Organizational Structure, Design & Change

HRM (2015-17)

Course Outline
Facilitator: Gloryson Chalil

Email: gloryson@xlri.ac.in

Course Objectives:
Organizations are omnipresent and influence every aspect of human existence from birth
to death. Organizational Structure and Design as an introductory course assist you in
understanding these organizations with an emphasis on the patterns, causes and
management of organizational design and structure.
The domain of this course includes topics dealing with the impact of environment on
organizations, various types of organizational structures and its determinants,
organizational culture, relationship between organizational strategy and structure, and an
introduction to organizational processes and organizational change.
Major objectives of this module are:

To familiarize the participants with different concepts related to macro level

analysis of organizational behaviour

To develop an understanding of the nature, functioning and design of the

organizations

To examine the reciprocal relationship between organizational characteristics and

managerial behaviour

To help the participants to develop and apply the theoretical and practical insights
regarding organizational processes for participating in / initiating efforts to change
and adapt organizations to new challenges

Methodology:
A mix of illustrated lectures, case studies, in-class activities, individual readings and team
projects will be used. Participants are expected to attend all classes with sufficient
preparation (based on session-wise readings for the class) to develop a critical sense of
the concepts and applications that cannot be achieved through memorizing of the text
book.
Recommended Text:
Jones G R and Mathews M (2010), Organizational Theory, Design and Change, 5 th
Edition, Perason Education

Learning Goals: Stakeholder Sensitivity

Dimension
S1:
Recognition of
potential
stakeholders
S2:
Stakeholder
analysis

S3: Response
to stakeholder
issues

Operational
Definition
Can define and map
all the potential
stakeholders from
local to global and
prioritize the list
Fully appreciates
and be able to apply
a full stakeholder
analysis (local to
global) to recognize
business risks and
opportunities

Fully analyses
stakeholder issues
and responds with
comprehensive
strategic responses

How it is taught/ covered

in the course
Class exercises / cases /
class discussions / group
work will be used to help
student recognize various
stakeholders
Stakeholder analysis is
taught as a tool. It is also
covered in case/class
discussions for various
topics. Participants are
expected to identify
stakeholder conflicts and
coalition formation based
on the inducements and
contributions of various
stakeholders.
Same as S1

How is it going to be
evaluated
Quiz / End term will
have situation based
questions that will ask
students to identify
stakeholders
Quiz / End term will
have situation based
questions that will ask
students to analyze
stakeholders

Quiz / End term will

have situation based
questions that will ask
students to devise a
response towards a
business problem
considering different
stakeholders

Grading:
The grading for the course will be based on following components
Component
Announced Quizzes (3)
Midterm Exercise (Group)
Group Work
Learning Diary
End Term Exam

Weight
30%
10%
20%
15%
25%

Will convert the total marks for all components to percentile score to determine the
grades as per the policies mentioned in academic manual.

Announced Quizzes: Three announced quizzes of equal importance. Quizzes will

measure your understanding, knowledge (reading materials & recommended text)
and the ability to apply concepts to real life scenarios.
Group Work: Each group need to make a 10 minute presentation on allotted topic
as per the schedule given in the course outline. Group project presentation is for
10 marks and groups may take any possible support from facilitator to complete
the presentation on assigned topic.
Groups from 1-5 will be evaluated by groups 6-10 and vice versa. Each group is
expected to rank allocated five groups with minimum one mark difference (total
of minimum five marks difference) on following five criteria: extent of research,
additional insights, relevance to covered themes during the course, analysis from
learning goal perspective and interest generated. Every group is expected to
provide their feedback to respective groups and facilitator soon after the
presentation and relative marks to facilitator soon after the completion of five
presentations of the allocated groups. To avoid any possible collusion in
presentation grading, facilitator retains the right to randomly choose the mark
allocated by any group for final evaluation.
Every group will get five marks for completing the peer evaluation process
systematically. Perceived attempt for collusion may result in zero mark for this
component. Remaining five marks of the group work component will be allocated
towards the performance of various group tasks during the course.
Midterm Exercise: Details will be provided 1-2 sessions before the exercise. All
members will be evaluated on the basis of group performance.
Learning Diary: Expected to answer application based questions provided in the
class and ideal length for each answer is 1.5 pages. Facilitator reserve the right to
increase or decrease learning diary marks based you performance/participation in
class. In other words this component also includes your class participation score
which measure your value addition to the entire class during the course.
End Term Exam: Closed book exam with a combination of multiple choice and
short answers covering both theoretical and application aspects.
Office Hours: From 1.30 PM to 2.30 PM on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Feel free to
meet me on other days/time after confirming the appointment through e-mail.
Suggested Distribution of Course Learning Hours
Contact Hours
30 Hours
Class Preparation including Cases
14 Hours
Additional/Optional Readings
22 Hours
Group Work & Midterm exercise
Up to 6 Hours of every member
Preparation for Quiz/End Term Exam
16 - 20 Hours

