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Discuss The Organizing Functions of Management

Organizing is the second function of management that involves determining an organization's internal structure and allocating necessary resources. A manager must organize human, physical, and financial resources by establishing departments and roles, delegating authority and responsibilities, and ensuring coordination. Effective organizing provides structure and order within an organization so that employees work together efficiently to achieve goals. Key aspects of organizing include identifying activities, departmentalizing similar tasks, classifying authority levels through hierarchy, and coordinating relationships to facilitate goal achievement. Well-organized firms and managers tend to be more productive and successful compared to those lacking organization.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
504 views

Discuss The Organizing Functions of Management

Organizing is the second function of management that involves determining an organization's internal structure and allocating necessary resources. A manager must organize human, physical, and financial resources by establishing departments and roles, delegating authority and responsibilities, and ensuring coordination. Effective organizing provides structure and order within an organization so that employees work together efficiently to achieve goals. Key aspects of organizing include identifying activities, departmentalizing similar tasks, classifying authority levels through hierarchy, and coordinating relationships to facilitate goal achievement. Well-organized firms and managers tend to be more productive and successful compared to those lacking organization.

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Cletus Sikwanda
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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All organizations depend upon group efforts.

Group action and joint efforts have become necessary in every walk of life. Management is required wherever two or more people work together to achieve common objectives. The success in group efforts depends upon mutual cooperation among the members of the group. Management creates teamwork and coordination among specialized efforts. Management is indispensable in all organizations whether a business firm, a government, a hospital, a college or a club. Management is a creative force which helps in the optimum utilization of resources. Competent managerial leadership alone can convert the disorganized resources of men, money, materials and machinery into a productive enterprise. In the absence of management, an organization is merely a collection of men, money, materials and machinery. Against this background this essay seeks to discuss the organizing functions of management. For effective presentation a definition of the major concepts will be given in the first paragraph. Thereafter it shall move on to discuss the assertion in the main paragraph. A concise conclusion is given in the final paragraph. According to Armstrong (1994) 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. It is described as 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. On the other hand Management is the process of getting things done through the efforts of other people in order to achieve the predetermined objectives of organization. Management may also be define as: The process by which execution of given purpose put into operation and supervise (ibid).

Getting organized is the second function of management. Management must organize all its resources in order to implement the course of action it determined in the planning process. Through the process of getting organized, management will determine the internal organizational structure; establish and maintain relationships, as well as allocate necessary resources.
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In determining the internal structure, management must look at the different divisions or departments, the coordination of staff, and what is the best way to handle the necessary tasks and disbursement of information within the company (Invancerich, 1998). Management will then divide up the work that needs to be done, determine appropriate departments, and delegate authority and responsibilities. Organizing resources can mean a variety of things. First, the manager is in charge of organizing human resources. For example, a manager will need to be sure the appropriate employees are hired (ibid). In addition, it is the managers responsibility to ensure the employees have the skills necessary for the workplace. Organizing these employees, according to when they are needed and how they are utilized, is a critical part of the managers position. For instance, in a manufacturing facility, organizing as a management function also involves ordering parts and other components needed to produce products. A manager must be extremely organized to keep track of items needed, without having components too early or too late.

Noe, R.A. et al (2008) argues that the management process is composed of four functions, all of which are needed to have a successful Management Process. Organizing however is the second of the four functions. Organizing, grouped with planning, provides managers with control of all organizational aspects, the organizing function is said to be the most frustrating one. Collecting and arranging the financial, physical, informational, the human and other resources needed to reach goals, is what organizing consists of.

In addition organizing activities include attracting people to the corporation, identifying job responsibilities, grouping jobs into work units, collecting and assigning resources, and creating circumstances so that people and things work together to achieve maximum success (ibid). In basic terms, organizing means for a cause to be structured or ordered or operating according to some principle or idea. The focus of organizing is on division, coordination, and control of tasks and the flow of information within the organization. It is in this function that managers distribute authority to job holders.

