Pos/543 Week 1

1. (a) Before you registered for POS 543 how did you conceptualize organization?
You might imagine that a librarian would be able to organize almost anything. Prior to registering for POS 543 I held a fairly simple view of organization which focused on arranging and categorizing things. Working in academic libraries for almost 30 years, both as a student and professionally trained me to look for similarities in all aspects of my work. We catalog and shelve books on the same subjects together; services that are complementary are delivered by the same department; and individuals working to achieve a similar goal, such as reference assistance, are employed in the same unit. The academic library is also an organization within a larger organization. I found an early description by Scott and Davis matched my vision of an organization perfectly, “a social structure created by individuals to support the collaborative pursuit of specified goals” (2007, p. 11).
(b) Which definition of organization makes the most sense to you and why?
Since 1987 I have lived and breathed higher education and it has certainly shaped my view of organizations. Of the three definitions shared by Scott and Davis, the third resonated the most with me. The open system view of an organization indicates, “organizations are congeries of interdependent flows and activities linking shifting coalitions of participants embedded in wider material-resource and institutional environments” (Scott and Davis, 2007, p.