process through which the responsibilities and authority are entrusted to the subordinates and accountability is created on those employees who have entrusted the responsibility and authority. The importance of delegation is: 

• Employee development
• Improves the motivation of the employees
• Facilitation of growth
• Effective management
• Basis of management hierarchy
• Better coordination

There are 3 elements of the delegation which we will be discussing in a while in this blog on organising class 12 notes.

• Employee development : It will provide opportunities for employees in order to help them develop their skills so as to handle complex tasks and hence, improve their career prospects.
• Motivation of employees : It builds confidence and motivation when one receives responsibility and authority from superiors.
• Better Coordination : Accountability and responsibility bring clarity and avoids duplication that leads to better coordination.
• Basis of management hierarchy : The basis of management is provided by flow of authority, degree and responsibility.
• Effective management : Sharing responsibilities with subordinates allows managers to concentrate on important matters.
• Facilitation of growth : Subordinates get trained for new projects and ventures when they receiver responsibility from superior trains.
• The top-level management retains all the power and authority of decision-making.
• The higher management takes all the decisions in a centralised manner.
• It may disrupt the production efficiency and discourage departments and employees hence, the organisation cannot be completely centralised. So, there is a balance between centralisation that is needed.

The blog on organising class 12 notes cannot be completed without mentioning decentralisation and its importance. In simple words, decentralisation is a process which refers to the manner in which the decision-making responsibilities of the organisation are being divided among the hierarchical levels of the organisation. The importance of decentralisation is:

• It develops initiative among the subordinates
• It helps in developing the managerial talent for the future. 
• It helps in quick decision making in the organisation 
• Relief to the top management is given 
• It facilitates growth in the organisation 
• It offers better control. 

Explore: Business Research: Definition, Methods & Types

Related Reads:-

Organising function comes after planning. The concept of organising involves allocating resources, departmentalise work, demarcate authority, and distribute responsibilities through the firm. The complicated process includes the collaboration of several factors.

The main steps under organising includes identification of work, grouping of work, establishment of hierarchy, delegation of authority, and coordination.

The 5 principles of organising includes the principles of specialisation, functional definition, span of control, scalar chain, and the principle of unity of command.

With this, we come to the end of this blog on organising class 12 notes. Hope these notes will help you to fetch some extra marks in your exam and will come in handy for that last moment revision before the exams. For more such awesome reads and revision/study notes on different subjects, stay tuned with the study abroad experts at Leverage Edu. If you wish to seek career advice or want to pursue business administration or any other related field, get in touch with our experts. Sign up for a free session today!

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Organizing: Meaning, Definitions, Importance, Principles, Process, Characteristics, Features, Benefits

What is organizing.

Organizing is a process of dividing work into duties, grouping these duties in the form of positions, and grouping these positions in the form of departments. It is an important activity that brings together the manpower and resources for the accomplishment of goals.

Meaning of Organizing

Organizing is the process of defining and grouping the activities of the business enterprise and establishing authority relationships among them. In performing the organizing function, the manager defines, departmentalizes, and assigns activities so that they can be most effectively executed.

Organizing means determination and assignment of duties to people and establishment and maintenance of relationships. It is the structural framework within which the various efforts are coordinated and related to each other.

It involves putting things and persons in proper places and in relation to each other. The success or failure of an enterprise depends largely on the nature of the organization.

Definitions of Organizing

[su_quote cite=”Theo Haimann”] Organizing is the process of defining and grouping the activities of the enterprise and establishing the authority relationships among them. In performing the organizing function, the manager defines, departmentalizes, and assigns activities so that they can be most effectively executed.[/su_quote]

[su_quote cite=”A. Strong”] Organizing is the process of integrating into a coordinated structure of activities required to achieve the objectives of an enterprise; staffing this structure with qualified, competent personnel and supplying them with physical factors necessary to perform their functions.[/su_quote]

Importance of Organizing

Specialization, clarifies authority and responsibility, avoids duplication of work.

Organizing helps to avoid duplication of work and overlapping of responsibilities. This is because specific jobs are assigned to individuals and work groups.

Role Clarity

Source of support and security, principles of organizing.

The objectives of the enterprise should first be clearly defined as it influences the organization’s structure. Each and every employee in the organization should be geared toward the achievement of these objectives.