In order to carry out a plan effectively, managers must organize priorities to accomplish the overall objective. Both the managers and the organization must be able to develop major subsystems, such as departments, programs, divisions, and teams. Individually, each of these subsystems has a responsibility. Often, these systems and processes are defined by plans, policies, and procedures.

According to Cole (2004) organizing occurs continuously. Organizing is a daily, weekly and yearly task for most managers. In todays fast-paced business world, things change quickly and variations occur. Managers must remember that the organizational component is fluid and forever-changing. Flexible managers are able to change courses when necessary and still meet the clients needs. Change is inevitable. For firms that experience change frequently, the organizing function is even more crucial. Organizational changes such as adding new positions or eliminating certain processes can change the organizational level and structure of the business.

For a manager to perform organizing function, the following steps are important. Firstly there is need for the identification of activities. All the activities which have to be performed in a concern have to be identified first. For example, preparation of accounts, making sales, record keeping, quality control, inventory control. All these activities have to be grouped and classified into units.

In addition departmentally organizing the activities is the send step. In this step, the manager tries to combine and group similar and related activities into units or departments. This organization of dividing the whole concern into independent units and departments is called departmentalization.

Further, classifying the authority is the third step (ibid). Once the departments are made, the manager likes to classify the powers and its extent to the managers. This activity of giving a rank in order to the managerial positions is called hierarchy. 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 helps in bringing
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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 concerns working.

Further, the co-ordination between authority and responsibility is another step that follows. Relationships are established among various groups to enable smooth interaction toward the achievement of the organizational goal. 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.

Guest, D. (1987) argues that people who are organized generally accomplish much more than disorganized individuals. The same is true of organized departments or businesses. Those managers who can master the organization function will enjoy a much smoother tenure in the management position. For example, a construction business has to do a great deal of organizing to ensure a project goes well. The construction manager must organize each of the subcontractors and receipt of building materials. Scheduling a carpenter before the framing materials arrive is counterproductive and shows a lack of organization. In a construction situation, there is a particular order to the project; this is also true of projects in any other work scenario.

In addition employees who have an organized manager will emulate that behavior and strive for organization as well. Managers who take the organizing function seriously and consistently update their plans accordingly will achieve success in the workplace.

In conclusion, the purpose of organizing is to achieve coordinated effort by defining task and authority relationships. Organizing means determining who does what and who reports to whom. There are countless examples in history of well-organized enterprises successfully competing against, and in some cases defeating, much stronger but less-organized firms. A well-organized firm generally has motivated managers and employees who are committed to seeing the organization succeed. Resources are allocated more effectively and used more efficiently in a
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well-organized firm than in a disorganized firm. The organizing function of management can be viewed as consisting of three sequential activities: breaking tasks down into jobs (work specialization), combining jobs to form departments (departmentalization), and delegating authority. Breaking tasks down into jobs requires development of job descriptions and job specifications. These tools clarify for both managers and employees what particular jobs entail. Combining jobs to form departments' results in an organizational structure, span of control, and a chain of command. Changes in strategy often require changes in structure because new positions may be created, deleted, or merged. Organizational structure dictates how resources are allocated and how objectives are established in a firm. Allocating resources and establishing objectives geographically, for example, is much different from doing so by product or customer. The most common forms of departmentalization are functional, divisional, strategic business unit, and matrix

Bibliography

Armstrong M. (1994).

Performance Management. London: Kogan Page Ltd

Befeman T.S and Zerthaml C.P (1990)

Management: Function and Strategy. Boston:

Richard D. Irwin Inc.

Boxall, P. and Purcell, J. (2003).

Strategy and Human Resource Management.

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Human Resource Management (7th ed.). Boston: Irwin McGraw Hill

Invancerich, J.M (1998).

Noe, R.A. et al (2008).

Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage (6th ed.). Boston: Irwin McGraw Hill. Management Theory and Practice. (8th ed.). China: C & C Offset.

Cole G.A (2004).

Julie B. and Tim, C. (2007). Human Resource Management: A Contemporary Approach (5th ed.). Spain: Graficas Estella.

Guest, D. (1987).

Human Resources Management and Industrial Relations; Journal of Management Studies, 24, 5: 503 521.

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