ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

Cultural and Normative Forms of Control Have Become So Significant In Contemporary Organisations

Cultural and Normative Forms of Control Have Become So Significant In Contemporary Organisations

The word control quite often raises pictures of domination or empowerment over people. Organisational controls however, are aimed at achieving compliance between an organization's members and attempts to bring about desired outcomes in accordance to the organizations goals. Managers within these organizations need to be aware of the importance of control and what forms of control are available to them. In addressing the topic of control the author will initially outline the basic roles of a manager within an organization, including a couple of examples of this. The author will then look at the importance of limits and boundaries within control to prevent confusion within employees. The author will then continue on to explain a few of the different forms that organizations use to direct its employees and operations. It will then be concluded that control is a very important part of an organization, which needs to be carefully addressed by the respective managers as even too much control can have its problems.

Managers at top can choose from three overall approaches for control. There approaches come from a framework for organizational control proposed by William Ouchi of the Univ. of California. He suggested three control strategies that organizations could adopt--bureaucratic, market and clan. Each form of control system uses different type of information. However, All three may appear simultaneously in an organization. And they require different contingent factors for fit choice.

As companies grow larger, they become more formalized and standardized. In order to guarantee efficient flow of information, rules and polices are developed through trial and error to regulate behaviours. Some degree of bureaucratic control is used in virtually every organization. Bureaucratic control is the use of rules, policies, hierarchy of authority, written documentation, standardization, and other bureaucratic mechanisms to standardize behaviour and assess performance. The primary purpose of bureaucratic is to standardize and control employee behaviour. A bureaucratic control system usually involves heavy behaviour control and deals with medium scope and variety of information. Such heavy behaviour control and deal are achieved with formalized rules and procedures. It usually deters subordinate involvement.

The application of bureaucratic control system in an organization requires no standard outputs, not necessary external benchmark of performance. When use bureaucratic control, the manager must know very well the work process he/she is managing. It requires a combination of organizational contingencies as routine technology, stable environment and large size.

Some normative control for uncertain areas like top management or R&D can be adopted to counteract the ineffectiveness of bureaucratic control system.

Management and Control

Each organization's main focus varies from company to company. Some companies focus on profits and stature whilst others focus on the service that they provide to its customers. These outcomes are normally determined by the role or product that they provide and is normally backed up by a mission or goal statement. Such organizations rely strongly on the activities of its ...