deis0015: September 2009 Archives

There are many things that go into making an organization's strategy efficient. Strategy can be formed at two different levels, the corporate level or the business level. The corporate level mainly focuses on growth, stability, or defensive strategies, where as the business level strategies mainly focus on gaining a competitive advantage. Both levels of strategies incorporate both long term and short term goal into their strategy. They use these goals to accomplish their organizations mission statement. 

When looking at Arizona State's Athletic department I was thinking about how and why they would want to incorporate men's soccer into their athletic department. As a fan of men's soccer I believe that it would be a good fit for them to add it to the list of varsity sports offered and sponsored by the University. There are many things that influence whether a sport gets added to a university's athletic department. Power is one of the main influences in whether it gets added or not. The people with the power are people like athletic directors and presidents of universities. The one that has the most say in the athletic department at ASU is Lisa Love.  If men's soccer were to be added it would have to help them work towards their mission statement in some way. You can not just add something to add it. It has to have a purpose and fit into the organization and its strategies.

Another thing that ASU would look before adding another sport would be capacity. If the school has the facilities and resources, such as extra money in the budget, to add a sport it will more than likely look into the cost benefit analysis of going through with that decision. In the case of ASU and if they were to add the men's soccer team they would also have to add another women's team to the university to keep it in compliance with title IX.

One of the last things the ASU athletic department would look at before adding another sport to the department would be if it is in the best interest of the stake holders. These are the people who support the department and the university both morally and financially. They tend to volunteer a lot of their time to the university and are often alumni of the university. If they don't like the addition it is most likely going to affect the financial gifts that they give, which intern will affect the budget of the athletic department. So it would not be a good organizational strategy to add the team if the stake holders don't approve.

1.       Would adding these teams help the Arizona State's Athletic Department gain a competitive advantage on the schools in their conference, PAC 10?

2.       Would adding the teams help the diversification of ASU and the PAC 10?

                There are many different ways to set up and organize an organization. The two ways that the book described were horizontal and vertical structures. Horizontal structures divide work into narrow routine tasks. Social specialization is high in horizontal structure unlike vertical structure. Vertical structures have many levels of management. When I think of vertical structures I think of the International Olympic Committee or of the National Basketball League. These are both very large organizations with several levels of management and are highly formalized. Both structures have their pros and cons. For example when an organization is highly specialized in the horizontal dimension it makes it more difficult for employees to relate their work to other employees in the company (p.64). This can be seen as a potential problem if the different subdivisions of a company need to work together to accomplish one goal.

                An organization whether it would be horizontal or vertical can either be seen as a highly formalized structure or an informal structure. There are many different ways to define formalization. According to Slack and Parent the methods of formalization consist of hiring the right employee, on the job training, policies, procedures, rules, job descriptions and committee terms of reference (p. 70-72). An example of a highly formalized organization is the NCAA. There are many policies, rules, and procedures that colleges must follow to be NCAA compliant. The NCAA is similar to a monopoly, in the way that there is no other organization out there to compete against or influence the NCAA. Along with being highly formalized this organization is also very complex. Complexity is measured in the way an organization is departmentalized.  I believe that the less complex an organization is the more efficient it is, especially in making major decisions in a decent amount of time. If the organization is less complex, more informal, and does not have a huge vertical structure tasks get carried out quicker.

                The last element of organizational structure is centralization vs. decentralization. Centralization is when decision making takes place at the top of the organization, by the president or CEO.  Decentralization takes place when the management at the top of the organization delegates tasks and decisions onto lower management. If I was the CEO of a large sports organization I would chose to have a decentralized structure, because I wouldn't have enough time in the day to make all the decisions for every department.  Also the managers in those departments would know more about the decision at hand than I would because they work with the same types of things everyday, where as I would have a general idea of what to base the decision on. Of course I would still like to know what is happening in my organization so I would have them report a summary of their major decisions to me. Centralization usually works out better with organizations that are smaller in scale and have a smaller number of employees.  In the end how would you choose to run your organization now that you know more about the different elements that go into the structure?

If you were running a business which element would be most important to you?

How many rules and procedures are too many for an organization to function properly?

 One of the most important factors in running a successful organization is having a successful organizational design in place. All managers of organizations seek to produce a design that will enhance their ability to achieve the short term and long term goals of their organizations. According to Miller (1981) organizations must be constructed to ensure that there is complementary alignment or fit among their structural variables (page 6). The structural variables that he was referring to are formalization, specialization, hierarchy of authority, centralization, professionalism, and personal ratios. Formalization is where organizations use written documentation of job descriptions and procedures. Specialization is the degree of which the organization is broken up into subdivisions, for example separate jobs. Hierarchy of authority is the number of different levels and the span of control within an organization. Centralization is the extent of where decisions are made, whether it would be at the top or the bottom of the organization.  Professionalism is the level of training and formal education that the employees of an organization have. Personal ratios are the percents of different kinds of personal within an organization. I believe that in order to have a successful organization you need to have a high amount of professionalism amongst the employees. There must also be communication from the top of the organization all the way down to the bottom. If the top of the organization does not communicate the goals or visions it has for the future of the organization to the bottom level employees the goals will never workout. All working parts of an organization have to be in communication with each other to perform at a high level. I have found that the organizations with the greatest sense of goals and strategy are also the ones with the highest profit, and the highest satisfaction rate amongst its employees. If the employees all work together as one team towards a common goal, that goal will most likely be accomplished. All organizations exist for a purpose, be it for making a profit, encouraging participation in a given sport, or winning Olympic medals (page 5). Goals of sports organizations are not easily obtainable by individuals but rather by all individuals working together as one team. Being a part of a sports team myself I realize that there are strength in numbers, and the more we work together and help each other out the faster we reach our goals. This is why I believe that goals and communication are the two largest components in creating an successful sports organization. 

