Section 3. Supplementary reading

Exercise 1. Read and translate the text.

Product departmentalization is the grouping and arranging of activities around products or produce groups. Apex Computers has two product-based departments at the highest level of the firm. One is responsible for all activities associate with Apex's personal computer business, and the other handles the software business. Most larger businesses adopt this form of depart metallization. There are three major advantages to product departmentalization. First, all activities associated with one product or product group can be easily integrated and coordinated. Second, the speed and effectiveness of decision making are enhanced. Third, the performance of individual products or product groups can be assessed more easily and objectively, thereby improving the accountability of departments for the results of their activities. There are also two major disadvantages of product departmentalization. For one thing, managers in each de­partment tend to focus on their own product or product group to the exclusion of the rest of the organization. For another, administrative costs rise because each department must have its own functional specialists for things like marketing research and financial analysis.

Another common base for departmentalization is by function.Functional departmentalization involves grouping together those jobs involving the same or similar activities. (The word "function" is used here to mean organizational functions such as finance and production, rather than the basic mana­gerial functions such as planning or controlling.) The computer department at Apex, for example, has manufacturing, finance, and marketing departments. Functional departmentalization is most common in smaller organizations. There are three primary advantages of functional departmentalization. Each department can be staffed by ex­perts in that functional area. Supervision is facilitated because an indi­vidual manager needs to be familiar with only a relatively narrow set of skills. It is also easier to coordinate activities inside each department. On the other hand, as an organization begins to grow in size, several disadvantages of functional departmentalization may emerge. Decision making tends to become slower and more bureaucratic. Employees may also begin to concentrate too narrowly on their own units and lose sight of the total organizational system. Finally, accountability and performance become increasingly difficult to monitor. For example, it, may not be possible to determine whether the failure of a new product is due to production deficiencies or to a poor marketing campaign.

Undercustomer departmentalization, the organization structures its activities so as to respond to and interact with specific customers or customer groups. The lending activities in most banks, for example, are usually tailored to meet the needs of different kinds of customers (i.e., business, consumer, mortgage, and agricultural loans). The marketing branch of Apex's computer business has two distinct departments - industrial sales and consumer sales. The industrial sales department handles marketing activities aimed at business customers, whereas the consumer sales department is responsible for wholesaling computers to retail stores catering to individual purchasers. The basic advantage of customer departmentalization is that it allows the organization to use skilled specialists to deal with unique customers or customer groups. It takes one set of skills to evaluate a balance sheet and lend a business $50.000 for operating capital and a different set of skills to evaluate an individual's creditworthmess and lend $10,000 for a new car. However, customer departmentalization also requires a fairly large administrative staff to integrate the activities of the various departments. In banks, for example, coordination is necessary to make sure the organization does not overcommit itself in any one area and to handle collections on delinquent accounts from a diverse set of customers.

Location departmentalization in­volves grouping jobs on the basis of defined geographic sites or areas. The defined sites or areas may range in size from a hemisphere to only a few blocks of a large city. The manufacturing branch of Apex's computer business has two location-based plants - one in Dallas and another in Phoenix. Similarly, the design division of its software design unit has two labs, one in Chicago and the other in St. Louis. Apex's consumer sales group has five sales territories corresponding to different regions of the United States. Transportation companies, police depart­ments (precincts represent geographic areas of a city), and the Federal Reserve Bank all use location

departmentalization. The primary advan­tage of location departmentalization is that it enables the organization to respond easily to unique customer and environmental characteristics in the various regions. A larger administrative staff may be required if the organization is to keep track of units in scattered locations.

