Designing Effective Organizations

SCENARIO

You have decided to create a consulting business to address increasing market needs for sustainability and innovation in the community. You wish to emphasize how businesses can make incremental changes in the workplace to achieve sustainable results that increase profitability and brand reputation. The mission of the company is to “facilitate sustainable social, economic, and environmental development opportunities for the good of businesses in the community.” The company should be designed as a mission-driven, for-profit organization that will create partnerships that result in sustainable changes for the community. You would like your business to be successful so that your consulting firm can raise your city’s ranking in the “Most Sustainable and Innovative Communities” list from the top 20% of all U.S. communities to the top 10%.

Before you design a business venture plan that includes its organizational design, you identify how the business will generate revenue. You will assess the sustainability and innovation needs for 30 businesses in the local community in the first year. You will then share the results of those assessments with all business stakeholders to generate feedback that will be used to develop and implement proposals for consulting. You would also like to hire three university students as part-time interns to help you develop a systematic business development process. You are interested in seeking investors in the business community who would like to take a leadership role in the business and its decision-making.

You are excited about this opportunity and begin considering the organizational structure for your consulting business.

REQUIREMENTS

A.  Describe an organizational structure you would select for the business in the scenario by doing the following: 

1.  Describe the main features of an organizational structure that would meet the needs of the business in the scenario and why it is classified as one of the following:

•  functional

•  divisional

•  matrix

•  teams

2.  Explain the rationale for your choice of organizational structure from part A1, based on the following four factors that influence organizational structure design: 

•  functions or departments

•  chain of command

•  centralized or decentralized

•  level of formality

B.  Explain how the choice of organizational structure in part A1 can be supported by one of the following organizational theories:

•  scientific management

•  bureaucratic

•  administrative

•  neoclassical

•  modern

•  contingency/situational

C.  Describe how organizational structure can impact the effectiveness of the business in the scenario by doing the following:

1.  Describe how the organizational structure chosen in part A1 can impact the effectiveness of the business in the scenario, using the goal-attainment approach to measuring organizational effectiveness.

2.  Explain the advantages or disadvantages of using an organizational structure from the list in part A1 that is different from the structure already chosen for the business, using the goal-attainment approach to measuring organizational effectiveness.

D.  Acknowledge sources, using in-text citations and references, for content that is quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.

E.  Demonstrate professional communication in the content and presentation of your submission.