WWE evaluation

·          No it is not a sport. There is a pre-determined outcome. It is more for entertainment purposes and is a live production.

·         No it is not a sports organization because it is not an pre entity in the sports industry. It qualifies with all other parameters. It has a focus on entertainment rather than sports. Not governed like a sports are with things such as steroids.

Special Olympics

Contextual dimensions

1. Size - The assets are sponsorships from businesses. There a number of employees both at the corporate offices and local offices. Special Olympics also heavily rely on volunteers to ensure that the events can be put on. They also have fairly large sales with merchandise.

2. Technology - They has a website

3. Environment - They have a lot of people working for them and a large attendance at events. There are several different large corporate sponsors that have a large economic and social impact at the games. There are also political debates as to what qualifies as a disability.

4. Goals and strategy - The main goal is high participation at events. Competitions don't emphasize the competitive side of sports.

5. Culture - Emphasizes unity amongst participants and fans.

Structural dimensions

1. Formalization - There are several different jobs in the Special Olympics organization. Each job has a formal written description of the tasks and expectations of that position. This also holds true for the volunteers of the organization.

2. Specialization - Special Olympics is an organization that has offices and ties world wide, and because of this large area that is covered by them there are several subdivisions of jobs. It is broken down from the board of directors to the world leadership team to a specialist to donor response. The tasks of running this organization are broken down into categories and then subdivided into other jobs within that category.

3. Hierarchy of authority - The Hierarchy of authority is very top-heavy in the Special Olympics organization. The Chairman and CEO is at the top of the Hierarchy. There are three vice chairs within the Special Olympics organization and one treasurer. The Special Olympics Board of Directors are directly below those 5 and are next on Hierarchy of authority. The Board of Directors include 35 individuals and of them at least one person is from each of the seven geographic Regions of the world (Africa, Asia Pacific, East Asia, Europe/Eurasia, Latin America, Middle East/North Africa, and North America).

                There are other various positions held within each individual geographic regional headquarters that takes direction from the Board of Directors. Then there are the coaches of the athletes that participate in various events held around the world. Most of them if not all of them are volunteering their time towards giving the athletes a great experience. Then there are the volunteers that work the many events making sure they run smoothly and making sure that everyone involved in the event has an enjoyable time.

4. Centralization - The Board of Directors led by the Chairman and CEO for the Special Olympics organization makes all of the important organizational decisions throughout year. All of the little things that go on within the Special Olympics organization that usually go unrecognized are made mostly by the individuals on the second rung of the Hierarchy of authority. The coaches and volunteers really do not have much of a say in the decision-making process but I am sure if they have some good ideas they will be taken to heart and will be used towards improving future events.

5. Professionalism - The professionalism found in the Special Olympics is found in every aspect of its structure. It follows the same professional structure any pro sports organizations would: there are specific rules and regulations the participants must follow, there is a hierarchy in the operations department, and there are schedules of events.

6. Personnel Ratios - Personnel ratios are large since the Special Olympics covers the whole Nation with a couple sectors in each state.

Contextual vs. Structural

Ashley Deisting,  Anthony Crowell, Alex Maschoff

1. We think that Nike was in the Defensive stage.  Nike, is going for the for the business side trying to make the most profit they can, not caring for their workers.  Throughout the movie, there were examples of the organization defending what they were doing in Indonesia.  Or other times they even flat out ignored questions about the way they treat their employees and the towns in Indonesia.

Now they are coming into the compliance stage.  They have been under scrutiny and cannot sweep the issue under the rug for any longer.  Nike realizes the mistakes they are making when they drive up the overtime of the factory workers because of the demand of the product.  This is exactly what Nike's labor code was trying to prevent.  Nike's reputation took a hit, and the brand shouldered the burden.  The corporate center had the legal and other costs charged to them.  It realized that it had to manage corporate responsibility as a core part of the business.

2.  The organization as a whole will need to be an organic structure because they are involved in so many markets that change greatly because of the environment.  Nike seems to be running a cost-leadership strategy.  It is working well for gaining profits.  However, it is a strategy that neglects the workers that are on the bottom of the structure.  Nike conducted an internal audit of their organization, which in turn allowed them to determine where the problems lie. That was more of a short-term fix to appease critics.  They created a (Corporate Responsibility Team), but just because they made this team it doesn't mean that they are using them efficiently.  They also used an ignorance tactic to try to avoid answering the tough questions.