Learning Diary
Seek/Provide support to friends
Total

8 Hours
0 - 4 hours
100 hours

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE AND DESIGN

HRM (2015-2017)
Session-wise Details of Readings*, Project Presentation Details

Module 2

Module 1

Session No

Topic

Session 1
06.01.16

Introduction & Overview

Session 2
07.01.16

Organizations & Organizational

Effectiveness

Session 3
08.01.16
Session 4
13.01.16
Session 5
14.01.16
Session 6
20.01.16
Session 7
21.01.16

Organization and its Stakeholders

Session 8
22.01.16

Organizational Design:
Incorporating Specialization &
Coordination

Session 9
27.01.16

Additional Session for Module 2

Managing in a Changing Global

Environment
Additional Session for Module 1
Organizational Design: Basic
Challenges
Organizational Design:
Incorporating Authority & Control

Readings
Essential Reading (ER) and Optional Reading (OR)
Shooting for the Moon (ER), Google to Reorganize (OR), GE to
sell most of GE Capital (OR), Infosys Announces Restructuring
(OR), Wipro restructures its India, West Asia business (OR), Star
Model (OR).
Jones Ch. 1, Organizational Life Cycles and Criteria of
Effectiveness (Pages 41 53 (ER)
Jones Ch. 2, A Stakeholders Perspective on HRM (ER),
Innovating Shared Value (OR)
Jones Ch. 3, Case 2 of book: Paradoxical twins: Acme & Omega
Electronics
Scheduled Quiz 1 on 15.01.16
Jones Ch. 4, To centralize or not to centralize? (ER), Age of
hyper-specialization (OR) (Presentation by Group I)
Jones Ch. 5, Bureaucratization of the Roman Army (ER),
Designing High Performance Jobs (ER), Redesigning
Knowledge Work (OR), The Flattened Firm (OR)
(Presentation by Group II)
Jones Ch. 6
The Multi Unit Enterprise (OR), Aligning the Organization with
the Market (OR), Emergence and evolution of multidimensional
organization (OR)
Presentation/Discussions on organizational structure of real
organizations Any group (Presentation by Group III)
Organizational Design: Fashion or Fit? (ER). Scheduled Quiz 2
on 29.01.2016

Module 3
Module 4

Session 10
28.01.16

Organizational Culture

Session 11
09.02.16

Organizational Strategy & Structure

Session 12
10.02.16

Organizational Design &

Technology

Session 13
11.02.16

Integrating Case (A)

Session 14
15.02.16
Session 15
16.02.16

Midterm Exercises

Session 16
17.02.16

Organizational Decision Making

Jones Ch. 12, The Decision Driven Organization (OR)

(Presentation by Group VII)

Session 17

Organizational Transformations

Session 18

Innovation, Creativity &

Intrapreneurship

Session 19

Power & Politics in Organizations

Session 20

Integrating Case (B)

5 Steps to Implement New
Organizational Design,

Jones Ch. 11, Preparing your organization for growth (OR), Two
routes to resilience (OR)
Jones Ch.13, The Ambidextrous Organization (ER), Is Your
Company Ready for Open Innovation (OR), Accelerate (OR)
(Presentation by Groups VIII, IX)
Jones Ch. 14,
(Presentation by Group X)
(Case will be provided later), Lead Presenter(s): Any Group
Course Recap

Organizational Change

*Will update the readings (ER and OR) after every class.

Jones Ch. 7, Informal Networks (ER), Organigraphs: Drawing

How Companies Really Work (OR)
(Presentation by Group IV)
Jones Ch. 8, How Strategy Shapes Structure (OR), Restructuring
for Global Success (OR), Why Conglomerates Thrive (outside
US) (OR)
(Presentation by Group V)
Jones Ch. 9, Baseball, Football & Basketball: Business Models
(ER), Winning Race with Ever Smarter Machines (OR)
(Presentation by Group VI)
(Case will be provided later: Lead Presenter(s): Any Group
Do You Have a Well Designed Organization? (ER)
Scheduled Quiz 3 on 12.02.2016
Newspaper Based Exercise: Identification and Application of
Concepts.
Jones Ch. 10, Blueprint for Cultural Change (ER), Accelerate
(OR), How CEO of Siemens using a scandal to change (OR)