CONCEPTS AND NATURE OF COMPLEX ORGANIZATION

INTRODUCTION In modern world, ever-larger (complex) organizations rise to dominate the social landscape, commanding a greater share of the social resources, ever greater social power, and proving to be effective mechanisms for organizing large aggregates of people in the pursuit of social goals. Complex organizations are not all alike. Political parties, business, firms, voluntary civic groups, governmental agencies, hospitals, prisons, universities and armies are all large or complex organizations. Yet all are different from one another in goals they pursue and in the kind of amount of resources they command Although variations in size and in purpose distinguish large organizations from one another, what is probably most common to them is a tendency to move forward formalization and then bureaucracy. It is this development in complex organizations that will be the concern of this unit. Basic Concepts of Organizations i. Defining an Organization An organization is a persistent social system with a collective identity and a programme of planned activity directed toward the achievement of explicit goals. ii. Organizational Positions A position is a category of membership in an organization whose incumbents are expected to enact a set of roles that are part of the organizational programme. iii. Organizational Status and Hierarchy The status of an organization position is its place in the distribution of social power prescribed by the organization. Such a distribution is called a “hierarchy”, and every organization has one. iv. The Organizational Pyramid This is the diagram-somewhat resembling a population pyramid that shows the number of status levels in a hierarchy and the number of members at each level. v. A table of Organization This is a device for describing the structure of an organization graphically. It locates position vertically by status and horizontally by function. But no real life organization can fit exactly to the pattern of operation prescribed for it. vi. Bureaucracy This is the type of organization that handles a large volume of routine activities by means of impersonal standardized procedure. It is characteristically modern type of organization that develops along with technological progress. Organizational Size Organizations can be conveniently arranged in four categories of size as follows: i. A Small Organization This organization is small enough for every member to know every other and to interact with him directly. The upper limit is about thirty (30) members, although a very durable small organization may be somewhat larger. ii. A Middle-sized Organization This is too large to permit development of a relationship between every pair of members but small enough so that certain key members can interact directly with all the others. The upper limit is about a thousand. iii. A Large Organization This is too large for any member to interact directly with all of the others, but small enough for all or most of the members to be assembled at one time in one place. The upper limit of large organizations is variable but lies in the neighbourhood of 50, 000 members. iv. A Giant Organization This has too many members too widely dispersed for all of them ever to be assembled at one time and place. Its leaders are known to the rank and file through communication media, and no leader is personally acquainted with more than a small fraction of the membership. An organization’s chances of survival seem to increase directly with its size. Size and efficiency appear to be correlated also in types of organization whose efficiency is harder to measure than of a business corporation such as schools, research institute and political parties. Furthermore, larger organizations are generally less effective in providing satisfaction to their members. Alienation – the loss of interest in the purpose toward which one’s own activity is directed – is a perennial problem of larger and giant organizations. On the final analysis larger and giant organizations are better classified as complex organizations than other brands. The Nature of Complex Organizations Complex organizations are not all alike. Political parties, business, firms, voluntary civil groups, governmental agencies, hospitals, prisons, universities, and armies are all complex organizations, yet all are different from one another in the goals they pursue, and in the kind and amount of resources they command, if they are all large, however they are not equally so, for what is large can be equally anything from a departmental store or a social service agency to the General Motor Corporation or the Department of Defence. Common Tendencies of Complex Organizations Although variation in size and purpose distinguish large organizations from one another, the following are their aspirations and tendencies. (a) Goal Specificity Complex or formal organizations are constructed for the pursuit of relatively specific objectives. It is goal-specificity that makes it possible for organizations to build a rational structure – that is, one in which activities are organized so as to lead efficiently to a previously defined goal. The more clearly and precisely an organization defines its goals, the more able is it to construct a rational structure. Goal specificity is a matter of degree, not an all or nothing matter. Some organizations are more specific than others about their goals. For example, universities are often less specific than a business firm or a government agency. If the goals of complex organization are specific, they are not unchangeable. Even in such organizations as business firms, specific goals first established are subject to change over time, as circumstances change and as different groups within the organizations reshape goals to suit their particular interest. In changing circumstances, goals may become too costly, or even unattainable. In some cases full success in attaining a goal may no longer justify putting so much of the organization’s resources into it. (b) Formalization The structure of an organization is “formal” when its positions and relations among them are officially and explicitly designated, independently of the characteristics of the persons who might occupy the positions. It is possible to draw a diagram of a formal structure \, to picture it as a series of offices which rank above and below one another on a chart of organization (organogram or organizational chart). Office holders perform specialized functions and are governed by written rules and regulations. Like goal-specificity, formalization is a matter of degree; some organizations have formalized their structures more thoroughly than have others. (c) Bureaucratization Formalization makes the rules, the authority and the functions of office explicit (or clear). Bureaucratization caries this one step further; it is the development of administrative staff whose task is the control and coordination of the formal structure of an organization. What the owner manager of an enterprise once did himself (and still does in small organizations) is now subdivided among a number of specified functions, such as personnel, sales, production, research, advertising and the like. Thus, when organizations grow in size, administering them requires a separate staff. In an organization that has been formally established, a special administrative staff usually exists that is responsible for maintaining the organization as a going concern and for co-coordinating the activities of its members. CONCLUSION An organization’s chance of survival depends on its size. That is the reason for classifying organizations broadly by their sizes. This affords Sociologists the opportunity to observe and predict the prospect of particular organizations. Goal specificity, formalization and bureaucratization are the aspirations and tendencies of every complex organization. SUMMARY In this unit, various basic concepts of organization were defined. Because of the importance of size for organizational survival, efforts were made to divide organizations into respective sizes. It is established in this unit also that complex organizations are not all alike. Inspite of their differences, there common tendencies were presented.