Abstract
Students frequently struggle to understand the differences among various types of organizational structures and how these differences affect organizational processes and outcomes. In the exercise described in this article, students are given a list of jobs from a medical rehabilitation center and asked to create an organizational chart. Students are thereby encouraged to consider how various jobs relate to each other and to customers (in this case, the patients). Students evaluate the charts that they and their peers have created to determine how well each structure supports coordination, collaboration, customer responsiveness and job satisfaction. The exercise is appropriate for undergraduate, graduate, and professional learners.
The manager of a design engineering department at a mid-sized manufacturing firm restructured his department to create smaller teams with greater supervision, hoping to encourage workers to be more efficient with their time. The organization and his department were already highly centralized with narrow spans of control. As he explained his decision, it became clear that his assumptions reflected little understanding of organizational theory or human motivation. Not surprisingly, his restructuring did not lead to greater efficiency or creativity. In general, the combination of increasing monitoring, reducing autonomy and narrowing job scope does little to increase motivation and enhance productivity in a design department, where most tasks are nonroutine (e.g., Child & McGrath, 2001; Langfred & Moye, 2004).
Designing an effective organizational structure is complex and teaching organizational structure to undergraduates, graduates or professionals is challenging. Managers have numerous options when it comes to structuring their organizations. Concerns for efficiency and control must be balanced with the need for collaboration and customer responsiveness. Students sometimes have difficulty understanding how an organization’s structure can affect its performance.
This article describes a learning activity that gives students practice creating an organizational chart for a rehabilitation center. For students with little work experience, it is an excellent follow-up to the exercises described by Fairfield (2016) or McMahon (2018). Their exercises teach students the fundamental concepts associated with organizational structure. The activity described here requires students to apply those concepts as they design an organizational chart, from scratch, for an organization that includes doctors, therapists, nurses, and administrators. I have used it over two dozen times in undergraduate courses, including Survey of Management and Organizational Behavior. In addition, this activity is challenging enough for graduate students and professionals who have extensive work experience. It can be done individually or in groups, online or in face-to-face classrooms. The exercise and discussion were created to work within a 75-minute class period.
Learning Objectives
Because this exercise requires building an organizational chart and evaluating multiple charts, it requires creative and critical thinking, the most abstract and complex types of learning objectives in Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson, Krathwohl, & Bloom, 2001). Through their participation in this activity, learners will be able to
identify the purpose of an organizational chart and
design and evaluate an organizational structure with respect to coordination, collaboration, customer responsiveness and job satisfaction.
Materials
Supplies needed for the activity are the handout (Appendix A), flip chart paper, and markers. Slides of sample organizational charts may also be needed, depending on the variety of structures students create (see Appendix B for examples; supplemental material available online).
The Exercise
Although this activity can be done individually or in groups, I assume the use of groups in a face-to-face setting. Creating an organizational chart is challenging to most students, so it helps to work through the issues with peers. This activity can be completed in groups of 4 to 6 members. Students sometimes create a workflow chart instead of an organizational chart, so the instructor may want to check on groups as they work. Another common mistake that students make is to have a group of workers (e.g., licensed practical nurses) reporting to another group of workers (e.g., registered nurses) instead of a single supervisor. An important part of the exercise is to help students learn how to read and design a chart. A list of the activities and their approximate timing are provided in Table 1.
Activities and Approximate Timing.
Student Preparation
Students need to be familiar with the basic information about organizational structure that is typically provided in introductory management and organizational texts (e.g., Colquitt, LePine, & Wesson, 2017; Jones & George, 2017). Specifically, students should know the features that define organizational structure, including reporting relationships, levels of hierarchy, span of control and departmentalization, and the affect that these features can have on coordination, collaboration, and customer responsiveness (Daft, 2016). It is helpful if students can refer to their textbook or other required readings as they build their charts. The organizational charts found in a text such as Jones and George (2017) provide a useful reference, especially for students with limited work experience.
Creating and Posting the Organizational Chart
The instructor distributes the handout provided in Appendix A. The students are to create an organizational chart for the clinical staff at Medical Rehabilitation Center (MRC) and then draw the chart on flip chart paper (about 30 minutes). It is best to have groups sketch out their charts on notebook paper before their final version goes up on the flip chart. If time is a constraint, the instructor can wander around to each group, encouraging them to work faster or providing hints that help them make progress. This exercise can be surprisingly difficult for some students, and some groups will engage in considerable debate.
When finished with the chart, each group immediately posts it on the wall. Once all the charts are hanging on the wall, ask students to wander around and look at each. This takes about 5 minutes, depending on the size of the class. They may consider how the charts differ from one another and think about the advantages and disadvantages of each. Knowing that their charts will be shared with and evaluated by their peers encourages students to produce a higher quality product. It also motivates them to look more closely at other charts to affirm that their group was on the right track or had better ideas.
Class Discussion
Class discussion starts once students are in their seats again.
