Student Name Here – Assignment #1 Course Name Here

College Name Here

MGMT 5201EL 12 – Course Name Here

Assignment #1

Prepared for: Professor Name Here

Prepared by: Student’s name here

Submission Date: May 21, 2023

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Sample for class
Student Name Here – Assignment #1 Course Name Here

Q. Can organizational design increase the probability of success for strategy delivery?

Organizational design is how a company is structured to enable strategy for example if we use a
marathon runner organizational design would be diagnosing potential injury causing mechanisms,
making sure any injuries get fixed and anticipating possible injuries to prevent them, thus producing the
best runner possible.

The process of always ensuring the organisation has the right design starts with an assessment of the
goals and strategy followed by an analysis of the structure, the people and various processes are also
assessed followed by coordination, controlses and incentives. (Burton, Obel and Hakonsson, 2015)

“The design of an organization needs to fit its situation. Designs that fit produce higher organizational
performance than designs that do not” (Donaldson and Joffe, 2014). Successful resilient companies
have synergy in all parts of the organization especially as they evolve. The research article further
outlined how to achieve a fit between structural features and key contingencies (competitive strategy,
organizational size and task uncertainty). A functional structure works for single product lines and single
geography, as more products lines and geographical growth happens, it suits a divisional structure.
When functions and products are diversified, a matrix, structure is the better fit. For multinational
corporations (MNCs) with an international strategy, an international division structure is adequate. As
the organization grows so should hierarchy and more delegation. In essence improving performance of
an organisation requires constant scrutiny of misfits and making the necessary tunings to avoid strategic
drift.

References

Burton, R. M., Obel, B. and Håkonsson, D. D (2015). Organizational Design: A Step-By-Step Approach:
Third Edition. Cambridge University Press

Donaldson, L. and Joffe, G. (2014). Fit - the key to organizational design.

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Student Name Here – Assignment #1 Course Name Here

Sample Critique/Response to Peer #1

Hi Alvin,

Great post. We both researched and referenced the same articles, but our key takeaways were slightly
different. I found it very interesting and agree to a certain extent with the authors. Regarding
organizational structure, we both agree that Organizational design has a profound impact. Something
that crossed my mind after reading the article again was that this prescription works great for
organizations with traditional arrangements but as you know, more and more organizations have non-
traditional arrangements.

Sample Critique/Response to Peer #2

Hi Jessica,

According to your research, in North America only about a third of mergers/acquisitions add value while
close to 70% reduce shareholder worth. This statement reminded me of a situation I came across in the
past. After the company I worked for acquired another company, we were all sent to a series of sessions
to discuss merging cultures. As expected, after the acquisition a lot of core management staff quit
because they just didn’t buy into the strategy of the new company – much to our loss because they took
invaluable institutional knowledge with them.

Word count: 239, considerable evidence of original thinking (greater depth of analysis than level 3), well
researched, key takeaways from research highlighted, demonstrates a good understanding of the
subject matter. 2 peer responses with some display of critical thinking. 1 spelling error, 1 error in
references, Course outcomes met.

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