Span of Control

The problem which cannot be handled by subordinates at lower levels could be referred to by executives at a higher level with an exception and routine matters should be dealt with by the subordinates at lower levels. It will enable the executives at higher levels to devote time to more important and crucial issues.

Scalar Principle

Unity of command.

The delegation of authority should be proper at the lower levels of the organization also. The authority delegated should be equal to responsibility, i.e. each manager should have enough authority to accomplish the task assigned to them.

Responsibility

Proper organizational structure enables the enterprise to function efficiently and accomplish its objectives at the lowest possible cost.

Flexibility

There should be a reasonable balance in the size of various departments, between centralization and decentralization, between the principle of span of control and. the chain of command, and among all types of factors such as human, technical and financial.

Unity of Direction

Personal ability, process of organizing.

The organization is the process of establishing relationships among the members of the enterprise. The relationships are created in terms of authority and responsibility. To organize is to harmonize, coordinate or arrange in a logical and orderly manner.

Determination of Objectives

Organizational structure is built on the basis of the objectives of the enterprise. That means the structure of the organization can be determined by the management only after knowing the objectives to be accomplished through the organization.

Enumeration of Objectives

Each job should be properly classified and grouped. This will enable the people to know what is expected of them as members of the group and will help in avoiding duplication of efforts. For example, the work of an industrial concern may be divided into the following major functions – production, financing, personnel, sales, purchase, etc.

Classification of Activities

Assignment of duties.

He should also be given adequate authority to do the job assigned to him. In the words of Kimball and Kimball, “Organization embraces the duties of designating the departments and the personnel that are to carry on the work, defining their functions and specifying the relations that are to exist between department and individuals.”

Delegation of Authority

Characteristics of organizing, features of organizing, benefits of organizing, faq related to organizing, what is the meaning of organizing.

Organizing is the process of identifying and grouping the work to be performed, defining and delegating responsibility and authority, and establishing relationships for the purpose of enabling people to work most effectively together in accomplishing objectives.

What is the definition of organizing?

What is the importance of organizing, what are the principles of organizing.

The following are the principles of organizing: 1. Objectives 2. Specialization 3. Span of Control 4. Exception 5. Scalar Principle 6. Unity of Command 7. Delegation 8. Responsibility 9. Authority 10. Efficiency 11. Simplicity 12. Flexibility 13. Balance 14. Unity of Direction 15. Personal Ability.

What is the process of organizing?

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Commerce Aspirant » Business Studies Class 12 » Organising Process Class 12 Notes Business Studies

Organising Process Class 12 Notes Business Studies

Organising Class 12 Notes Chapter 5 – Steps in the Process of Organising

Organising process class 12 explains the chronological order of organising in any organization as without organising properly any organization would not be able to accomplish the desired goals. The process is given below you can click on the point to get a detailed explanation.

• Identification and division of work
• Departmentalisation
• Assignment of duties
• Establishing reporting relationships

Organising process class 12

Organising is a process which unites the efforts of the members in an organisation by creating simplified tasks alongside creating a proper authority – responsibility relationship which ultimately helps in achieving the goals of an organisation. There are various steps in the process of organising.

Let us understand with an example of an annual function in a school. Suppose there is going to be an annual function of the school in a month. If each student of the school decides to do the function and arrangement by themselves without making a team, then everyone will start putting in effort but they will go in vain.

Teachers will be looking after different activities and segments of the function and thus they will act as the heads of the departments. Then students will give auditions for different activities such as dance, song, drama etc. Then the selected candidates will be practicing separately while other activities such as seating arrangement, decoration etc. will be done by other teams.

A proper minute-to-minute description of the function will be prepared. This will ultimately lead to the success of the function. Thus, it is clear that proper steps are to be followed while doing any activity and it is done for the organization in a similar manner but at a large scale.

The steps in the process of organising are as under:

Identification and division of work under Organising process class 12  

After the planning is done and the goals are set, the next step which comes into picture is setting the organisational structure and doing the organising. It is a process where the work is properly divided into small tasks so that they are simplified. The work should be identified and a proper job description should be created.

