Organizational structure is the division of labor and the patterns of coordination, communication, workflow, and formal power that guide organizational activities. An organization’s structure reflects the company’s culture and power relationships and can establish new communication patterns and align employee behavior with the company’s mission, vision and goals. The organizational structure enables effective communication and smooth workflow, but organizational culture is its underpinning. Organizational culture is the basic pattern of shared assumptions, values and beliefs that govern behavior within a particular organization. Organizational culture is a deeply embedded form of social control. It is the social glue that bonds people together and makes them feel part of the organizational experience. The culture of an organization should be compatible with its structure to ensure organizational success. Many teams fail because the organizational structure does not support them. Teams work better when there are few layers of management and teams are given autonomy and responsibility for their work (McShane & Von Glinow, 2004). Understanding and addressing the need for alignment of organizational structure and culture with a company’s mission, vision and goals will help business leaders to craft effective strategies for successful change management, enabling them to deal with resistance to change effectively thus increasing the productivity of their organizations. This paper will explore several structures in organization design and organization design choices with emphasis on those that will best suit Synergetic Solutions, the company in the Organization Structure simulation. Company Background Synergetic Solutions is an information technology (IT) solutions company in the business of system integration—assembling and reselling leading computers brands. It has 300 employees most of whom are in the sales and
References: Apollo Group, Inc. (2003). Organization structure. Simulation retrieved from class rEsource page April 7, 2008. Jones, G.R. (2004). Organizational theory, design, and change. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. / Pearson Education. McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. (2004). Organizational Behavior, Organizational Processes: Organizational Structure and Design. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies.