ORGANIZATION STRUCTURE AS A TOOL FOR EFFECTIVE MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Every organization is made up of human and physical resources. The resources are bought together in order to accomplish these objectives, tasks must be identified, the tools and technology required must be provided and a structure of relationships must be created. It is the sole function of management to determine the best structure that will optimizes the utilization of the resources.

            Thus organization is a means of achieving the best result from concerted effort, organizations deals with people and their relationship within an enterprise.

It is the type of organization that determine the type of people require and their relationships.

            Osisoma defined organization as a social and technological device made up of people and physical factors which process certain inputs, and execute functions and tasks that lead to the accomplishment of specified objective”. Organization is also two or more people working together in a co-ordinate manner to achieve group objective or result.

            Akpala said that “organizing is a management function of dividing out the constitutions activities into elemental units for facilitating operations, of grouping the units into wider sub-systems called departments branches or division of placing people or decision makers on to the units created of establishing functional or responsibility and authority relationships between the various units and person holding offices”. Hodget said that “organizing entail the assignment of duties and the co-ordination of efforts among all organizational personnel to ensure.

Maximum efficiency in the attainment of predetermined objective.

            Structure can be seen as a framework providing a pattern for organization structure has been defined by Hurley as “patterns of relationships among the various people occupying the positions” Yode said that “organizational structure is a structure that provides a systematic arrangement of functional assignments in which component parts have specialized duties, a;; presumably contributing to the over all objective organization structure has also been defined by Osisoma as “ the framework of the formal relationship within which management can adequately and effectively control, supervise, delegate and fix responsibilities and synchronize the work done by divisions, departments and individuals” Nwachukwu opined that organizational structure. Involves dividing activities into departments, divisions, units and sub-unit defining relationships between the heads and members that make up the units” while KWCHER and MASOW explained that an” organizational structure establishes the responsibility and authority relationships between people in enterprise. The purpose is to find the structure, which will be most efficient and effective. They went further to defined the key word as follows: responsibility refers to the set of duties one must perform, the requirement one is accountable for or answerable to in order to achieve a purpose. Authority is the right or power to give commands to others to perform duties and requirement” these views are in line with the of hinterland, who defined organization structure as the pattern or network relationships between the various positions and position holders.”

            The arrangement within the framework of interaction in-the organizational is hierarchical in the organizational is hierarchical. The definition by professor Akpala which saw organizing as the management function of dividing out the institutions activities into elemental units for facilitating operations of grouping the units into wider sub-system called departments, branches or division or establishing function or responsibility and authority relationships between the various units and the persons holding offices, will be adopted that the purpose of the study.

            From the following definitions, organizational structure may be for the purpose of this study be defined as the sanctioned network in interactions and relationship between positions, their functions and occupants and a means through which management attempts to achieve predetermined organizational goals. These includes who reports to who, levels and patterns of communication, the specific functions of members of the organization; the rules, regulation and procedures that govern individual activities.

This is because the definition tries to bring in all the important elements in the understanding of organizational structure. The important of development of an appropriate organizational cannot be over emphasized. It provides the over-all guider-line essential for effective employee performance. The organizational structure provides the guidelines for clarifying and communicating the line or responsibility, authority and accountability within the firm.

            Organization structure shows clearly the authority relationship in an organization. It vividly defines the centers of authority. Organizational structure provides a framework within which delegation and assignment of responsibility can perfectly take place. It shows line of communication and also helps to provide an effective mechanism for monitoring performance and taking corrective actions.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM 

Main Problem: This study set out to establish important functions and needs for a well-defined organizational structure so as to prevent overlapping of functions in organization.

Sub-Problem: The purpose of the study is to examine how a well-defined organization structure helps to achieve an organizational objective so as to bring about efficiency.

Sub-Problem II: The purpose of the study is to investigate how a well-defined organization structure is arranged in a firm or enterprise do as promote high productivity.

Sub-Problem III: The purpose of study is to discover how organization structure is designed so as to determine the other of responsibility.

Sub-Problem IV: The purpose of the study id to examine critically how functions can be clearly shown in an organization structure so as to prevent duplication of functions. 

 OBJECTIVE OF THE RESEARCH          

The objective of this research is to establish the essence of a sound organization structure as a means of achieving total management effectiveness in an organization be it business, government, religion, educational.

         The study will also point out how a well-designed organization structure will be a motivating factor to workers in an organization. Such workers, having known the roles expected of them, their relationship with other workers, their level within the organization as well as the next level they can aspire to as shown in the organization chart, will strive along with others towards realizing the organization goal at the sometime.

         To achieve this, I intend to examine leading theories in organization structure, its different models and principles. Furthermore, questionnaires would be administered on workers of the institute of management and technology (I.M.T) to know the working of departments organization structure, observe nay possible lapses and make useful suggestions for improvements.

 RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS 

a)    A well defined organizational structure bring about efficiency 

b.      A well design organizational structure leads to a clear order of responsibility.                                          

c.      A well-defined organizational structure in a firm promotes high productivity.

d.      Clearly stated functions in an organization eliminates duplication of functions.K