This job description and proper job roles will help the employees understand their work better, thus reducing the overlapping and duplication of the work and avoidance of waste of effort, time and money.

In relation to the example of the school’s annual function, the work is to plan a function and the place, time and budget will be decided. After that will the work will be divided into different segments wherein the dance, songs, drama, fun activities and award-giving will be the main tasks.

Departmentalization

Process of Organising Class 12 explains that When the work is identified and divided into small, simplified and manageable activities, it is combined into departments. The department means a collection of similar kinds of activities. Departments in an organisation can be made on various bases. Some of these bases are territory-wise, function-wise, product wise etc.

Taking the annual function of the school as an example, the departments will include the activities department, the decoration department, the food department, trophies purchasing department etc.

Assignment of duties under Organising process class 12  

After the identification of work and then dividing them into various tasks and then the collection of similar kinds of tasks under one department, the next step in the process of Organising Class 12 is these tasks will be assigned to the employees of an organisation. The duties will be assigned to the skilled and competent people who will help the organisation in achieving the objectives. Similar kinds of tasks when performed on regular basis will help in gaining more experience in that particular work and thus help in gaining specialisation.

In the case of the example we took of the annual function of a school, the duties will be divided into various departments as mentioned above, and then these departments would need students and teachers who can pull it off properly and will be able to make it a great success. First, the auditions will be done for the activities and the students who will be best among the others will be selected.

Establishing reporting relationships under Organising process class 12  

After the allocation of tasks to various skilled people, In Organising Process Class 12 the reporting relationships will be established. The reporting relationships mean establishing the authority and responsibility relationship. The employees should know what work they will do and then after the completion of work whom they will inform. These relationships are very important not only for clarity but also for avoidance of chaos in the organisation.

When there are two or three heads over a single employee then it will create an increased burden on the employee as he or she would need to inform each head separately about the work and each head will have different feedback and inculcating different feedback can become difficult and time-consuming.

In the case of the annual function of the school, the heads of different activities will be different. One single teacher cannot be the head of all the activities and single activity cannot be looked after by many teachers. This may result in a delay in decision making. So to avoid all the limitations, the proper department head will be selected so that the head can be accountable for the activity he or she is looking after.

Thus, organising is an important process which should be carefully executed so that the enterprise is set up properly and later on work can progress smoothly. The Organising Process Class 12 has its own benefits such as it helps in specialisation, helps in expansion and growth, building clarity in working relationships etc.

These benefits can be achieved only when this process is done according to the steps in proper order and not jumping from one step to another. After following these steps a proper organisational structure will be formed and thus help in clarity of working relationship and help in adaptation to change and effective management.

Chapter 5 – Organising

• Introduction to Organisation and its Importance
• Steps in the process of Organising
• Organisation Structure
• Decentralisation
• Economics Class 12 Notes
• Business Studies Class 12 Notes
• Accountancy Class 12 Notes
• Economics Class 12 MCQs
• Business Studies Class 12 MCQs
• Accountancy Class 12 MCQs

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Class 11 Notes

• Economics Class 11 Notes
• Accountancy Class 11 Notes

Class 11 MCQs

• Economics Class 11 MCQs
• Business Studies Class 11 MCQs

Class 12 Notes

Class 12 MCQs

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Google Classroom comes back from summer break with a better approach to group projects

Assigning group work will finally be less of a headache for teachers..

By Joanna Nelius , laptop reviewer. She has covered consumer technology, with an emphasis on PC gaming, since 2018. Previous bylines: USA Today, Gizmodo, PC Gamer, Maximum PC, among others.

Share this story

Today, Google announced it’s making assigning group work in Google Classroom easier and faster with a new feature called Student Groups . Teachers will now be able to add individual students to predefined groups before creating and assigning group work.

Google is entering this school year with a bunch of new updates for the now 10-year-old Classroom platform , like a new Education Navigator , a Read Along feature, and Dark Mode to the mobile app. But teachers have been waiting for something like Student Groups for a long time.

Previously, teachers would need to create an assignment first and then individually add students to that assignment if they wanted to assign group work. For occasional group projects, this worked okay, but it was a pain for teachers who regularly have their students do group work — especially if their students remained in the same groups throughout the school year.