The instructor goes to each chart and asks: Is this chart organized primarily around the employees’ knowledge and skills or patient needs? It is important to be aware that patients in a rehabilitation facility benefit most when they receive fully integrated care from multiple health professionals (Karol, 2014). Students typically design their charts to separate each profession into their own departments, for example, nurses, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, and so on, which tends to reduce communication and collaboration across functions.
If most of the charts organize departments according to function, ask the class why this is the case. What are the advantages to having a separate department for each function? What are the disadvantages?
If there are no examples of charts with cross-functional departments or teams (i.e., horizontal linkages; see Daft, 2016), have examples ready on slides (see Appendix B). The instructor may then ask students to identify the advantages and disadvantages of creating departments or teams that include members across multiple professions.
The instructor goes to each chart and asks: How many layers in the hierarchy does this chart have? Why does that matter?
Depending on the size of the class, this part of the discussion takes about 10 minutes. Although the discussion could go a lot longer, the primary goal here is to encourage students to look closely at their chart compared to others and start analyzing the impact of differences. The next set of questions will force students to think more deeply about the advantages and disadvantages of various types of organizational structures.
Additional Discussion or Assignment
The following list of questions is designed to make some of the advantages and disadvantages more real to the students. They can be discussed as a class or in small groups, to be turned in or reported on later. Students may consider all the charts and/or the charts provided by the instructor. Answers will vary, depending on the charts. If the entire set of questions is used, allow about 20 minutes to answer. See Appendix C for the teaching notes that accompany these questions.
If students have studied job characteristics theory (Hackman & Oldham, 1976): Which structure might allow for more skill variety? Greater task identity? Greater task significance? Greater autonomy? More feedback? Why? Justify your answer.
Which organization is most likely to have a group of physical therapists talk badly about a group of nurses?
Jessie is a brain injury patient at MRC. In which organization will there more likely be conflict among the psychologists, physical, respiratory, occupational, and speech therapists about scheduling Jessie for different tests and therapies?
In which organization is each therapist likely to specialize in a particular area and be very, very good at it?
Suppose Jessie is given new medication that causes some loss of muscle control. In which organization will this most likely be effectively communicated to all of Jessie’s therapists?
In which organization will it be more likely that all of Jessie’s therapists are aware of Jessie’s overall progress toward recovery?
Suppose Jessie is not showing progress. Which organization will be more effective at figuring out why and making helpful changes in treatment?
In which organization are the promotion opportunities the greatest?
There is no perfect organizational structure for a rehabilitation center or any other organization. Contextual factors such as type of product or service offered, customer needs, strategic goals, the stability of the environment, number and location of employees, characteristics of competitors, suppliers and distributors, and so on, should inform structuring decisions. In some organizations, including a rehabilitation facility, accreditation agencies influence structuring decisions. Among typical medical standards is the rule that a medical director, a physician, must oversee medical staff and clinical operations. In general, however, there is no one structure that guarantees high levels of coordination, collaboration, quality service, and resource efficiencies.
Summary of Key Points
After a class discussion of the questions, or once the instructor has collected the written answers from the students, the instructor spends a few minutes summarizing the key points from the discussion and highlights how characteristics of an organizational structure affect coordination, collaboration and customer responsiveness (for more information, see Colquitt et al., 2017; Daft, 2016; Jones & George, 2017 or for a health industry perspective, Borkowski, 2015; Karol, 2014).
Adaptation to Other Settings
This exercise was created for groups working in a face-to-face learning environment. If conducting this activity in class is not practical, or in the case of online courses, individuals can be assigned to build a chart electronically. This may require that students learn a chart tool such as that found under Word’s SmartArt tab. The second part of this exercise, comparing one’s chart to others, is essential whether done in groups or individually. If time is limited, a variety of charts can be supplied by the instructor and the students may then respond to the questions provided.
Having learners create an organizational chart is appropriate and challenging whether the course involves undergraduates, graduates, or professionals. Those with more work experience generally take less time to design the charts and require less support. The discussion questions are appropriate for any group, although experienced students are more easily able to relate to the effects of structure on communication, conflict, and collaboration.
Conclusion
Designing an effective organizational structure is difficult and teaching students about organizational structure is challenging. This activity will help accomplish both objectives. Requiring students to create an organizational chart helps them develop a more in-depth understanding of what an organizational chart is and how organizational structure affects coordination and collaboration across jobs and work groups.
Supplemental Material
MRC_Example_Charts – Supplemental material for Organizing Matters: The Case of Medical Rehabilitation
Supplemental material, MRC_Example_Charts for Organizing Matters: The Case of Medical Rehabilitation by Diane F. Baker in Management Teaching Review
Footnotes
Appendix A
Appendix B
Appendix C
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank James Baker, MD, MBA, associate chair of Clinical Integration and Services, Department of Psychiatry, Dell Medical School, The University of Texas at Austin, for his helpful comments on the clinical jobs and organizational structures described in this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
References
Supplementary Material
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