Essay Sample on Modern Academic Organization

The modern Academic organization determines the organization of modern academic institutions from the perspective of the administration (Caplow, 2017). Such an organization compares to the academic department of an institution. Bumbu and Todorescu (2012) note that the modern organization employs the use of technology. It is because technology is assumed to be a critical factor in contingency theory which states that there exist no best means to establish an organization, to lead a company or to make appropriate decisions. It, therefore, means that for a modern academic institution to operate effectively there is need to use advanced technology.

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Modern technology determines the institutions' most operational structural organization and how successful it will be in the academic field. According to Taran, Boer, and Lindgren (2015), Perrow came up with two dimensions to create the typology used in understanding technology, and this has a link to the modern academic organization. In this typology, three categories that technology uses are routine, craft, and non-routine (Sulkowski, 2012).

Routine

Perrow characterized routine to lack of exceptions, and it is the gravity of conception. Academic organizations, therefore, explore modern technology due to these exceptions. It means that traditional organizational techniques belong to this category.

Craft

Lack of exceptions and unpredictable results characterize this category. It means that they are not easy to analyze. The modern academic organization, therefore, demands that new educational designs should be designed to solve academic organizational problems.

Non-Routine

In this category, the characterization of modern academic organizations depends on numerous exceptions and poor comprehension. It, therefore, means that there are technical problems in the contemporary educational organizations which emerge regularly.

Perrow, therefore, emphasized the significance of addressing the variety of technologies in academic administrations. He insisted that academic organizations have numerous technologies that run interdependently (Andersen, 2015). Technology is, therefore, a vital factor of uncertainty in modern academic organizations.

Thompson, on the other hand, elaborated on the relationship between non-routine works to technology. According to Riel (2015), his typology distinguished technologies based on the standardization of their inputs, output and transformational process instead of their technical difficulty. He elaborated on the relationship of non-routine work to technology.

Hatch (2018) in chapter 6 of her book explains the social organization structure, and there is a linkage to modern academic organizations. Dauber, Fink, and Yolles, (2012) also note that to fit with changes in environments, modern academic organizations need adequate resources. The resource referred to here is knowledge. Knowledge, therefore, acts as a raw material in the implementation of technology in modern academic organizations (Hatch, Schultz & Skov 2015). The physical structures are also essential here. Managers of modern academic organizations play the role of power and control to help the organization fit into the trend.

They establish multiple sources of supply in modern academic organizations. Hatch (2018) emphasizes that to access resource dependence; there are numerous factors that matter. These are the importance of the resource, the critical nature of the survival of the organization, the discretion over the said resource and also the availability of substitutes (Scott, 2013).

Eight Metaphors of Organization

Morgan (2016) developed eight metaphors of the organization. He saw the organization as a machine, as an organism, the brain, a culture, a political system, a mental prison and as an instrument of domination. About the modern academic organizations, the first metaphor applies. Modern academic organizations are seen as a machine. Thinking is an essential aspect of modern academic organizations. Hassard and Pym (2012) assert that machine thinking, therefore, dominates the world. Modern academic organizations are consequently machines, and the people who depend on these academic organizations are parts.

Modern academic organizations are tools to achieve the ends of those who own them in this case; these are the scholars, students, and all the other stakeholders that make an academic organization operate (Oswick, & Grant, 2016; Scott, 2013). In this regard, Spears and Szczerbacki (2013) say that a modern academic organization needs to adapt to modern technology to be efficient and effective. This metaphor suggests that modern academic organizations operate best if the task at hand is simple, just like machines. Environmental stability is also very imperative.

References

Morgan, G. (2016). Commentary: Beyond Morgan's eight metaphors. Human relations, 69(4), 1029-1042.

Oswick, C., & Grant, D. (2016). Re-imagining images of organization: A conversation with Gareth Morgan. Journal of Management Inquiry, 25(3), 338-343.

Hassard, J., & Pym, D. (Eds.). (2012). The theory and philosophy of organizations: critical issues and new perspectives. Routledge.

Spears, M. C., & Szczerbacki, D. (2013). Conceptual metaphor as an assessment method of transformational learning. Journal of Behavioral Studies in Business, 6, 1.

Hatch, M. J. (2018). Organization theory: Modern, symbolic, and postmodern perspectives. Oxford university press.

Hatch, M. J., Schultz, M., & Skov, A. M. (2015). Organizational identity and culture in the context of managed change: Transformation in the Carlsberg Group, 2009-2013. Academy of Management Discoveries, 1(1), 58-90.

Caplow, T. (2017). The academic marketplace. Routledge.

Bumbu, R. I., & Todorescu, L. L. (2012). The academic structure and organization within the Romanian higher education system from the perspective of the Bologna process. Practical application for Technical Higher Education institutions. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 33, 1008-1012.

Taran, Y., Boer, H., & Lindgren, P. (2015). A business model innovation typology. Decision Sciences, 46(2), 301-331.

Sulkowski, L. (2012). Organizational Culture-Main Cognitive Problems. Management Sciences in Kazakhstan and Poland at the Beginning of the 21st Century Perspectives for Development and Cooperation, 317.

Riel, D. (2015). Enhancing Critical Thinking through Creation of Learning Organizations within the Confines of an Overarching Mechanistic Organization (No. SYM-AM-15-069). DEFENSE ACQUISITION UNIV MIDWEST REGION KETTERING OH.

Andersen, J. A. (2015). How organization theory supports corporate governance scholarship. Corporate Governance, 15(4), 530-545.

Scott, W. R. (2013). Institutions and organizations: Ideas, interests, and identities. Sage Morgan, G. (2013). Riding the waves of change. Imaginization Inc. Publications.

Dauber, D., Fink, G., & Yolles, M. (2012). A configuration model of organizational culture. Sage Open, 2(1), 2158244012441482.