But now, the process of assigning group work is no longer as much of a hassle. From inside the People tab, teachers can use the new Group button above the class roster to create, name, add, and modify custom student groups. These groups will be an available option whenever a teacher creates an assignment.

Previously, Google added the ability to import class rosters from certain Student Information Systems (SIS), which meant some teachers no longer had to manually add student names one at a time into every new Classroom they created.

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Boston Red Sox Make Wild Team History of the Last 30 Years in Win on Friday Night

Brady farkas | aug 17, 2024.

• Boston Red Sox

The Boston Red Sox won one of the wildest games of the season on Friday night, topping the Baltimore Orioles 12-10 at Camden Yards.

With the win, the Sox remain 2.5 games back of the Kansas City Royals in the American League wild card picture. Boston's offense came to life in this one, with the team registering 14 hits and four different multi-run innings. Five different players had multi-hit games for Boston, who is now 64-57 on the year.

And it's a good thing that the Sox offense came to play, because the Sox pitching certainly struggled. Boston allowed a whopping 17 hits in addition to the 10 runs. They also allowed six walks in the contest.

The Sox hadn't won a game like this in nearly the last 30 years of team history, according to @JayHayKid of the "Baseball is Dead" podcast:

Even more specific: the last time Boston won while allowing 17+ hits *and* issuing at least 6 walks in a 9-inning game (prior to tonight) was 1996.

Even more specific: the last time Boston won while allowing 17+ hits *and* issuing at least 6 walks in a 9-inning game (prior to tonight) was 1996. — nugget chef (@jayhaykid) August 17, 2024

The Red Sox and Orioles will play again on Saturday night with first pitch coming at 7:05 p.m. ET. Sox' righty Bryan Bello will get the ball against lefty Code Povich.

Bello is 10-5 with a 4.97 ERA, though his ERA has continued to drop over the last few weeks. The young pitcher is supposed to be the centerpiece of what the Sox do in the rotation in the coming years. Povich is 1-5 this year with a 6.27 ERA. This will be his ninth career big-league game.

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BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

The Long Run

A Vice Presidential Learning Curve: How Kamala Harris Picked Her Shots

As President Biden’s understudy, Ms. Harris did not often get to lead on signature issues. But she found roles to play on abortion rights, gun safety and a Supreme Court appointment.

Credit... Erin Schaff/The New York Times

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By Peter Baker and Zolan Kanno-Youngs

Peter Baker and Zolan Kanno-Youngs are White House reporters who have covered Kamala Harris for nearly four years and traveled with her to Europe, Asia, Africa and across the United States.

• Aug. 18, 2024

When a draft of a blockbuster Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked in 2022 , Vice President Kamala Harris met with Ron Klain, then the White House chief of staff, in her West Wing office. He had an idea: She should lead a new task force on abortion rights.

She seemed uncertain. “Why?” she asked.

“We need a real leader, and you’re the leader,” Mr. Klain responded.

Ms. Harris asked for time to think about it. She did not want to just give a speech without substance. And she had spent much of the previous year and a half trying to avoid being typecast as the first female vice president. But as the White House began mapping out executive actions to defend access to abortion, she began to see the possibilities and accepted the role.

It was a moment that captured the essence of the Harris vice presidency. Deliberate and disciplined, cautious and at times risk averse, she saw trapdoors around her and wanted to avoid them. She considered herself a team player, but could not always be sure the team had her best interests at heart. She gravitated to issues on which she thought she could make a difference without upstaging President Biden, but was rarely promoted as a critical player in the administration.

The court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision eliminating a constitutional right to abortion proved to be an issue on which Ms. Harris could take the lead, one that Mr. Biden, a churchgoing Catholic, did not feel as comfortable addressing. She found her voice as the administration’s champion of abortion rights , changing some minds among Democrats who had harbored doubts about her. And she paved the way to the moment when she will accept her party’s nomination for president this week.

Ms. Harris’s record as vice president is complex, as described in interviews with dozens of current and former administration officials and allies, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid alienating her or the president. She has done the dutiful things she has been asked to do. She led a labor task force and a gun safety office. She traveled to places the president had no time to visit. She has been sent to deliver private messages to the leaders of Poland and Germany and to break key tie votes in the Senate.

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