Summary chapter 1
Companies have a lot of challenges to succeed.
Current challenges: * Globalization: markets, technologies and organizations are becoming increasingly interconnected. * Ethics and social responsibility: issues of ethics and social responsibility are becoming increasingly important, and corporations are being expected to take a lead on addressing these issues * Speed of responsiveness: respond quickly and decisively to environmental changes, organizational crisis and shifting customer expectations * The digital workplace: many traditional managers feel awkward in today’s technology-driving workplace. * Diversity: today’s average worker is older, and many more women, ethnic minorities and immigrants are seeking job and advancement opportunities.
Organization: social entities that are goal-directed, are designed as deliberately structured and coordinated activity systems, and are linked to the external environment.
Managers deliberately structure and coordinate organization resources to achieve ‘the organizational purpose’
Differences between profit and non-profit companies * The activities of managers in profit companies are in order to earn money whereas in non-profit are more about securing funding or raising capital. * Financial resources for non-profits come from sources such as government grants, private foundation grants and donations. In profit sectors it comes from the sale of products or services. * Non-profits have to measure intangible goals such as ‘improve the health’.
There are various ways to look at and think about an organization. Two important perspectives are: * Open systems: pays attention to the (open) boundary between the organization and its context. The relevance of open systems thinking and design has been underscored in recent years with regard to changes relating to the explosion of the internet and e-business, growing diversity of the