Other Forms of Departmentalization. Most organizations are departmentalized by function, product, location, or customer. However, other forms are occasionally used as well. Some organizations find it useful to group certain activities by time. One of the machine shops of Baker-Hughes in Houston, for example, operates on three shifts. Each shift has a superintendent who reports to the plant manager, and each shift has its own functional departments. Time (8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m., 4:00 p.m. - 12:00 midnight, and 12:00 midnight - 8:00 a.m.) is thus the frame­work for many organizational activities. Other organizations that use time as a basis for grouping jobs include some hospitals and many airlines. In other situations, departmentalization by sequence is appro­priate. By sequence we mean some differentiating factor such as a number or letter. Many college students must register in sequence: last names starting with A through E in line 1, F through L in line 2, and so on, or student numbers less than 200000 at 8:00 a.m. and those between 200001 and 400000 at 10:00 a.m. Other areas that may be organized in sequence include credit departments (specific employees run credit checks according to customer name), insurance claims divisions (by policy number), and prisons (inmates eat according to serial number or cell block).

Other Considerations. Two final points about departmentalization re­main to be made. First, departments are often called something entirely different - divisions, units, sections, and bureaus are all common syn­onyms. The higher we look in an organization, the more likely we are to find departments referred to as divisions. The underlying logic be­hind all the labels is the same, however: They represent groups of jobs that have been yoked together according to some unifying principle. Second, almost any organization is likely to employ multiple bases of departmentalization, depending on level. Although Apex Computer is a hypothetical firm we created to explain departmentalization, it is quite similar to many real organizations in that it uses a variety of bases of departmentalization for different levels and different sets of activities.

Exercise 2. Translate into English.

Линейная структура образуется в результате построения аппарата управления только из взаимоподчиненных органов в виде иерархической лестницы. Во главе каждого отдела подразделения находится руководитель, который наделен всеми полномочиями. Он осуществляет единоличное руководство подчиненными ему работниками и сосредотачивает в своих руках все функции управления. Сам руководитель находится в непосредственном подчинении руководителя высшего уровня. Вышестоящий орган управления не имеет права отдавать распоряжения каким-либо исполнителям, минуя их непосредственного руководителя. Такая структура используется мелкими и средними фирмами, осуществляющими несложное производство.

Преимущества линейной структуры управления заключаются в единстве и четкости распорядительства и согласованности действий исполнителей. Существует четкая система взаимных связей между руководителями и подчиненными и быстрота реакции в ответ на прямые указания.

Недостатки линейной структуры заключаются в том, что к руководителю предъявляются высокие требования. Он должен иметь обширные распространенные знания и опыт по всем функциям управления и сферам деятельности, осуществляемым подчиненными. Менеджеры высшего звена перегружены огромным количеством информации, потоком бумаг и множеством контактов с подчиненными и вышестоящими.

Функциональная структура предполагает, что каждый орган управления специализируется на выполнении отдельных функций на всех уровнях управления. Выполнение указаний каждого функционального органа в пределах его компетенции обязательно для производственных подразделений. решения по общим вопросам принимаются коллегиально. Функциональная специализация аппарата управления значительно повышает его эффективность. Вместо универсальных менеджеров, которые должны разбираться в выполнении всех функций, появляется штаб высококвалифицированных специалистов.

Структура нацелена на выполнение постоянно повторяющихся рутинных задач, не требующих оперативного принятия решений. Используется в управлении организациями с массовым или крупносерийным типом производства.

Основные преимущества структуры заключаются в высокой компетентности специалистов, отвечающих за осуществление конкретных функций. Менеджеры не решают множество специальных вопросов, и у них появляется больше возможности по оперативному управлению производством. Кроме того, создается основа для использования в работе консультаций опытных специалистов. Вследствие этого уменьшается потребность в специалистах широкого профиля.

Недостатки структуры заключаются в отсутствии взаимопонимания и единства действий между функциональными службами и длительной процедуре принятия решений. Ответственность исполнителей за работу снижается в результате того, что каждый исполнитель получает указания от нескольких руководителей. Часто происходит дублирование и несогласованность указаний и распоряжений, получаемых работниками. Дело в том, что каждый функциональный руководитель и специализированное подразделение ставят свои вопросы на первое место.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-02