Strategic Management: Organizational Configuration

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT - THE MINI ASSIGNMENT
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Question 1
Organization configuration mainly involves a group of firms that tend to share a common profile of the organization’s characteristics or features. The organization configuration provides a valuable model that can be used to describe how the organization structure affects the implementation of a strategy. In other words, the organizational configuration can help predict the organization structure of any type or kind of organization, which is then used to develop the organization’s strategy. It is usually part of the organizational structure, and the common elements that the groups share under the organization structure include a chain of command, the span of control, job design, departmentation, and others (Serrat, 2017, p. 2). Under configuration, it is important to note that the organization’s structure is defined. Once one is more conversant with the structure, then they can measure whether the structure and the strategy are well suited.
Mintzberg developed the organizational configuration theory, and under this, he proposed and defined five configuration approaches or parts whose interaction determines the strategy of the organization. Notably, these include strategic Apex, Techno structure, staff support, operating core, and middle line (Serrat, 2017, p. 3). The heart of the organization is made of the people of the operating core, and these are the people that produce its products and deliver its services. The strategic Apex is where the entire organization is overseen. The middle line forms the line between the Apex position and the operating core as more managers are employed to manage the workers and their managers, which is a result of the organization's growth. As the organization grows and becomes more complex, the technostructure is employed. This consists of the people that can coordinate the work of others and can include analysts or managers. Then there is also the support staff, and these provide the various internal services such as external relations, things to do with technology, information systems, and others (Serrat, 2017, p. 3). As discussed earlier, understanding the organizational structure plays a key role when it comes to developing and suiting the strategy; therefore, the organizational configuration model defines the different types of organizational structure. One of the organization structures includes the simple structure, also known as the entrepreneurial organization that is made of the flat structure which is one large united with a few or one senior manager. The other is the machine organization or machine bureaucracy, and under this, the tasks are grouped by the functional departments, decision making is centralized, and the work is formalized. The other is the professional organization which is very bureaucratic and relies on highly trained persons that demand the control of their work. There is also a divisional organizational structure, which comprises many business units and product lines divided into a number of autonomous or independent divisions that make their own decisions and each having a unique structure. An innovativ...